oh, look. something dreadful.

what's up? well, I've finally recovered a bit. I'm not quite at my normal long COVID baseline but I'm not too bad. the pollen really did a number on me one to two weeks ago too but I am now permanently full of antihistamines as well. anyway, I had a lot of lying around time as a result so here's some rambling about fiction that I was occupying myself with.

I played/read Chaos;Child - one of the Science Adventure series and (ehhh kind of) a sequel to Chaos;Head. I played Chaos;Head maaaany years ago, before there was any official translation, so I never played Chaos;Head NOAH and consequently didn't see the routes and additional ending/s in that. well, it didn't matter a huge amount because I needed to read through the basic synopsis - I only remembered that I enjoyed it and liked the paranoid atmosphere. Chaos;Child was also a compelling story and I liked some of the characters a lot. on the downside, the way it was structured was actively bad. you're pretty much locked into a single route on the first playthrough and then you can diverge into four character routes which are largely pointless by comparison. yeah you get to explore characters a bit more but man does it feel like a de-escalation after the common route. THEN, when you're done with those, you unlock the true end which really only has relevance to the common route again. they have a good main story, I just have no idea why they decided to structure it like this! (and apparently the translation I played is also a bit lacking, which I could sometimes hear when comparing the Japanese spoken dialogue lines. it was on the Switch so I couldn't use the fan patch.) anyhow: it was worth it. looking back at my rating of Chaos;Head on VNDB on an account I started in 2009, I also wonder how I'd rate a lot of things on there today.

I also finally played Master Detective Archives: Rain Code right after. it was visually very pretty, had a nice cast of characters, and a plot I was generally interested in uncovering. unfortunately, the gameplay can get pretty tedious... very tedious. it was more arduous than I remember the Dangan Ronpa games being, with the disclaimer that I played them a while ago and only remember some of the mechanics. but for example, there were a couple of cases where I already understood everything that happened before getting to the mystery solving gameplay section and it had basically no impact on my performance compared to the cases I didn't know all the answers to. so I guess what I'm saying is that half the gameplay is just gimicky instead of giving you the satisfaction of solving a puzzle, which is not great for someone who doesn't love action games. I got a free DLC that I haven't played yet, although I heard they're just ~45min linear stories so I'll see how it is before looking into the other DLC stories. anyway: Halara, Vivia, and Yakou were my faves and the bits that didn't feel like a slog were fun.

I finished the audio book of Agatha Christie's Crooked House too, which is one of a vanishing number of Agatha Christie novels I haven't heard or read before (...that I can remember, anyway). I usually listen to audiobooks in short bursts while I'm lying in bed at night so it's hard to really judge a story that I hear when my brain is half asleep but I think it was one of her good ones. I have no idea what I'll do when I run out of Agatha Christie audio books read by Hugh Fraser. I may have already run out - I'll have to check!

I have also been reading a bit of non-fiction, which I guess I'll post about some other time. I have eternal executive function issues but I really don't want to be a dummy who doesn't read, so I'm trying to harness direct my energy because I think it's important. I've never been good at getting stuff done BUT I did have enough enthusiasm to do all my readings back when I did most of a humanities and social sciences degree so I just gotta channel that.

realised I also want to post about some media stuff too.

I finished my replay of Dragon Age II! it is a game that was very obviously made on a time crunch but ultimately I really appreciate the story it tells. I played a female silly/charming two-handed warrior Hawke and went towards friendship with everyone (yep, everyone!) without any inconsistency in behaviour - I just consulted guides a lot. I also used the polyamory mod that allowed me to romance all four of the core romances (minus Sebastian). it was pretty nice being able to see/relive the romance progression for everyone without playing again multiple times and the bugs it caused were pretty minimal. it is unfortunately pretty funny when [sad thing happens] and all four of them come one-by-one to comfort Hawke. this time around, I think I liked the Isabela and Fenris romances the best. all four of the options are incredibly flawed people, but I especially liked the way these two friendship romances fit into the plot and developed the characters (in my somewhat pro-mage playthrough). I love that Isabela learns to maaaaaaaybe a bit less selfish, perhaps, and also works through the feelings she'd rather deny. Fenris also works through a lot but ends up very devoted.

the time skips in DAII were always weird to me because they are so long, and I still hold this opinion. I think it could work a lot better if the breaks between acts were just a single year. I really didn't mind the repeated maps, although it would have been nice if they adjusted the minimaps to only show accessible areas. I also played the Legacy and Mark of the Assassin DLCs for the first time because I couldn't afford them back in the day and they were fun! I liked the unique banter/character moments and extra story. and of course, Legacy is the DLC that directly bridges to Inquisition's story, so it was good to finally experience it.

I've also been following some current mystery shows, as always. The Good Ship Murder continues to have nearly zero presence on Tumblr... not that I'm contributing either. it remains kind of shallow fun and I wonder how long they can string it out before the two main characters actually get together properly for realz. on a funny note, I was looking at the wikipedia page and it say someone from The Scum said 'The Good Ship Murder is a woke-free zone' - they must be awfully disappointed that two of the new characters this season are a gay man and a black woman.

unlike people whose opinions I only hear second hand (thank god), I like how Death in Paradise's new DI is shaping up. how quickly people forget that most of the DIs are rude and/or annoying to start with. you can see where the character development arc is going, of course, but the fun is in getting there. even if he sucked, I could watch just for Naomi and her fab outfits. and DARLENE, my beloved. I am still getting used to Seb but Ruby was also a ball of chaos and I loved her.

what else? my music has been on the dreamier side recently. that sometimes happens around December but it has persisted into the new year. maybe I'm just recognising the need to chill.

not me actually posting on DW!

social media has decayed my brain and long-form things seem like a lot of effort now but I think it will ultimately be a positive thing to read and write things here now and again. I was sometimes a little inconsistent in the old LJ days too but I was much more used to this format. I really want to unfuck my brain as much as possible in 2025 and, idk, maybe have less distant interactions even online. MAYBE even get back into fandom creativity, although I'm not making any promises.

it is very like me to be filled with thoughts of self-improvement on the eve of a new year while simultaneously acknowledging that I am and always have been a massive flake. that said, I have definitely become more realistic and able to set a few achievable goals over the years. I am in the process of wrangling everything that has popped into my head and turning that into something I'm capable of doing.

speaking of wrangling myself, I have been using the Finch app for a lot of this year and it has helped me keep on track with a few things! taking care of a funky lil guy really helps. if anyone else has it, my friend code is 9DECTQMHTM.

I suppose I should also make some new icons too. I quickly made some of these (such as the one on this post featuring my beloved Kyle Hyde) a few years ago when I started this journal up but most of them were taken from my old old LJ and don't really represent things I'm into right now.

and maybe, just maybe, I should type properly again. I wonder if this style is a bit hard to read.

Hi! It has come to my attention that I am very silly and I managed to link to the wrong DW post on half my requests.

If you're looking for the Chocolate Box 2021 letter, you can find it right here (or just have a look at my recent public entries). THANK YOU!

Hi Chocolatier,

Thank you so much for perusing my letter! In most sections, I've rambled about the ship for a couple of sentences and then given some prompts. I'm not married to these ideas - they're just a way to hopefully get the creativity flowing! Please know in advance that I appreciate your efforts and your creations. 🙏

( Letter below cut )

SO. I finished my Yuletide assignment on time. no treats submitted, unfortunately. it was difficult (even though the fic was short), but I'm really pleased I was able to get back into writing. I only hope it's not too obvious that I'm out of practice. :s

(without giving away which one is mine before the reveal,) my recipient had left an amazing comment before I woke up today. one of the best parts of Yuletide is giving someone a story that they'll enjoy. of course, the other part is receiving one!

I received With Love, Psmith (Psmith - P.G. Wodehouse). I'm sometimes not great at yelling about why I like things, but suffice to say that the writing style is extremely Wodehouse and the way it worked out was pretty much ideal for me. it's a funny and charming story which I know I'm going to reread a bunch of times.

obviously, I recommend the fic I received as a gift! I'll be reading my way through the fics in the collection that interest me and might do a small rec post here and/or Tumblr.

I also finished my 25 Christmas gifsets on time (link to master post). it was very good practice and I learnt a few things. I'm pretty pleased that I managed to finish this and a fic in the same month because I've had a lot of trouble with follow through on... pretty much everything for a while now.