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The context is Simone Giertz's Incomplete White Puzzle, which A got me partly to troll me and partly because they thought I'd enjoy it and partly because getting the bundle of all three puzzles gets you 20% off individual list prices.

Current status: 105/"500" pieces in their final positions, plus another 57 no longer singletons. I have several semi-sorted categories including (in the halves of the box) "could plausibly have come from a reasonable puzzle" and "bullshit", and (on the table) Swoopy Bullshit, Offset Noses, Weirdly Straight, Multi-Nose Bullshit, and Featureless Curves.

( THOUGHTS )

I am having a very pleasant and soothing time, and I am trying to break up the hyperfocus by instituting a rule of Get Up And Do One Unit Of Something Else After Every (Contiguous) Piece Placed, and yes that is me rules-lawyering after the fact...

kaberett

some washi tape I wanted has restocked at a UK retailer! Possibly a second one also! So as and when the website works out what's going on with Desired Tape #2, it is time to place a stationery order for meeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Progress With Preposterous Puzzle! I now have all the edge assembled (I think I wound up with only one piece having been Actually Wrong) and even I have managed to start filling in very slowly (I am up to... about 5 pieces placed so far? which is a further 1% down!)
I got a hug from the Child while saying goodbye this evening!
I have worked out an acceptable Wagamama order from the current menu and am feeling pretty good about my dinner.
Bread for tomorrow (anise, fig, hazelnut, copied from the local fancy bakery) is looking Extremely Promising.

vass

Books
Finished reading Victoria Goddard's Plum Duff. I am extremely baffled by the theological worldbuilding choices she's making. What is she doing? Is it on purpose? Where's she going with this? Does she realise the implications of what she's doing? i.e. that this is a fantasy-Anglican religion which somehow managed to replace original sin with something worse?

Read Victoria Goddard's Stone Speaks To Stone, a rollicking boy's own adventure from Jemis' father's soldier days. I get that it was necessary to show the mindset of an imperial subject who "well believed in its civilising mission". I do understand that it was necessary. I just. Ugh. I'm still waiting for the ironic twist to that refrain "he was a loyal son of the Empire." One day Jack's going to learn better, right? Or else Jemis, who fancies himself a revolutionary, will have to contend with his beloved father's role in imperial expansionist wars.

Reading Ursula Whitcher's North Continent Ribbon, long after everyone else. It's time. (I still have some leftover guilt and anxiety about the roleplaying game during which

ursula conceived this setting, and it's been getting in my way.)

Tech
*whimpering*

Garden
More tomatoes!

kaberett

( Read more... )

kaberett

Reading. Successfully completed the rereads of The Human Division and The End of All Things, and moved on to The Shattering Peace, John Scalzi. ( Read more... )

I did appreciate the way that the time elapsed in series-internal chronology and between publications matched nicely; that all felt very Correct on a hindbrain level.

And some unpublished poetry I'm not able to share but really want to, because it's very good.

Writing. The put-some-words-in take-some-words-out dance continues.

Watching. Bits of Iron Man and His Awesome Friends, and also Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, because the Child is having a special interests and his special interests include Howard Stark playing dad rock and also not being a terrible father.

Playing. We finished ridiculous puzzle #1! We spent a bunch of the afternoon working out how all the disparate rooms we'd managed to build fit together. It was bullshit, and extremely satisfying.

The Inkulinati run with the Exploders set-up continues astonishingly easy except, weirdly, against Hildegard.

Cooking. Extremely pleased with the results of the experiment of boiling swede + parsnip + carrot up with a tea strainer containing rosemary, slightly crushed black pepper, and a crushed clove of garlic (and indeed cooking it all the way to Basically All The Liquid's Gone in order to keep the flavours in). Will attempt to remember the fundamental principle of bouquet garni for next time I need to do this, if there is a next time.

Exploring. A bit of time in the City of London, during which I discovered that at least some of the lions on the Bank of England are sticking their tongues out.

Observing. Great tits at my mother's! Roe deer (I think) and a hare at The New Site. A Very Dramatic Moon.

Growing. Sciarid nematodes arrived and applied. Both orchids Definitely Thinking About Flowering. Jalapeño plants both conclusively dead but jalapeños themselves all harvested (whether I get around to smoking them is a different question).

althea_valara

Crafting mojo, what's that? I sure wouldn't know, because mine went out the window mid-month.

I started off decently, getting 31 rows done on a sleeve. Problem is, I had hoped to not only finish that sleeve this month, but do its pair as well. That didn't happen. At least I made SOME progress, but there's some tinking/fixing in my future, because I see a miscrossed cable, grrr.

[Image Description: A knitted sleeve for a cardigan, in progress. It features deep ribbing at the cuff, with a cable running up the center of the sleeve. The cable is teal in color and the rest of the sleeve is gray.]

There's a community on Ravelry doing a CRAFTO bingo board this year, and you know I love a crafting challenge, so I am attempting to take part. One of the squares is "A Favorite Designer", so I made my TENTH Lacy Crochet Kerchief by Kristen TenDyke:

[Image Description: A crocheted triangular kerchief. The edges are in green, and the center is lace in white.]

Early in the month, I started a fingering weight shawl. I had hoped to do lots on it in January but I'm maybe ten rows in, which giving that it's an asymmetric triangle that starts at a point, is pretty much NOTHING.

Also, for CRAFTO we're allowed two entries a month, so towards the end of the month I searched for something quick to make. I attempted baby booties, a headband, a knit 3D heart, and a knit flat applique heart, and none of them worked for me. I think my hands just don't want to knit right now; things felt awkward and fumbling and I just had no patience for it. Which SUCKS because most of my bigger projects that I want to do this year are knitted projects. I ended up not turning in a second project, which probably means I'm out of the running for a prize, but whatever.

This was my first month taking part in

getyourwordsout, and I had some success, but not much. First: I probably did work that I wouldn't have if I wasn't taking part in the challenge. That's good! But I was supposed to write on ten days, and managed five, and for some of THOSE, I counted creative

snowflake_challenge posts, which felt a bit like cheating.

I have a bunch of

ladiesbingo fics I want to finish, so hopefully I can work on that this month.

I messed around with my Neocities site this month, successfully figuring out an auto dark mode for it! That's not live on the site yet, just on my local copy, but I'm proud at myself for doing that. I also did another chunk of the Shadowbringers recap, but that hasn't been HTMLized for Neocities yet. Soon. Finally, I started documenting FFBE Season 2, but quickly fell into despair when I realized just how much there is to do. But hey, if I can do Season 1, I can do Season 2. Just hoping Season 2 doesn't take over four years like Season 1 did.

StoryGraph was doing a One Page a Day reading challenge in January, and I took part in that. I succeeded! Some days I even read more than a page!

I had started off with Contact but that was a bit too heavy for me, so I bounced off that and turned to a "safe" author for me and read a novella by Courtney Milan, "The Pursuit Of...". This was a good read. I liked both the main characters a lot, and LOVED the cheese storyline. Fun romp, would read again.

Then I started a reread of To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. This is also a "safe" book for me. I do enjoy her time travel series as a whole, but this one's a COMEDY rather than the serious nature of the other books, and it's a delight to read. I'm only a few chapters in but it's been fun already.

Given that I had signed up on StoryGraph to read 6 books this year, and I'm on my second one on February 1st? That's good progress! Am pleased. I probably wouldn't have done it had StoryGraph not had its challenge this month.

ursamajor

Our choir director, giving us pronunciation notes in rehearsal this week: "We don't want to say 'NIEW-born child,' it's too nasal for our character. NOO-born child. Like, 'ooh, a baby!'"
Me, filters obliterated: "Well, of course, you don't say 'ew, a baby!'"
A: *overhears me, cracks up, can't stop laughing for like the next three minutes*

*

H, upon arrival in Albuquerque: "... why is there snow in New Mexico?!"
Me: "It's a mile above sea level! It's like Denver!"
H: "I thought it was going to be like the Bay Area, or Phoenix."
Me: "I did tell you to bring a jacket."
H: "Isn't like how you always tell me to bring a jacket and I'm usually fine without?"
Me: "Do you wanna build a snowman?"
H: "NO."

*

Weather reports out of Boston are crowing over the second major snowstorm incoming this week, bombogenesis over the Atlantic, and many of my friends there are freaking out about how this is happening on such a similar schedule to Snowpocalypse 2015. Though the current bet is that it'll probably remain out at sea and miss the New England coast for anything but a few more sprinkles.

While I am actually a bit envious of all of the pictures of the deep, freshly-fallen snow people have been posting, I'm also really, really glad that I don't have to shovel snow anymore. That I don't have to penguin-walk everywhere trying not to slip on black ice. That when I bike home at night, my fingers may complain (I was wearing gloves!), but 25 years in New England taught me to layer a wool sweater and a puffer vest. That I'm plucking lemons off the tree from our front porch - in January - and incorporating them into lemon chicken for dinner and wild rice pancakes for breakfast. (Said wild rice pancakes: I took Molly Yeh's recipe and accidentally doubled the wild rice, added cardamom and lemon zest, and grabbed a jar of cloudberry compote for ease of portability/topping; brought them to a breakfast picnic with bike friends this morning instead of our usual coffee because of the general strike.)

In related news, boston dot com posted a list of Boston's top 11 biggest snowstorms by accumulation since they started keeping track, and I was there for most of them, ahahaha.

1. February 17-18, 2003 - 27.6". This was right after Andrew and I had broken up, and I was absolutely blaming the giant snowstorm on him, hahaha. 😁 I lived in an apartment in the Fenway at this point, so thankfully I didn't have to shovel, and aside from having to go to work, mostly got to sit in my apartment and mope dreamily out the window, like the heroine in a romance novel at the nadir.

4. March 31-April 1, 1997 - 25.4". I'd gone to Boston for the weekend with college friends and escaped back to the Pioneer Valley just as the snow started falling. College dorm living sitch, so I didn't have to shovel, but whatever they used to keep the paths vaguely clear smelled like rotting bananas and soy sauce, and this was the kind of thing I got to learn about in my first New England winter, hahaha.

5. Blizzard of 2005 - January 22-24 - 25.4". I'd moved to an apartment in Porter, didn't have to shovel, but we had prime views out our window of people stumbling to the White Hen. I would, however, move into a place with a private patio later that year, which would require me to begin shoveling myself out in order to take the trash out. At least I also began dating a guy who had to shovel himself out, and we could commiserate together!

6. February 8-9, 2013 - 24.9" . Our final winter in Roxbury, where most of our shoveling was stairs, but a loooot of them.
https://www.instagram.com/p/VkNcd8iRrS/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
https://www.instagram.com/p/VkMsdvCRqB/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
https://www.instagram.com/p/VhsUnoCRlF/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

7. January 26-28, 2015 - 24.6".

9. February 7-9, 2015 - 23.1". These last two were part of Snowpocalypse 2015, and if you used one particular entrance to the Minuteman Trail to get to Alewife that winter, THANK ME AND

hyounpark FOR SHOVELING, because the snowplow drivers kept dumping all the neighborhood snow in the culdesac at the foot of our street and blocking path access! (As is, we couldn't get our car out of the driveway until like May.) And no, we did not have a snowblower, no place to store one. I had buff-ass biceps that winter. :P

And now the word "shoveling" sounds like technobabble since I've used it so much this post.

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Music: it's been falling all day long

althea_valara

Snowflake Challenge: A flatlay of a snowflake shaped shortbread cake, a mug with coffee, and a string of holiday lights on top of a rustic napkin.

Challenge #15

How Did the Fandom Snowflake Challenge Go? 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 think it went well!

There are people I "know" on Dreamwidth from seeing them around places, that I don't get a chance to interact with much myself. Therefore, I find

snowflake_challenge delightful because it gives me an excuse to interact with them! And also, find new, interesting people to interact with! It really helps with the sense of community. I mean, even if I end up not interacting with a particular person for whatever reason, it's still fun to see the same names pop up all the time.

I'm a little saddened that things seemed to peter out towards the end of the challenge. I'm not sure if that was the challenge's fault itself, or if we all got tired due to +gestures at the world+. It's probably more of the latter.

I did miss the "make a fanwork" challenge, because in the past I've worked hard on that. In 2023, I made a Crocheted Carbuncle which took a heck of a lot longer than I expected BUT I DID IT, and last year I launched my Neocities site. Not sure what I would have done THIS year, but odds are I would have gone overboard again, lol. I know me.

I've said in the past that I feel mostly on the outskirts of fandom. This year, I feel like I've at least put a foot in the pool? I don't feel so disconnected as I have in the past, and a lot of that has to do with the good people at the Final Fantasy Old Folks' Home, plus being more active in making fanworks myself, and yes, also because of

snowflake_challenge. So I feel I've had a positive experience this year. Thanks, mods!

Current Mood: grateful

kaberett

Or at least I assume that's what the call I missed because [reasons this margin is too small to contain] was about, based on (i) the voicemail that said They'll Call Back Tomorrow, and (ii) the continued absence of the relevant test results in the NHS app.

I... think I am going to suggest that they ask my GP to issue a bloods request form, for me to pick up from the surgery and take up the hill to phlebotomy. Because! this is ridiculous! blood loss remains my job!!!

Other things today has contained include: TOKEN RIDICULOUS PUZZLE; Very Picturesque Bread; the Child assigning us all Pronouns and Genders and Sexualities more-or-less at random (from an LGBTQIA+ sticker book); PAKIDGES many and various Including another book on pain and box sets for the last two seasons of Elementary; lots of ridiculous windows in the general vicinity of Bank. I am very tired.

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.

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.

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...)

Wikineers

preposterous puzzle: thoughts so far

some good things

Things

[food, healthwork] VEMGETABLES and NUTS and--

vital functions

Crafting & Creative Update, January 2026. Plus BOOKS!

the snow is coming down on our new england town

Snowflake Challenge 2026 - Challenge 15: How'd it go?

[healthwork, diarish] ... they... lost my blood again?

some good things

Things

[embodiment] in which I am Officially Anaemic

Snowflake Challenge 2026 - Challenge 14: Fandom Promo

Snowflake Challenge 2026 - Challenge 13: Community

Shadowbringers Recap Part 8: The Hills of Amber

vital functions

let her dismantle your distance

we went to the ZOO

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