Ice Crystals

What Are You Playing Wednesday

2026-06-11T02:59:14Z

For those who are new here: every week on Wednesday (mostly) I post this for people to discuss their current video games! You can talk about:

* what you just finished playing
* what you're in the middle of
* new announcements you're excited about

Or most other things that are about video games! (Board games also welcome.)

If you want to talk about something spoiler-y, please use the following code!

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[your spoilers go here!]</details>

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And now, on with the show!

Between a five-day migraine and "oh shit wait I'm moving, like, literally actually tomorrow" there has not been much gaming apart from a couple puzzles in The Artisan of Glimmith, although I had fun scoping out the various announcements for new games. I'm delighted by FF Resonance, because I did really enjoy early plot for Brave Exvius (in my personal opinion it went off the rails in Season 3 due to trying to have too many characters.)

Really hoping to dive into more games once I'm settled! I think this is the longest span of "not much to report" since I started doing these weekly posts and I do not prefer it actually, but I love seeing what everyone else is up to!

So that's me. What are you playing or looking forward to?

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time passes and I'm pretty sure I do things but I'm not sure what

2026-06-07T04:20:49Z

WHOOPS it has been a minute. In fairness to me, the terrible cold hung around for another week and a half after my last life post and then I just became a non-person for like a week who had no thoughts only puzzle games. (I still have very few thoughts but I have managed to do things *other* than stare at my phone this week, which is a step up. I had a conversation with my therapist about it and she was like, hey, it's good that you noticed and are paying attention, but it sounds like you're getting done what needs to be, and if what you'd be doing with the time otherwise is reading or playing other games, what does it matter? Which is like, whoa, brain stumbling but okay.)

Mostly I've been reading, since I'm having the movers pack for me - I got through book 3 of Blood and Ash by Jennifer L Armentrout, which is completely over the top not-quite-vampires romantasy, which was exactly the level of engagement my brain needed when I was sick. I'm almost done with my Cynster re-read (or at least the parts of it I can be bothered with) and about two-thirds of the way through a really cute sapphic romance novel about two pop stars. I have almost cleared my reading goal for the year without even zipping through a whole manga series. Also I have been reading fanfic. No thoughts only smooches.

Some AO3 tag treasures from recent trawling:
"some beta but we die like bugs on the windshield anyway"
"THIS DOVE IS MURDERED AND ITS CORPSE HAS BEEN SMEARED ACROSS THE PAVEMENT"
"save a plane ride a pilot"
"the kidnapping was not consensual but the sex definitely was"
"AND THE UNIFORM STAYS ON SIR"
"nine out of ten doctors agree Caleb loves MC, the tenth one is Zayne"

further comedy: dear author, um, the brand name you were looking for in your summary is Hitachi. Itachi is a character from either Naruto or Bleach, I'm pretty sure? I think I saw it thrown around a lot on fanfic rants back in ye LJ days.

Anyway.

I went from "nearly caught up" to "slightly ahead" on GYWO over the course of May because my commitment to the dumpster had me writing a ton of things not actually for that fandom, which is fine, we are polyfannish over here.

Anyway, the movers will be here on Thursday to pack and move everything; I have a few things to handle on my own before that, but I'm about halfway through the list, and meanwhile I'm popcorn.gif-ing the world first race for the new FFXIV Ultimate, including some truly wild fanart and gleefully awaiting the banhammer for that one asshole streamer.

And now I go back to the fanfic pile.

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What Are You Playing Wednesday

2026-06-04T04:09:54Z

<details><summary>[non-spoiler summary, quest name, or progress mark here]</summary>
[your spoilers go here!]</details>

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And now, on with the show!

It's still mostly phone games; I keep eyeing other things to play and then not quite getting around to it, because my brain still won't engage with things. (I threw a minor baby tantrum about this earlier; intellectually I understand that the past several years have been A Lot but my internal expectations for myself are completely unreasonable. Sigh.) I did pick up Calico (not the board game) from the indie sale on Switch, though I haven't started it yet, because instead apparently I'm downloading an update to go back to Smash Ultimate and unlock things. Probably eight years since I last touched it? I'm sure this will go well. no problems whatsoever.

I did also make some small plot progress in the FF9 collab in Another Eden and on side stories in Octopath CotC so I have done something other than play silly color sort puzzles, I suppose.

So that's me. What are you playing or looking forward to?

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What Are You Playing Wednesday

2026-05-28T05:24:49Z

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[your spoilers go here!]</details>

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And now, on with the show!

I started Tactics Ogre Reborn and while I can see the appeal of the game, I think I'm going to check out a script for the story instead of playing through it. (Witness me, not making myself play something I'm only lukewarm about!) Also did a lot of mentor roulettes in XIV.

My brain was not up for much, so I've been playing a bunch of silly puzzle games on my phone. I did drop Last Cloudia because I was having more fun with the puzzle games; maybe I'll go back to it. Maybe not.

So that's me. What are you playing or looking forward to?

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What Are You Playing Wednesday

2026-05-21T02:36:09Z

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[your spoilers go here!]</details>

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And now, on with the show!

Once again I did very little gaming this week, mostly because I was sick; a few mentor roulettes in FFXIV, and I did finish the color picross in Picross S6, so that's nice. Hopefully this weekend I'll have both time and inclination for games!

So that's me. What are you playing or looking forward to?

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miscellanea make a post

2026-05-17T03:37:25Z

I don't know how a month passed AGAIN but whatever I guess I did some stuff.

Admittedly, most of what I've been doing is either reading constantly--I have been on a tear with Jennifer L. Armentrout's Blood and Ash series, which certainly has flaws but is nonetheless pleasing. I was trying to get through my library haul, and I did finish the big chunky nonfiction (The Stolen Throne, about the maneuvering that ended with James VI on the throne of England), but my brain is having a fussy rebellion and so instead we are in the romantasy pile when we are not in the Love and Deepspace dumpster. Though that latter has been causing myself and book club buddy to write (not for that fandom), so I can't argue with the results. Now if I could pick one damn story and stick to it....

As a result of that, though, I did go from "nearly a month behind" to "nearly caught up" at GYWO over the course of April, so that's nice.

Probably part of the reason I have been marinating in easy-to-read fiction is that my brain is still a little off-kilter, which was not helped by the fact that I spent this week being the annoying level of sick where I'm not sick enough to be asleep 100% of the time, but I'm too sick to do anything but stay in one place and engage in non-taxing activity. I'm doing better today, but I've also coughed enough that all the muscles of my torso and neck are very angry with me. Deeply tedious.

In good news, though, the larger apartment I wanted has come available so I will be moving in the next month. I'm planning to have the movers do the packing, so mostly what I need to do is go through various drawers and closets and find things that need to be sent on to their next home. Which I can do now that I'm feeling a little better, hopefully. Also hopefully this will get me off my ass to mail out the various boxes of Things that already have planned future homes. We will see.

We had a few days of "are you sure it isn't summer?" followed by "ah yes definitely still winter," though today we seem to have returned to Actual Late Spring. I may have fallen asleep in the hammock for a solid four hours today. I'm not mad about it. I needed the nap, honestly. (The cats were not pleased, though. Mama is supposed to nap where she can be properly colonized! After all the hard work they put in this week nursing me, too!)

My brain is still a mess on several levels, probably partly from the illness and partly from displacing moving stress and a few other things, but I would appreciate it if it would stop being that. I'm about done with this nonsense.

Oh, and I guess I had all my various annual doctors' appointments and they all came out mostly fine. Still need to go do labs. Have not gotten around to that but in fairness....I was sick.

And now, back to reading.

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What Are You Playing Wednesday

2026-05-14T05:13:41Z

<details><summary>[non-spoiler summary, quest name, or progress mark here]</summary>
[your spoilers go here!]</details>

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And now, on with the show!

It's been A Week and all I have done is read romance novels (definitely not gaming) and play Love & Deepspace (technically gaming.) I did play a little FFXIV, but mostly it's been that. I am still enjoying my dumpster very much, at least, and dragging other people along with me so that's fun.

So that's me. What are you playing or looking forward to?

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What Are You Playing Wednesday

2026-05-07T05:44:26Z

<details><summary>[non-spoiler summary, quest name, or progress mark here]</summary>
[your spoilers go here!]</details>

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And now, on with the show!

I've actually been both writing and reading more than gaming this week. I did do the raid in FFXIV and took advantage of having unlocked Mentor Roulette again to make some small steps toward getting the achievement mount. Other than that, I mostly messed about in Love and Deepspace which continues to attack me personally, who allowed this, etc. (but I am having fun with it, so there's that.)

I also finished reading the LP of Eternal Poison and I'm both immensely pleased with it conceptually, and profoundly grateful I tapped out and read the LP, because I think I would die trying to get the conditions for the stories to work out properly. I am just not good enough at grid tactical games. (She says as she is preparing to start the next-oldest one in the backlog, which is Tactics Ogre.

So that's me. What are you playing or looking forward to?

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What Are You Playing Wednesday

2026-04-30T02:07:25Z

<details><summary>[non-spoiler summary, quest name, or progress mark here]</summary>
[your spoilers go here!]</details>

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And now, on with the show!

Wow, y'all, it's been a busy week and I'm excited for it.

I finished Alchemy Mysteries: Prague Legends, which was a decent hidden-object game that did a couple of neat things (rooms are 3D, rendered by turning left or right and each "section" of a room has its own marker as to whether actions are available; you sometimes need items from your inventory to complete "combo" items in the hidden-object scenes. But it was a bit finicky about clicking.)

I also finished the main block of puzzles in Picross S6. There's not much to say about it; if you like the other Jupiter Picross S series games, you'll like this one. They've definitely gotten more interestingly complex in terms of what the puzzles represent.

I then went on a real whirlwind of scything through games on my backlog and removing them if they didn't speak to me. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was the first to get tossed. The concept is 3000% my shit--living weapons you need to emotionally bond with for better combat prowess? Sign me the fuck UP--but the exploration was much clumsier than in X1, there were a lot of very complicated systems introduced very fast with bad tutorials (that it was too easy to skip if you happened to be pushing a button at the exact moment they popped up, and that you couldn't go back to review), and also the devs were extremely determined to have the "camera" angle right at Pyra's tits. I am pretty chill about anime titty, but ugh.

I had collected a handful of Ys games on Steam (I think because schattenstern was playing them a decade-plus ago and I went "well why not") and I booted up Ys I (the remastered version), which didn't do much for me and I could see that combat was going to be a real big problem. So I closed out of that and tried Ys Origins, which sat a bit better, but again the combat and platforming wasn't going to do it for me. So away with that series (to be clear, Ys Origins seemed like a perfectly fine game that is simply Not For Me.)

At that point I got into a fit of "I'm gonna dust off the PS3," which meant an hour of hunting for controllers and cords. I tried Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom, which again is a neat concept with interesting visuals that is not gonna be for me. I browsed through the various digital PS2/PS1 games I had forgotten I collected there and gave Growlanser: Heritage of War a try, only to realize that I had misinterpreted what they meant by "tactical RPG" in the description and that this was Also Not For Me, so that + a PSP entry in the series also went. And then finally I tried Resonance of Fate, because it had popped into my head a few times recently. It has a very distinct visual identity, but I noped out before I even finished the combat tutorial. Again, this is most likely a Me Problem.

My book club buddy inflicted a Problem TM on me named Caleb from Love and Deepspace so I'm making poor choices in that direction, but damn. This man is a freak (affectionate/positive). I'm being extremely feral about it and I have no regrets.

In FFXIV, I got my last Endwalker primal mounts and therefore the fancy final mount. I also finished getting my PVP mount. I am so fucking excited for the new expasion. (I only watched the keynote, and honestly I am not going to bother fussing or theorycrafting about any of the changes until WAY closer to release, because stuff is gonna change and in any event I won't know how I really feel about it until I do it.) And then I played the new patch last night and was squeaking delightedly the whole way. I haven't done the raid yet, but MSQ was a DELIGHT.

So that's me. What are you playing or looking forward to?

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thinking about should

2026-04-28T02:30:12Z

A week or so ago I posted about a conversation I'd had with my therapist, about creating as self-care and whether I felt like I "should" create. I've been thinking about it since, and I've come to the conclusion that there are two kinds of "should": internal (because it will make me feel good) and external (because I am expected to.)

There are uses for both, but the internal is more interesting because I think sometimes we think the external voice is actually an internal voice. It's a bit like going for a walk.

I definitely should do that more often! It does feel good to go outside and move, to see plants and critters, to spend energy in that way. I definitely have good (and not so good) reasons why I don't. Same thing with creativity.

I used to sign up for exchanges all the time. Inspiration of deadlines was a huge thing for me, and I had this problem: all my ideas are Huge Things. (I could title every Scrivener file "goddamn it not another novel episode number [incrementing number]" and I would not be inaccurate!) Exchanges were great because a. Compressed timeframe, I had to keep it short; b. Jump start points for stories that were shorter! C. Guaranteed audience. This doesn't guarantee of course that the audience liked what I wrote; many times I've gotten beautiful comments from recipients and it's such a spark of joy to know you made a thing someone wanted.

Long projects, especially long origfic projects, can be so demoralizing. You get stuck in the Middle Slog and there's no guarantee anyone cares except you, but man, this part is so hard. Why is it so hard to make the thing I wanted to see. (Pro tip: maybe consider not being in the process of realizing you need a divorce while you're writing the epic love story of three people figuring out how to fit their jagged edges together. It makes things much harder than they need to be and not the fun sexy way.)

But yeah, should in the sense of internal motivation: if I make this thing, I will like it, if no one else does. If I make this thing I will feel better because I will have done something with this mental energy.

Alternately, I cannot NOT make the thing; writing is always in my brain. It's never not there. Sometimes it takes the form of telling myself little fragments of stories that will never see the light of a screen. Sometimes it's just throwing endless ideas into a kanban board because I know I like the concept but I am not prepared to put hands to keyboard right now.

(currently, those "idea baskets" are sporting a total of 110 fanfic ideas and 58 original fic.)

"So Rina, were you drowning in depression and anxiety for over a decade and creating was hard?"

🖕

(Also sometimes you open those kanban cards later and have absolutely NO fucking idea what past you was thinking and she didn't write anything down.)

Anyway. "Should" is obviously a tricky word I am mostly trying to un-learn, but I think it can have some utility as far as encouragement to get the writing done, because even a few sentences can be nice. And those are my somewhat jumbled thoughts on the matter. I think I had more of them at some point but I've forgotten. May need to revisit this later. XD

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What Are You Playing Wednesday

2026-04-23T03:37:16Z

<details><summary>[non-spoiler summary, quest name, or progress mark here]</summary>
[your spoilers go here!]</details>

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And now, on with the show!

I've played more of Picross S6 than anything else, and am close to what I consider "beaten," which is all of the normal picross solved.

I finished Prose and Codes, which is an extremely simple concept but pleasingly engaging in execution. I have been reminded of many good things I've read and forgotten about.

I tried to make progress in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, got my ass handed to me because of poor decisions relating to straying into a monster's range, and put it down for a while. I'll get back to it. I also started Alchemy Mysteries: Prague Legends which looks to be a mildly spooky hidden object game. love those.

Still working on mogtomes and the last PVP ranks in FFXIV, and scooping up anniversary goodies in various games.

So that's me. What are you playing or looking forward to?

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What Are You Playing Wednesday

2026-04-16T04:10:23Z

<details><summary>[non-spoiler summary, quest name, or progress mark here]</summary>
[your spoilers go here!]</details>

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And now, on with the show!

Not too much to report back this week; I have made a little progress in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and am on my way to a city. I am having fun but I am also very tired of how the "camera" angles approach Pyra. Please.

I tried to play Puzzle Chronicles, a game I picked up right when I first got on Steam. It did not wish to cooperate either in Crossover or actual Windows 11, so time to yeet.

Still slowly inching through puzzles in Picross S6 and enjoying anniversary goodies in phone games. Idly farming mogtomes for FFXIV and looking forward to 7.5.

So that's me. What are you playing or looking forward to?

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I forgot how much I like making things

2026-04-14T03:22:08Z

Slowly melting because it's in the high 70s during the day but next Sunday they're calling for snow, so the building hasn't switched the HVAC to the AC part yet. This is reasonable given, you know, Chicago, but also, I am melting. (I have all the windows open and my little fan doing its best.)

In related news, still battling the effectively month-long migraine; it's only painful enough to merit meds a couple times a week but it just. It's so much extra energy to exist. (I am grateful that my life has calmed down enough that this is merely hard, not impossible, but also: could we not.)

I have still been getting some things done, mostly of a creative nature. Saturday was do all the errands: got my hair done, hit two libraries, the bank, the optometrist for a repair, donation center, police station to drop off expired meds, and the pet store. In between I had a brief visit from veryroundbird, tuberose, and their yam who is enormous and ridiculously adorable. Then I fell over for a couple hours, perhaps unsurprisingly.

Anyway! Creative stuff! On the writing side it's been mostly fanfic; I'm doing some canon review for the Octopath Traveler 2 fic (I found someone who made an amazing app with all the dialogue from Octo 1 and 2, as well as BG3, which is now going to be my pinned go-to reference for those games, damn). I wrote a few paragraphs for the FFXVI fix-it and almost a whole paragraph for the Octo 2 fic, so that's nice. (Sev and I did a couple of games-and-writing evenings, which for me were mostly games, I think she was actually making words at least one of them.)

I also picked up my paper journal like five days in a row, for the first time since, um, mid-January. In my defense, [waves arms at the Everything.] I was also psyching myself out with "well then I have to do the whole month's setup" until I decided fuck it, one day at a time and decorate liberally with stickers and washi. So far that's been working out. ....I may have also been unsupervised a few times too many on stationery sites, but whatever, I'm using what I buy (....at least a little?) so bring on the stickers and stamps.

I found myself in the mood for string sorcery and not in the mood to battle the cats for knitting, so I pulled out an embroidery piece I had (technically) started (a line of half cross stitches, a whole like fifteen of them). I don't even remember how long it's been. Definitely after I moved in here, p...robably? last summer? Whatever. I pulled it out and then got ambitious and chased down the gridding filament I had bought. I am now about 3/4 of the way through gridding the thing, just working around that one line of stitches which was easy enough. Had a Dramatic Escapade tonight where I was doing something and the needle fell off the filament, which was then me hunting around with my phone flashlight like oh god please let me find this before either my foot or the cats do. (I did.) So soon that will be gridded and that should make life easier. And I have discovered pre-gridded fabric so I will probably order some of that to replace the fabric for one of the kits I'd started, because that will make it much easier to do. (Also that kit has 18 count Aida and I fucking refuse. 14 maximum.)

I ended up talking about this in therapy today, and she asked me if I was doing it because I wanted to or because I should. And that's sort of a complicated question; I had a long period of time where I think it's accurate to say that I wanted to want to do creative things; I did them anyway, because I can't really not. But the activation energy was so high that the satisfaction of doing the thing wasn't keeping up with it. (We also talked about whether the act of creation itself counts as self-care, which apparently it does for some people; not as much for me, although I have some Thoughts on that that I am too tired to type out right now, but I will try to get to sometime this week, along with approximately a dozen other things as usual.)

Other than that...work and video games, mostly as normal. I am tired but I persist.

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What Are You Playing Wednesday

2026-04-09T01:40:05Z

<details><summary>[non-spoiler summary, quest name, or progress mark here]</summary>
[your spoilers go here!]</details>

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And now, on with the show!

I played some more Eternal Poison, getting near the end of the second stratum. I continue to be interested in the characters and world and vibes, but the gameplay isn't really doing much for me. I have located an LP, so I think I'm gonna read that because I'm not sure how many more hours I want to put into slowly inching around battlefields. The combat to story ratio isn't hitting me quite right.

I finished three genres in Prose & Codes, which I am continuing to enjoy. A nice little thing to poke at when I am too tired for other games.

I started Xenoblade Chronicles 2 over the weekend. I'm maybe an hour in, and not as invested in these folks as I was in the first game, but I'm willing to see where it goes.

So that's me. What are you playing or looking forward to?

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We're going to yell about books today!

2026-04-08T02:19:12Z

So! I have been working through my physical book backlog (well, all my book backlogs, but prioritizing physical) because I am going to be moving sometime soon-ish and maybe I should have fewer boxes to take with me. So I've been tackling some things that have been on my bookshelf a while. Today's book is one I remember exactly where/when I bought: at the Barnes and Noble waiting for midnight release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

I am DNFing this book on page 84 and we're going to go on a wild ride about why.

NB: If you are a scholar of Arthuriana, history, religion, or....well, almost anything, you might want to put down your drink. I'm not responsible for the state of your monitor. (Alternately if you have supporting sources for this I'm fascinated.)

( A Reading Adventure: Alice Borchardt's The Dragon Queen )

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Reading log, or something of the sort

2026-04-06T19:53:54Z

I have been doing more reading! I could talk about books! Let's do that.

Immortal by Sue Lynn Tan - A mortal queen tries to get the God of War to help her free her nation from servitude to an immortal kingdom and enemies-to-lovers happens. I loved this! I really liked the way Liyen is a queen - not "oh no I want to get away" but actually doing the work, while acknowledging it's not all good. Hilariously although there is very, VERY little on-page canoodling, some of the tense scenes of flirting were sufficiently hot that I got too embarrassed to read this on my lunch break. Okay, brain. Anyway, I had a great time with this.

Starstruck by L.A. Witt - contemporary M/M movie star romance framed around the two main characters acting on the same paranormal-series show. I am very much of divided opinion about this book. It's fine, in that the characters make sense and the romance is believable and there aren't glaring textual errors. Sometimes there are really brilliant lines. However, there's a lot of telling rather than showing, and some of it felt really repetitive, which is especially sad in a 200-something page novel.

Labyrinth by Kate Mosse - I am certain I bought this in a fit of conspiracy-theory enthusiasm probably after I read a Dan Brown book. Mosse is a more competent crafter of prose than Brown. Mosse has met a woman, ever. Great on both counts! However, I ended up DNFing because I was simply not engaged with anything (and I was annoyed out of my skin by the choices of the modern-day Alice regarding oh my god that is not how the fuck you do archaeology [ragefroth].)

The Key to Deceit by Ashley Weaver - second in a series that swingandswirl recommended to me. Set in WW2 London, it features Ellie, a safe cracker who gets recruited by an intelligence office to help with counter-intelligence and intercepting information being sent to the Germans. Good sense of time and place, charming banter, fun characters, does not rely on people holding the stupid stick for things to advance. Hurrah!

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty - I actually finished this one in February but why not. Retired female pirate in the Crusades era is blackmailed by a noblewoman into chasing down said noblewoman's kidnapped granddaughter, so Amina has to get the crew back together and Adventures Ensue. Amina's voice is fantastic, love the grounding in the Indian Ocean setting, side characters are great, very funny. Also love an older woman protagonist! The sequel to this is coming out in May.

That more-or-less covers what I've been reading. (I suspect I am going to have a Lot of Opinions and then DNF my current book, but that will probably be more interesting if I rant about it all at once! And maybe it will surprise me. Further updates as pages warrant etc.)

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Goals post of a sort

2026-04-06T03:36:59Z

I'm not really doing goals posts or quarterly goals this year, but it's still probably worthwhile to occasionally look at what I allegedly intended to do and see how that's matching up to reality. (My disaster life means I actually didn't remember what goals I had chosen until I specifically went looking for them. Oops?)

But fortunately I keep records on DW even if not in my brain, so, here we go.

The specific goals I named in January were:
getyourwordsout - 120 days
Do more journaling (bujo & dw)
Finish the rainbow blanket
Care for myself and rest

I also have the vaguely permanent goal of net-negative book and game backlogs (ending the year with fewer to-[verb]s than I started.)

So, how's that going?

getyourwordsout - My March report was 21 days, so I'm about one month behind for the year. This isn't insurmountable; honestly, I think I managed two writing days in February and I have been utterly destroyed by barometric pressure for the last I don't even know. But I am at least doing a lot of turning things around in my head and thinking about them, even if that doesn't make it to a notes app or Scrivener.

Journaling - I'm pretty sure I'm averaging more posts to DW than I did last year, so that's something! I completely dropped bullet journaling for all of March and probably most of February. I keep telling myself to set up April pages and then not doing it. (None of this has stopped me from acquiring more stickers and washi.). It's a work in progress. If I keep saying that it becomes true, right? (I did also go round hunting down a ton of new icons for all the fandoms I haven't gathered icons for over the last half-decade or more. I just have to upload them.)

Rainbow blanket - I knit about half a row whilst watching an episode of TV (both of these are shocking accomplishments.) Greater-than-zero progress? Greater-than-zero progress.

Caring for myself - I'd like to say this is why I've done less of the preceding three goals than I have. Maybe that's partly true? I have been doing healthier foods and the migraine seesaw means I don't really get a choice about whether I'm resting because two hour naps unskippable. I do seem to be doing better in the sense of like, not being so utterly and fundamentally exhausted that the idea of doing anything is impossible. My apartment is on average tidier than it has been; the dishes are done more often; I am making food at home more often. So that's good. Movement in the correct direction for some arms of this project plan (that makes it sound so much more organized than it is; instead of a Gantt chart this is more like a confused octopus, but eh.)

As far as net-negative backlogs, I've read 13 books this year (and one DNF). I have added, um, well GoodReads is not completely up to date and it has 38 new books this year. That is the wrong direction to be moving! This is why I should not be unsupervised on ebook stores or in Half-Price Books. Whatever. The fact that I've touched 14 books so far this year is a significant improvement over last year.

Gameswise, it is not nearly as dire. I've acquired 8 new games, beaten 5 (including one of the new acquisitions), and abandoned one. Two of the ones I beat were Big Chonkers (BG3 and SMT Nocturne, although I did the latter fairly quickly since I skipped optional content) and I've still been idly poking at Fantasy Life i, so that's decent progress I guess.

All in all, for having forgotten what goals I actually set at the start of the year, I haven't done too badly (and even the ridiculous number of books is entirely conquerable; I read fast.)

While looking at the numbers does make me quite tempted to start a new book, I shall instead go do my skin care and go to bed somewhat timely, I guess. Ugh.

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What Are You Playing Wednesday

2026-04-02T04:22:24Z

<details><summary>[non-spoiler summary, quest name, or progress mark here]</summary>
[your spoilers go here!]</details>

This is screenreader-friendly spoiler code that works in DW comments.

And now, on with the show!

I have played some more of Eternal Poison and gotten partway through the second stratum. Things are getting Real Weird and I appreciate it. Not as much time spent on it as I'd like, but more than none!

I also started Prose & Codes, a game where you reveal quotes from famous literature by solving a substitution cipher. It is a pleasing puzzle for when I am low on brain and cannot with the flashy lights.

Continuing to learn (a little) from past experience, I picked up the demo for Ariana and the Elder Codex in case it turned out to be the kind of side-scrolling action I can actually do (see: Muramasa: the Demon Blade) and unfrotunately the answer seems to be no, which disappoints me because the concept is so fucking cool. Maybe I'll just borrow the concept for a tabletop game, it'd be neat for Fabula Ultima.

Otherwise, I've mostly been inching forward in all of my ongoing games; I am working through the FF9 side story in Another Eden, doing the DQ3 event in Octopath COTC, and actually doing plot in Last Cloudia. In FFXIV I started working on cosmic exploration again, because I can do that even when I can't actually run dungeons. We'll see how much progress I make. At least unlike Ishgard it's not out here murdering my inventory for fun and games.

So that's me. What are you playing or looking forward to?

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I do not prefer being a living barometer but here we are

2026-03-30T20:12:21Z

What? A post less than two weeks after the last one, which itself was only a week after the one prior? Am I...updating? Wild. Anyway. What have I done recently....

The car went for an oil change and maintenance checkup, which went smoothly. It still hasn't broken 5k miles after 2 years and a bit. (To be fair, big road trips and such are hard when you may or may not have interrupting migraine at any moment.) That was on a Saturday, and the next day there was an open house for a condo in the complex that I had eyed before, so I went over and stuck my nose in. My overwhelming impression was "it's okay but I don't Love It" and so I would not buy it except in case of serious need; there were a lot of small things that are like, I could live with this but I'm also not in a rush or crunch to find a place and don't have to buy, so eh. But it was an interesting experience (me researching "how to behave at an open house" and like, it wasn't anything surprising but I didn't want to be That Woman, you know.) I'm still waiting to hear back on the larger apartment; I emailed today to follow up and got an out-of-office reply, so I shall be a bit more patient. Again, not in a rush, and the fact that I decided that I will have the movers pack my stuff has turned future-move from looming-dread to "yeah that'll be annoying for a couple days but whatever." Astonishing.

The air pressure has been absolutely fucking insane for the last week, and by that I mean swinging wildly from 29.6 inHg to 30.7 and back down again on a 48-hour cycle and it's absolutely miserable. The up is harder than the down, but all of it sucks and I do not like it. It looks like it's going to calm down a bit after this Wednesday, but I have to be functional at least through Tuesday. (I have not called out since the 11th but there has been a great deal of lying down over my lunch hour and then faceplanting the instant work is over, which has predictable results on my sleep schedule, but also this isn't exactly voluntary.)

I had a touch-base at work to go over annual goals (supervisor was like, I'm really behind on this but please update them in the system and we'll meet on [last Tuesday]). My two work goals for the year were to lead a development project and to become familiar with all of the incomprehensible sorcery that my coworker has employed in containerizing our apps and moving them to AWS. I marked the sorcery goal at 50%, which I defined to my supervisor as "I get the concepts of what's happening but if you wanted me to spin it up myself from scratch I would definitely struggle." He said that was fine as he has no idea what most of it is doing, and to keep working on it. The dev project leadership I had marked as no progress--there was a major dev project I worked on, but when I said I wasn't sure if that counted, he gave me the most comprehensively baffled look and was like "yes. It does. You wrangled all of that. Count it." Inside my head I'm going "but I didn't" and externally I said "okay!" and then internally told the other voice to shut up and take the win. Still not convinced I earned it--I was having a long chat with rhi about how I spend a very large portion of my work time staring into space or fiddling about, which admittedly is usually along the path to getting a bunch of typing done in a very short period, but it just Feels Weird. On the plus side I am slowly freeing myself from the conversion project hellscape. Sorry, favorite coworker, but I do not want.

I had a pretty nice weekend. Friday night the XIV guild was doing voice chat hangouts, where we all do whatever but chatter while we're doing it. I was playing Eternal Poison while we chatted and the conversation turned to PS2 games and what makes a game difficult versus unfair and so on, which is all (hopefully?) going to be its own post.

Saturday morning the guild did actual FFXIV things, specifically farming for Endwalker mounts (with a side trip to Everkeep EX for wings for one person). We did pretty well. I faceplanted for a couple hours and then went to pick Wiz up from the train, and she and goldmare and book club buddy and I had a nice afternoon and evening chattering and ordering food.

Speaking of food, I am still liking hungryroot; there've been a couple things I wasn't enthused about, but still mostly tasty. I have discovered some new things I hadn't previously had that I really like, and had a couple of things that were really shockingly delicious (I had low expectations, but still.) I am definitely enjoying not having to go to the grocery store.

and that's about all there is to say.

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What Are You Playing (Thursday)

2026-03-26T15:27:51Z

<details><summary>[non-spoiler summary, quest name, or progress mark here]</summary>
[your spoilers go here!]</details>

This is screenreader-friendly spoiler code that works in DW comments.

And now, on with the show!

[sorry, I fell asleep at the ridiculous-for-me hour of 9:30 last night.]

I have had a very productive week, gaming wise. I finished the SMT Nocturne Remaster this weekend (mid-final-dungeon I turned the difficulty down from normal to merciful and WOW) and while I don't think I will replay it and I have some thoughts on dungeon gimmicks, I am satisfied that I conquered one of the oldest things on my backlog.

Speaking of oldest things on backlog, the new record-holder is Eternal Poison, and on Tuesday I got my PS2 set up with the converter that lets it talk to HDMI (mumble-mumble years after I bought it.... let's not talk about that) and therefore started Eternal Poison. It's spooky and good so far! We'll see if it holds my attention. Of course it dangled A Loyal Knight in front of me and I went for it because have you met me.

In ongoing games, I finished getting all my crafters to level 100 in FFXIV, and I'm continuing to tick off side quests and relics and so on, as one does. I made some plot progress in Last Cloudia, although I'm not very engaged with it, but it's an acceptable way to spend a few minutes when there isn't time to get into something more complex.

So that's me. What are you playing or looking forward to?

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life, and reading, and things

2026-03-20T17:33:46Z

I am making a vague effort at remembering to update more regularly than once a month, so let's see how long I can remember that this is my intention [long stare].

Last weekend was very busy; we had FFXIV FC stuff on Friday, namely tackling Voidcast Dais EX. My kitty collection has expanded by one. I can firmly say that at this point in the gear ascension, it's pretty trivial unsynced. I think we managed to farm 5 or 6 total mounts over the course of a couple hours? We had one or two loot-n-scoot strangers, but at least one got her loot and stayed for the whole time, so courtesy isn't totally dead. I seem to have a small amount of energy for things in FFXIV that aren't simply "run one roulette and then log off mostly flat", which is nice. (I was working on leveling crafters yesterday.)

Saturday I was spectacularly productive: I took a handful of old clothes and a couple of small household appliances to Goodwill. I know I'll likely have more to go there, but I'm working on the whole concept of "not letting perfect be the enemy of done." From there, I went to book club buddy's both because she had donuts for me (there had been a special at Do-Rite of "order a half dozen for reduced price" and we like to split that sort of thing--I got strawberry glazed, Seasonal Sprinkles, and chocolate glazed and they were all very very good), and because we had agreed to go to Half-Price Books. Again in the "some is better than none," I went on a substantial rampage through my games, strategy guides, and books, to the tune of about $127 worth of resale (and about two and a half 1ft cube boxes). Unfortunately, I spent my waiting time in the history section, with predictable results....but hey, the nine new books I came home with a) are fewer than I took with me, and b) only cost me about $20 after my sales, lol. Some of them had even been on my Amz wishlist! (An array of Italian Renaissance and medieval England books, mostly about women, plus a couple no-brain fiction.)

"Buying books and reading books are two completely separate hobbies" is a totally true thing, but I have been reading through my collection and my library haul. I had missed book club last month, but I did finish the book this week, which was The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie. It did a lot of interesting things, but I also found it kind of difficult to read, partly because of the interesting things it was doing. The narrative voice in particular was a struggle. I don't usually vibe with second-person, although in this case it was well-done, and it also lent itself to a fascinating degree of separation from the actual protagonist (?), because the narrator could *see* anything but not read minds, sort of thing. I liked it, and I'm glad it is or seems to be a standalone, at the same time, lol.

Also read Sue Lynn Tan's Tales of the Celestial Kingdom, a collection of short stories about various parts of the Daughter of the Moon Goddes/Heart of the Sun Warrior duology. As one might infer from that description, it is basically several short fanfics (with stunning illustrations). Unfortunately it had been long enough since I read the duology that I feel I lost a lot of emotional impact from going "uh....what happened there again?" and that's on me; I probably would have devoured it if I'd read it right after the duology. (I am now back on this bullshit reading Immortal, which I am enjoying.)

Other reading quick hits: Last night I whipped through Alix E. Harrow's A Spindle Splintered, which is of course a Sleeping Beauty retelling. I liked it; it didn't outstay its welcome, it was snarky in places I appreciated, and it clearly knew a lot of different variations of the story. Nice quick read. Otherwise I am back on my bullshit re-reading the Cynster books by Stephanie Laurens, which--like, listen, they have lots of problems, but oh no catnip.

This is all relatively amusing in the face of an email from the Tor newsletter yesterday whose subject line included "How many books do you read at once?" and as I immediately complained to book club buddy, "Right in front of my ~~salad~~ Popeye's???" The answer to that question depends on a few definitions, like whether we count fanfic over 20K words (for purposes of this, yes) and gaming books (also yes), and how long a break one has to be on for the book to still count as being read, but usually the answer is somewhere between 4 and 8 for me. (At least one per e-reader, which is already 3, sometimes an extra one on my phone, definitely a gaming book on my iPad, and usually also a dead-tree gaming book and one to two dead-tree other books.)

Anyway, Saturday's productivity was highly suspicious; also that day I did a ton of laundry and the dishes and some writing-adjacent stuff, cleared the fridge, got recycling and trash down and all of the miscellaneous loose clean things back where they belonged....and usually that degree of Getting Shit Done is a migraine precursor, which it did of course turn out to be. I thought I had escaped Sunday morning, and then not long after noon whooooops there we go. (I did at least get the stuff done, though.)

I did manage to behave myself in the face of spring sales for video games (for now.....), partly because I am enjoying the fact that I am making progress on the backlog. I'm still waiting to hear back about the new apartment and have submitted various paperwork (and, timely, my credit score has recovered from Divorce Things aka having had to carry a balance on my card, which is a huge relief.) My divorce present to myself was a new laptop (conveniently, Apple released the new line of MacBook Pro options about the same time I got my settlement check, and yes, it is so fucking shiny and goes SO fast. I'm very pleased.)

Writing progress....not so much; I have three projects allegedly on the go, and I'm not really making progress on them, though I do keep jotting down thoughts I've had in my notes app in hopes that I will use them sometime soon. I also want to get back to paper journaling, but ugh, so very tired.

And now I should probably do the things I get paid for instead of fucking around, lol.

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What Are You Playing Wednesday

2026-03-19T02:58:31Z

<details><summary>[non-spoiler summary, quest name, or progress mark here]</summary>
[your spoilers go here!]</details>

This is screenreader-friendly spoiler code that works in DW comments.

And now, on with the show!

I did quite a bit more reading than gaming this week, but I did get past the fight that was annoying me in SMT Nocturne and am now in the final dungeon. At which point I am basically committed come hell or high water, lol. We'll see.

Otherwise, I've been playing more FFXIV than I had in a while, just kind of bouncing around cleaning up Dawntrail side quests. I'm nearly done with that, which is nice, because now they aren't sitting on the map taunting me.

I've got a quiet weekend coming up, so I'm hoping to finish Nocturne and then see what appeals from The Pile. There are so many good options!

So that's me. What are you playing or looking forward to?

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various and sundry

2026-03-13T02:05:40Z

Mom update: Mom finished her antibiotics and took the train home, where my godfather picked her up and now my aunt is visiting for a while to keep an eye on her. So that is, I suppose, going as well as it was going to at this point. I think she saw her regular doctor yesterday; I'll call tomorrow and find out.

I pretty much got back from taking her to the train and faceplanted; I spent most of last weekend either asleep or staring into space when I wasn't playing video games, which is perfectly fine honestly.

This week I meant to be back at work as normal except for the part where it was 71 degrees on Monday and then 40 on Tuesday, with extremely predictable results for me (three day migraine and completely fucked sleep schedule). I did get back into the office on Wednesday and am at least making some small amount of progress on things. I would like to have more focus, but I'm working on it.

Tonight I tried a new experience: there is a place that offers various scalp-related spa treatment things, and I was like, well, why not. So I went, and overall it was a pretty pleasant experience; I'm not sure if any of the various goops and things that were applied to my hair will accomplish literally anything, but I did get about an hour's worth of various pleasing textures rubbing against my scalp, which was nice. So that was neat.

I also have started the process of acquiring a new apartment, mostly so I can just get All The Shit done and out of my way. (Therapist: you know life doesn't really stop though? I mean, yeah, but then I will not have indeterminate period of time waiting and apartment hunting and moving hanging over my head, I can settle into the place I plan to be for the next few years at least.)

Also in therapy today: okay, what are the goals now? One thing I want to work on is getting back to writing more regularly; I know there's a lot of tangled messes that go into that in addition to the logistics hell of having ideas, energy, and opportunity all at the same time, but I did promise to do some focusing this weekend on what, exactly, is getting in the way besides the energy problem. I feel kinda stuck on all three of my current projects and it's very much "I am in the '????? Profit!' stage and not sure where to go." I have an idea of where the stories go but there's a whole section of the map erased between me and that. ugh.

I guess the only other thing of note is that I am trying out (another) meal kit service - this time, Hungryroot, which is a mix of meal kits, ready-to-eat or heat-and-eat, and snacky things. The variety will hopefully be of assistance. So far it's been very tasty and not too dire on the effort front, and also, I keep reminding myself that if it helps for a few weeks and then doesn't, that's okay. I am allowed to have things not be permanent!

anyway state of the me: tired.

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What Are You Playing Wednesday

2026-03-12T01:52:35Z

<details><summary>[non-spoiler summary, quest name, or progress mark here]</summary>
[your spoilers go here!]</details>

This is screenreader-friendly spoiler code that works in DW comments.

And now, on with the show!

I did in fact finish Baldur's Gate 3 over the weekend, and I have an incoherent morass of notes about it waiting for me to have brain to assemble them, so uh, coming to a DW near you on the 24th of Maybe. Overall: I liked the story and the characters, I am still not really much into D&D and triple especially not combat. But I had fun and would probably play it again (appropriately modded.) Am I willing to go near anything in the fandom not written nor personally recced by someone I trust? ...unsure.

Having finished with that, I've been alternating between getting my ass kicked by SMT Nocturne and soothing my brain with Picross S6. I am at the point in Nocturne (on my way to the Diet building) where I am no longer sure I'm having fun but also I know I'm relatively close to the end and sunk cost fallacy is a bastard. Given the very annoying fight I just lost, though, "not actually having fun" may win. On the other hand I've not slept properly in several days so these are decisions we reconsider when not actually exhausted and cranky.

So that's me. What are you playing or looking forward to?

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What Are You Playing (Thursday)

2026-03-05T20:28:50Z

<details><summary>[non-spoiler summary, quest name, or progress mark here]</summary>
[your spoilers go here!]</details>

This is screenreader-friendly spoiler code that works in DW comments.

And now, on with the show!

I'm sorry I know it's Thursday now I just don't know what day it is too much of the time ANYWAY you're not here for that you're here for games. Right.

Again very little gaming this week other than daily check-ins for mobile games, but thesecondbatgirl did graciously invite me to play the new variant dungeon for her group; we got through two routes and I had fun despite the amount of face-down time I had, lol. I was on healer and it really felt like I was doing no damage at all because I was too busy yelling "AAAAAAAAAA ~~MOTHERLAND~~ MECHANICS", but we eventually succeeded!

I bulldozed the Live-A-Live crossover story and hunts last night in Octopath: COTC and had fun with it. I am now perhaps eyeing Live-A-Live, not that I need to with my existing backlog.

Regardless, I'm planning to finish BG3 this weekend.

So that's me. What are you playing or looking forward to?

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