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And I am still buzzing and I am so so so proud of myself and I need to talk about it and I only know two people who know what it means.

If anyone has 80 seconds, I rec watching Symbalily's first encounter with Artorias the Abysswalker:

Watch on YouTube

Like O&S, this is one of the most iconic fights in the entire Dark Souls series. But I would say it's as much of a difficulty spike again relative to them as they are to the game before them.

Context: Artorias is the great legendary hero you've been hearing about all through the base game. But now he's been defeated by the Abyss, with his left arm shattered (his sword arm, so he's fighting you by swinging a sword with his off hand) and his mind mostly gone.

(There is meta to be meta-ed about FromSoft's long line of incredibly badass disabled characters; I don't know if it's necessarily #unproblematic #goodrepresentation, given that so many of them are trying to kill you and it's often being used to evoke ruin and tragedy, but it's not nothing either. Adaptive king Artorias.)

The way he howls and shakes reminds me of nothing so much as the Tumblr story about the rabid raccoon. It's eerie and wrong and awful.

He is incredibly aggressive and incredibly fast, and if you start chipping his health down he draws on the Abyss to power himself up further in a way that rapidly makes his hits unblockable (at least for most builds), so you can only try, desperately, to dodge. And he can and will one-hit kill you, and then do front flips on your corpse.

I think I had to level my brain up to do this fight. Holy shit.

I have been IMMERSED over the last few days, learning his patterns and rhythms, and now I feel weirdly close to Artorias and emotional about it. More than any of the other bosses so far, Artorias feels like fighting a person. I gave his soul to an old friend of his to take care of. Sleep well, dude.

kaberett

The second attempt at a present for my mother has arrived Several Whole Days before I am next going to see her! Hurrah! (About ten days after I'd received a notification that the previous attempt was ready to ship, and I'd be hearing more from the courier Drekly, I... realised I had heard nothing more from the courier. Apparently the parcel evaporated, but the company sent the order back to the workshop as a priority job...)
I successfully exchanged blood for a bowel prep kit! The blood results have not yet shown up in the NHS app, but fingers crossed for them coming through... drekly.
Allotment! Post-bloods I took myself to the plot to empty the compost pail, and accidentally did a whole pile of weeding, thereby establishing that the garlic chives have overwintered successfully (thus far) even if they're looking a bit bedraggled; that I do in fact have a lot of garlic I failed to harvest last year that's coming up merrily now (which I am contemplating redistributing in aid of maybe getting bigger bulbs out of it...); and that there are going to be So Many Beetroot. (Largely self-seeded.) (I did accidentally eat some of the garlic chives, Contra Bowel Prep Instructions, because apparently I Ought Not Be Trusted At The Allotment when I'm on a low-residue diet, BUT I successfully did NOT eat ANY of the spinach or rocket or lamb's lettuce.)
I consolidated enough of my Book Piles to unearth the coffee table! AND THUS we have begun a puzzle, which I am greatly enjoying.
Tinned pears. Tinned pears are always a Treat that is a Small Luxury, and they are especially so this week. ...it is possible that I am going to go through my entire stash.

sineala

What I Just Finished Reading

Nothing.

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday!

( 1776 #3, Iron Man #1, Sorcerer Supreme #2 )

What I'm Reading Next

IDK. Once again, I need fewer migraines.

Current Mood: exhausted

fayanora

Refusing to take a polygraph test should be right up there with immediately lawyering up: the smart thing to do. Polygraphs are pseudoscience, and the guy who invented them was horrified when he learned police were using them to interrogate people. So yes, refuse to take a polygraph because they're bullshit.

Also, never talk to cops without your lawyer present because cops have no scruples, and they don't care about the truth, they only care about being seen to have caught the perp. "Even if I'm innocent?" ESPECIALLY if you're innocent! They can and will do everything they can get away with to make you say something that will incriminate you even if you are entirely innocent. Hell, there are multiple cases are people who were mentally disabled, including people with developmental disabilities ("mentally retarded" in the old language), who were convicted, sentenced, and even put to death for crimes they could not possibly have committed.

All these true crime content makers need to stop acting like refusing to take a polygraph test is anything other than a good idea. Same with people who lawyer up right away.

vass

Books
Finished Evelyn Araluen's The Rot, which was, as mentioned last week, very good indeed.

Reading KC Davis' How To Keep House While Drowning and Victoria Goddard's Plum Duff.

Tech
Still working the phone side of my tech problems: prolonged backup of All The Things onto a different external drive. But I did also run Slay the Spire on my desktop once, just to confirm whether that would cause it to shut down: it did not. But of course it's less resource-hungry than Hollow Knight.

Garden
Three more ripe tomatoes. I tried to plant some basil, but it didn't survive the heat.

Cats
Ash's nose looking good. Both cats coping with the heat as well as can be expected, i.e. better than I am but still largely horizontal.

Nature
I am a delicate flower and do not like hot weather. This is a problem at this time of year. Slight understatement. But only slight. (My part of the state is not the worst-off. Our highs are low 40s, not high 40s. And I have aircon at home and don't have to go out. It's still bad, and I do have medical conditions that make me more sensitive to heat.)
Also I sustained mosquito bites on my arms while doing my nightly "try to keep the plants alive" water, and am very itchy, which at least has the advantage of being a small problem to grumble about without the undercurrent of constant dread.

Current Events
Australia Day bringing out the racists. Some unmitigated arsehole threw a bomb at an Indigenous elder at one of the Survival Day protests. I didn't protest: couldn't manage the logistics of getting to a protest.
Watching the events in Minnesota and thinking of you all.

kaberett

Bloods results from Friday afternoon came in. ( Read more... )

althea_valara

two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text

Challenge #14

In your own space, create a promo and/or rec list for someone new to a fandom. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it and include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Let me meme at you:

HAVE YOUR HEARD OF THE
CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED MMORPG
FINAL FANTASY XIV
WITH AN EXPANDED FREE TRIAL
WHICH YOU CAN PLAY THROUGH THE ENTIREY OF
A REALM REBORN
AND THE AWARD-WINNING
HEAVENSWARD
EXPANSION
AND ALSO THE AWARD-WINNING
STORMBLOOD
EXPANSION
UP TO LEVEL 70
FOR FREE
WITH NO RESTRICTIONS
ON PLAYTIME?

Final Fantasy XIV is a fantastic game - but it wasn't always. Its first incarnation was considered a critical failure, so what did they do? They rebuilt the game from the ground up while simultaneously releasing updates for the original version. This way they kept the current fans happy while building something BETTER for everyone.

If you want to know more about the history of FFXIV, I can highly recommend watching the NoClip documentaries; the first one is here: https://youtu.be/Xs0yQKI7Yw4?si=s0qkn8zXX-9agX96

What they ended up doing was creating a calamity ingame that gave them the excuse for a branching off point for the new version. The final scenes of version 1.0 can be seen in the trailer for "A Realm Reborn", version 2.0 of the game and its new "base game":

Watch on YouTube

As A Realm Reborn starts, five years has passed since the calamity, and the city-states of Eorzea have rebuilt - but threats still linger. There's the Garlean Empire which tried to take over Eorzea in the past at the Battle of Silvertear Lake, and has a new plan to invade Eorzea now. But there's also the Primal threat - primals being summoned gods of what's then called the beast tribes. One of the threats of the primals is their ability to enthrall subjects, so that the person only does what the primal wants.

As you start the game, you're just another adventurer - but one with a mysterious power called the Echo, which allows you to glimpse past scenes from others' memories. You start off doing things for your local city-state, making a name for yourself, but soon attract the attention of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn - an organization that works to prevent the primal threat.

Will you make the choice to join the Scions? What's in store for you if you do? That's the story of A Realm Reborn. Now, there are those who say ARR is weak story-wise but I personally feel it's a solid story with enough OMG! moments to keep you interested. And it sets up SO MUCH of the future of the game, so it's well worth playing on its own.

When you first start playing FFXIV, you may find yourself overwhelmed. The HUD (heads-up display) will look rather busy at first, and they'll be a lot of NPCs with quest markers to talk to. The most important ones will have this symbol over their heads:

The Main Scenario Quest Marker in FFXIV.

This is the Main Scenario Quest Marker. If you follow these markers one after another, you'll play through the game's main story. Note that the last marker of each individual quest will be green in color, letting you know that talking to that NPC will complete the quest.

Blue Plus Sign markers unlock things, like extra dungeons or jobs, and are usually good to check out, too. Any other markers can be ignored.

Gameplay is... well I'm not entirely sure what to call it, but you'll have a bunch of actions, abilities, or spells on your hotbar. Pressing certain actions will open up others for big damage, etc, and often, actions have cooldowns before you can use them again. There's an optimum rotation for each job, in which pressing certain buttons one after another will be the most effective. The game helps you though, by highlighting the next proper action(s) to do.

For those who may be scared of playing with others: there is now Duty Support! This is a system in which you can enter dungeons with NPCs rather than other players. You'll still need to do trials with players, but a large part of the game can be "soloed". But really, most players in FFXIV are pretty nice to play with. For instance, there is a "ready check" mechanism where a party member can ask everyone to indicate they are ready to go ahead with the fight, and this is used a LOT in Raids when you may have newcomers watching cutscenes. The vast majority of players will wait at least a little bit for the newbies to finish the scenes before progressing onto the fight.

The following list is my "starter guide" of resources, originally posted on Bluesky but now posted here as well.

FREE TRIAL - Includes the entirety of A Realm Reborn, the award-winning Heavensward expansion, and the Stormblood expansion, and allows you to play up to level 70 with no restrictions on playtime. There ARE some other restrictions, though! https://freetrial.finalfantasyxiv.com/na/

SERVER/DATA CENTER - choose a data center close to your region, then choose a server that's open for new characters. Those are indicated by the green person icon next to the server names on the Server Status Page: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/worldstatus/

NEW WORLDS - indicated by "New" on the Server Status page. They offer bonuses such as a leveling buff, FREE GIL!, and more: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/playguide/option_service/world_transfer_service/population_balancing/#anchor__001

WORLD VISIT - Couldn't get an account on the server you wanted to? You can visit other worlds and data centers using the World Visit System: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/playguide/contentsguide/worldvisit/

STARTING CLASS - pick your Disciple of War or Disciple of Magic starter class. Make sure to do the class quests as you level, and definitely unlock your job at level 30: https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Class

STARTING CITY-STATE - This depends on what class you start as. The city-states have slightly different stories to start off, but eventually merge into one grand story line. It really doesn't matter which you start in!

WIKIS - you'll have questions, where to get help? I prefer ConsoleGamesWiki for how fast it loads on my mobile devices: https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/FF14_Wiki

WIKIS 2 - The other major wiki is GamerEscape, which I turn to for more indepth guides or to research dialogue/lore: https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Main_Page

DUNGEON/TRIAL/RAID GUIDES - Mizzteq (MTQCapture on YouTube) makes wonderful, entertaining guides for the duties. Highly recommended! (Note: it appears she has retired in the past year but her past guides are still available!): https://www.youtube.com/user/MTQcapture

CONTROLLER GUIDE - Do you play on controller? It's a bit outdated but Squintina's controller guide has LOTS of good tips: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q_i5_X01hecbCOZOIN_71zceuSjWSuaN-OJdU6ZPV6s/edit

(C)HOTBARS - oh gods where do I put all these actions? Let XIV bars guide you! They have layouts for both Keyboard/Mouse and Controller: https://www.xivbars.com

TIMERS - FFXIV has a "weekly reset" and other events. Want to know when exactly that is? Check here: https://xenoveritas.org/static/ffxiv/timer.html

CHALLENGE LOG - Unlockable at level 15, this is a great way to get bonus experience and gil: https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Challenge_Log

RETAINERS - At level 17, you get access to retainers, which can sell items on the marketboard for you or go out on ventures to retrieve random (or not-random) items: https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Retainers

EUREKA TRACKER - for the Stormblood Relic Weapon farming zone - https://ffxiv-eureka.com

RELIC TRACKER SPREADSHEET - I love a good spreadsheet, and really like Wyn's relic tracker - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11N-u7o2-0cbL4E61rfpXHgAPK2X8S_lwyFUigKAQb08/edit?usp=sharing

RELIC TRACKER SITE - I've played with this, too! https://ffxivrelictracker.com

PVP MALMSTONE CALCULATOR - Calculates how many games you need to play to get all the malmstone rewards: https://belthesar.github.io/MalmstoneXPCalculator/

SQUADRON CALCULATOR - figure out how to train your Adventuring Squadron to level them up and complete missions: https://ffxivsquadron.com

FALOOP! - A website to track hunt marks and World Boss FATEs: https://faloop.app

CENTURIO HUNTS DISCORD - A discord server that can ping you for Hunt Trains, S Ranks, and World Boss FATEs: https://discord.gg/centuriohunts

HGXIV - A discord server for player housing enthusiasts: https://discord.gg/hgxiv14

If you're thinking of playing or returning to the game, do let me know! I'll be glad to assist in any way. <3 And if you're thinking, "This sounds great, but I have no time/money to play; can you tell me about the story?" -- LOOK NO FUTHER: https://altheavalara.neocities.org/ffxiv/

Current Mood: enthralled

althea_valara

Challenge #13

TALK ABOUT A COMMUNITY SPACE YOU LIKE. It doesn’t need to be your favorite, or the one where you spend the most time (although it certainly can be). Maybe it’s even one that you’ve barely visited. But talk about that space and how it helps support fannish community.

Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so. Also, feel free to entice engagement by giving us a preview of what your post covers.

I kind of did this in Challenge 12! I listed communities and websites that I'm grateful for.

One other community space I must mention is Best Bar. They know who they are and where we hang out. They've been very supportive of me the past few years and I'm very grateful for that.

But really: Dreamwidth is one of my internet homes, and there's all sorts of great communities here! It's about time I post my list of DW community recs again. It was last posted in 2024, after all. Some of these may be dormant now but I'll include them anyway because I loved the idea of the community. HERE WE GO!!

nacramamo is National Craft-Making Month, and is gearing up now to kick off in October. The challenge is to work on some kind of craft every day for 31 days.

100words is a drabble community for fiction of all kinds. They post weekly challenges there.

birdfeeding covers everything to do with birdfeeding, gardening for wildlife, and related topics.

crowdfunding connects creators, patrons, and fans of cyberfunded creativity. Watch for the mid-month Creative Jam with a new theme each time.

reddit_refugees offers resources for newcomers to Dreamwidth.

snowflake_challenge runs in January, and is a way to celebrate fandom and meet interesting people on Dreamwidth. There's also

sunshine_challenge that runs in the summer, but I'm less familiar with that one.

Newly added to the list since I last posted this:

allkindsofdolls is what it says on the tin. If you love dolls, check it out.

ladiesbingo is a bingo challenge to make works focused on the relationship between women, whether gen, femslash, or familial. I'm currently having great fun trying to fill my bingo board!

getyourwordsout is a writing challenge community where you can challenge yourself by wordcount of number of days written per month.

10trueloves is a writing challenge where you pair a character with ten others (IIRC, they don't have to be romantic pairings, but I'm not sure; check the comm for more info!)

1character is a writing challenge where you choose a character and prompt set, then write one line sentences to fill each prompt.

everykindofcraft is what it says it is.

inspiredby posts writing prompts monthly.

makezines is for folks doing just that!

threesentenceficathon is happening RIGHT NOW. People leave prompts, other write short fills of 3 sentences or longer.

The past list of community recs:

communal_creators is a community for creative types! A mini-round for time pledges will be happening this spring. ANY kind of creativity is welcome! We have people writing (both fic and original), knitting, crochet, vidding, storyboarding, baking, making websites... if it's creative, you're welcome here.

ffprompts posts monthly prompts for the Final Fantasy video game franchise. As a big fan of this series, I'd love to see more fills for the prompts happening!

addme_fandom is a place to find friends who share your fannish obsessions.

lyricaltitles is a bingo fest for fanfiction and original fiction centering around using songs for inspiration!

fan_flashworks is a multifandom comm that posts one prompt for the week you use to write a short fanfic.

c_ent is for Chinese Entertainment, and comes highly recommended by a few people.

booknook posts a weekly Read-in-Progress check-in posts on Wednesdays.

reference_library is a place to gather helpful links and share them, run by

senmut.

sweetandshort is a low-pressure community for creating small fanworks / original works each week.

moodthemeinayear is what it says on the tin: the folks there are working on creating custom Dreamwidth mood themes over the course of a year.

1word1day posts a vocabulary word a day!

finalfantasy - of course this would be here, if you know me. It's been very slow there lately, but I'd love to see more activity there.

awesomeers - they make a post for each day of the week in which they challenge the members to comment with Just One Thing you did today that you're proud of accomplishing. Of course you are free to post more than one thing if you'd like! I love the idea of this community, though I haven't been very active in it lately. I hope to change that, if only to congratulate other people. Also: we celebrate all accomplishments there, so something as simple as "I got out of bed" would be acceptable!

do_it - A community for posting to-do lists to make yourself accountable to others.

readingtogether - has seen some activity the past few months. It's not like a normal book club where everyone reads the same thing - instead everyone reads their own thing and posts their progress.

justcreate - has weekly check in posts where you can update everyone on your creative progress. All kinds of creativity are celebrated there, including fiber arts, drawing, writing, and more.

get_knitted - is similar to

justcreate but posts daily check-ins. The folks there are GREAT about commenting on each other's comments. It's not just for knitting, either - there are people there who do scrapbooking and jigsaw puzzles.

drawesome - has drawing challenges. I haven't taken part yet because I am a very sucky drawer, but I hope to start there in the future.

genprompt_bingo - for the writers! They generate bingo cards of prompts, with all the prompts being gen. You can, of course, write a shippy fic from the prompt; it's just the prompts themselves aren't meant to be shippy. I'm currently working on a bingo for my last card, wish me luck!

allbingo - They do all sorts of bingos, mostly writing-related but I think they've had some crafting ones as well. There's new challenges monthly!

agonyaunt - critiques letters to advice columnists and the answers the letter writers get. I love this community because it is filled with smart people that I am learning a lot from. I'm a person of a certain age, and I know because of the timeframe I grew up in I have a lot of inherit biases and whatnot. I try to be above those biases, but sometimes I don't recognize them. Reading the other commenters to

agonyaunt helps me recognize those biases and better myself.

holiday_wishes - active in the last two months of the year. People post their holiday wish lists there, and others fill them! I really was blessed one year - I got a bunch of cards, some yarn, some chocolate, and some other sweet treats. ♥ I couldn't do much in return but I did send back cards to everyone who sent me things.

thisfinecrew is a social justice community focused on the USA. It doesn't get as much action as it once did but there are still informative posts there once in a while.

thissterlingcrew is the UK equivalent.

3weeks4dreamwidth is a thing in which people post/interact more on Dreamwidth, to show love for the platform. ♥

your_favourites is an icon making community that migrated over from LiveJournal. Looks like they have themes for members to create icons for, and then take a vote for best icon. I've joined it in hopes of finding more icons to add to my own journal.

addme and

findingfriends are communities to help you find people to add to your Dreamwidth circles. The latter has a set questionnaire to use, and asks that if you use it elsewhere you include a link back to the community.

journalsandplanners - what it says on the tin: for those who use a journal or planner to organize their lives. There's also

bujo for bullet journalers.

anime_manga has seen some activity lately!

fandomtrumpshate raises money for charity by creating fanworks.

getting_started is a community with resources for those new to Dreamwidth.

indie_games sometimes sees activity, and in the past, we did a play-together of A Short Hike which was really fun.

common_nature is a photo community to share nature pics from your area, and has been active recently.

followfriday recommends people/communities to follow each Friday.

iconthat is another icon challenge community.

signalboost is for getting the word out to others about people needing help in some way.

twitter_refugees is for folks migrating to Dreamwidth from Twitter.

bnha_fans is for fans of Boku no Hero Academia. It's modded by

vriddy who I got to know during a

snowflake_challenge!

comment_bingo is a bingo challenge community for commenting on all those fanfics you read.

womansplace is a community that holds dual purpose: 1) Celebrate characters who identify as women or who are aligned with womanhood in transformative fan works. Events include community recs, a prompt fest, and a vid exchange. 2) Raise funds via a vid auction

kittens_and_spitefic's goal is to prompt fan content by acting like a total troll and pretending to bash what you want to see up one side and down the other. Commenters then engage with the supposed "troll" by spamming them with cat (and other animal) macros and/or content that caters to everything the original poster professes to hate.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd I think that's it! If there's any interesting communities you know about that I've missed, feel free to drop them in the comments! And also feel free to share this post, I'll make it public so you can pass it around.

rydra_wong

Sequel to this post.

( Cut for US politics, violence )

https://www.standwithminnesota.com/

ysobel

The FOP "fun" continues... the prednisone helped a little but there's still lump and swelling and I can still only open my mouth so far.

Meet with a FOP specialist today via telemedicine (yay) and he suggested a second, longer course (though much of the "longer" is taper) because submandibular flares can be stubborn (and risky given the potential to affect breathing and swallowing). So ... more prednisone it is, sigh.

althea_valara

Folks! The last time I worked on this was April of 2024. I kept putting it off because I was too busy playing the game. But I've been toying around with my Neocities site again, and that made me want to get back to this.

This is incredibly long because I've faithfully transcribed ALL the dialogue that happens during this part of the game (with the exception of a mini-game and some dialogue choices; I only have the answer for one choice, not both. I'll fix that later.) Get a drink and something yummy, then get cozy because you'll be reading a while.

Previous posts in this series:

* A Realm Reborn recap
* Patches 2.1-2.55 reflection
* Heavensward Recap
* Post-HW Recap
* Stormblood Recap!
* The Crystal Tower synopsis
* Post-Stormblood Recap
* Shadowbringers Recap Part 1
* Shadowbringers Recap Part 2: Holminster Switch and the Aftermath.
* Shadowbringers Recap Part 3: Il Mheg, the Faerie Kingdom
* Shadowbringers Recap Part 4: Meeting Emet-Selch and the Night’s Blessed
* Shadowbringers Recap Part 5: Yx’Maja, in the Rak’tika Greatwood
* Shadowbringers Recap Part 6: Rak'tika Lightwarden & a History Lesson
* Shadowbringers Recap Part 7: Return to the Crystarium

Recap from last time! SPOILERS for Shadowbringers

During our last recap, Vauthry had sicced his sin eaters on Lakeland. The battle was fierce and there were quite a few casualties. The Scions regroup in the Crystarium’s Ocular to discuss future plans, all in agreement not to give up the fight.

Alphinaud has had no luck finding the Lightwarden of Kholusia, while Alisaie has heard a few rumors about Amh Araeng’s Lightwarden but dare not investigate on her own. Still, Alisaie’s information is not concrete, leading Minfilia to suggest traveling to Nabaath Araeng to call back the original Minfilia, as her powers would allow the Scions to easily find the remaining Lightwardens.

Thancred is dead set against this course of action, but Minfilia is persistent.

Sensing your concern, Minfilia reaffirms her commitment to her chosen course of action, and asks that you trust her judgment with an earnestness worthy of her namesake. She then departs—presumably to make her preparations before joining Thancred at the gates.

After a short wait, Minfilia arrives at the appointed place and declares her readiness to depart. But before proceeding, you give her one last opportunity to abandon her chosen course. Her emphatic reply leaves little room for argument, however, so the group turns its attention to the question of how best to pass through Amh Araeng unnoticed. At Alisaie’s suggestion, you decide to split up—sending her, Alphinaud, and Y’shtola to the east to distract the Eulmoran Army while the rest of you take the western route to Nabaath Araeng.

As you near the gate to Amh Araeng, you realize you are not the only one contemplating the ordeals that may lie ahead. Hearing Thancred’s quiet plea for assistance in protecting Minfilia, his trepidation could not be more obvious.

You speak with Hardyss, who grants you passage through the gate—perhaps against her better judgment.

( MORE SPOILERS WITHIN! )

Current Mood: enthralled

kaberett

Reading. ( Scalzi, Tufte, Duncan )

Writing. Introduction continues to take shape. Word count hasn't gone up much, but that's partly because I am doing a reasonable job of Whacking Down A Bunch Of Words and then reassessing and deleting...

Listening. More of The Hidden Almanac. I continue to fret about not keeping super great track of it, which is in part because I seem to be extremely prone to going to sleep if it winds up on in the car...

Playing. We are finding an Exploders Inkulinati run alarmingly straightforward. Learning Continues.

Sudoku also continues to eat my brain. :|

Cooking. Dinner tonight included: another attempt at the Roti King cabbage poriyal, this time with more coconut, which I think has worked v well; a... loose attempt at a generous interpretation of Dishoom's gunpowder potatoes (no lime, no spring onion yet, no leaf coriander, not new potatoes...); and some pomegranate molasses-tamarind-yoghurt-chaat masala goop to sit some paneer in.

Earlier in the week I ticked a couple more things off the Cook (Almost) All Of East project (kung pao cauliflower; mushroom bao); this evening I have also had a first stab at recreating the Leon spiced tahini hot chocolate, which was Very Acceptable.

Eating. Finally managed to get a meal at the Viewpoint restaurant at Whipsnade (we keep not going at a time when it's open); mildly disappointed by the sourdough pizza, probably because I have a vague memory of a previous incarnation having aspirations to Fancy Restaurant, which I think the current set-up doesn't. Still v pleasant to eat food I didn't cook sat looking out over the Downs, though.

Exploring. ZOO.

Growing. I do not understand where the sciarid flies keep coming from but I am so, so, so over them. I am SO over them. WHY is the lithops container SUDDENLY FULL OF THEM.

That issue aside: lemongrass continues to have Leafs! If (if!) it keeps going like this I'm going to wind up needing to dispose of a bunch of plants via Freecycle/Freegle, goodness. Physalis still not doing anything visible. Ancho chillis almost but not quite All The Way Ripe.

It is almost certainly time to start sowing More Things but I think perhaps I will hold off until after I've had a chance to apply some nematodes...

ursamajor

Grateful for every update I see from Minnesota friends right now, affirming that they're ... okay isn't the right word; infuriated and joining with their neighbors and friends to stand up against evil in whatever ways they can is probably more accurate. Marching, recording, feeding people, sharing information. The rest of us, doing what we can from the outside, preparing for ourselves to be next. Sending love to you all.

And once that's done, I ( turn back to cooking. )

( finally succumbing to ebooks )

Speaking of scifi, we dropped Paramount after the latest season of Strange New Worlds, partly because of CBS's actions, partly because too many subscriptions and we're trying to cut back, partly because Amazing Race was yet another season of known-quantity reality stars instead of reasonably-believable normies. But we did get to watch the first episode of Starfleet Academy because they made it available on YouTube. And yeah, while I agree the preview made it look like "Star Trek: Dawson's Creek," as

hyounpark put it, I really needed to see a Starfleet captain stand up for justice; I needed to see people reaching across cultures from different backgrounds. I worry that the current environment is going to shift broadcastable storylines by next season; S1 was filmed mostly before Biden left office, while S2 is filming now, after CBS bent the knee. But I still found it promising enough to want to watch more; I just don't know how to watch it in a way that balances the scales for me.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: let me name you, claim you

kaberett

for a Treat. and we saw (highlights edition):

the baby white rhino!!! three and a half weeks old, nose still not pointy, ridiculous little ear tufts; at one point got startled and did a tiny canter, and at another point was subsided into the straw pile with its eyes closed and its ears doing intermittent sleepy waggles
the baby giraffes!!! two of them, both with TONGUES and both (obviously) much much taller than us
ostriches doing A Gentle Jog, and also flapping their wings about a bunch
The Pygmy Hippo (who also at one point got startled and GALUMPHED about it)
the New Tapir, who is not a Common Hippos
a CHEETAH (who then decided everything was Too Loud and it was going to slope off to the private paddocks thank you very much)
The Flamingoes, who were almost all asleep; majority were on two legs not one, and it was Immediately Apparent from watching the one-legged sleepy flamingoes swaying enthusiastically that this was on account of The Wind
Medium Elephant once again became Very Startled, made a Loud Noise With Her Face, and needed reassuring by All Her Grown-Ups
baby giraffes (again)
wolverines go LOLLOP, and
A Penguin Pedicure (and lots of porpoising)

(Many other good things included Running Creatures, a very muddy tiger, the sleepy bongos, a baby monkey bum, the ponies labelled Lesser Rhea, a selection of sheep, and a sleepy African Wild Dog.)

The weather was extremely cooperative. I am very very glad we managed this outing. (And then I fell asleep listening to The Hidden Almanac in the car on the way home...)

fayanora

Solution to the storage of long-term nuclear waste: A sequence of lifelike images depicting a man and a woman walking onto the site, looking around, and then melting to death with looks of extreme agony on their faces.

althea_valara

Challenge #12

Make an appreciation post to those who enhance your fandom life. Appreciate them in bullet points, prose, poetry, a moodboard, a song... whatever moves you!

Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so. Also, feel free to entice engagement by giving us a preview of what your post covers.

If you've read any of my

snowflake_challenge posts by now, you'll know I'm a huge Final Fantasy in particular, and a video gamer in general. Therefore, my #1 thanks has to go to

lassarina, who's been doing a weekly "What Are You Playing?" post on Wednesdays. I've been commenting (long, I can't write short about my passions) nearly weekly there for years now, and I really enjoy it. It gives me a chance to blurble happily about a topic that well, my family doesn't understand in any way but HERE IS SOMEONE WHO DOES.

lassarina and her dear friend

seventhe have run a Final Fantasy Kiss Battle in the past (and Rina and Sev, if you're reading this and need help this year, let me know, I'd be glad to help out in any way!) and really, that was my first step into producing fanworks. Well okay, no it wasn't, my crafts were, but that feels less real and valid than writing fanfic, which is silly because I know there's people out there who really like my fandom crafts! But I think the crafts are more solitary pursuits, whereas fanfic--especially for a prompt challenge!--is more of a community thing. I'm forever grateful that they graciously allowed me to prompt one year, which led to me reading a prompt and Getting Inspired and writing a fic.

I'm grateful for everyone in the Final Fantasy Old Folks' Home. We don't get a ton of activity, but there's usually talk about fanfic writing at least a few times a week, and that alone makes me feel more connected to the fandom, even if I'm not really participating in the conversation myself.

I'm grateful for R51, who runs Caves of Narshe, a Final Fantasy fan site. I became a member there years ago and am one of the few who still posts on the forums there (remember forums?). I hang out in their Discord, too, and have helped out with the site itself. That makes me feel connected as well!

I don't know if crafts can be considered a fandom, but I'm also grateful to

badly_knitted for running

get_knitted, a community for creative types to post daily status updates. I haven't been posting there in a while because I'm currently going through a fallow period, but I still love the community and how supportive everyone is there.

I would not be me with Nerdopolis on Ravelry, so I'm grateful to blackpebble, LisaJedi and the rest of the Council of Nerds for keeping the challenge running all these years. They'd probably say, "And we can't do it without you!" because I captain a team, am Rogue Leader, and do other things for the community. It is definitely my home on Ravelry, and I love it.

I still feel mostly on the outskirts of fandom, but I've got a small circle who GETS IT, and for that, I'm really grateful.

Current Mood: grateful

rydra_wong

Mostly to create some space in my head. But holy shit, Minnesotans, you are extraordinary and we see you. Across the fucking ocean, we see you.

( Cut for US politics, violence )

How To Help If You Are Outside Minnesota by Naomi Kritzer

fayanora

For the chapter I am currently working on, I am trying to determine how often Portland, Oregon picks up road kill, or at least figure out which department takes care of that so I can ask.

The animal in question, a feral cat, died "a few days ago" after being hit by a vehicle, and Dalia will want to give it a proper burial if it's still there (her own cat - Alice - found it, and given that Alice is magical and much smarter than mundane cats, she could easily lead Dalia to the find).

I suppose I can either ask the librarians tomorrow, or Brooke suggested calling the city or county info lines. But if anyone knows before then, that'd be great. (It's after midnight right now.)

It's another of those minor details, as the dead cat isn't the main issue -- the main issue is she had kittens, that were found hungry from a few days of being left alone. But Dalia would still want to give the mama a funeral and a grave if she can. A memorial would be possible still if the body can't be recovered, but not as satisfying as having a body to bury. Though even in winter, a dead cat's body after a few days would probably be a real mess.

fayanora

The other day I got some coupons in the mail for New Seasons Market, even though I almost never buy anything there because it's overpriced bougie bullshit. I do occasionally get things there that I can't find anywhere else, like ginger simple syrup or ginger juice or other products by The Ginger People. Also sometimes I get the bamboo toilet paper there, but that's been less frequent because even Grocery Outlet carries at least some brand of bamboo TP even if it isn't the first brand that did it, Caboo.

Anyway, very often these coupons are not at all interesting to me. But a few of these were actually something I would get. There's one for some free cheese with a $10 purchase, though that one is dated to start on the fourth of February. There's also a February coupon for a free pound of 81% lean ground beef with a $10 purchase. And a January one for a free pint of blueberries with $10 purchase. But I don't really care about blueberries. They're okay, but I never buy them unless they're in like a fruit salad or if they're an ingredient.

The last interesting coupon was for free store brand olive oil (extra virgin) with $10 purchase. I had ten bucks, and needed an excuse to get out of the house that would override my hatred for the cold, so I went and got some things. I got two zucchinis, a bag of tortilla chips, and a ginger beer by Fever Tree. It was just over $11, but hey, that's fine. The olive oil in question is over $13 without the coupon, which is ridiculous, especially as it's the store brand. I certainly would never spend more than maybe $6 on olive oil ordinarily. Not that I get olive oil very often, as I tend to cook with butter or sesame seed oil, but I didn't get any sesame seed oil this month, and thought some olive oil would be good, especially if it's technically free. Sure, you gotta spend $10, but I needed zukes anyway, and the other two things are fun treats.

Also, I found two full plastic bags of returnables on the way, just sitting there with nobody else in sight. Clear plastic bags, and not huge bags, but I estimate there's probably about ten to twelve returnables in there. Hold on, I'm gonna go count em.

Holy SHIT I hit the jackpot! There's 33 of the buggers! I now have two full green bags of returnables (had 1.5 before). So I guess tomorrow I'm gonna go back to New Seasons Market to drop off those two bags there.

EDIT: Actually it's 35 returnables, not counting the deposit on the ginger beer.

vass

Books
Nearly finished Evelyn Araluen's 2025 poetry book The Rot. It's very good. I keep thinking of people I know who would appreciate it, and wanting to shove the book at them and say "here, look". (

sovay, you're one of them.) Depression, colonialism, girlhood, death, hauntology, Country, survival.

Listened to Margaret Killjoy's narration of Katherine Mansfield's short story 'A Cup of Tea'. Margaret gave a little context about the story afterwards, including that the main character was thought to be based on Mansfield's cousin, also a writer, whom Margaret herself hadn't heard of. I looked her up afterwards: Elizabeth von Arnim, and went WHUT, Elizabeth and her German Garden? I haven't actually read it, and am not sure how I knew about it, just that it was on my radar. Mansfield's story is simultaneously scalpel-sharp and more merciful than it might have been: the story doesn't attempt to puncture the protagonist's saviour fantasy, or allow it to go as wrong as it could have done, but does make clear in every detail how entirely it is a self-serving saviour fantasy, how entirely she's disregarding the needs, safety, boundaries, and basic consent of the woman she's trying to help. (I thought of the scene in chapter 6 of What Katy Did in which Katy and Clover kidnap an Irish child from her parents and lock her in their attic because they want to "adopt" her.)

Went to the library and borrowed the second Asterix book, having not really given Asterix a chance since I was too young to have any historical context (plus the only one we had in the house was missing several pages, possibly by my own actions at a far younger age.)

Comics
Really feeling for Dina in Dumbing of Age right now. The part about her and Becky is sad and believable, but the part that hit me right where I live was "now even my room is not my own. It's been... ransacked. Strangers have touched... everything." Same fucking autism. I would be out of my fucking mind.

Fandom
Working on my claim for Fanoa'ary, the next Lays server event.

Games
Redactle and Squardle with

kaberett, cryptic crosswords with

shehasathree.

Little puzzle games on my phone: Breakout 71 (breakout with many possible upgrades to unblock, with a lot of flexibility in possible builds) and Tessel, a tile game in which one rotates multicoloured tiles to match the colours, creating enclosed areas of a single colour. I tend to get way too engrossed in this kind of game and spend too long on it, so I like very much that neither of these two are gamified beyond "actually being a game": no ads, no freemium, no nudging to play at a particular time or for a particular length of time. They're very pausible.

Tech
No progress on desktop problems yet: I'm working on paying down some technical debt on my phones before I try more intensive desktop troubleshooting. In the meantime, no Hollow Knight for me.

Crafts
Finished framing/backing a cross-stitched item which I had intended to give

bookgirlwa for her birthday in 2025. Now to wrap it up and send it to her.

No weaving progress yet.

Garden
Two ripe tomatoes (pear-shaped, cherry form factor.)

Cats
Suspicious scab on Ash's nose seems to be healing up okay. *touch wood*

Nature
After a week of more moderate summer weather, we're heading into another heat wave. I hate hot weather, and physically don't deal well with it, but my biggest concern here is fire. Some of the fires from the last heatwave are still burning. The politicians are fighting about the CFA's funding (and yeah, they've been underfunded for a long time and have ageing equipment and an ageing volunteer force, and due to the governments' (plural but including ours) inaction on climate change, the fires they're fighting are getting more numerous and more severe) and there's a distinct scent of manufactured grassroots blame for the Labor state government (and. Like. I don't like Jacinta Allan either! Her authoritarian leanings concern me. But that doesn't mean the opposition would be better, or that a lot of her critics aren't misogynistic or conspiracy-theorists in distinctly Sky News flavours.) Which political digression I find easier to think (grumble) about than the fires themselves. The people and animals harmed already, the likelihood of more and worse in the next week. (And also, personally: the stress of managing my own potential evacuation in a situation where the danger zone is all over the state, my brain's in a constant loop of "but other people have it worse" and it's too hot to think.)

Current Events
It's bad. It's all so bad.

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The DW Accessibility Project Team

Member Posts

Yesterday I beat ARTORIAS

some good things

Wednesday Reading Meme

Polygraphs

Things

[embodiment] in which I am Officially Anaemic

Snowflake Challenge 2026 - Challenge 14: Fandom Promo

Snowflake Challenge 2026 - Challenge 13: Community

"Minnesota taught us to be brave"

Flareup update

Shadowbringers Recap Part 8: The Hills of Amber

vital functions

let her dismantle your distance

we went to the ZOO

This is not a place of honor

Snowflake Challenge 2026 - Challenge 12: Appreciation

Minnesota linkspam

Roadkill question

So that worked on me

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October 2017

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