Laughter Through Tears

Drop me a line about anything here.

It's a good thing I had a super-productive June, because it's been a month since I got the shot and, right on schedule, my knee's started to twinge again. I might be overreacting, it might just be a bad day or two...or it might be a sign that in three weeks, at my next appointment, I'll have to talk to the rheumatologist about DMARDs.

The good news is that it's been almost twenty years and apparently they've been making great strides in specifically that area. However, I reserve the right to be grumpy about it.

Despite family insisting that my coconut muffins (made to exploit the excess dried coconut from Pesach) were "a hit", there's still a box full of them in the fridge, upstairs. Very difficult to predict what will get eaten and what will languish. I was going to make almond muffins this week (for the same reason, great excess of ground almonds), but now I'm thinking maybe biscuits. Cheddar biscuits. And maybe I should try making a recipe that can be easily halved, since we're not having family over, this weekend.

Halving baking recipes is mostly down to the number of eggs. I'm too tired/lazy to figure out how to halve a single egg, so no fractions for me.

I did find a garlicky recipe that I'm interested in trying. Might make them tomorrow afternoon, if I stop by the supermarket and pick up a bag of pre-shredded cheese.

Flamecraft: it sounded like it would be a cute town-builder game with adorable cartoonish dragons, and it is, but it's also a PvP deck-building game, and that's just not the style of gameplay I'm looking for. Played the tutorial, then one more round, which I lost. And uninstalled.

( Thoughts on 10 more demos I recently played )

Could not understand why I was so tired in mid-afternoon, even though all I did today so far is 1) shower and wash my hair, and 2) bake banana muffins.

Then I remembered that I was coming out of almost two months of not being able to get a continuous night's sleep, while also being in pain every day. So, there's that.

Last week, after having heard endlessly about its branching potential and the quality of its art and writing, I played Scarlet Hollow. This is a fairly grisly horror game with shades of southern gothic, cosmic horror, body horror, and psychological horror, among others. Aside from the gorgeous hand-drawn art, it boasts a complex storyline and equally complex characters, with the kind of depth that demands multiple playthroughs and frantic, cross-referential theorizing.

I've been doing most of my Holler-posting on my Tumblr, but I wanted to put together a somewhat longer post that delves into some major spoilers, as well as speculating about some things that I might not yet unlocked. And DW felt like a more natural place to put a post like that.

( Scarlet family tree etc. )

I could probably write a lot more about it, but I gotta draw the line somewhere.

I now have three new grab bars installed in my apartment. Overdue, TBH. I should have had them put in before I needed them, and I knew that, but I put it off because it wasn't urgent.

Anyway, I have one by my desk now, which should make the process of getting up from my desk chair (my single most frequent physical action throughout the day) much simpler.

Currently working on the very beginning of chapter 4 of "Project Ghoul". Behind schedule, but at least I'm getting something done.

I was gonna make a post about game demos. Maybe tomorrow.

Loftia looks cool. It's currently in closed beta for the next two weeks or so, which I have neither the time nor the mental space for, but I'm keeping an open eye.

It's billed as a cozy MMO, so something in the same genre as Palia, which I've been playing and loving for about a year. The difference is, although Palia has some sustainability themes in the main quest, Loftia's genre is pretty explicitly solarpunk. From the early gameplay that I've seen streamers do, it's not quite gunky enough to suit my preference for solarpunk, but it's also not fully shiny/fixed/idealized, IYKWIM. There's a salvage skill, for example, where you can collect bits of plastic and stuff from discarded junk.

Plus, the setting is a bunch of flying islands, which is just awesome. No purple elves, though. No elves of any color, as far as I can see.

I'm exhausted today, mostly because of things that I don't want to talk about, but also because this morning, for the first time in literally years, I woke up with a stiff right knee and mild, twinging pain. Nothing like the pain that I used to have (circa 2007 or thereabouts), but I've been limping most of the day, and seriously restricted in Pilates, this morning.

Still watching endless Blue Prince VODs on YouTube, both from Cracking the Cryptic and now also Dr Gluon. Also slowly rewatching all of The Mentalist over the past month or so, in lieu of watching anything new that I need to focus on. And lately, also, reading the novel version of The Perks of Being an S-Class Heroine, since the manhwa's new season i getting translated, too. I felt like I'd forgotten a lot and wanted more background material + a refresher.

It's an intriguing case study in something that's technically a romantic fantasy, but with heavy action fantasy elements, an overpowered female protagonist, and some intriguing supporting characters. If I was less worn out, I'd try to write something sensible about it.

The thread I'm hanging by is gossamer-thin, but I'm hanging.