#sorry for the humongous post i've been making these for months

[11th-dream]

i've been really into zero escape recently

[some27-url]

💙💛 Masterlist 💛💙

❗️on hiatus❗️

Hey lovely readers ❤

I currently have a humongous real life workload. Husband has been putting in like 70 hours a week of studying lately and it's looking like that trend in going to hold strong for like... 9 more months. 🙃 On top of that he's started doing two 12's a week doing home hospice care.

Meanwhile I am in the middle of switching jobs and taking care of the toddler and the animals and cooking all the meals and cleaning the house AND this week I finally got hubs to break and admit that I'm gonna have to do the yard work too. (Pray for me. I'm so itchy already.)

All of this is to say that I'm! Still! Writing! It's my happy place and has become a pivotal outlet for me so I'll never completely stop... but I have no earthly idea how often I'll be posting or what it'll even be.

That said, NONE of my fics have been abandoned and none of them are dead. All will continue once we've found our footing and have a good routine that doesn't neglect anyone's needs.

Again, I love you all, I appreciate my readers and I will still be here putzing around in tumblr some if y'all wanna... idk? Be friends?? Interact?? 😗 Feel free to tag me in stuff or send asks 🥰 I'll be around!

9/4/22

UPDATE 2/23/24:

Hello! Long time no read! (Or write)

I'm tossing out a little update here just to let you guys know that I'm still around, I just hadn't really felt compelled to write for the last... year.

At first, I was just waiting. I was on a journey to being officially diagnosed ADHD and starting meds for it. It was a long LONG journey and around the time I stopped writing, I was only a couple weeks away from diagnosis. Trying to write was such a struggle and I felt like being on meds was going to allow me to write more in less time because I wouldn't have to spend 80% of my "writing" time just trying to make myself focus.

I started meds about 8 months ago, and it has been a really awesome 8 months. Really. I have done so many things I hadn't been able to do before, like do my laundry and fold it and put it away. Or like sit in a restaurant and participate in a conversation without wanting to climb under the table and cry. But what I haven't wanted to do for 8 months... was write.

I thought it was because life had gotten too busy or because my son had gotten to an age where he took up more emotional bandwidth, leaving less for me to work with at the end of the day. I really really wanted to believe that it wasn't directly because of the meds.

Then, last month, I started having some health issues that have had us a bit worried about my heart. I wore a halter monitor for a week and will be discussing the results with my doctor soon. In the meantime, the provider for my adhd meds has advised me to stop the stimulants.

I want to be clear that I'm about 98% sure that whatever is happening with my heart is minor enough that we shouldn't be too worried. Stopping the meds was out of caution, and that paired with some other lifestyle changes has me having less symptoms already.

I've brought it up because I wanted y'all to know that I'm a week off of adderall and... I can't stop thinking about my stories. I'm really really feeling the push to write again and I think you'll be hearing from me soon. Soonish. Whether or not I can take my meds again in the future remains to be seen, but if I do get the green light I will be taking them differently than I was before to make room for ALL the things I want in life, not just the "productive" ones.

Hope you're all well. Sorry to have left you hanging for so long. 🥰

{profile pic}

Personal Tag * Illusions/Inclusions * Leonora Jean Arnold * Elanor Blysse Green * Hands in the Sand * Tag Games * writing playlist

Fics: [+ = unfinished]

Illusions Series+ : RJ MacCready/f!SoSu

-Illusions

-Inclusions

Deacon/Whisper/Raider/Vaultie/Bunny Series+ : Deacon/f!SoSu

-Bunny Dear

-Earn It

-Tit for Tat

-Tune Up

Unashamed : Boone/f!Courier oneshot

Secure : Boone/f!Courier ficlet

Hands in the Sand+ : MacCready/f!sosu soulmate AU

[all fics are explicit]

[MINORS DNI]

[selkiewife]

for the love your fandom ask; 2, 17, 25 !

Thanks @ratscapism! I'm so sorry it took me so long to answer!

2. A headcanon you weren't sure about at first but have come to like!

I can’t really think of a headcanon that I use to disagree with that I have since changed my mind about. And I don't really think it's because my mind can't be changed, because I can be pretty open when it comes to headcanons. Even if I disagree with it I will usually be like, "that might be interesting as an AU fic." But also maybe my memory is just failing me. I know I do have a few theories I was unsure about at first and now have come to really love. (Are theories different from headcanons? I don't know lol)

The first (and I can't believe I am speaking about this again- I actually just had 3 separate conversations about this this week for some reason) is the theory that Tyrion will either ride a dragon or is Aerys' son, or both! At first I wasn't sure about it because when I first entered fandom I think people were having theory fatigue and especially secret identity theory fatigue. So there were a lot of posts making fun of the Tyrion Targ theory and treating it like it was absolute tinfoil. But when I reread Tyrion's chapters for Tyrion Month in 2022, there is so much evidence for this theory. I won't be upset if it isn't true, but I definitely don't think it belongs in the same category as Varys is a merman you know? (If Varys turns out to be a merman I will apologize.)

I also use to be unsure by the theory that Theon might be skinchanged by someone (maybe Bran) because can't he just not be tortured for two seconds? But now it really intrigues me and it has intrigued me for awhile... but in the beginning, I was still trying to "gentle" it a bit in my own writing, like he gives Bran "permission" etc to do it. But now, I kind of want to explore what is horrific about it- and especially it being done to Theon in particular. This also leads me to another headcanon/theory I love which is that the Boltons started their skin FLAYING as revenge on the Starks who were skin changers. But I'm not sure if I ever felt unsure about that one haha.

17. the thing in canon that everyone loves and that you also love.

I talked about this already here but I am going to copy and paste since I don't know if you want to read about the other fandoms I'm talking about. So, I'll just keep this asoiaf centric:

Theon's Godswood scene. The old gods, they know me. They know my name. Shoot that scene directly into my veins. Carve that monologue onto my gravestone.

New thoughts: Honestly though, it's really hard to find something that "everyone" loves in the asoiaf fandom. And I've been in asoiaf fandom long enough to know that not everyone probably loves that scene I just described either. I remember a long debate years ago about how someone hated "I should have died with him" which usually seems universally liked. And this person had good points, no shade! (even though I DO like "I should have died with him.") But I think not liking the Godswood scene would *probably* be an unpopular opinion at least. I really don't have anything else lol, because I am honestly not sure what else "everyone" likes, asoiaf fandom is such a humongous beast...

25. a piece of advice for taking care of yourself in fandom spaces.

I answered this here but again, to keep this asoiaf only I will copy and paste:

Concentrate on what YOU love and don't feel bad about it. I'm serious. I have problems with this as well and it's hard NOT to care about what people think because part of seeking out a fandom for something you love is finding community in your enjoyment of something. But believe me, you will find your niche of fellow fans if you just fearlessly enjoy what you enjoy. And personally, I wouldn't even give what you don't enjoy any time at all. And really try to cultivate not getting upset if other fans are enjoying a headcanon or ship you hate or a character in a way you disagree with. And cultivate putting more of what YOU enjoy out there instead. (This is all advice I give myself too everyday and I don't do this well so I'm not trying to be all wise about it. It is just what I am trying to do and when I succeed it really makes everything more enjoyable.)

[aimai-ronri]

Reworking the Fuzzy Gaming Quest

This is the first time I've ever blogged publicly about something like this. I usually talk to friends about it, but I just as often don't say anything, because when I talk about video-games I get hyperfocused and sometimes the conversation takes a long time, so I often feel like it's a bit rude to get people wrapped up in it. But I remembered I have a tumblr now and people actually blog on here sometimes, so: prepare to suffer.

To set up why I'm so weird about games allow me to explain: first of all, I'm obviously not neurotypical in some way I don't know but one day would like to figure out. SECOND, I've been playing video-games literally since I can remember. My first real memories of cognition are watching my dad put cartridges in the NES, and climbing on the bed to put our Thai bootleg cart in there myself so I could play weird sprite hacks of Super Mario Bros. So anyway, gaming has factored heavily in my life since the beginning.

Anyway long story short, this has led to, for a long time, me wanting to leave some kind of legacy behind me in the form of a trail of beaten-up old video-games. Often this takes the form of just wanting to curate out a collection (physical or unholy--I mean digital) that I can leave behind in some state of completion, but on top of that it comes as me wanting to sit down and truly spend time with the games that are most important to my history over the course of my lifetime.

This has led to me making innumerable 'systems' for approaching the task of having a humongous backlog of video-games (some might say longer than is completable than anyone in a life time, and I recognize this) and often these systems get replaced or revised for being inadequate in some way. The latest no-thought system on my part was the Fuzzy Gaming Quest, in which the goal was basically to play through games starting from the beginning of time and blasting through at hyper-speed, with the intention of covering as much ground in order to induce familiarity as fast as possible with arcade games from an era I've rarely played (but longed for in my old man's soul).

This was working but I quickly ran into a snag (after recording about 250 videos 😥): I wasn't spending as much time with individual games as I'd like by any means. On one hand, I was backlogging games I was enjoying just to get them out of the way and continue the progress. On the other, sometimes I wasn't sure how much time you'd even spend with a game to consider yourself familiarized enough to rank it in some way, without necessarily having to beat everything (who has the time?). Not to mention arcade games that have no viable ending for the regular player (Pac-Man, Galaga, etc).

So anyway all this is leading up to me explaining the next iteration of the Fuzzy Gaming Quest. Here's a picture!

What you're looking at is essentially a 7 day scoreboard for various games that I selected out as important during my previous pass through the 70s and most of the 80s. These are all games I wanted to play more of or possibly log in a list.

7 days is my naive answer to how long I think would be good to spend on a game, in order to get competent enough at it to get a decent score and/or feel you've experienced your average game enough to go ahead and put it somewhere in a list. It might seem like overkill for a simple arcade game (though I'd argue you need to play repeatedly and give your brain time to absorb it to get the true experience), and it may seem like underkill for an RPG (though I'd argue that most RPGs probably aren't changing much more if you've been playing for 7 days already, but this doesn't forbid from continuing to play if I choose to), but this is my naive and probably flawed answer, anyway.

This is meant to serve the purpose of: - Progressing reasonably fast (notice this is a list of basically banger games everyone has heard of, I will probably only include a few games here or there that are lesser known that I just happen to like--I'll also be avoiding some consoles intentionally that I don't particularly like (like the Odyssey 2, sorry, it's my list though--convince me otherwise if you like)) - Filtering into some kind of "best of" list (if I don't even want to play it for 7 days (in brief sessions), it must not be very good after all and doesn't deserve to be on any best of list I would leave behind me--games that I do get through the 7 days I should understand enough to rank competently enough to make myself happy) - Giving me an excuse to spend more time on the games that really matter to me, today, in case I get hit by a bus tomorrow - Giving me a target for when I'm able to comfortably say I've experienced a game enough and don't need to feel bad about moving on if I want to but still haven't "beat it," and also leaving room for playing more if I like (I can sort it, take it off the board, but finish it anyway on the DL) (Also, if I do beat it, I can stop there with the board) - Satisfying whatever kind of ADHD thing I have going on by allowing me to keep a variety of games on rotation for some amount of time and not just getting stuck behind one game at a time - Breaking game experiences down over multiple days to allow a longer time to think about them and grow accustomed to them, also to allow me to fit them into my busy schedule by playing Space Invaders on the toilet for ~10 minutes - To leave behind a journal of high scores or information about how far I got in various games as I plod on

So, you may (rightly) ask: What's the point of all this? Why can't I just play games that I like and call it a day?

Well my first answer would be, "shut up I know you're right I just can't, my brain is broken," but my second answer, the one I would say aloud, might be that I really have always wanted to take a targeted approach to going through all of game history and that's what this is in service of.

I have no false expectations about getting all the way through game history up to now in one lifetime, at least not without sacrificing a lot of games in the process. I definitely won't ever get to the point where I'm always keeping up with contemporary games. It's lucky for me that I mostly fell out of favor with games around 2011 for various reasons, but really it had been a steady decline of interest since about 2005 or so. I have a shorter-hand target, but if I were to ever reach it, I'd like to keep going on, even if it means playing PS4 games in 2061 when I'm almost as old as my dad is now.

Anyway, your second question (and wow, if you made it this far) might be: "so what does this mean for your tumblr, which I care about intimately after seeing 20 posts, and was gutted when you temporarily took a break, and have been looking for meaning in my life ever since?"

Well, true believer, if you want I might post my 7 day high-score for various arcade games or something along with some pictures or videos of high points of the game (when I get to games complicated enough to have cool art). I haven't decided yet. I'm open to suggestions! I'd love to see people try to (and succeed!) at beating my scores (I'd feel like I influenced someone into maybe playing some old, great game they wouldn't have before deciding to just then).

If nothing else I hope it was interesting to see my thought process about this stuff.

If that's not true, I hope you were entertained by a write up of someone's journey ever deeper into video-game delirium.

And yes, I will get frustrated with the system and change it again in approximately a month.