Sunday~

Jul. 7th, 2025 03:28 am
tyger: A small ginger cat in a wicker bag (Sushi - bag)
[personal profile] tyger

I didn't do some of the stuff I wanted to today, as usual, but I DID do a bunch of stuff, so that's something! Reorganised my display case already, got rid of a bunch of the smoll things and put in an eevee display - got a few big plushes, now, so having them somewhere they won't get dusty will be nice. Added a couple of things I could put some of the bowls I have shells in on top of, too, gives it some height differentiation AND you can fit more stuff in that way, which is pretty great! Need to figure if I can do something similar for some of the dragons, too, without blocking out the biggest ones in the back. Not sure!

Also moved a bunch of my stuff, but not everything yes - computer's still here, for example. Maybe will do that tomorrow, but we'll see how it goes, will depend on how far Sibling gets with stuff.

New mass outbreak event in pokemon, so have downloaded that update. Haven't played any, though, switch was suuuuper out of battery and needs to charge. Could barely get it to turn on so I could get the update. (Because I am impatient. It'd probably be fine to play NOW, but I should go to bed, so...)

I did, eventually, go to the shops!

Jul. 6th, 2025 02:52 am
tyger: A Minecraft map mod with cats marked on it. There are MANY CATS. (Minecraft - Cat Map)
[personal profile] tyger

Getting up was extremely difficult this morning, because bed comfy world cold. Also, cat snuggles. But I did eventually do it! And went to the shops and got food!

Nothing much else today, though, bleh.

Fucking cactus spines I hate them

Jul. 5th, 2025 04:10 am
tyger: Aqua, from the BbS opening cutscene (Aqua - >|)
[personal profile] tyger

Sibling was over again today! Today's home improvement ramble is mostly about skirting boards. )

Other than that... I did some washing! Had a late afternoon nap! Nothing much else. Really gotta go to the shops tomorrow. I should really be eating something more nutritious than three ingredient pasta. (Pasta, dried shiitake, peas. Plus cheese, but that's added afterwards.) So uh yeah I should get to bed so I can do that...

Oh hey look it's not even 1

Jul. 4th, 2025 12:47 am
tyger: Xaldin's Avatar Kingdom chibi. Text: Xaldin (Xaldin - chibi)
[personal profile] tyger

Actually succeeding in going to bed early!

I even did all the things on my to-do list today, which is pretty nice. :3 :3 :3

requiems: (dva ☙ cruiser)
[personal profile] requiems
My body screamed over sesame seeds for ten days and finally calmed down. Me eating hummus like, so why don't you care about this, it's sesame. Body shrugs. More hummus please.

I seem to have escaped grocery PEM entirely other than same day, and a little when I woke up that turned out to be needing to eat. I'm so used to being useless through Friday or Sunday, this hasn't happened for over a year. I'm not going to do anything crazy with it, but I was able to write today, whereas usually I'd have to give it a wide berth until Friday at the earliest. I do have to do some tidying though, because next week new furniture time begins!! Futureproofing my living space is go. My dad has been onboard with it as a concept and willing to go collect orders from Ikea for me and then assemble it after, I'm very fortunate.

After some thought, I decided on D.Va for the second galactic weapon over Juno, since Juno has. Barely any skins on account of being still relatively new. Whereas D.Va has tons and many of them combo really well with the purple, only one of my favourites doesn't, soooo...




Yes Nocturna has sidecar bunnies wearing Squirtle squad sunglasses. Their names are Persephone and Adonis and I love them.

From playing Stadium - me and duo are doing one or two games a night, depending on length - I should have enough comp points by the end of the season for a third galactic weapon, and from drives, a fourth! Those will be for Juno and Brigitte. Next season I'll be saving up again for likely Ashe, but also mystery tank lady releasing in November/December, because she might be an omnic and wolf themed and a gladiator and hngh. I kind of still like the all women with golds idea, too... it's too on brand...

I've ventured into playing some Ashe in stadium and after I figured out a build that plays to my strengths and also embraces how gimmicky stadium is, it's been bangin'. Literally. Lots of dynamite. Lots of fire. The first game I went in on the other dps threw a tantrum because Ashe apparently doesn't win stadium games and proceeded to pull out their throw pick and afk for multiple rounds, and we won 4v5, so, :') the build with my duo on Mercy works, ok. Slowly but surely we'll get out of rookie and novice leagues again, maybe.

Relating to absolutely nothing, these two victory poses match. This is entirely a stick-up. I'm having so many thoughts.
rocky41_7: (Default)
[personal profile] rocky41_7 posting in [community profile] books
You know that feeling where you're enjoying inhabiting a book so much you don't want to reach the end? This week I finished The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison, and that's how I felt.
 
Witness is a companion novel to Addison's breakout novel, The Goblin Emperor (TGE), which I read for the first time last year and never got around to reviewing. You don't need to have read TGE to enjoy this one at all; Witness focuses on a minor character from TGE and his adventures after the events of that novel. Thara Celehar is a prelate of the god Ulis, and his role in elven society is something like a cross between a priest and a private detective. He has the ability to commune, in a limited fashion, with the dead, and he is employed by the city to provide this service to the people. This may involve reporting a deceased's last thoughts to a mourner, asking a deceased to clarify a point on their will, or seeking answers from a murder victim to bring their killer to justice.

Read more... )
 

Wednesday Did In Fact Happen

Jul. 3rd, 2025 04:16 am
tyger: Riku=Replica animation, fading into the dark.  Text: まあ いいか (Replica - まあ いいか)
[personal profile] tyger

Not that I did HUGE amounts, but I did finally fucking shower, so there's that.

Sibling came over for a bit to bash nails back in - took way less time than expected, the floor really is in good condition.

Cats are both pretty snuggly at the moment, which is extremely nice. :3

What Tuesday?

Jul. 2nd, 2025 03:58 am
tyger: Vanitas fanart, looking really grumpy. (Vanitas - grumpyface)
[personal profile] tyger

Got up and fed cats, applied for some jobs, had a nap, as is normal.

Did not wake up again until after it was dark.

So, naturally, I've been a complete space case with withdrawal and hate everything and am just. Not great. At all.

Been yelling at myself to go the fuck to sleep again for like... four hours now but of course I'm still awake, fuck executive dysfunction in the face ugh.

But I am going for real this time!!! >:

Rebuilding journal search again

Jun. 30th, 2025 03:18 pm
alierak: (Default)
[personal profile] alierak posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance
We're having to rebuild the search server again (previously, previously). It will take a few days to reindex all the content.

Meanwhile search services should be running, but probably returning no results or incomplete results for most queries.

Floorboards!!!

Jul. 1st, 2025 04:13 am
tyger: Roxas, from Deep Dive.  Text: (un)Natural light (Roxas - (un)Natural Light)
[personal profile] tyger

So Sibling came over and started working on the floorboards today. By which I mean all the carpet is now gone! >D The floorboards under there are SO NICE, too! Mostly shouldn't be much work to get them into good condition, too - there are a couple of dodgy bits, one where someone's put in some kind of fucked up filler in, and another where someone REALLY fucked up the sanding, so it's got marks, and didn't sand it back and fix it, so those'll have to be fixed. But still!

I helped a bit, too, with taking the carpet outside, and cleaning some stuff. If Sibling doesn't come back tomorrow I'll give it a mop as well, I think - it'll need a few to get some of the ground in dust on the edges up. Did a little bit of that when I was cleaning up the little bits of rubber underlay that got stuck to the floorboards, but I was using a scourer so it was kinda impractical to do all of it.

Still gotta clean out the heating ducts innards, they are uh. Not in great shape. But I ran out of stamina before I could do that. (Also it was like 10pm because I am SO TERRIBLE at time management, sigh.)

I did also get most of the stuff on my to-do list done, which is good. Major thing I didn't was uh. Showering. Whoops. >>;;; That can be delayed until tomorrow though! For sure! >>;;

Anyway. I didn't actually get a nap today so I've been up for like. Um. A long time. Sushi woke me up at ~9:15. Going to bed now!!!!

Games to play: PlayStation edition

Jun. 29th, 2025 06:49 pm
requiems: (kairi ☙ step forward)
[personal profile] requiems
A, "this might be easier to navigate than a note on my phone" type of entry. I'm slowly working on a full replay of XIV again, and I reached Stormblood! But having played a few other games this year already (Lost Records, Caravan Sandwitch) I think I'm itching for a few brand new narratives and experiences, so here's what I have on hand.

This doesn't include games I want to play that I've already beaten once and have the platinum for. I've noted the amount of trophies, estimated difficulty and time to platinum on those I'm most interested in trying/know something about, courtesy of psnprofiles - I might eventually link the trophy guides if I start playing them. Games with a ⭐️ are those I would play regardless of length or difficulty.

Games with a strikethrough I have veto'd. If you want to enable me into anything on this list, feel free, I'm listening!

Games I have downloaded on my external hardrive )

PLAYSTATION PLUS )

Other games I own )

Babylon White

Jun. 29th, 2025 01:18 pm
marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
[personal profile] marycatelli posting in [community profile] books
Babylon White by Kit Sun Cheah

The grand conclusion! Spoilers for earlier books ahead.

Read more... )

Sunday

Jun. 30th, 2025 03:03 am
tyger: Xion's Avatar Kingdom chibi. Text: Xion (Xion - chibi)
[personal profile] tyger

I actually pmuch did as planned today! Perhaps a little more hiding from the cold in the morning than intended, but I was back from the shops by noon, so happy enough with that!

Considering rearranging my display cabinet already - not really surprising given you never know how things are going to work out until after you've done them, but kinda annoying anyway. But I think it should be good, if I can get it to work! Just gotta... actually do it. Also it'll leave me without places for a bunch of the small things, but tbh they're wasted in the display cabinet anyway, they CAN go a LOT more places, whereas bigger things? Not so much...

Calibrating...

Jun. 29th, 2025 04:00 am
tyger: Aqua, from the BbS opening cutscene (Aqua - >|)
[personal profile] tyger

Bit of a 'mode change' kind of day. Getting stuff set up/moved around/checked on etc since I'm now doing everything, sorta thing. I have discovered that my father packed ALL of the frozen leftovers to take with them (to Mama's surprise, too, when I texted her to check if I was just missing stuff), so I've REALLY got to shop tomorrow. I knew I probably should, but usually there's at least some pasta sauce in the freezer, and my father made beans recently so I thought some of the leftovers would be in there, but nope. All gone!

I think I'll go to the asian grocery tomorrow, since it's the weekend and the normal supermarkets will be pretty busy, and get dumplings etc. (It's in the opposite direction to the other supermarkets, so noooot a good idea to do both on the same day. Though at least it's cold enough that I wouldn't have to worry much about stuff defrosting. On the other hand, who wants to be out in that weather longer than they have to be?)

requiems: (fe8 ☙ magvel)
[personal profile] requiems
This was supposed to be my restful week, and instead I've spent most of it sleeping terribly and in inexplicable stomach pain featuring nausea, existing with my waking hours in the bathroom. I learned my body definitely doesn't like sesame seeds in one way (it's fine in another), since it was a bit grumbly about it, but that was Sunday; Wednesday daytime it decided to scream, and continued to scream, until the early hours of Friday morning. I only ate once on Thursday, and that was less a choice of "it's settled" and more "I haven't eaten for 28 hours, I need to eat something". And even then it screamed today over lunch for several hours... it hasn't screamed over dinner and the nausea finally let up, although it's still a bit gripey, so I'm hoping it's calming down over its erratic upset...

S17 of Overwatch is... something of a letdown, skins wise. i'll never leave and i know this but why do we have to suffer so )

In the throes of the terrible tummy ache I tried picking up a new game, After Us. The Earth has been destroyed by the devourers (humans) and it is a commentary on consumerism and environmental damage, and it's Gaia's duty to rescue animal spirits. I was having fun with it; it looked beautiful, the platforming had terrible moments with depth perception, but it was doable once it gave you access to your dash about five minutes of basic jumps in.

It was mostly just, visual enjoyment. Vibes. Linear exploration. And then it throws enemies at you: but this is a game without a combat system. how to exclude your casual audience after they're invested: don't do this )

Now I have to find something else to play. I might make a list of what I have access to next time.

Sweet, sweet silence.

Jun. 28th, 2025 03:35 am
tyger: Marluxia's Avatar Kingdom chibi. Text: Marluxia (Marluxia - chibi)
[personal profile] tyger

My parents have gone away for a couple of months! Finally! I get some time to myself. And also. Quiet. Just. It's so much quieter, it's great.

Anyway, nothing huge today. Slept a lot, because no one to make me get up (and also tired from yesterday). I even did some tidying! :D Also sewed a patch on my bag awww yeah :D :D :D

rocky41_7: (Default)
[personal profile] rocky41_7 posting in [community profile] books
The day after finishing The Traitor Baru Cormorant I had to rush over to the library to pick up book 2, The Monster Baru Cormorant, which I finished earlier today.

Spoilers for The Traitor Baru Cormorant below!
 
The second book of a fantasy series of any kind often bears a very difficult burden. It is most often the place where the scope of the story grows significantly. A conflict which before was local to the protagonist's home and surrounding area may expand, often to the extent of the known world. New players are often added to the cast, bigger and scarier problems and challenges arise. The protagonist may have gone up in the world, wielding new power and influence, with new responsibilities. As a result, this is where many series lose their footing; a tightly-woven book or season 1 may give way to a muddled, watered down part 2 as the writers struggle to juggle this expanded focus. 
 
The Monster suffers from none of those things. It is the place where Baru's story expands—in The Traitor, her focus was almost entirely on Aurdwynn; it was the full field of play and outside players mattered only as they influenced events on Aurdwynn. In The Monster, Baru has become a true agent of the Imperial Throne of Falcrest, and with these new powers, the entire field of the empire is opened up for her play, and it is fascinating to watch. 
 
In The Traitor, Baru was narrowly focused on managing the situation in Aurdwynn; everything she did was to that end. In The Monster, Baru can do whatever she wants, and we get to see her finally on the open field. Even where she flounders and flails, it's delightful to watch the machinations of her mind constantly at work.  Her cleverness rows against her bursts of sentimentality to produce some impressively chaotic effects, but she is as slippery as an eel to pin down, even when her rivals think they've gotten the best of her.

Read more... ) 
 

tyger: Law (One Piece) - What is this? (Law - whut)
[personal profile] tyger

So I didn't actually get any tidying done today, either.

However, as this was mainly because I was helping my parents move furniture around, and put blankets over the one large gap? Pseudo arch? IDK the thing where there's no wall between rooms, open plan bullshit except this is baked into the bones of the house from well before open plan was a thing (it's between the lounge and dining area. Not unusual to have glass double doors somewhere like that, but no doors here, just a gap. IDK). Anyway that was a LOT of lifting/coordinating/maneuvering and it was fairly tiring!

Also later in the evening I helped my father download all his books onto his new kindle - the previous one died, and he was happy with how it worked so he got a new one, as you do. What the shit, Amazon. )

So anyway the upshot of that is that if anyone knows of an ereader that's kindle-level reliable and doesn't do that shit, plz to let us know. (My father had a Kobo originally but it died in less than a year, so he's a little skeptical about Kobos specifically. The previous kindle lasted 8-9 years and my father is not a light user, which is the main reason he just went and got another one when it died.)

Anyway! Not really a lot else in between all that. Lot of time spent flopped recovering! Furniture is heavy! (Particularly the couch. I mean, the solid is good most of the time, but...)

Sleepin' nao, yes.

"Sundial" by Catriona Ward

Jun. 25th, 2025 05:38 pm
rocky41_7: (Default)
[personal profile] rocky41_7 posting in [community profile] books
I don't actually remember where I saw Catriona Ward's Sundial recommended, but it was somewhere and convincing enough to get it on my TBR. I finished the audiobook this week so it's time to reflect.
 
Sundial is a domestic psychological thriller which focuses on the relationship between the protagonist Rob and her eldest daughter Callie. Or at least, that's what the novel summary posits. A good 50% or more of the book is actually about Rob's youth and her relationship with her childhood family, primarily her twin sister, Jack. I didn't get that at first, which led to me being slightly frustrated by the length of the "flashback" sections until I realized that they were at least half the true focus of the story.
 
Ward excels in capturing the petty toxicity of a domestic environment gone sour. Especially deftly handled are the ways in which a partner can wound in such seemingly mundane ways. Many of the exchanges between Rob and her husband, Irving, come off as completely innocuous to an outsider, but to the two people in the relationship, who have the context for these seemingly nothing interactions, the full cruelty of them is on display. This adds completely believably to the tension between Rob and Callie, who has long favored her father, and who sees her mother's responses as hysterical overreactions, because she doesn't have the context that Rob does. Ward also very neatly portrays a truly vicious marriage, where both parties have given up pretending they want to be together, at least to each other, and where the entire relationship has become an unending game of oneupsmanship, trying to get one over on your spouse.
 
Adding to this suffocating atmosphere is Callie, a very strange 12-year-old who is starting to exhibit some very troubling behavior, particularly in her interactions with her 9-year-old sister, Annie. Rob has always struggled to connect with Callie—in contrast with Irving, who happily spoils her to force Rob to be the bad guy enforcing boundaries—but when Callie is thought to have attempted to poison Annie with Irving's diabetes medication, Rob decides it's time she and Callie have a real heart-to-heart. 
 
So she takes Callie on a mother/daughter trip to Rob's childhood home, Sundial, an isolated family property out in the Mojave desert.