Re: Where's the joy in the lowest common denominator?
Mar. 22nd, 2026 12:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingI thought about this while taking a nice walk outside, and the conclusion I came to is:
People enjoy simple but tasty little snacks.
In terms of what becomes popular, I'm firmly of the opinion that numbers aren't something you can control. Reception has nothing to do with quality or community, but rather being the right person at the right place at the right time. (Although writing smut about m/m ships in popular fandoms helps.)
Also, mainly from futzing around on Tumblr, I get the sense that a lot of people are suffering from lowkey insomnia these days, and "turn your brain off" fantasies are in demand and very much appreciated.
In any case, I actually enjoy writing tasty little snacks, and I should write more of them. 🍹
People enjoy simple but tasty little snacks.
In terms of what becomes popular, I'm firmly of the opinion that numbers aren't something you can control. Reception has nothing to do with quality or community, but rather being the right person at the right place at the right time. (Although writing smut about m/m ships in popular fandoms helps.)
Also, mainly from futzing around on Tumblr, I get the sense that a lot of people are suffering from lowkey insomnia these days, and "turn your brain off" fantasies are in demand and very much appreciated.
In any case, I actually enjoy writing tasty little snacks, and I should write more of them. 🍹
[Friday Five] 3/20/2026
Mar. 23rd, 2026 12:12 amautumninplutoBelated ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
thefridayfive :) I seriously have no sense of time.
- What was the reason you began a Dreamwidth or LiveJournal account (or both)?
I've been curious about Dreamwidth for a while but only took the plunge after many years of on-and-off interest. I wanted to know how people do fandom stuff on it! - How many DW or LJ communities do you subscribe to?
29! - Do you have a favorite community or one you check out often to see what's new?
I love bnha_fans :) I've been checking on them once a week as the latest season of My Hero Academia: Vigilantes is airing and we're doing reaction threads. - How did you pick your user name?
My favorite season + planet. - If you could change your user name, would you?
Maybe in the future, I dunno. The name change is a bit pricey and it's probably more economical for me to just stick with what I have, but the belated realization that the preposition in my username is incorrect still bugs me from time to time.
When the smoke clears I'll still be small
Mar. 22nd, 2026 04:08 pmdolorosa_12I've been ridiculously happy and full of energy all weekend — a side-effect, I assume, of the sunshine, warm spring weather, and abundance of flowers and birds. Whatever the cause, I've made good use of this uncharacteristic energy: throwing myself enthusiastically into my classes at the gym, swimming my laps so quickly that I managed 1km in twenty minutes this morning, and undertaking loads of spring cleaning and garden work. In the past two days, I have dusted all hard surfaces in the house, wet-dusted all the internal doors, swept the floors (this latter is something I do weekly anyway, but the dusting necessitated bringing it forward), swept the outdoor deck, weeded stinging nettles from the lawn, and gathered up all the bark mulch from the vegetable garden that the birds had hurled all over the surrounding patio. Inevitably, half an hour after I cleaned up the mulch, the same birds and returned and thrown it back over the path again. I'm glad that our vegetable garden is alive with worms and bugs that the birds want to eat, I just wish they wouldn't do so with such enthusiasm!
I've bought a bunch of heirloom seeds from this woman, and I had planned to sow them over the weekend as well, but the weather next week is going to be cold and frosty again, so I decided against it.
Yesterday Matthias and I had our first outdoor market food truck lunch of the year in the gorgeous patio beer garden of our favourite cafe/bar, in which every table was taken, with people and dogs of various sizes revelling in the sunshine.
In the evening, we watched Sentimental Value, the Norwegian-language film. It's both a movie about making movies (in well trodden Oscar nominee fashion), and abut dysfunctional family relationships — in this case, between an ageing screenwriter/director and his two adult daughters, who is trying to bring a comeback film to the screen dealing with his own complicated family history and mending the relationships with his daughters — with beautiful, functional Scandinavian architecture as the scenery. I liked it a lot, and particularly appreciated that this version of this type of story was capable of understanding that this kind of neglectful paternal relationship really messes up the children, and that immense talent and driven sense of vocation in the chosen career is no excuse (and in fact makes the hurt even worse, because it's so obvious to the children that their parent prefers being in his workplace setting, and is so immensely valued for what he is and does for all the colleagues and mentees in that setting, in a manner that he never demonstrates in the family). (Touching a raw nerve? The film touched all of them.)
Books this week have been a mixed bag in terms of genre and content, but all equally good. On a whim, I picked up Hostis (Vale Aida), a historically divergent (to put it mildly) take on Hannibal and Scipio which was tremendous fun. If you've read the author's fic about these two figures (including an In Space AU; I think it's fine to link the two identities since the author does so on AO3), you'll know what you're in for. I'm only sorry to see that so much time has passed since Hostis was published, since it ends on a huge cliffhanger, and I wonder if Aida experiencing any difficulties in writing the follow-up.
I then moved on to Three Years on Fire, the third of Andrey Kurkov's diaries about his experiences living through Russia's fullscale invasion of Ukraine. This one covers late 2023 up to early 2025. It's interesting (and sad) to read it so soon after the second volume, as the change in tone and expectation is so extreme — although fairly representative of shifts I've witnessed in Ukrainian society as a whole. There's less optimism, although still incredible resilience, and a sort of weary resignation that things will get worse, but that the only way out is through, and therefore they must keep enduring, as the only other option is to give up, and cease to exist as an independent nation where the chance at a future of democracy, rule of law, freedom of speech, and respect for human rights is possible. In spite of this heavier tone, Kurkov is still a forensic observer of the human condition, with a keen eye for little episodes and moments to serve as representative illustrations of life in the 21st century as a civilian in a country at war.
I was a bit at a loss as to what to read next. I'm still waiting on a bunch of library holds to come in, so I elected to start an Earthsea reread, having not returned to this series for a good ten years at least. It's not really the right time of the year for it — they feel like such autumnal books to me, although I guess The Tombs of Atuan has something of a vernal undercurrent, given that it's all about a young woman living buried beneath the earth, and bringing herself from darkness into light, under the open sky. The uncritical sexism of the early books aside, the series remains to me an incredible work of literature: gorgeous language, well-considered, meaty ideas concealed in simplicity, and beautiful, beautiful imagery that is at once uncanny and familiar. It's remarkable to me how good Le Guin is at creating such a strong sense of place for a place that does not exist.
Of course, to me, the strongest pull is all those other oceans, and all those sunsets and sunrises, just beyond the last known shore. My journal's title is 'Beyond Selidor,' after all.
I've bought a bunch of heirloom seeds from this woman, and I had planned to sow them over the weekend as well, but the weather next week is going to be cold and frosty again, so I decided against it.
Yesterday Matthias and I had our first outdoor market food truck lunch of the year in the gorgeous patio beer garden of our favourite cafe/bar, in which every table was taken, with people and dogs of various sizes revelling in the sunshine.
In the evening, we watched Sentimental Value, the Norwegian-language film. It's both a movie about making movies (in well trodden Oscar nominee fashion), and abut dysfunctional family relationships — in this case, between an ageing screenwriter/director and his two adult daughters, who is trying to bring a comeback film to the screen dealing with his own complicated family history and mending the relationships with his daughters — with beautiful, functional Scandinavian architecture as the scenery. I liked it a lot, and particularly appreciated that this version of this type of story was capable of understanding that this kind of neglectful paternal relationship really messes up the children, and that immense talent and driven sense of vocation in the chosen career is no excuse (and in fact makes the hurt even worse, because it's so obvious to the children that their parent prefers being in his workplace setting, and is so immensely valued for what he is and does for all the colleagues and mentees in that setting, in a manner that he never demonstrates in the family). (Touching a raw nerve? The film touched all of them.)
Books this week have been a mixed bag in terms of genre and content, but all equally good. On a whim, I picked up Hostis (Vale Aida), a historically divergent (to put it mildly) take on Hannibal and Scipio which was tremendous fun. If you've read the author's fic about these two figures (including an In Space AU; I think it's fine to link the two identities since the author does so on AO3), you'll know what you're in for. I'm only sorry to see that so much time has passed since Hostis was published, since it ends on a huge cliffhanger, and I wonder if Aida experiencing any difficulties in writing the follow-up.
I then moved on to Three Years on Fire, the third of Andrey Kurkov's diaries about his experiences living through Russia's fullscale invasion of Ukraine. This one covers late 2023 up to early 2025. It's interesting (and sad) to read it so soon after the second volume, as the change in tone and expectation is so extreme — although fairly representative of shifts I've witnessed in Ukrainian society as a whole. There's less optimism, although still incredible resilience, and a sort of weary resignation that things will get worse, but that the only way out is through, and therefore they must keep enduring, as the only other option is to give up, and cease to exist as an independent nation where the chance at a future of democracy, rule of law, freedom of speech, and respect for human rights is possible. In spite of this heavier tone, Kurkov is still a forensic observer of the human condition, with a keen eye for little episodes and moments to serve as representative illustrations of life in the 21st century as a civilian in a country at war.
I was a bit at a loss as to what to read next. I'm still waiting on a bunch of library holds to come in, so I elected to start an Earthsea reread, having not returned to this series for a good ten years at least. It's not really the right time of the year for it — they feel like such autumnal books to me, although I guess The Tombs of Atuan has something of a vernal undercurrent, given that it's all about a young woman living buried beneath the earth, and bringing herself from darkness into light, under the open sky. The uncritical sexism of the early books aside, the series remains to me an incredible work of literature: gorgeous language, well-considered, meaty ideas concealed in simplicity, and beautiful, beautiful imagery that is at once uncanny and familiar. It's remarkable to me how good Le Guin is at creating such a strong sense of place for a place that does not exist.
Of course, to me, the strongest pull is all those other oceans, and all those sunsets and sunrises, just beyond the last known shore. My journal's title is 'Beyond Selidor,' after all.
I declare victory
Mar. 20th, 2026 05:40 pmdorchadasAfter a couple dozen more hours, I've beaten all the original post-game content for Clair Obscur:
This is the E33 ultimate superboss. I spent a while grinding while listening to podcasts and then fought him a few times. I could have fought him a lot more, learned the exact timing on his attacks, including all the double and triple attacks he does in later phases...but no. I abused a bunch of pictos to get extra actions, did damage stacking, stunned him at 40% health and then slammed him with a level 3 gradient attack to skip Phase 3 (that's the 16 million damage highest attack I did). That finished off my last achievement, making E33 the seventh game I've gotten all the achievements on.
Just need to do the new DLC area they added a couple months ago and then I can move on to something else.
This is the E33 ultimate superboss. I spent a while grinding while listening to podcasts and then fought him a few times. I could have fought him a lot more, learned the exact timing on his attacks, including all the double and triple attacks he does in later phases...but no. I abused a bunch of pictos to get extra actions, did damage stacking, stunned him at 40% health and then slammed him with a level 3 gradient attack to skip Phase 3 (that's the 16 million damage highest attack I did). That finished off my last achievement, making E33 the seventh game I've gotten all the achievements on.
Just need to do the new DLC area they added a couple months ago and then I can move on to something else.
Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle (1993/2016)
Mar. 22nd, 2026 10:09 ampauraqueThis sequel to Maniac Mansion picks up the story five years later, when one of Dr. Fred's tentacle monster creations accidentally drinks toxic sludge that gives him super intelligence and an unquenchable thirst to take over the world. This brings Bernard (the nerdy kid from the first game) back to the mansion, this time with his college roommates Hoagie (a laid-back metalhead) and Laverne (an endearingly nutty medical student). Dr. Fred tries to send the trio back in time to prevent the catastrophe, but Hoagie ends up 200 years in the past with no electricity to power his time pod, and Laverne ends up 200 years in the future when tentacles reign and keep humans as their pets. As the player you control all three protagonists and guide them to ensure that the terrible, eponymous Day of the Tentacle never dawns.
This was one of my favorite games as a kid, but I hadn't played it since the remastered re-release came out, ten years ago today. When I was looking into it I noticed that it happens to be the #1 rated DOS title on MobyGames. Is this actually the best DOS game of all time? Let us investigate!
( Read more... )
Day of the Tentacle Remastered is available on various platforms for $14.99 USD, and on Steam it's currently on sale for $2.99 USD, so if you never got around to it, now's the time!
This was one of my favorite games as a kid, but I hadn't played it since the remastered re-release came out, ten years ago today. When I was looking into it I noticed that it happens to be the #1 rated DOS title on MobyGames. Is this actually the best DOS game of all time? Let us investigate!
( Read more... )
Day of the Tentacle Remastered is available on various platforms for $14.99 USD, and on Steam it's currently on sale for $2.99 USD, so if you never got around to it, now's the time!
Where's the joy in the lowest common denominator?
Mar. 22nd, 2026 09:33 amrynlingI’m going to be salty about fanfic for a second. This is an extended meditation on what I try to do when I write, but also it’s just me being a petty little hater about a common style of fanfic writing that I find annoying, so feel free to scroll on by.
( Read more... )
So I guess my frustration is: why is that sort of bloodless, limp-dick style of writing so popular?
But also: what can I borrow from this style without betraying my sense of integrity as a craftsman?
( Read more... )
So I guess my frustration is: why is that sort of bloodless, limp-dick style of writing so popular?
But also: what can I borrow from this style without betraying my sense of integrity as a craftsman?
leading to worlds you long to explore
Mar. 22nd, 2026 01:07 pmmuladharaI am now on holiday from work! I have no concrete plans, except sleeping a lot and maybe actually playing some danged video games! I've got some sort of cold (I am snotty and have a sore throat), and it's been that way since last week. At least now I can rest myself when I need to.
Work has not been a fun time lately. Last week, I covered two shifts for someone who was off ill, so ended up doing almost forty hours over six days. Come Sunday, I was pretty much dead on my feet and fed up of everything. This week just gone wasn't as bad, and nobody was off sick. Though had I been asked to do any cover, I would have straight up said no. But it wasn't an issue, so it was fine, thankfully.
~
Other stuff is bullet points?
# I bought some more Ohuhu markers, even though I haven't been drawing much lately. I bought the 48 set of pastel colours. Because I was feeling sad and I knew I wanted them anyway.
# I've just splurged on a set of gemstone beads from Hobbycraft. I was legitimately getting other things, and then I saw this set in similar items and I was like, you know what? I want that! I am sort of thinking about doing stuff with beads - not necessarily jewellery, although I was inspired by a customer at work who was wearing a bracelet made from rainbow coloured multifaceted beads. They were probably plastic, but the bracelet looked really nice, and it evidently caught my eye when I saw it. Though as I keep telling everyone who'll listen, I think I was a magpie in a past life because oh boy do I like my shiny shit.
# A while back I bought myself a foldaway walking stick, just in case I need it. I bought it after this incident when I left work and felt like all my joints had seized up. It is teal green and it looks amazing. I feel "guilty" about having it, but that is a whole bunch of internalised ableism (and also some ageism) that I need to work through.
# I can't remember if I have anything else to say, though no doubt I'll remember five more things after I've closed my computer down.
Work has not been a fun time lately. Last week, I covered two shifts for someone who was off ill, so ended up doing almost forty hours over six days. Come Sunday, I was pretty much dead on my feet and fed up of everything. This week just gone wasn't as bad, and nobody was off sick. Though had I been asked to do any cover, I would have straight up said no. But it wasn't an issue, so it was fine, thankfully.
~
Other stuff is bullet points?
# I bought some more Ohuhu markers, even though I haven't been drawing much lately. I bought the 48 set of pastel colours. Because I was feeling sad and I knew I wanted them anyway.
# I've just splurged on a set of gemstone beads from Hobbycraft. I was legitimately getting other things, and then I saw this set in similar items and I was like, you know what? I want that! I am sort of thinking about doing stuff with beads - not necessarily jewellery, although I was inspired by a customer at work who was wearing a bracelet made from rainbow coloured multifaceted beads. They were probably plastic, but the bracelet looked really nice, and it evidently caught my eye when I saw it. Though as I keep telling everyone who'll listen, I think I was a magpie in a past life because oh boy do I like my shiny shit.
# A while back I bought myself a foldaway walking stick, just in case I need it. I bought it after this incident when I left work and felt like all my joints had seized up. It is teal green and it looks amazing. I feel "guilty" about having it, but that is a whole bunch of internalised ableism (and also some ageism) that I need to work through.
# I can't remember if I have anything else to say, though no doubt I'll remember five more things after I've closed my computer down.
FANFIC: lonely lover's charm (Shadowhunters)
Mar. 22nd, 2026 10:14 amqueenslayerbeeThis is a fic I wrote way back when for the Shadowhunters Rarepair Network Halloween Challenge.
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Title: lonely lover's charm.
Fandom: Shadowhunters (TV show).
Character/Pairing: Magnus Bane/Maia Roberts.
Rating/Warnings: E. Sexual content.
Summary: Halloween Party at Pandemonium! Downwordlers only. Please don't come disguised as your own species. Nobody thinks it's cute.
Word count: 1.3k.
read more
-
Once, Maia noticed that when Magnus came into a room, everything else around him seemed to move slower in comparison. He had entered the Hunter’s Moon not twenty seconds ago, and he’d already talked to half a dozen people, all fluid movements and bedazzling smiles.
He approached the bar, and for once, instead of immediately ordering, he made a flyer appear out of thin air and handed it to her.
“Downwordler Halloween party at Pandemonium. You cannot miss it.”
“You came all the way down here to hand invitations?” she teased.
“Sadly, no.” He dramatically let his weigh fall on the bar, his metal belt chain tingling against it. “I need to talk business with your alpha. Thought I’d kill two birds with one stone.”
“He’s in the back.”
“Thank you.” He stood up to leave, but he turned and pointed to the flyer. “Costumes are mandatory.”
“I’ll think about it.”
He sent her a quick smile and started walking towards the door. And without turning back he said: “By the way, I like the new hair. Really suits you.”
His voice carried, making some people raise their heads to look her way, curious. She touched her shorter hair, a bit self-consciously, and shook her head, amused.
The full moon was set to arrive just a few days after Halloween. Maia, still not completely used to her new self, wasn't sure she’d be up to go to the party until the almost literal last minute. In the end, she figured: what the hell, she deserved to have a good time for a change. Go a bit wild, get a bit drunk, get a lot laid, whatever. She felt pent up, like she needed to release some energy. So she threw on last year’s costume and set out to go to the pub.
She knew some of the other wolves would be in attendance, but when she arrived the place was so packed she couldn’t find them at first glance. The myriad of scents made her dizzy for a few seconds. She decided to go straight to the bar, down some quick shots and start to enjoy herself as quickly as possible.
That’s exactly what she did for the next hour. She eventually found the pack, danced with Gretel for a while. She drank, and danced, and talked with every Downwordler around; even a very grumpy, very elegant vampire, for just a few minutes.
On one of her trips to the bar she felt a tap on her shoulder, and when she turned back Magnus was there, as stylish as ever, with his cat-eyes on display and highlighted with make-up.
“A siren. Good choice.” He said, pointing at her costume. “Are you having a good time?”
“A great one.” She smiled up at him, feeling her head a little clouded after all those shots. “And you’re a pirate. Wait.” She paused, looking at the rope and (fake?) bruises around his neck. “A hung pirate.” She lowered her eyes to his arms. “Really hung.”
He threw his head back in a witchy cackle, resting his arm on the bar and getting closer to her. “You look gorgeous too. I would gladly let my ship sink for you.”
“I doubt it. You clearly haven’t heard me sing.”
“Nonsense,” he dismissed, ”I’m sure it’d be beautiful. Though probably,” he paused to look around, “this is not the best place, acoustically.”
And Maia was great at recognizing openings.
“And what would be a good place for me to sing to you? Acoustically.”
“My office.” He said directly, looking straight into her eyes, without a hint of coyness. She felt her heart speed, the slight tipsiness brought those shots slipping away, as the whole room seemed to come into focus.
“Lead the way.”
She followed him to a softly lit room, with an elegant couch that was definitely big enough for a fuck.
She couldn’t resist the impulse to draw him in by the rope, head first into an immediately heated kiss. She had almost forgotten how easy sex could be. And how good kissing felt like. She hadn’t even kissed anyone since— well, since that night.
They took each other’s clothes off with some minor complications; sex in costume: not her brightest idea. Magnus started kissing down her neck, leading her towards the couch until they were both sitting on it.
The room was completely isolated from the noise of the club, so the only things she could hear were the sounds of their breaths, their kisses, their bodies in movement. She didn’t know if it was the alcohol, or her new enhanced senses, but everything suddenly became a little too overwhelming.
Seeing where it was going, she pushed him away a little more brusquely than she would’ve wanted. He stopped immediately.
“I don’t like to be laying down.”
He nodded, understanding. “Then you’ll have to sit on my face, because I want to eat you out.”
She laughed at his deadpan tone, and just like that, the weird tension in the room dissipated. Magnus laid down then, caressing her legs as she did what she was told. The posture, wearing only her bra, made her feel a bit exposed, as it always had. But she talked herself out of it in a second; she wasn’t going to renounce to oral sex, after all.
“Tell me if I’m pressing to tight.”
The look he directed at her couldn’t have been more charged with skepticism. “I’ll be fine.”
“It’s just I’m not fully used to my new strength and—“
Turns out, oral sex is a great way to shut someone up.
The man clearly knew what he was doing; sex with an immortal: a damn bright idea. He pressed just right with his tongue on her clit, and she had to grab the backrest of the couch to maintain the equilibrium, pulling his hair a little too roughly with her other hand. He brought her to the orgasm ridiculously fast; as she stood up, she idly thought that she would have beard-burn the next day, but it was fucking worth it.
She gave him space to sit up and proceeded to undo his belt and pull down his pants, as a condom magically got out of the desk and traveled through the air. She opened and directly put it on him, lowering herself on his cock without any more fuss. She loved that part, the full control of the movement it gave her. Just as she felt she was getting over the edge, he rubbed her clit, and she bit hard on his shoulder to drown the sound that wanted to come of her throat.
She felt him spill into her, both breathing heavily. He put a hand on the back of her head and brought her down for one last, languid kiss. With one last nip at her lower lip he drew back, an easy smile on his face she couldn’t help but return.
As they separated, she prepared herself for the awkward post-coital moments. In her experience, the best way to avoid as much as possible was to just power through it, so that’s what she did. She started dressing, her hands still trembling slightly. As she tied her boots, Magnus handed her a glass of water. He was already fully dressed, with his make-up intact, as if nothing had happened. Neat trick.
“Thank you.”
They smiled at each other one last time, as she stood up to leave.
“Go, I’ll leave in another minute.”
That was probably more for her benefit, but she was grateful for it. She could think of very few people it would be less embarrassing to sleep with than Magnus Bane, but a girl liked her privacy. The other wolves would smell it all on her, but she'd seen they knew how to be discreet when it came to those matters, thankfully.
She closed the door quietly as she left the room, taking a deep breath before going back to the dance floor to look for Gretel and the rest of the pack, a smile still on her face.
She couldn't have come up with a better way to end her dry spell if she'd tried.
This is the March 22nd Weekly Megapost & Chat!
Mar. 22nd, 2026 01:52 amkalloway posting in mobilegamesThis is the March 22nd Weekly Megapost & Chat!
Things you can do in the comments-
- trade friend codes
- ask about games
- post about in-game events
- anything you don't want to make an individual post about
- share how the RNG is treating you
New Dissidia time!
Things you can do in the comments-
- trade friend codes
- ask about games
- post about in-game events
- anything you don't want to make an individual post about
- share how the RNG is treating you
New Dissidia time!