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Life has been unkind...
Oct. 15th, 2025 04:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
victoria_strangeloveI posted something in the "salt forum" of a Discord server related to BG3 fanfiction writing that I'd like to add over here. There were a few things I needed to get off my chest and it did help. So here it goes again:
Please stop telling me I'm suffering so others don't have to.
CW: Talk of pet death, terminal illness, mental illness, chronic illness, strange religious worldviews, loneliness.
I'm about to rant about how messed up my life has been off and on, including recently, and how weird people have been about it.
I don't understand where people get such ideas about life. And far as I know, this isn't even a Biblical belief but a few times now when I've felt the weight of the world, the horrific things I've seen with my own eyes and experienced for myself, and the losses I've endured I have been told: "It's because you're so strong." -or- "It's so others don't have to suffer in your place. You don't want others to suffer, right?"
Of course, not!
But that is not how pain and misery works. There is not some supernatural system in place, far as I know, in most any worldview, where misery is some sort of fixed amount that has to be distributed among human beings and more suffering given to people who can for whatever reason deal with more.
And I seem to get it the most from people in my family's Christian faith. And it's almost always from people who are not dealing with, or have never dealt with the kinds of things I have.
It's also not comforting in the slightest. If it's random because the world is often a dark and messed up place, at least you know you've done nothing wrong and no supernatural force has you cursed or targeted. But this philosophy people like to dump on me and others who have suffered can add another layer of hopelessness to it all. It's not just that the world is cruel...it's that we're doomed to suffer more than others because we're...strong?
No, fuck that.
Not to mention the fact that I don't feel strong right now. I have no friends right now offline. I thought I had one, but have had to accept I don't. No partner either and I haven't had one in some time. I'm disabled and unemployed due to PTSD of all things (diagnosed) and it's difficult to treat right now. There is an oncoming death in the family. It could be hours it could be a couple of months they think. My parents just lost their dog. Their dog, but I live with them so she may as well have been my dog too. She also passed during my watch. That was hard. I have chronic illnesses that have flared due to recent stress. Another nasty incident happened today that I'd rather not elaborate on.
I'm just very tired.
I also have to try not to get too bitter and remember some positives. While trying to make friends online and within this fandom in the past several months has had some ups and downs I've so far met some pretty awesome people and made some good friends. I'm enjoying playing this game and writing my fanfiction, and writing the way I prefer to write: gritty, raw, angsty, heavy, but with moments of positivity and humor to cut the darkness.
My relationship with my mom healed in ways this past year that I didn't expect. I have an online friend of ten years beta reading for me and just spoiled me with some awesome gifted green apple oolong tea I'm sipping now.
I have a cat annoying me while I'm trying to type this and I love her. In just over a month I will have surgery that should finally cure an ailment that has plagued me since puberty (and curing it will help therapy treat my PTSD much more easily). My hoyas are also thriving.
So...it's not all bad. But it's still hard. I really hope things do ease up.
To anyone who took the time to read this long shout into the void, thank you.
(no subject)
Oct. 13th, 2025 09:45 pmyuuago+ Long weekend. Had dinner with parents. Did a lot of faffing around aside from that. I feel like I didn't really do much aside from sleep and watch movies.
+ Some people invited me out to a thing, then cancelled but forgot to inform me. I didn't find out until the afternoon on the day it was going to happen, when I sent a text to check on the time (though luckily with enough notice that it wasn't a big deal). I'm still kind of annoyed about it. Like, on the one hand, I didn't really want to go to this thing anyway. On the other hand... dude, seriously? They want to reschedule, but I'm 50/50 on whether I'll decline.
+ Watched Akira Kurosawa's Dreams. Beautiful film, but very very artsy. It's an anthology of eight vignettes or "dreams", each inspired by an actual recurring dream Kurosawa had. Some are more fantastical than others. I'm glad that I took the time to watch it, but I'm also very glad that it was not my first Akira Kurosawa film - I don't think it would have been a good introduction to his work. Very recommended for Art Film enthusiasts though.
+ [Hetalia] Came across someone grumbling about the prevalence of SE/FI and the lack of other FI pairs, and on the one hand yeah I feel that, but on the other hand they were going on about how they've never seen work with other FI pairs except as a joke, and I'm like - hold on. Excuse me. Dude, you haven't been looking. Sure, there isn't a lot, but I've never seen a NO/FI or EE/FI shipper who wasn't 100% earnest and enthusiastic. There aren't a lot of fanworks out there, but there are some, and a lot of them are quite nice. Pairings other than those two are much fewer, but every so often something unexpected turns up. You just have to go looking, man. Or make your own. ...Anyway, it did remind me of a No/Fi story I've had notes for that I never did get around to writing. Maybe I'll try to write it when I'm on vacation in November. Not that I'll be sharing it with that asshole, but I do like the idea and it'd be nice to get it on paper.
+ Some people invited me out to a thing, then cancelled but forgot to inform me. I didn't find out until the afternoon on the day it was going to happen, when I sent a text to check on the time (though luckily with enough notice that it wasn't a big deal). I'm still kind of annoyed about it. Like, on the one hand, I didn't really want to go to this thing anyway. On the other hand... dude, seriously? They want to reschedule, but I'm 50/50 on whether I'll decline.
+ Watched Akira Kurosawa's Dreams. Beautiful film, but very very artsy. It's an anthology of eight vignettes or "dreams", each inspired by an actual recurring dream Kurosawa had. Some are more fantastical than others. I'm glad that I took the time to watch it, but I'm also very glad that it was not my first Akira Kurosawa film - I don't think it would have been a good introduction to his work. Very recommended for Art Film enthusiasts though.
+ [Hetalia] Came across someone grumbling about the prevalence of SE/FI and the lack of other FI pairs, and on the one hand yeah I feel that, but on the other hand they were going on about how they've never seen work with other FI pairs except as a joke, and I'm like - hold on. Excuse me. Dude, you haven't been looking. Sure, there isn't a lot, but I've never seen a NO/FI or EE/FI shipper who wasn't 100% earnest and enthusiastic. There aren't a lot of fanworks out there, but there are some, and a lot of them are quite nice. Pairings other than those two are much fewer, but every so often something unexpected turns up. You just have to go looking, man. Or make your own. ...Anyway, it did remind me of a No/Fi story I've had notes for that I never did get around to writing. Maybe I'll try to write it when I'm on vacation in November. Not that I'll be sharing it with that asshole, but I do like the idea and it'd be nice to get it on paper.
I hoped my body would pass out after being up since before midday, I was wrong
Oct. 14th, 2025 04:01 amrequiemsFurniture day was today! 2x2 kallax is in, filled it back up with my art books and some smaller figures and pokemon terrarium's in front, and blankets on one side of the bottom. Gotta decide what I'm doing with the other half once I get a box emptied for it; the style I like and was going with got discontinued and they had some left in a different design, so I'm using those for underbed storage (it's all figure boxes lmao). For the time being I put a framed picture on top and a vase of artificial lilac, since it's wider and slightly taller than the old one. I'll have to get used to it since I put my drink on top of it.
Dad also made the 2x1. It's sat on my four high malm in my bedroom and I'm having major buyer's remorse over it right now, which I'm having to remind myself that it feeling too tall will either fade after a few days of getting used to it (this happened with the 4x3 kallax) or if I still don't like it, it can go into the other bedroom on the desk when I... eventually get back into there. Next is a Billy bookcase sideboard and we should be done, plus extra shelves for my Billys that are display cabinets in my bedroom once those come back into stock. Which means I'm now inevitably considering rearranging the other bedroom a bit once I get back in there...
( making the room usable instead of storage only )
In other news I want to do shrine challenge (community building!!) but the bad months will wipe me off the face of the planet, and I should?? Write?? Next month?? And goodness knows I can't commit to timed things with my body as it is with regard to food, which is to say next month's eighteen yearly thing may be a bust as is. But I want to. 💔
Dad also made the 2x1. It's sat on my four high malm in my bedroom and I'm having major buyer's remorse over it right now, which I'm having to remind myself that it feeling too tall will either fade after a few days of getting used to it (this happened with the 4x3 kallax) or if I still don't like it, it can go into the other bedroom on the desk when I... eventually get back into there. Next is a Billy bookcase sideboard and we should be done, plus extra shelves for my Billys that are display cabinets in my bedroom once those come back into stock. Which means I'm now inevitably considering rearranging the other bedroom a bit once I get back in there...
( making the room usable instead of storage only )
In other news I want to do shrine challenge (community building!!) but the bad months will wipe me off the face of the planet, and I should?? Write?? Next month?? And goodness knows I can't commit to timed things with my body as it is with regard to food, which is to say next month's eighteen yearly thing may be a bust as is. But I want to. 💔
Hetty Wainthropp | Hetty Wainthropp Investigates
Oct. 13th, 2025 09:31 amparhelicon |
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Icon table generated by Chlor's Icon Table Generator
(no subject)
Oct. 11th, 2025 09:25 pmyuuagoI have two skeins of Malabrigo Mechita that I have no idea what to do with. I did have something in mind when I bought them, but now I have no idea what it was. At one point I started making a scarf in a pattern I've done before, but today I changed my mind and unravelled the thing. Anyway, it's definitely enough for both a scarf and a hat, and there's no end to nice fingering-weight patterns out there, so I'm sure I'll find something nice. ...Too many options, really. Maybe I'll limit my search to my existing pattern library. (Or suggestions.)
I'm also sitting on enough worsted weight yarn to make a blanket. Maybe I could do that. Or I could make some socks with one of the random skeins I have hanging around. Or... Or most likely I will do none of the above. :Va
Today was weird. I forgot to turn off my alarm, so I woke up at 6:30 as usual. Judo was cancelled, so I could relax a little instead of rushing around. I ended up watching a movie while unravelling that scarf. ...Then I spent most of the rest of the day faffing around when I should have been doing chores, but, well, anyway.
I'm also sitting on enough worsted weight yarn to make a blanket. Maybe I could do that. Or I could make some socks with one of the random skeins I have hanging around. Or... Or most likely I will do none of the above. :Va
Today was weird. I forgot to turn off my alarm, so I woke up at 6:30 as usual. Judo was cancelled, so I could relax a little instead of rushing around. I ended up watching a movie while unravelling that scarf. ...Then I spent most of the rest of the day faffing around when I should have been doing chores, but, well, anyway.
Kida | Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Oct. 11th, 2025 10:34 amparhelicon |
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Icon table generated by Chlor's Icon Table Generator
i would like to thank Pinterest for eating shit
Oct. 10th, 2025 12:06 pmdoodlemancythis is not a paid post. but it could be, eagle dot cool team, if you're reading this. hit me up. hello. wink wonk.
so Pinterest did a big fucky-wucky earlier this year, which seems to be ongoing, and i didn't really like using it for my reference boards anyway. it was the best thing i had but i am always antsy about anything that depends on Being Online or Being Beholden To Someone Else's TOS. it's a sandcastle on someone else's beach. refern was a nice alternative that i tried out, but a major UI change 2 weeks into using it put me off, and then uh, it died. which is a tragedy-- it was really nice even if i didn't love the update.
cool stuff you can do with eagle
what i've always wanted is basically a local booru system, a la Zerochan and its bretheren. that is pretty much what eagle.cool is. you drop in your files and you can create a tag system basically any way you like. and in addition to images it can organize:
some of these things require you to download some of its extensions, which is done in-app and is super easy.
you can create individual reference libraries for different subjects. you can folder and subfolder. you can organize your tags by folders and color-code them. you can search by color (and all sorts of other things). you can even import your pinterest straight into it, which would have been nice if i'd noticed up-front because i did that the wfdownloader way and it was a lot messier LMAO.
it also comes with a browser extension so you can right-click and save things directly to Eagle, AND easily mass-yoink images from a page. and it saves sources automatically. S'BEAUTIFUL.
it is not free software, but it is a one time purchase, a rare and beautiful and reasonably priced thing these days. (free alternative later in this post.) it is probably the best 35 bucks i've spent this year. i've put a lot of hours into organizing and tagging my collection of reference images and stock photos and so on and it's so nice. it's so nice to be able to put custom thumbnails on fonts and actually be able to see them in their natural environment instead of squint at Windows' font viewer and try to mentally project how something will look in CSP. it's SOOOOOOOO nice to be struggling with drawing a thing and then search my tag for that thing and find the ref image i need without a bunch of hunt-and-peck through my old reference folders (which windows refuses to generate thumbnails for lmfao GOD).
at this point im pretty much using Eagle exclusively as the way that i access images on my hard drive. windows photo viewer? isn't that the bitch who sometimes takes entire minutes to open a single image for no reason? yeah haha i don't really know her. file explorer? more like file exploder. exploding with farts. because it's ass. in comparison to Eagle.
potential caveats...
Allusion is a visual library manager that integrates with my beloved PureRef. it doesn't have as many features, but it does allow you to create a tagged, browse-able image library. it also pulls things from the folders on your hard drive rather than creating its own separate library with copies.
so Pinterest did a big fucky-wucky earlier this year, which seems to be ongoing, and i didn't really like using it for my reference boards anyway. it was the best thing i had but i am always antsy about anything that depends on Being Online or Being Beholden To Someone Else's TOS. it's a sandcastle on someone else's beach. refern was a nice alternative that i tried out, but a major UI change 2 weeks into using it put me off, and then uh, it died. which is a tragedy-- it was really nice even if i didn't love the update.
cool stuff you can do with eagle
what i've always wanted is basically a local booru system, a la Zerochan and its bretheren. that is pretty much what eagle.cool is. you drop in your files and you can create a tag system basically any way you like. and in addition to images it can organize:
- videos
- fonts
- sound files
- svgs
- 3d objects
some of these things require you to download some of its extensions, which is done in-app and is super easy.
you can create individual reference libraries for different subjects. you can folder and subfolder. you can organize your tags by folders and color-code them. you can search by color (and all sorts of other things). you can even import your pinterest straight into it, which would have been nice if i'd noticed up-front because i did that the wfdownloader way and it was a lot messier LMAO.
it also comes with a browser extension so you can right-click and save things directly to Eagle, AND easily mass-yoink images from a page. and it saves sources automatically. S'BEAUTIFUL.
it is not free software, but it is a one time purchase, a rare and beautiful and reasonably priced thing these days. (free alternative later in this post.) it is probably the best 35 bucks i've spent this year. i've put a lot of hours into organizing and tagging my collection of reference images and stock photos and so on and it's so nice. it's so nice to be able to put custom thumbnails on fonts and actually be able to see them in their natural environment instead of squint at Windows' font viewer and try to mentally project how something will look in CSP. it's SOOOOOOOO nice to be struggling with drawing a thing and then search my tag for that thing and find the ref image i need without a bunch of hunt-and-peck through my old reference folders (which windows refuses to generate thumbnails for lmfao GOD).
at this point im pretty much using Eagle exclusively as the way that i access images on my hard drive. windows photo viewer? isn't that the bitch who sometimes takes entire minutes to open a single image for no reason? yeah haha i don't really know her. file explorer? more like file exploder. exploding with farts. because it's ass. in comparison to Eagle.
potential caveats...
- technically there are "AI tools" (🙄🖕) but they are plug-ins/add-ons that are not preinstalled and that you do not have to use. the software will never pester you about AI crap; you don't even have to have it visible in your GUI. on the grand scale of software companies participating in The Great Shill, they are, frankly, doing a pretty poor job of shilling given that i didn't notice they were there until after purchase LOL. they'll be fine when the bubble pops.
- Eagle makes its own library in its own folder, so it does store an extra copy of everything. BUT: you can export things again really easily. so if you end up having to delete the original folders to save space, it's relatively simple to just have Eagle spit all that stuff back out if you need to. also, syncing Eagle across devices with a cloud service works like a charm.
- no mobile option as far as i can tell. desktop only. idc, im old
- now when i do actually have to "open a folder" and "locate a file" in file explorer i feel like i have been teleported back to the middle ages and i am stepping around horse poop in the street
Allusion is a visual library manager that integrates with my beloved PureRef. it doesn't have as many features, but it does allow you to create a tagged, browse-able image library. it also pulls things from the folders on your hard drive rather than creating its own separate library with copies.
el stadio (I'm running out of interesting stadium titles for entries)
Oct. 9th, 2025 04:48 amrequiems
hella.
I'm also all star 1 in DPS - me and duo pivoted to me dps, her support, because support this season is so unimpactful to play on its own. My D.Va win rate is 57%; Ashe, 61%, since she'll easily dominate if dynamite build goes uncontested, and Mei, who really only works if you're playing with someone else because you don't have high damage output yourself you set up plays and hold space, 59%. Supports? All sub 50%. Brigitte and Juno are at 39% or lower, and for Brigitte that's tragic, my winrate with her in standard gameplay is 65%. I can literally do everything right on support... but still lose. I can have double the healing of everyone else in the lobby, and more damage than both my dps... but it's my fault for not healing, supposedly. My overall wins to loss ratio is almost even because of all the freakin' support failures, but it's in all star at least. Drives start tomorrow as the season is two weeks shorter than normal, so we'll see how we go.
Uh what else. My right leg hurts like hell after groceries yesterday, actual cement vibes, so that'll take five days or so to calm down probably. I partly blame the numerous times I had to climb on a chair to replace kitchen lightbulbs that were not cool white as described but warm yellow and way too bright for my sensitive eyes.
( Furniture stuff )
Kaesumi made it to HW and has AST to 50, so she may be done for the time being (unless I decide I want to manually trek her to The Churning Mists...); Faye got to 80, so I likewise picked up picto and beat Ramuh in about twenty seconds. Truly, doing patches solo made it so much simpler on Kaesumi as I didn't have to pause or queue or get tired out from the extra time. I managed to do from shiva to the start of HW in under an hour, and the majority of that went to steps of faith, which is a fifteen minute duty no matter what, but unlike say, new Cape Westwind, it actually feels progressive instead of hitting a wall of HP multiple times, so I don't mind doing it. And Lucia gets to be a badass. Mél is a ways behind (she's lv73) but she should hopefully get to 80 this week.
Still a bit off kilter mentally from fic stuff but time is working its magic and I wrote out most of my remaining feelings on the matter to give myself some closure, which helped. Sometimes I still get very anxious and distressed about it, but maybe next week I can engage with my favourite girls in the world again.
(no subject)
Oct. 8th, 2025 11:11 amepicureanToo much negativity so lets be Ms Positivity!
Uh. I don't know. Good stuff happened today? I'm moving on from stuff so I think that's good. Moving on. Moving forward. At least I'm moving.
Uh. I don't know. Good stuff happened today? I'm moving on from stuff so I think that's good. Moving on. Moving forward. At least I'm moving.
101 ☆
Oct. 8th, 2025 12:23 amtinkatonA fic meme yoinked from sushiflop!
Rules: How many letters of the alphabet have you used for [starting] a fic title? One fic per line, ‘A’ and 'The’ do not count for 'a’ and ’t’. Post your score out of 26 at the end, along with your total fic count.
( all this shows is that I single-handedly was keeping the pepperhony tag afloat )
Here's the meme if anyone wants to do it:
sushiflop!Rules: How many letters of the alphabet have you used for [starting] a fic title? One fic per line, ‘A’ and 'The’ do not count for 'a’ and ’t’. Post your score out of 26 at the end, along with your total fic count.
( all this shows is that I single-handedly was keeping the pepperhony tag afloat )
Here's the meme if anyone wants to do it:
Amperslash Exchange Letter
Oct. 7th, 2025 05:42 pm22degreehaloI love love love the concept for this exchange: blurring the lines between relationships and letting things just hang (temporarily or permanently) in this ill-defined middle is one of my very favourite things to do to my ships!! <3
Here’s a list of some takes on this dynamic that I really love to see:
( I'm so excited!!! I've been waiting months since I found out about this exchange <3 )
And here's my general fandom exchange letter for general likes/dislikes! <3
Here’s a list of some takes on this dynamic that I really love to see:
( I'm so excited!!! I've been waiting months since I found out about this exchange <3 )
And here's my general fandom exchange letter for general likes/dislikes! <3
ekko & ahri ( league of legends )
Oct. 7th, 2025 04:49 pmvaporwaving
[ 52 ] ekko & ahri ( 'ties that bind' 2XK0 cinematic )
[ 28 ] ekko
[ 24 ] ahri
( I tried so hard to be your savior, unraveling the hands of time )
1-5my 3 favorite tools for making windows less dogshit
Oct. 5th, 2025 11:54 amdoodlemancya couple of things up front:
1. Open Shell
previously known as Classic Shell, Open Shell lets you return to a time when the Windows taskbar and start menu were designed with usability in mind instead of whatever the fuck happened in 2012. you can use it to make your current Windows GUI look and function more like pre-8 versions of Windows. it also adds a ton of handy functionality by letting you create custom submenus (i have one where i can easily launch all my gamedev stuff, one for emulators, one for my stream setup, etc. it's really neat!). you can also have a custom start button and stuff. there's lot's of customizing to be done! GET IT HERE.
originally ShutUpWindows10, it also supports 11. ShutUpWindows provides a large number of switches to turn off garbage. most importantly, you can use it to kill Copilot and Recall. there's a lot of stuff you can do with it that you technically can already do in Windows, but it provides a centralized location for all those little switches, and it's an easier way to make sure Windows continues to respect your preferences. you might have to occasionally open it and run it again after updates. GET IT HERE.
when using these tools, remember that they can and will sometimes interfere with stuff and keep that in mind when you're troubleshooting anything. also: be mindful of all the settings! especially ShutUpWindows-- don't just go with the recommended settings, comb through and know what you are turning on or off. the point of all of this software is to take back control over your PC, so don't let anyone make these choices for you.
- i'm not personally on Windows 11 yet but all of these tools work for 11.
- this is not an invitation to badger me about linux. linux is fine but it is not viable for me. if you want to pay your own travel fare to come to my house and set up all of my extremely finicky peripherals and software with it, for free, sure, give me a time and date, i'd fuckin love to see you try.
- don't badger me about security either lol. we all have to make our own risk assessments with this stuff and i've made mine; i stay a little behind specifically so that i don't get hit with updates that break things i need, waste my time, shove more AI trash in my face and potentially cost me money. immediately and unthinkingly saying yes to every update is how you lose your hard drive.
1. Open Shell
previously known as Classic Shell, Open Shell lets you return to a time when the Windows taskbar and start menu were designed with usability in mind instead of whatever the fuck happened in 2012. you can use it to make your current Windows GUI look and function more like pre-8 versions of Windows. it also adds a ton of handy functionality by letting you create custom submenus (i have one where i can easily launch all my gamedev stuff, one for emulators, one for my stream setup, etc. it's really neat!). you can also have a custom start button and stuff. there's lot's of customizing to be done! GET IT HERE.
2. Windows Update Blocker
i have negative tolerance for forced updates that randomly make my tablet unusable or keep me waiting around all fucking day when i have SHIT I'M TRYING TO DO. this lets me update on my own time, on my own terms, after thoroughly checking to make sure that the latest update isn't a brick-maker. be aware that the first time you run it, if there's an update in the queue it will probably still manage to install itself and you'll have to turn on WUB again after the restart-- but after that, you can live in peace. the other caveat here is you won't be able to download anything from Microsoft (ex. if you want to get something like PowerTools or whatever from the Microsoft Store, you'll have to turn off WUB temporarily). GET IT HERE. (and if you like it, you can donate to the developer!)
originally ShutUpWindows10, it also supports 11. ShutUpWindows provides a large number of switches to turn off garbage. most importantly, you can use it to kill Copilot and Recall. there's a lot of stuff you can do with it that you technically can already do in Windows, but it provides a centralized location for all those little switches, and it's an easier way to make sure Windows continues to respect your preferences. you might have to occasionally open it and run it again after updates. GET IT HERE.
when using these tools, remember that they can and will sometimes interfere with stuff and keep that in mind when you're troubleshooting anything. also: be mindful of all the settings! especially ShutUpWindows-- don't just go with the recommended settings, comb through and know what you are turning on or off. the point of all of this software is to take back control over your PC, so don't let anyone make these choices for you.
(no subject)
Oct. 5th, 2025 01:34 amrarsneezesferalphoenix undertale fic recs
feral is a good friend of mine and one of my favorite writers and when i say their prose has shaped me i Mean It
deadass i rec her whole body of work but here are the standouts / my favorites / the big ones / etc
notes:
- in later fic writes Frisk and Chara as very jewish due to being jewish themself
- has very fun thoughts on gender in Monster Culture
- Formative Bodysharing Prose
- Chara is not a bad person for having hateful thoughts, and that's important
- writes with headcanons that Frisk and Chara both climbed the mountain due to abusive and/or neglectful parents (or in Chara's case, a whole damn community)
- both Chara and Frisk have tried suicide
- feral voice "wow so it turns out death by buttercup poisoning is PRETTY GRUESOME so let's dig into that, shall we?"
- Chara's humor is pretty grim, but that's just canon (you make a joke about two kids playing in the soil)
- there is some codependence going on with Chara/Asriel but let's be real here. that's also just canon.
ONESHOTS.
(in absence of) a comfortable rhythm - 512 words
the place I stop and you begin - 1,725 words
bon courage - 4,150 words
but.... my actual favorite of the two.... is:
their words become metallic spangles shivering the air. - 12,436 words
joy of your desiring - 3,323 words
SERIES
you can only use your own - 305k words
my favorite in this series is probably somebody out there needs you.... prase i like them... also chara pov is always so tastey
though a wish you tell a star and no one else is also so great... i love asriel and alphys friendship so much....
we were faster on our feet - 42k words
of them, a hundred roots silently drinking is easily my favorite, but the one about sukkot is really cute, too, (warnings in that one for bad therapists mentioned offhand)
a heart is no king's throne - 34k words
i like the fics for snowdin and for waterfall quite a lot.... there are bits in both i rotate and rotate and rotate in my head a bunch
ADULT/NSFW
-tba
-add color bleeds idek that that isn't an undertale fic, like, it's just a good discussion of being trans re: sex from one boy who has medically transitioned and one who has not. technically has massive spoilers for yggdra union but not in a way that's easy to parse without the context, i think,
feral is a good friend of mine and one of my favorite writers and when i say their prose has shaped me i Mean It
deadass i rec her whole body of work but here are the standouts / my favorites / the big ones / etc
notes:
- in later fic writes Frisk and Chara as very jewish due to being jewish themself
- has very fun thoughts on gender in Monster Culture
- Formative Bodysharing Prose
- Chara is not a bad person for having hateful thoughts, and that's important
general content warnings:
- writes with headcanons that Frisk and Chara both climbed the mountain due to abusive and/or neglectful parents (or in Chara's case, a whole damn community)
- both Chara and Frisk have tried suicide
- feral voice "wow so it turns out death by buttercup poisoning is PRETTY GRUESOME so let's dig into that, shall we?"
- Chara's humor is pretty grim, but that's just canon (you make a joke about two kids playing in the soil)
- there is some codependence going on with Chara/Asriel but let's be real here. that's also just canon.
ONESHOTS.
(in absence of) a comfortable rhythm - 512 words
In which a boss fight is probably not the best time to worry yourself sick over your backseat driver's uncharacteristic radio silence.some extremely formative bodysharing prose for this specific rar. great frisk&chara, mad dummy is there, knives,
the place I stop and you begin - 1,725 words
Chara & Frisk, MORE formative bodysharing prose for this specific rar. bonding over being self-harming kids..."It has already been used several times."
- Info text for the Bandage
bon courage - 4,150 words
From the outside, the rain shelter looks so small—nowhere near as big and lonely as it felt the first day you sat there. You take a deep breath and try to avoid the sinking feeling of weight settling over your whole body. It’s only been a few days. You have food and everything. It’s going to be fine.this is a HUGEEEEE crowd favorite, it's "what if Frisk said they had somewhere else to be at the end, but they didn't, actually", and it's pretty damn good
(But nobody came.)
but.... my actual favorite of the two.... is:
their words become metallic spangles shivering the air. - 12,436 words
the alternative version, in which Frisk agrees to stay with Toriel, but actually did have parents who would miss them. this is just such a doubling down. great discussion of why Frisk misses their parents even though their parents suck. great exploration of being intersex, and nonbinary, and inter-cultural, and how being Japanese/Korean in a white town can suck, and how being in diaspora can suck, and. It's just good.I’m not one of you squeaks the shattered sapling, blackened by lightning. (...)
The B-side to an old crowd favorite.
Will I forget the way home? the third blurts.
- Amy Gerstler, "Bon Courage"
joy of your desiring - 3,323 words
a fun little fic about very jewish chara and frisk being exasperated by christmas... and in general fun frisk/chara/asriel being silly 20 somethings... all i want is to see them alive and thriving....It's winter holiday season, which to two thirds of the Dreemurr household usually signifies suffering. Thankfully, this year Frisk has a brilliant plan.
SERIES
you can only use your own - 305k words
Asriel convinces Chara to live, and then we cover their lives for the next 30 or so years as we introduce the other fallen humans... great stuff. listing it first partly because feral reuses these fallen human designs for all their other fics, mostly in references, but not necessarily required reading for them. just to know!You cannot use someone else’s fire; you can only use your own. And in order to do that, you must first be willing to believe you have it.
Or: Snapshots from a world where Chara and Asriel lived.
- Audre Lorde
my favorite in this series is probably somebody out there needs you.... prase i like them... also chara pov is always so tastey
though a wish you tell a star and no one else is also so great... i love asriel and alphys friendship so much....
we were faster on our feet - 42k words
A scrapbook of Frisk, Chara, and Asriel's postcanon teen years, told in holidays.series of postcanon fics told through the three kids celebrating Jewish holidays
of them, a hundred roots silently drinking is easily my favorite, but the one about sukkot is really cute, too, (warnings in that one for bad therapists mentioned offhand)
a heart is no king's throne - 34k words
Sharing a body and a soul also means sharing a mind; sharing a mind means no privacy, no boundaries, nowhere to escape even if you need time to yourself, means memories and emotions spilling over and no way to control it.the game (true pacifist) retold through a handful of oneshots exploring bodysharing, trauma, feral's headcanons for the kids' mental health etc; ""canon"" events for what leads up to we were faster on our feet, eventually explains the "how we managed to each get our own bodies again all normal anyway" bit but also just... idk. it's good. i love feral's iterations of the kids haha.
This by itself is a situation that's very much beyond a couple of fucked-up ten-year-olds' capacity to navigate in any sort of healthy manner, let alone while they're both trying to serve in the role of plucky rpg hero, so it's very lucky for them that they've got a kind player to help steer them.
i like the fics for snowdin and for waterfall quite a lot.... there are bits in both i rotate and rotate and rotate in my head a bunch
ADULT/NSFW
-tba
-add color bleeds idek that that isn't an undertale fic, like, it's just a good discussion of being trans re: sex from one boy who has medically transitioned and one who has not. technically has massive spoilers for yggdra union but not in a way that's easy to parse without the context, i think,
Stuff I've Been Reading Lately
Oct. 3rd, 2025 10:25 pmyuuagoStuff I've been reading recently:
+ The Miss Clara Vale Mysteries series by Fiona Veitch Smith (The Picture House Murders, The Pantomime Murders, The Pyramid Murders and The Penford Manor Murders). A light and fun series set in late '20s and early '30s in northern England. It's a series where the time period is very much a part of the story - everything from societal attitudes, the role of class and servants, and the use of ~cutting-edge technology~ to solve cases. Plus, the protagonist is very fun. I also appreciate that the author notes discuss research that was done and details where the reality was stretched a bit to fit the plot. Would recommend for light reading.
+ Authority by Jeff Vandermeer. Second book in the Southern Reach trilogy. My feeling on this series is kind of weird, because I'm not into it per se, I don't like it exactly, but there is something very compelling about it and I'll probably end up reading the third novel eventually. Authority lacks the "survival in a hostile landscape" aspect that Annihilation had, unless you want to get metaphorical with it. What it does have is lots of questions about What Is Going On, some investigative aspects etc. I read this one for a "SciFi Horror" challenge, and it definitely fits the bill.
+ My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones. A slasher fan finds herself in the middle of a slasher plot! I remember seeing reviews of this after reading The Buffalo Hunter Hunter and seeking out more of Jones's work. Some people liked it, some people enjoyed Buffalo but didn't like Chainsaw. It does seem like a very "You'll either love it or you'll hate it" novel. Very referential, but that's part of the point, and it suits the protagonist - it has a strong narrative voice. I'll definitely read the next book in this trilogy.
+ My Friend Anna: The True Story of a Fake Heiress by Rachel DeLoache Williams. This one is about the author's experience with Anna Delvey, a fraudster who scammed not only businesses and banks, but also some people who considered her a friend (the author is one of those). This was the first time I'd heard about this particular scammer, and it was quite a ride. Worth a look if you enjoy reading about financial crimes.
+ None of This is True by Lisa Jewell. I love this author's stuff; her work tends to start off somewhat normal, and then slowly get more and more batshit and twisted as the narrative goes on. I have 1 hour left in this audiobook and I am so looking forward to finding out how it ends, because, what.
+ The Library at Hellebore by Cassandraw Khaw. I picked this one up for a challenge, but I'm frankly not very into it. The premise is that it's a school for the "dangerously powerful", promising a normal life after graduation. Except on graduation day, the faculty eat the students. Or something. This one jumps around the timeline a bunch, and brings in a bunch of characters in the middle of action, expecting us to somehow care about what's going on without being introduced to anyone or anything properly. I've seen situations where this can work, but this just ain't doing it for me. The book's short, so I'll likely finish it anyway, but yeahhh not my thing.
+ I have The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez out from the library, so I'll probably tackle that next!
+ The Miss Clara Vale Mysteries series by Fiona Veitch Smith (The Picture House Murders, The Pantomime Murders, The Pyramid Murders and The Penford Manor Murders). A light and fun series set in late '20s and early '30s in northern England. It's a series where the time period is very much a part of the story - everything from societal attitudes, the role of class and servants, and the use of ~cutting-edge technology~ to solve cases. Plus, the protagonist is very fun. I also appreciate that the author notes discuss research that was done and details where the reality was stretched a bit to fit the plot. Would recommend for light reading.
+ Authority by Jeff Vandermeer. Second book in the Southern Reach trilogy. My feeling on this series is kind of weird, because I'm not into it per se, I don't like it exactly, but there is something very compelling about it and I'll probably end up reading the third novel eventually. Authority lacks the "survival in a hostile landscape" aspect that Annihilation had, unless you want to get metaphorical with it. What it does have is lots of questions about What Is Going On, some investigative aspects etc. I read this one for a "SciFi Horror" challenge, and it definitely fits the bill.
+ My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones. A slasher fan finds herself in the middle of a slasher plot! I remember seeing reviews of this after reading The Buffalo Hunter Hunter and seeking out more of Jones's work. Some people liked it, some people enjoyed Buffalo but didn't like Chainsaw. It does seem like a very "You'll either love it or you'll hate it" novel. Very referential, but that's part of the point, and it suits the protagonist - it has a strong narrative voice. I'll definitely read the next book in this trilogy.
+ My Friend Anna: The True Story of a Fake Heiress by Rachel DeLoache Williams. This one is about the author's experience with Anna Delvey, a fraudster who scammed not only businesses and banks, but also some people who considered her a friend (the author is one of those). This was the first time I'd heard about this particular scammer, and it was quite a ride. Worth a look if you enjoy reading about financial crimes.
+ None of This is True by Lisa Jewell. I love this author's stuff; her work tends to start off somewhat normal, and then slowly get more and more batshit and twisted as the narrative goes on. I have 1 hour left in this audiobook and I am so looking forward to finding out how it ends, because, what.
+ The Library at Hellebore by Cassandraw Khaw. I picked this one up for a challenge, but I'm frankly not very into it. The premise is that it's a school for the "dangerously powerful", promising a normal life after graduation. Except on graduation day, the faculty eat the students. Or something. This one jumps around the timeline a bunch, and brings in a bunch of characters in the middle of action, expecting us to somehow care about what's going on without being introduced to anyone or anything properly. I've seen situations where this can work, but this just ain't doing it for me. The book's short, so I'll likely finish it anyway, but yeahhh not my thing.
+ I have The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez out from the library, so I'll probably tackle that next!
(no subject)
Oct. 3rd, 2025 09:27 pmyuuagoI spent my Friday evening making a colour-coded spreadsheet of candidates for the municipal election. It took a while because there are so many of these fuckers, but at least I know who to vote for now.
Advance voting is open, so I'm going to head down tomorrow to get this out of the way.
There are a lot of more interesting things that I've been meaning to post about, but between work and the above, it keeps getting bumped down the priority list. :V
Advance voting is open, so I'm going to head down tomorrow to get this out of the way.
There are a lot of more interesting things that I've been meaning to post about, but between work and the above, it keeps getting bumped down the priority list. :V
ramlethal valentine ( 104 ╳ guilty gear )
Oct. 4th, 2025 04:43 pmvaporwaving
[ 104 ] ramlethal valentine ( guilty gear xrd, strive + various official art )
( the definition of love is meaningless; one day everything of worth and significance will be gone )
