Reading

Entry tags:

games

Started Astalon: Tears of the Earth

After a long day of classes (on a bank holiday, too) I treated myself to some grapefruit + nougat ice cream and then planned to spend some time reading, do some housekeeping in preparation for hosting a guest (very exciting), and then write some overdue review posts, maybe prepare some recs if I'm feeling ambitious.

Instead I spent most of the evening continuing to play Astalon: Tears of the Earth. I'd seen it recommended quite a few times on r/metroidvania and I was very curious, so when I saw it was on sale I bought it even though it's not entirely smart to start a new game 2.5 weeks before an exam. Ah well.

You play as a group of three adventurers in a post-apocalyptic wasteland that investigate (read: fight their way through) a tower from which comes a substance poisoning their village. One of them sold his soul to the titan of death, and in exchange every time you die you are transported back to the entrance of the tower.

I also saw it described as a "metroidvania with roguelite elements," which made me a bit skeptical because the other game that claims that is Dead Cells and that didn't convince me when I briefly tried it. But that description isn't really accurate because it doesn't have the procedural generation of a roguelike, it has the exploration of a metroidvania, and that's my favorite part of the genre. It just doesn't have checkpoints and very little healing. But there's plenty of shortcuts to unlock so landing back at the beginning is much less frustrating than I'd feared. And unlocking shortcuts is very satisfying; the exploration is satisfying in general, with plenty of secrets to discover. Plus, there are not that many but enough character interactions that I care about the characters as well.

After about eight hours I've beaten three bosses (one of them I'm pretty sure is optional) and discovered around 35% of the map. ( Spoilers )

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The Friday Five on a Bank Holiday Monday

Who was your first crush?

Real person: It was a boy named Colin, in the fifth grade. I would have been ten years old. I can't remember anything about him except he had blue eyes and I could make him laugh until he cried.

Fictional TV character: Jean-Luc Picard.

Fictional literary character: Sherlock Holmes.
Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

I have extrovert energy, but I'm an introvert and I very much need my alone time.
What is your favorite non-sexual thing you like to do with the love of your life?

I can't think of a particular favourite. I just enjoy his company.
What is one quirky habit your partner does that either annoys you or makes you grin?

This does both: throwing his pants at the laundry basket and missing. Like, every single day.
Do you believe in monogamous relationships?

It works for me. I do understand they're not for everyone.

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1642

A day at Little Woodham

Hoping the photo works...

This is me (in the black hat), my daughter, and my granddaughter, spending a day in the year 1642.

Lindsey has set herself up in the village of Little Woodham as a leather worker, and hopes to learn smithing before long (there are historical records of female blacksmiths in this period).

Oswin, is the leather worker's apprentice, but also showing children how to play games like 'cup and ball'.

I'm currently learning how to card wool, use a spinning wheel (I think I prefer the drop spindle at present) and talking to people about period clothing.

All in all, a very enjoyable day.

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Meida Round Up: Comfort and Textiles

I’m once again sharing my thoughts on my recent media consumption. But first some thoughts about my joyful reading project.

I spent several days making a deliberate effort to not read if I didn’t feel like reading or wasn’t excited by anything I had to read. I don’t think it really helped? I was kind of miserable but in a different way than when I read things because I don’t have anything better to do. (I need no screen low hand impact things to do right before bed) But I guess after I did that I did end up reading some things. So maybe it worked? But I would rather not do it again.

I went back to reading not because I was suddenly super excited but because I had a day where I was too sick to do much at all and ended up reading a long fic all day.Which was nice, maybe not joyful, but nice.

( All Systems Red, Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire, The Crescent Moon Tearoom, and The Flash Band )

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exchanges: recency bias

Recency Bias letter

Hello!

I'm

thawrecka, and I'm excited to read whatever you write. If you want to see more about what I like about these canons, you can also check out the rest of this blog, or my tumblr.

I also welcome treats.

( 白月梵星 | Moonlight Mystique (TV) )

( 涂山小红娘月红篇 | Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Red-Moon Pact (TV) )

( 四海重明 | Love's Rebellion (TV) )

( 스위트홈 | Sweet Home (TV) )

( General likes )

( General dislikes )

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diary: 2025

(no subject)

How's your day going? Today I managed to break a plate by dropping it on my foot.

(no subject)

- Tuesday involved me getting up earlier than usual because I had to go to the office for an in-person working session on the thing I presented last week. We got a lot done and have a plan, yay. I also learned a non-work thing: I am WAY more sensitive to garlic than I thought, especially if it's uncooked. I felt inflammation coming on as I was heading back home in the evening, and woke up on Wednesday feeling AWFUL. When do I get the good side effects of being a vampire? When?

- I am, as usual, doing a lot of window shopping. This pink hat with black bats and moons calls to me, of course, but then I decided I could DIY something even more suited to me. Thanks to AliExpress, I have a pink hat with an even wider brim and a bunch of black lace bat appliques. This coming weekend will involve painting the hat with a darker pink alcohol dye, then attaching the appliques. And maybe wide ribbons (attached to the inside of the crown) so I can tie it on if I want.

- I'm also coveting this sterling silver choker with a giant quartz centerpiece, but it's out of my price range. But it's so pretty!

- I'm thinking of taking a day off from work and persuading the Stroppy One we should go to the zoo. The things that are giving me pause are 1) the Stroppy One is about to start deadline work, and 2) the local zoo is very hilly, and will be challenging for me. (There's a part of me that thinks making the trek to Seattle to go to Woodland Park may be a better idea, especially since I could go visit my beloved red pandas. Our local zoo doesn't have red pandas.)

- All in all, things are meh around here, but I'm trying to find things that make me happy. I hope you peeps are also finding things that bring you joy.

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Fic Writer Meme

I answered the fic writer meme that’s going around. I was a bit hesitant to do this because I’m not writing anything at the moment, and I’m not sure that I even want to write more fic. But it seemed fun so here it is.

( Read more... )

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Hermitcraft recursive exchange: 3 fics written and 1 received

mcytrecursive had author reveals. I wrote three fics! I have periods of feeling very insecure about my writing, so it was especially nice that I had a good time writing all three, felt very positively about them, and then got very nice comments.
The first two are probably readable without knowledge of the fic they are based on, but all of those are great and you should read them anyway.

cut your chains in shining blue for

strifetxt, Hermitcraft
Recursing: Untamed Beasts by

WhisperNorBury
1.6k, Cub & Scar gen, prequel
Summary: Five times Cub killed Scar's summoner.
AN: My assignment, and the hardest one to write. Especially to settle on the five things, for a good progression and to make each of them different and interesting. I think it turned out very well! I was almost done when I remembered that Minecraft has respawns so now most of it takes place on hardcore worlds.

Etho's Escort Service From Hell for

alice_not_alice, Hermitcraft
Recursing: MailDemon AU by

azzayofchaos
1.5k, Cleo & Etho gen, demon AU
Summary: Cleo has fallen into Hell again, and this time she might need the help of a friend to get out.
AN: I wanted to write a treat for Alice, discovered this AU in the prompts, and wrote it basically in one go. Cleo and Etho are so much fun together, and I was reliably informed that I did achieve "funny."

(watch) where fears and dreams come true for

Odaigahara, Hermitcraft/Life series
Recursing: lost in the dark (he's got a heavy heart) aka Hunger AU by

definitelynotshouting
2.2k, Grian & Scar & Cub gen, canon divergence
Summary: Scar came with Grian when he left Hermitcraft and figured out a different way to keep him fed.
Cub finds them.
AN: Tagged as "downright fluffy compared to the original (a low bar)," but it does still have some angst, it would not be Hunger AU Grian otherwise (at least not without changing the premise.) Hunger AU is very angsty which is great but also made me want fix-it fic (at least partially...) and when I remembered that it's set in season 8 and thus pre-Scarland I got the idea for this, and I think it works.

I also got a fantastic gift:
star of the west horizon by

Odaigahara, Hermitcraft
Recursing: a rare talent indeed by

these_godforsaken_halls
6.7k, Grian & Cub & Scar gen, fairy AU post-canon
Summary: “I’m leaving for a while,” Grian tells Xisuma, who goes very still indeed at the suggestion that a fairy might spend the night outside of the hollow. “Just for a few days, now that I’m healed– I won’t be going far, and I’ll be extremely careful, I swear it, you don’t even know careful until you’ve seen how careful I’ve been, and Scar’s saying I’m much better at hiding than I was, anyway, so there’s no need to worry on that account.”
“Goodness, er, well–”
“And I’ve already packed, including all the pixie dust I’ll need,” Grian says firmly, “but you can look through what I’m bringing with me, if you’d like. To be sure I haven’t taken anything I’m not supposed to.”
“I’m not sure that’s necessary,” Xisuma says, and this is good, because it means Grian successfully diverted him from the main thing he was likely to object to. Grian can fly circles around Xisuma if he’s devious enough. He used to dodge scouts all the time, before–
Before.
He used to bait hawks.
Why I love it: Gorgeous. Fantastic character voices and relationships, perfect post-canon road to recovery, beautiful backstory flashbacks, wonderful atmosphere, just, so good.

I had such a good time with this exchange, I already look forward to

mcytblraufest, which is doing a Battleship format this year and I'm excited.

Entry tags:

recs

Welcome New People!

With the latest layoffs at Tumblr I've seen several friends making accounts here for the first time! Welcome, feel free to ask me any questions.

Here's what I hope are some useful links and tips:

If you are into Chinese entertainment and/or novels both the

c_ent and

cnovels communities are nice places to hang out, that host regular chats about what people are reading and watching as well as other topics.

c_ent also keeps a list of Chinese media related communities on Dreamwidth.

I'm part of the group blog

ladybusiness which features intersectional feminist criticism and yelling about our feelings. I haven't been posting much there recently but

renay has posted some great stuff!

I also rec following

common_nature for pretty pictures!

King David

I'm not posting much at the moment, because I'm still recovering from various things - but mostly on the up and up now.

So, I thought I'd recc a post instead.

Try selenak.dreamwidth.org/1602061.html

A very interesting review of the first episode of 'House of David', which also talks about other adaptions of the biblical stories and their pros and cons. How should David be portrayed? Why do modern versions skip all his bad deeds? Would it be possible to do a nuanced version that shows his personality changing over time?

It's not a show that I'll ever watch, but SelenaK's such a good reviewer that I always end up thinking hard about what she says.

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wednesday reading meme

Wednesday Reading Meme for April 16 2025

What I’ve Read

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison – This is my fourth time thru this book, and different things stood out to me that the first time. A major turning point for Maia in the novel that I had really not remembered was him shifting from a mindset of, How can I please everyone who is making demands of me? to, Since it’s impossible to please everyone what do I think is the right thing to do? And as a person who only recently discovered that disappointing people is not legally punishable, I felt that in my heart. This audiobook version was great - Kyle McCarley had a lot of character to each voice and it felt like it made sense for the choices he made.

I have also read a good deal of Star Wars fic by Blackkat that are all slightly too short to be counted as novels, but special attention to Cor Cordium - https://archiveofourown.org/works/52209091

What I’m Reading
His Majesty’s Dragon – Naomi Novik – I picked this up to keep my post-vacation chill mood intact, and then the library took it back. Treason! I will return to it, tho. Honestly, I feel like this one of those book series that I think I would give to any kid who lives near an ocean.

Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian – Since the library took Novik’s book back too early for me to finish, I figured I would go to the source material that inspired her, and start reading this! It’s about the sea and also about how being English is great because you get to fight people about stuff – wild nonsense. Jack Aubrey is a certified dummy and I think I love him – how can you not notice that the people around you are speaking Catalan and not Spanish, you hot mess of a captain. I think audiobook is the right choice for this, as it allows the longer passages about how a sailing ship works can just glide past my ears.

The Antarctica Conspiracy – Derin Edala made the least normal space ship in the world and the second half of the story is not any less wild. We started with a murder!

Male Order – Unwrapping Masculinity -edited b y Rowena Chapman

What I’ll Read Next
The Memory Librarian - Janelle Monae - crossing book club

HUGOS – This is my first year as a voting member, and I want to try and read everything (that is a single book- too many series and I will fall over). I know there is packet that goes out containing some of the books but I think it might arrive too late for me to get to all the books, so I have decided to start with what my local library can get me and work from there.

I found out about two different interesting nonfiction books recently that I want to read:
Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity by David D Gilmore which is from 1990 and came up in a recent "If Books Could Kill" podcast episode where the host got really interested in the description of how masculine social roles construct nurturing differently than for feminine roles. It sounded interesting!

I also found a book from 1925, The English Language in America by GP Krapp, which came up in a Tumblr post about the way 'eye dialect', aka, phonetically writing out nonstandard spellings to portray dialects in writing, is used to portray people speaking in dialect as ridiculous and stupid (which is a dick move). I started to skim this book after finding the wikipedia article on 'eye dialect' and I found it so interesting in just the portion of the discussion where he gets into New England town hall records as a primary source for linguists to understand how colonial America was using English. I want to read it some time in more detail, or at least skim the interesting points. I realize it is literally a century out of date but I'm not a scholar, I am doing this for fun!

A list of random things

- The work presentation that I was working on last week that caused me so much anxiety and stress ended up going really well, and my team has approval to move forward with a dream project. Tomorrow is a big in-office working session about the project with some other stakeholders and my writer who will be driving this, which means I need to trek into Seattle. I'm not thrilled about that part, but there are some people I'm especially looking forward to catching up with.

- Because of all of this last week, I ended up having a two and a half day seesawing panic attack, which I'm still recovering from. I couldn't do my usual way of recovering from such a thing, sleeping for an extended period, because I had social obligations. WHICH WERE AWESOME, but I'm still feeling the aftereffects of last week. In other words, I want to go be a sloth on the couch and then sleep in.

- I saw my big brother this weekend and got a tarot reading. Nothing like having the powers that be drop anvils on my head that I need to stop listening to the Brain Raccoons. Thanks. Yes, I constantly need the reminder, but DAMN.

Current Music: "Porchlight," Neko Case and Her Boyfriends

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My heart might be willing by this time next year

Yesterday, I roasted my first-ever whole chicken, and it was somehow easier to deal with than skinless, boneless pieces. It also came out absolutely amazing??? Maybe it was just a perfectly fatted bird, but the skin came out so crispy?? Anyway, Passover was great! Jules came over with some freaking incredible Brussels sprouts and passionfruit sorbet, plus the... three bottles of wine we went through before we parted at like 11:30?? My down-the-block neighbor Jane also came by with her HUGE delightful baby Z! We talked about how our parents met and how the world will improve when we personally are the benevolent dictators of all and books and history and So Much More. It was good! It was lovely to do so after spending Friday night at Shabbat dinner with my other friend Jane. I was very glad to spend so much time shopping and cooking to get out of my head about sudden upcoming job-loss grief, which I am working hard to transmute into spite for finding a new, better thing, but it's still stinging like hell.

The three recipes on my end that made it all work:

Roast chicken with herb chutney, which I made atop a bunch of fingerling potatoes, just incredible

Moroccan charoset, which you can roll into balls or just eat as is; I used almonds instead of walnuts this year and it was lovely af

Soft matzah, which I only realized this year was a thing! I feel like I'll need to make more to get the hang of it, but holy cats, it's very simple and so tasty

Also, shout-out as ever to the Manischewitz matzah ball soup mix, which I just found out is vegetarian — reliable and so so easy; I'm glad I nabbed literally the last box at the grocery store yesterday morning

Gingko is in full rude girl mode today, after spending the night sleeping oh so sweetly on the other pillow at the head of my bed. Yesterday, she threw a tantrum when I wouldn't let her take a second trip down our business drag to beg for treats at each shop. Today, while doing just that, she made a scene at the queer gift shop/gallery. When she's hungry, especially when she can see food but can't have it yet, she'll point with her paw to, say, where her bowl goes. She'll also paw at your leg (or laptop) for attention. At the gallery, she thwapped one of the two owners in the junk! ("That's far from the first time that's happened," his partner said dryly from the couch nearby.)

Right now, she's in the crate, after I found her, yet again, all four feet atop my dining room table, trying to clean up plates and glasses. For once, she's not complaining (shouting and hollering!!), so... perhaps she knows she needs to chill out!! Which means it's time for me to take a shower and bite the bullet on my goddamn taxes. The free-file of affliction, sigh.

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Growing yellow oyster mushrooms from a kit

The box had to sit in the dark for three months for the mycelium to form inside the black plastic, but once released, the mushrooms grew to edible size in just over a week!

Here's what they looked like just before harvest:

(You may have to click the top image through to Flickr to view the time lapse video. For some reason the YouTube version uploaded as a short and I can't work out how to get to the embed code.)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

What have I done this last week? Well, I watched Time Raiders (2016), yet another entry in the dmbj franchise. It was incredibly dumb. No regrets. Everything about that climactic scene with the snake princess was hilarious. I didn't need that one shot with the car window perfectly framing Sandra Ma's boobs, though, it was a very stupid way of committing to the male gaze.

I watched Cunk on Life (2024). At first I was underwhelmed by it somehow built as it went on, so by the time of "Is it harder to enter the kingdom of heaven since brexit?" I was about dying with laughter.

Also, I watched The Fall Guy (2024). I had to keep reminding myself it ran on Hollywood logic, not real life Australia logic (which shouldn't have been hard, because this is very much a movie about movies, but I think setting it mostly in Sydney, a place I have actually stepped foot in, meant my brain kept defaulting to judging it by real world logic instead). Anyway, it's slickly made with a lot of very good stunts, and Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt certainly are charming in it.

I got further into watching A Moment But Forever, but then I had to pause because I was about to run out regular subscription episodes, at the same time as premium VIP users were getting all of them, and idk, I might just not finish it. It has some good things going for it, but it also has the worst performance I've seen Wang Hongyi give and so much clunky exposition and character philosophy infodumps. At some point the villains are chatting and one of them infodumps their backstory and the other straight up says 'I already know all that', it's so clunky.

I also watched The Warrior From Sky (2021), an iQiyi streaming movie packed with too much plot that doesn't quite rise to the level of mediocre. Ci Sha has been a lot better in other things.

I attempted to watch Joy Ride (2023), but I didn't find it funny enough, and then I felt the need to look up if the twist was going to be exactly what I thought it would be, and it was.

Also, I watched about fifteen minutes of The Great Wall (2016) on Netflix, thinking how bad can it be?? Terrible, it turns out, some of the most stale cliched dialogue known to man and a waste of every actor in it. But Andy Lau is hot in it, so I guess there's that visual bonus. I may or may not pick it up again on a later date when I'm looking for something to heckle.

(no subject)

Insta-rec, for pure delightful batshittery:

Cunk on Fangs (7987 words) by beemovieerotica
Chapters: 4/4
Fandom: Cunk on Earth (TV), Interview with the Vampire (TV 2022)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Characters: Philomena Cunk, Daniel Molloy, Paul | Philomena Cunk's Mate, Louis de Pointe du Lac, Armand (Vampire Chronicles)
Additional Tags: Crack Treated Seriously
Summary:

Philomena Cunk interviews the vampire.

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I wrote fic

I wrote fic for Rare Kink Buffet:

Wing Management, and Other Domestic Tasks (506 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 琉璃 | Love and Redemption (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Chu Xuanji/Yu Sifeng
Characters: Chu Xuanji, Yu Sifeng
Additional Tags: Wing Kink, Wing Grooming, Wing Oil, Established Relationship
Summary:

Sometimes you just gotta oil your spouse's feathers.

Expecting (847 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 琉璃 | Love and Redemption (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Chu Xuanji/Yu Sifeng
Characters: Chu Xuanji, Yu Sifeng
Additional Tags: Breeding Kink, Dirty Talk, dealing with anxieties through sexual roleplay
Summary:

Maybe Xuanji can't get him pregnant, but that's no reason to stop Sifeng pretending otherwise.

On His Mind (1478 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 莲花楼 | Mysterious Lotus Casebook (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Fang Duobing/Li Lianhua | Li Xiangyi
Characters: Fang Duobing, Li Lianhua | Li Xiangyi
Additional Tags: Big dick humiliation, Banter
Summary:

Li Lianhua has a surprise reaction to seeing part of Fang Duobing's body. And then, like with everything in life, Fang Duobing can't let it go.

Electric Brain (871 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 山河令 | Word of Honor (TV 2021)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu
Characters: Wen Kexing, Zhou Zishu
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Cyborgs
Summary:

How things go in the cyberpunk armory...

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reading meme

Wednesday Reading Meme for April 10 2025

What I've Read:

The Javelin Program Time to Orbit: Unknown #1 by Derin Edala This is the first half of a long web novel about an extremely fucked up space ship. Our protagonist starts out in the very media-est res, waking in the middle of a journey to be told, the ship is broken and you have to fix it! Things spiral. The characters have really interesting discussion of their decisions, and I'm looking forward to finishing the story in the next book.

Order 66: Star Wars: Republic Commando #4 by Karen Traviss
This is a fucking BUMMER of a book but it has to be - this series is about a set of clones in the Star Wars universe who are determined to escape the trap they've been born into. Traviss writes a good war story and this series has morally complex people doing good and bad things and feeling absolutely fine about it while they leave wreckage in their wake. Absolutely a must read series for anyone who is interested in the Mandalorian cultural canon - Traviss built most of of it from scratch.

What I'm Reading:

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison - 82% - Started Apr 4, 2025 This re-read is great, the voices are excellent

The Antarctica Conspiracy
Time to Orbit: Unknown #2 Derin Edala -10% - Started Apr 7, 2025 like I said, the second half of the larger story.

What I'll read next
Book club - Janelle Monet short stories but I cannot recall which yet.