So lately I've been going to bed between 9pm and 10pm, partially due to Dog, partially out of boredom or tiredness. This means I have ALSO been getting up early. Well, last night I stayed up until past 11pm, doing the new Main Scenario Quests in Final Fantasy XIV, which meant I was TIRED when finished and went straight to bed rather than post this.

1. one creative thing I did today

Nada, it's patch day! Okay, I did answer one question on Ravelry. But I didn't do any creative work myself because I didn't have time. I'm fine with this.

2. one thing I'm proud of today

Well. I had intended to get up early and do the Alliance Raid before starting work, but then I didn't sleep well and got up later than intended. I considered doing the raid anyway, because I *do* set my own hours and thus they are flexible, but I thought, "Wouldn't you feel better doing the raid after having gotten some work done, so raid is now a reward?" So I chose to do work first. I'm pretty pleased with myself for having done so.

3. video game progress

PATCH DAY PATCH DAY PATCH DAY!!!! I did indeed do the Alliance Raid in the afternoon, and then MSQ after dinner. I had fun with both, but think I enjoyed the raid more (though MSQ's trial was FUN). This is not to say MSQ was bad! Just that the raid hit more of my pleasure centers from being a former FFXI player in its heyday.

I must link this tumblr post, which lassarina shared with us. It's about the recent keynote, not the patch:

Yoshi P should bring back Alaimbert of the Spiked Butt as a boss and give him a move called Butt Slider so he can say to fans: "Well? This is what you asked for, right?"

--verodynamix on tumblr

I wheezed laughing at that!

And now, SPOILER TIME! Here's my notes and reactions from the patch.

First up, alliance raid. This is very detailed, listing the bosses you face and some of their moves, so SPOILERS AHOY!

Alliance Raid SPOILERS

Alliance Raid clear! I rolled 99 on minion, whee!

first boss is Shantotto - There is no trash before her. She is quite formidable, as one might expect. I didn't recognize the music but I'm guessing it's from A Shantotto Ascension, an add-on scenario. I was tripped up by two mechs. First, she puts BLM's uh, sigil thingy they stand in, all over the arena. You need to dart into the one she's in and then follow her to other ones quickly. I didn't realize this at first and died. Also died twice to a move that I thought was a symbol that meant action was happening ON ME to the ENTIRE RAID, but I think everyone sees it on themselves? It's a wind move. Before she does it, she days a Tremor or Quake move that juts out pieces of the arena, you have to go in an alcove so you don't get blown away. This really confused me and I panicked first time and just stood there because it looked like it would affect EVERYONE and I didn't know the safe place to stand, if that makes sense. I finally got it after getting blown off a second time. Lots of deaths in this one, and I basically floor tanked.

next is Aht Urghan: BESIEGED!!! I was squeeing because I loved Besieged back in the day. It's a server-wide battle people can join and fight in. This is just a series of trash, but harder than normal trash.

then you get transported to Nzyul Isle and face Alexander, the boss of the Treasures of Aht Urhgan expac, leading someone to say "HOW MANY TIMES DO I NEED TO KILL YOU?" hahaha. I felt most of the moves for him were self-explanatory, just had difficulty DOING them. Wifh practice I should do better.

Next up is the Ru'met Gardens area where first you have some trash, but again, a little more difficult. There are pot-like enemies (not magic pots, more like obelisks I guess but we always called them pots). They have eye-like symbols painted on them, and just like FFXI, will do an attack in the direction they're gazing, so stay out of the AoEs,. I'd focus on them first. They're a Ae'ryn (SP?) add too, but that is not that bad. The pots are worse.

next boss is Promathia, the final boss of the Chains of Promathia expansion. - During the middle of this fight, you're transported/shifted to Promyvions, a dark creepy area. You will be fighting adds named Memory Receptacles. They do a move called Empty Seed, a knockback that you need to position yourself so you end up in one of the four corner walls. Besides that, this fight has a LOT of dodging, so stay nimble

last boss Phase 1 is Shinryu. Unfortunately, I had technically difficulties and blackscreened after the CS, so I missed the phase 1 fight (I had to crash the game and get back in). 🙁 I did make it back for second half! I won't spoil transition cutscene or final form, but again, there is a lot of dodging, and I think some moves will feel a little familiar.

I would be happy to go again with anyone who wants company ❤️

OMG I GOT CASTING HANDS TOO!! I had some RDMs in the party so I didn't expect to get it, with my poor roll. but yay!

also the cutscenes are gorgeous

And here's some reactions to MSQ:

MSQ reactions! SPOILERS!

first quest, bit of snark: man am I glad my glam is the Isle Explorer's outfit with the backpack so that when I retrieved the key, I could pretend I was pulling it out of the backpack and not my ass

still first quest: okay, what's with the dirt on Tataru's nose? It was immediately noticiable to me. guess I play more and see if they explain it!

second quest: dungeon already? okay then

post dungeon, on moon - livingway: "I don't foresee any major problems." gate: ROAR!!! Livingway: "Oh. Nope. We're doomed." I laughed very much at her delivery of that

unlocked trial, MUSIC TIME!!!! <3!!. Also, I chose the "no time to explain!" answer to Zero's "What are you doing here?" and she said "Leave it to you to state the obvious." and I laughed at that, too. I knew we'd see her again, but glad we ARE, because I missed her

whaaaat, why is queue 30 minutes? I expected a fast queue, but I guess everyone's hitting it at the same time and clogging the servers, boo

trial over: that was fun, and I don't think I died once, YAY!

I might natter more about it later, but right now I have to get ready for gym with mom.

I will be taking myself to bed once this is posted because I am rather meh.

1. one creative thing I did today

It was not a good day for fiber arts.

So, May is almost here, which means the current round of Nerdopolis is ending, and I have yet to make anything for it. I dutifully tried to make something today: a pocket tissue cozy.

First I tried a knitted one, using the suggested needle size. I didn't get far before deciding I hated it. I was going to drop down in needle size (...several sizes) and try again, but the yarn wouldn't cooperate and for once I didn't have patience to deal with it.

So I gave up on that, and tried a crocheted one, but I hated how that was coming out too, even though I had only done a few rows. Today was just not a day for yarn crafts.

I opened my getyourwordsout Habit Tracker tonight to see where I was for the month and well, it's bad. But I did write one day, and that is one day more than I would have done if I wasn't attempting GYWO. I'm gonna try to get some more writing done in the next few days.

2. one thing I'm proud of today

My job is a set-your-own-hours contract position. I love it, honestly. It's perfect for my lifestyle right now.

I usually set a goal of working 3 hours a day, but Mondays are not good days for me and I often fail to meet that goal. Today I not only met it, but exceeded it. I finished the current sheet I was working on, because I wanted it done. So I'm ahead of schedule for the rest of the week now, which may mean I don't end up working 4+ hours of Thursday or Friday again. That'll be nice!

Also felt therapy went well today, but that's all I'll say on a public post.

3. video game progress

Hahahaha nope. I had vague plans to play some Tactics after dinner, but mom needed help/needed me to listen to her rant about Facebook, and by the time we were done it was 8pm. And I'd have to hook up my Switch again because I brought it up to dogsitting, and well, TOO MUCH LIKE WORK.

I thought about messing around in FFXIV but was too tired for that, and besides, would rather save FFXIV energy for new patch tomorrow. I plan on doing the alliance raid first thing in the morning! And then MSQ after work/lunch.

Okay, I did play some WordScapes today, but I usually do, so ??? -- I'm of the opinion that casual phone games DEFINITELY count as gaming, but there's not much to report about an ongoing casual game. Though I will complain that some of their goals are ridiculous. Dear WordScapes: you are a WORD GAME. Folks like me are going to play maybe 20-30 minutes a day, tops. Why are you making it so the best achievements take considerably more time? ....okay, yes, I know: they want money, and think the way to get it is to have you play more. Well. I paid my $2.99 to remove ads from it ages ago, and I'm too good at the game to require hints (no seriously, I have like 15 rocket hints collecting dust, and it's NOT because of fear of using them like fear of using Elixirs in RPGs) so there's nothing to entice me to spend money. I'm happy with my 3-5 puzzles before bed.

Not much today because a good portion of the day was spent getting ready to go back home and then getting there, but YAY I'M HOME! I had a fun "vacation" with the dog, but glad to be back in my own space.

1. one creative thing I did today

Worked on a swatch for a knitted tee. Just a row or two, but I touched it.

When I got home, I did some searching on Ravelry to find something for a Nerdopolis challenge. For those new around here: Nerdopolis is a crafting tournament in which we get themes to craft to. One of the themes this month is "deep space objects", so I've been looking for stuff that is reminiscent of spiral galaxies.

I found a great hat that I wanted to knit, but (a) I wasn't sure I'd have time because it was densely knit worsted weight AND double-layered, (b) I went to purchase it and it said "This designer is not taking payments at this time." Tried their Etsy store, and it's closed. Ah, well. I had previously started a crocheted doily that I might finish, but I wasn't digging it, so I dunno. The end of round is coming, though, so I'll need to make SOMETHING.

2. one thing I'm proud of today

I cleaned the house before I left, to my satisfaction. Also left a note to say how good the dog was, here's some things they should know about, and thanking them for trusting me with their home and dog.

3. video game progress

I logged into FFXIV just so my console would be ON (I had shut it down completely before I left), which meant I did the PlayStation 5 OS upgrade and new TOS agreement. Now the console is asleep, or will be soon. I'm purposely leaving it sleeping so when patch hits tomorrow night, it gets updated and I won't have to wait for it before I play on Tuesday morning. I didn't do much in game, just checked retainers (they sold a bunch of things! That's what happens when you don't log in for over a week) and spent some poetics on HW relic materials.

and that's it for today.

Friending Meme! Come make new friends!

OKAY FOLKS it is time for another round of Althea's List of Interesting Dreamwidth Communities! I last posted this during snowflake_challenge this year, so just a few months ago, but I've stealth added some more since then.

Rules:
1. Share freely! This post is public for that reason.
2. If you know of a good comm and want to see it featured, comment and I'll very likely add it.
3. I refuse to add comms that full of bigotry and hate. That seems to not be a Dreamwidth thing, but I am sure they are out there. I'm here for supportive / fun places!

And now, here's the list! They are roughly in reverse chronological order to when they've been added, so newer ones are at the top. EDIT @ 12:22pm: I've redone the list to be broken down roughly alphabetical by category, which should make it easier to manage!

---

Dreamwidth

Non-official communities to help make your time on Dreamwidth more rich.

• 3weeks4dreamwidth is a thing in which people post/interact more on Dreamwidth, to show love for the platform. ♥


• addme_fandom A friend finding community, but with a specific fandom focus! Interested in a particular fandom right now and want more people to talk about it with? Here’s a good place to find fellow fans!


• addme_fandom is a place to find friends who share your fannish obsessions.


• findingfriends : Similar to the addme communities but with a more in-depth approach, including things like posting style and what sort of interactions you’re looking for. Takes more brain power than the addme comms, but I imagine that the connections result in a higher level of compatibility.


• followfriday recommends people/communities to follow each Friday.


• getting_started is a community with resources for those new to Dreamwidth.


• moodthemeinayear is what it says on the tin: the folks there are working on creating custom Dreamwidth mood themes over the course of a year.


• reddit_refugees offers resources for newcomers to Dreamwidth.


• snowflake_challenge runs in January, and is a way to celebrate fandom and meet interesting people on Dreamwidth.


• sunshine_challenge Like snowflake_challenge but runs in the summer months (northern hemisphere, but our Southern Friends experiencing winter are welcome too!)


• twitter_refugees is for folks migrating to Dreamwidth from Twitter.

Bingos

Creative or commenting challenges based on a bingo card.

• allbingo - They do all sorts of bingos, mostly writing-related but I think they've had some crafting ones as well. There's new challenges monthly!


• comment_bingo is a bingo challenge community for commenting on all those fanfics you read.


• genprompt_bingo - for the writers! They generate bingo cards of prompts, with all the prompts being gen. You can, of course, write a shippy fic from the prompt – it’s just the prompts themselves that are gen.


• ladiesbingo is a bingo challenge to make works focused on the relationship between women, whether gen, femslash, or familial. I'm currently having great fun trying to fill my bingo board!


• lyricaltitles is a bingo fest for fanfiction and original fiction centering around using songs for inspiration!


• vid_bingo is a community for vidders to use bingo card prompts to inspire vids

Prompts

Writing or creative challenges that are prompt-based but not bingo cards:

• 100words is a drabble community for fiction of all kinds. They post weekly challenges there.


• 1character is a writing challenge where you choose a character and prompt set, then write one line sentences to fill each prompt.


• 25poemsamonth is a community where a 25 prompt table is posted at the beginning of every month and then, members have until the beginning of the next to fill as many prompts as possible.


• fan_flashworks is a multifandom comm that posts one prompt for the week you use to write a short fanfic.


• ffprompts posts monthly prompts for the Final Fantasy video game franchise. As a big fan of this series, I'd love to see more fills for the prompts happening!


• fic_promptly is created for leaving prompts and answering prompts. All fandoms are allowed, as are original work and real-person work. Fills can be fics or poems. There is no minimum/maximum word count.


• inspiredby posts writing prompts monthly.


• kittens_and_spitefic 's goal is to prompt fan content by acting like a total troll and pretending to bash what you want to see up one side and down the other. Commenters then engage with the supposed "troll" by spamming them with cat (and other animal) macros and/or content that caters to everything the original poster professes to hate.


• sweetandshort is a low-pressure community for creating small fanworks / original works each week.


• threesentenceficathon People leave prompts, other write short fills of 3 sentences or longer.

Writing

Writing-related communities that aren't Bingos or Prompts.

• 10trueloves is a writing challenge where you pair a character with ten others (IIRC, they don't have to be romantic pairings, but I'm not sure – check the comm rules for more info!)


• getyourwordsout is a writing challenge community where you can challenge yourself by wordcount of number of days written per month.


• makezines is for folks doing just that!

Icons

Icon-creating challenges and other icon communities.

• iconthat is another icon challenge community.


• your_favourites is an icon making community that migrated over from LiveJournal. Looks like they have themes for members to create icons for, and then take a vote for best icon. I've joined it in hopes of finding more icons to add to my own journal.

Books

Read-alongs and other book communites:

• booknook posts a weekly Read-in-Progress check-in posts on Wednesdays.


• queerbookclub is a no pressure book club dedicated to fiction books of all genres that are queer in some way! each month we take suggestions on what the next month's book should be and we vote on it. if you're not interested in the book for the month, that's perfectly fine!


• readingtogether - has seen some activity the past few months. It's not like a normal book club where everyone reads the same thing - instead everyone reads their own thing and posts their progress.

Crafts and General Creativity

• everykindofcraft is what it says it is.


• get_knitted posts daily check-ins. The folks there are GREAT about commenting on each other's comments. It's not just for knitting, either - there are people there who do scrapbooking and jigsaw puzzles.


• justcreate - has weekly check in posts where you can update everyone on your creative progress. All kinds of creativity are celebrated there, including fiber arts, drawing, writing, and more.


• nacramamo is National Craft-Making Month, and is gearing up now to kick off in October. The challenge is to work on some kind of craft every day for 31 days.


• communal_creators is a community for creative types! A mini-round for time pledges will be happening this spring. ANY kind of creativity is welcome! We have people writing (both fic and original), knitting, crochet, vidding, storyboarding, baking, making websites... if it's creative, you're welcome here.


• drawesome - has drawing challenges. I haven't taken part yet because I am a very sucky drawer, but I hope to start there in the future.

Culture

Communities focusing on a specific culture.

• c_ent is for Chinese Entertainment, and comes highly recommended by a few people.


• latam is a new community for people to come together to talk about latinamerican music, films, food, culture, fandom, and more! Everyone's welcome, no matter where you're posting from! And you can also post in your language (official languages of the community are Spanish, Portuguese and English!)


• senzenwomen is a community regaling the histories of women in and around Japan, 1868-1945. Thanks to vriddy for signal boosting this fascinating community!

Nature

What it says on the tin.

• birdfeeding covers everything to do with birdfeeding, gardening for wildlife, and related topics.


• common_nature is a photo community to share nature pics from your area, and has been active recently.

Fandom & Gaming

Communities about fandom in general and in specific.

• allkindsofdolls is what it says on the tin. If you love dolls, check it out.


• anime_manga has seen some activity lately!


• bnha_fans is for fans of Boku no Hero Academia


• fandom_on_dw : Pretty much the same as above, honestly, but it’s good that there’s more than one place that hosts this kind of thing!


• fandomcalendar : This is a community dedicated to announcing fandom events, which can include fandom-specific friending memes.


• fictional_fans : A community for all fans and fandoms. If you’ve got a post you want to make about fandom in general, or a specific fandom that doesn’t have its own community, this might be a good place to check out.


• finalfantasy - of course this would be here, if you know me. It's been very slow there lately, but I'd love to see more activity there.


• indie_games sometimes sees activity, and in the past, we did a play-together of A Short Hike.

Social Justice

Because the world is a mess and we just need to fix it.

• fandomtrumpshate raises money for charity by creating fanworks.


• thissterlingcrew is the UK equivalent of the below.


• thisfinecrew is a social justice community focused on the USA. It doesn't get as much action as i once did but there are still informative posts there once in a while.


• womansplace is a community that holds dual purpose: 1) Celebrate characters who identify as women or who are aligned with womanhood in transformative fan works. Events include community recs, a prompt fest, and a vid exchange. 2) Raise funds via a vid auction

Other Communties

These didn't fit in the other categories but I feel are interesting enough to warrant being on this post!

• queerly_beloved : An anti-exclusionist queer space to get together and talk about all things queer, including intersectional matters. Hosts a weekly recommendations thread, but more and other content is very welcome!


• 1word1day posts a vocabulary word a day!


• agonyaunt - critiques letters to advice columnists and the answers the letter writers get. I love this community because it is filled with smart people that I am learning a lot from. I'm a person of a certain age, and I know because of the timeframe I grew up in I have a lot of inherit biases and whatnot. I try to be above those biases, but sometimes I don't recognize them. Reading the other commenters to agonyaunt helps me recognize those biases and better myself.


• awesomeers - they make a post for each day of the week in which they challenge the members to comment with Just One Thing you did today that you're proud of accomplishing. Of course you are free to post more than one thing if you'd like! I love the idea of this community, though I haven't been very active in it lately. I hope to change that, if only to congratulate other people. Also: we celebrate all accomplishments there, so something as simple as "I got out of bed" would be acceptable!


• bujo for bullet journalers.


• crowdfunding connects creators, patrons, and fans of cyberfunded creativity. Watch for the mid-month Creative Jam with a new theme each time.


• do_it - A community for posting to-do lists to make yourself accountable to others.


• holiday_wishes - active in the last two months of the year. People post their holiday wish lists there, and others fill them! I really was blessed one year - I got a bunch of cards, some yarn, some chocolate, and some other sweet treats. &hearts


• journalsandplanners - what it says on the tin: for those who use a journal or planner to organize their lives.


• reference_library is a place to gather helpful links and share them, run by sharpest_asp


• signalboost is for getting the word out to others about people needing help in some way.

So in the recent post by wavesagainstrocks on how you do fandom, I said the following:

I do sometimes feel I am too narrow-minded in my fandoms, because except for yarncrafts and Final Fantasy, I don't really venture out of those areas? I keep saying I'm going to play more single-player games on my own, but it's so EASY to default to FFXI or FFXIV or replay a comforting game. Earlier this year I was playing Epistory (Typing adventures!) which I was enjoying, and I don't think I have much more left so I should probably finish that. I also played about two hours of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and immediately was interested... but the activation energy to do something new to me is hard to find. So easy to just... not do it.

WELL FOLKS! I am away from home watching my sister's dog. My PS5 is back home, so no FFXIV - neither potato computer or mom's laptop can handle it. I could play FFXI on potato computer, but I left its gaming pad at home. Which means either fumbling with keyboard controls (and I am NOT good at them) or seeing if my Switch Pro controller would work.

But that, for once, sounds like too much effort.

So what to do? Well, I brought my Switch along! Now, I could replay FFXII. I was supposed to be doing a random job challenge of it recently, but only played an hour. As much as I like FFXII, I think... I think I don't want to replay a game right now.

Which means I am going to start FINAL FANTASY TACTICS today!

Okay, okay, it's another FF game. But I've never played it. And I have long felt that lack of experience in it as a hole in my gaming knowledge. There's a REASON it's way up there with the Zelda series as a "most wanted to play" game.

I know surprisingly a lot about the game, for not having played it. First, I have an idea of what the gameplay is like, because I've played the shit out of FFT: Advance. Seriously! My game file had like 180 hours put in it.

Second, I know many of the characters already, from them having shown up in first FFBE/WOTV and then when I did the Ivalice raids in FFXIV. This also means I know many of the bigger enemies, too.

I also helped R51 at Caves of Narshe update his FFT section for its recent re-release. This means I know EVERY SINGLE item, weapon, and armor in the game, because I proofread those pages. I know where stuff drops from, or is poached from. I know all the locations, because I checked their map pages for correct links.

My posts will be FULL OF SPOILERS but I ask that you PLEASE not spoil me for anything I haven't talked about yet. Thanks in advance!


( here spoilers start )

Stitch Club was today, and there was MORE destashing happening, so I have a new round of pretties!

( click for pics and descriptions! )

I have really lucked out lately.