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I didn't mean to fall off the internet, ( but I did. )

In 2025, I want to try to remember that something is usually better than all-or-nothing. If I can show up sporadically or not at all, I want to try poking my head out at least sometimes.

The cats continue to be a source of joy, by the way. It's very difficult to take good pictures of them when they're awake, but here's one of them snuggled adorably. ♥

( adorableness )

Hello, Dreamwidth! Here are a few things I've enjoyed lately.

Via ladybusiness: Light, Like a Candle Flame by Iona Sharma is a lovely, wistful story about local government, rebuilding, and loss, featuring an established queer relationship and a generation ship who has outlived her journey. 3.3k words, also available as 24 minutes of audio; do heed the content notes.

A book review by boxofdelights led me to this fascinating excerpt of Growing Good Food: A Citizen's Guide to Climate Victory Farming by Acadia Tucker. The premise is that just as victory gardens helped mitigate food shortages during World Wars I and II, regenerative gardening can not only replenish depleted soil but actually store carbon that would otherwise contribute to climate change. I do very little gardening, but this makes me want to do more.

This is a wise tweet about the way a lot of us are feeling right now.

And this is a video of bees rolling ecstatically in pollen.

I imagine most of the gamers who follow this journal have already seen itch.io's Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality, but just in case anyone hasn't, it's pretty cool. For a donation of $5 or higher (the default is set to $10, but you can adjust it in either direction), they'll give you DRM-free access to over a thousand games, resource kits, and tabletop rpgs. The campaign still has three days to go, and so far, they've raised more than five million dollars.

Games and other items that particularly caught my eye include:

• Night in the Woods, which I've seen highly recommended (Windows, Mac, & Linux)
• Celeste, which I will definitely never play, but really enjoyed a Let's Play of (Windows, Mac, & Linux)
• Signs of the Sojourner, the Kickstarter demo of which I enjoyed and recced previously (Mac & Windows)
• Dungeons & Lesbians, an adorably named dating sim (Windows, Mac, & Linux)
• Lingotopia, a game where you learn a language of your choice while exploring a city (Windows, Mac, & Linux)
• Desktop Goose, literally a goose that hangs out on your desktop (Windows & Mac)
• A couple of Spanish language Twine games, El Interrogatorio and especially No cortarás a tu hermana con el filo de esta espada (browser)
• Oxenfree, another game I've heard very well spoken of (Windows, Mac, Linux)
• Quench, a truly adorable looking game about guiding animals through a landscape (tragically Windows only!)
• Dungeon Tileset 2.0, which is adorable pixel art tiles for dungeon maps
• TTRPG Design Lenses, a set of cards to help designers evaluate different aspects of their games
• Hero Too, a "single player journaling game" about a teenage trans superhero you create
• The Bonds That Tie Us, a GMless TTRPG about relationships
• The D1 RPG, which I imagine is what it says on the tin
• and Rosette Diceless, a GMless game system that "focuses on collaborative storytelling and consent-based conflict resolution".

And of course, if you just want to give, there are links for that as well:

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
Community bail funds
Other ways to donate and help

I haven't been the best at keeping up with Dreamwidth lately, but have a couple of links to things I thought were cool!

One is Viridi, recced by pink_ink.  It's the most peaceful little free game imaginable:  you have a pot of succulents that grow in real time and don't need to be watered more than a couple of times a week (and will never die for lack of it! ETA: talkingtothesky reports that they do need weekly attention), and you can just sit there and watch them, or the snail that crawls slowly around the rim of the pot, and that's it.  It's more of an excuse to gaze upon gentle green shapes than it is a game.  I find it very soothing.

The other is the demo for Silicon Dreams, which is a game in development (and currently seeking backers on Kickstarter!) where you play an android interrogating other androids and recommending whether they be decommissioned or returned to work.  It is not soothing at all; in fact, it's extremely creepy and dystopian. It's also pretty interesting so far!  I had some glitch in my display that cut off half the dialogue, and I still played through both interrogations to the end.  I feel so bad for all of these android babies!

When the posting is tough, the memes get posting?

( In addition to the obvious pandemic focus, there's some food/disordered eating(?) talk behind the cut, and I think the questions are kind of US-centric? )

Hello, Dreamwidth. I seem to be having trouble keeping up with you lately. Everything is more or less fine in my own tiny corner of the world, there's no emergency that's been keeping me away, it's just... really sad knowing how much isn't fine, and isn't going to be fine any time soon.

But have some Wednesday things.

READ

( Three painfully good DA:I fics, emphasis on "painful". )

I also enjoyed the Witcher longfic Meet Death Sitting by bomberqueen17, as well as some of its sequels. It takes place after the Netflix series, I think? It's got the tiredest, most resignedly altruistic Jaskier, and eventually some Jaskier/Geralt, and a really lovely brave Ciri, and also a sequel where Yennefer sort of dubcons Jaskier (just, not in a way he seems to greatly mind?) into letting her peg him and it's incredibly hot. It's so hard waiting to read the installments that are still in progress! But I've been brave so far!

Also, this ficlet about Finch and Reese and a pomeranian puppy by argylepiratewd for sholio's Happy Distracting Comment Fest is incredibly adorable, with spot on character voice, and I love it. ♥

PLAYED

Mostly Stardew Valley these past couple of weeks!  My astonishingly gullible vestibular system apparently finds the charming pixel art so convincing that it gives me motion sickness if I spend too much time walking around in the game, but I get really invested in these fetch quests, so I do my best.

It's funny, because when I first picked up this game a couple of years ago I had no opinion on any of the love interests, and that's still nearly true -- but somehow since coming back to it this month, I've grown wistful about Robin and Demetrius not being romanceable in a polyamorous fashion.  This is so completely on brand for me.

WATCHED

The Expanse through the entire first season! I really wasn't sure I was going to like it after the first episode, given ( spoilers ). But I actually ended up really glad we kept watching it! There's actual plot that actually kind of holds together, the space politics and environments are pretty interesting, and most importantly, there's a character who makes my id extremely happy.

( Amos-centric spoilers. )

( Other spoilery comments. )

I wouldn't recommend this show without qualifications -- it's fairly heavy on white dudes, and it's got some mild to moderate sexism going on, in that it's got some genuinely interesting female characters, but the narrative can get kind of weird about them. There are also several applicable content warnings: lots of violence, death, and despair, a scene with some really gross attitudes about sex workers, and a fair bit of body horror. But I've ended up enjoying it, and I'm looking forward to watching more!

Sym-Bionic Titan through episode 1x10, "Lessons in Love". Animal harm warnings for "Tashy 497", but this show really seems to have hit its stride. Octus is so adorable? A teenage girl got to have emotional complexity? I really enjoy things so much more when they aren't just all fight sequences all the time!

READ

Many fanfics, as usual! Favorites include:

The Man in the (Summer Weight) Suit by st_aurafina, an exquisite time travel fix-it for Person of Interest. I want to say more about it, but I don't know how to to do it justice without spoiling it. It's really good. 4k.

Pinioned by AbigailMoment, a painful (and at times grisly) but also deeply endearing Good Omens fic in which Crowley does much to protect Aziraphale. ~6k.

New Lands for the Living by DramaticEntrance is another wonderful time travel fix-it, this one for Star Wars, and with a more convincing Poe/Luke romance than I could have imagined. There's loneliness, but also teamwork, friendship, love, and even hope. 50k.

Taste of Freedom, also by DramaticEntrance, is a lovely Leverage AU in which Parker tries to rob Eliot, but finds his bare apartment so distressing that she starts bringing him stuff instead. 10k.

like nails in my feet by Riona a Silent Hill 2 fic, which probably functions as a complete warning if you know that game. If you don't... ( have some content notes? ) Riona excels at psychological horror, and this is no exception. 1k.

suddenly becoming one you have never read by susiecarter is for a pairing I'd never heard of -- GQ/Croc from Suicide Squad -- but it's also amnesia fic, so I guess that worked out okay! It's... emotional hurt/comfort while one party is severely injured and hiding in a sewer? But like, in a warm and fuzzy way! ~3k.

I also read and enjoyed several original short stories recced by forestofglory.  My favorite was Give the Family My Love by A T Greenblatt (also available as a podfic!) which is about a perilous trek to an alien library while the Earth may be dying, and about relationships, and about hope. 5k, or 42 minutes in audio form.

PLAYED

Become Nothing by AbigailMoment, enthusiastically recommended here.

WATCHED

Brooklyn Nine-Nine through episode 7x05, "Debbie", but honestly, the only thing I have to say is about "The Jimmy Jab Games II, and that is ( a minor spoiler ).

( Doctor Who through episode 12x10, "The Timeless Children". )

I'm a little late to the game, I think, but this one was just too much fun to skip.

Slow burn or love at first sight: Definitely slow burn. I like to see the relationship grow and change over time.

Fake dating or secret dating: Fake dating all the way! It's kind of a ridiculous trope, but I enjoy it deeply.

Enemies to lovers or best friends to lovers: Best friends to lovers. My tastes can be bafflingly wholesome sometimes.

Oh no there's only one bed or long distance with correspondence: Oh no, this is the first difficult question! Only one bed is so good for fraught intimacy, but having characters write to each other is so cute and adorable, and I feel like in a way it encourages the characters to open up more, given the greater emotional safety yet also greater loneliness of physical distance. I guess I've talked myself into saying correspondence!

Fantasy AU or modern AU: Fantasy AU! I love them, especially when there's enough worldbuilding to bring its own flavor.

Smut or fluff: Hmmm. This is difficult for the opposite reason as only one bed versus epistolary -- I don't feel like either smut or fluff is often a big draw for me by itself, so it all comes down to execution and how many feelings are involved. I guess I'll say smut.

Mutual pining or domestic bliss: Mutual pining. All the mutual pining. I need to find some mutually pining OT3 fic just so I can have 50% more pining in the same fic!

( Cut for length! )

I feel like that last answer is especially ironic coming directly after the previous one: all the misery, but like, only for a few people at a time, please! But that's me for you, I guess.

READ

I finished Call It Intelligence by talkingtothesky! It's such an interesting S3 fix-it. ( A bit of spoilery commentary... )

I've enjoyed several DA:I fics of Stonestrewn's lately, most notably Glass Cabinet (Tama Bull, gen, 1k, agonizing) and Writing love all over, in which Cassandra and Josephine are fangirls together and, over the course of 8k, fall gradually in love. It's such a gorgeous depiction of fannish feeling as well as romance, and I especially loved that this particular version of Cassandra is ( spoiler? )

Long-distance call by LadyGwenllian is an adorable Yuri on Ice fic in which Phichit helpfully explains a few things to Yuuri before the whole Victor-in-Hasetsu situation can get too out of hand. I especially appreciate that it gently pushes back against the fat-shaming that struck me as YOI's biggest (only?) flaw.

Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love) by Delphi is exactly 8k of original romance between one Benny Zalman, who serves gin and occasionally breaks bones at a mediocre speakeasy, and Abe Hirsch, the strangely mesmerizing new piano player classing up the joint. Very well written and incredibly charming.

The Axiom by pauraque is ~1.5k exploring Data's perspective in an episode of Star Trek: TNG I never saw, but I love it to pieces despite my ignorance, because it's just so heartbreakingly thoughtful in what it says about what it's like to be an android who, axiomatically, cannot feel. Do mind the warnings in the tags.

Finally, I've been perusing some of susiecarter fics after enjoying their Witcher fic last week, and I think this song is about you is my favorite so far: 11k of Cullen POV as he and Dorian pine over each other like beautiful fools. The use of roleplay and storytelling towards the end as a way to share painful and delicate truths is particularly well done.

WATCHED

Stumptown episode 1x15, "At All Costs: The Conrad Costas Chronicles". What a title, oof. But the episode is good fun, as Stumptown tends to be.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine through episode 7x03, "Pimemento". It's a fun episode! I just don't seem to have much to say about either it or "Captain Kim".

LISTENED TO

Now that Chocolate Box is done, I can admit to being super into this MS MR cover of "Genghis Khan" by Miike Snow without risking giving anything away! Note that the lead vocalist changes the lyrics so she's singing to a boy rather than a girl, but I love her delivery and the moody feel their performance gives the song.

( Two more. )

In addition to my assignment fic, I wrote one treat this Chocolate Box, for amovingtarget.

I didn't mean to -- I was hoping to write at least one treat this time around, but I thought if I managed it, it would at least be for a fandom I'm in. Except then I was skimming her prompts and vaguely regretting I couldn't write for any of them, and suddenly I couldn't sleep for the opening paragraphs assembling themselves in my head.

For the record, I have never played Dishonored myself, but I have watched cut scenes from all the games, entirely due to amovingtarget's influence. And Billie was always a favorite of mine, and the series does end on an intriguing note, and, well...

Title: the dream of a waking man
Fandom: Dishonored
Characters: Billie Lurk & the Outsider
Rating: Teen
Contains: Bone-weariness, fragile hope, and series spoilers all the way through DotO.
Word count: 676
Summary: "Old habits," Billie said, "go down fighting."

( He looked like a body pulled from the river, pale and soft-skinned from time underwater. )