In between handling all of my boring (medical and financial) chores, this month, I managed to squeeze in a fair bit of reading and game-playing.

After finishing Loretta Chase's My Inconvenient Duke, I went back to reread the first in the series, A Duke in Shining Armor, which had been a favorite of mine when I first read it. I was curious to remind myself how the character of Jonesy had been handled, because I remembered him appearing (after having been a consistent character in Silk Is for Seduction and its sequels, which technically take place a few years later).

MID didn't quite give me what I wanted, but that might be because I was expecting something different. And I never finished the ADISA reread, for obscure reasons of my brain being weird. I often drop off when reading books, especially in the last third, and especially when rereading.

I also got the game Strange Antiquities on a whim, ostensibly as a reward to myself for being disciplined enough not to buy Blue Prince (which I've determined has a 100% likelihood of undoing all of my mental health/self-care progress, pretty much instantly). I played it relentlessly over one weekend, but have yet to go back for a second playthrough. The demo is extremely indicative of the gameplay. If you like it, you'll probably like the game.

Over the weekend, I started reading Tensei Shitara Dragon no Tamago datta: Ibara no Dragon Road, also on a whim. So far, it's a fun romp, slightly referential of the spider one, but the lore isn't as deep. Then again, I haven't read all of it, so maybe it goes deeper, later. Spider has the interesting property of gradually shifting from a survival horror game isekai to some kind weird existential horror myth arc. Then again, "reincarnated as a monster' is apparently a whole sub-genre. I mostly gravitate towards villainess romances, so I wouldn't know.

Yesterday was supposed to be a good writing day, but it wasn't. I'm trying to make up for it today, but I still don't know if I'll quite make it.

On the other hand, I did manage to weave in a wolpertinger reference, which was great fun for me. Not least because it's fun to say. Wolpertinger. Hehe.

My tear through Yuletide-nominated fandoms continues. I'm still watching the Blue Prince videos, and last night, I finished reading K.J. Charles's All of Us Murderers, which is a savage, hilarious, and lovely gothic horror pastiche. All of KJC's familiar trademarks are at play.

Often, I highlight lines in my Kobo e-books. Usually, it's blue for lines that I particularly like, and then pink for anything that I think might be foreshadowing. About halfway through the book, I started journaling my thoughts and suspicions, much of it based on my knowledge of gothic horror themes and conventions. I did not suspect all the right people, and some of my guesses were off the mark, but I did pretty well. It's not a classic "fair-play whodunnit", but it definitely felt good to make lists of facts and suppositions, and to try and draw conclusions from them.

Early in the book, I was prepared to hold onto my negative feelings for the second male lead (Gideon), part and parcel of my uncomfortable habit of questioning why characters don't just up and leave the plot. Real winners quit, and all. But the book does a very good job of both explaining why Zeb didn't leave, and of selling me on the romantic plot, so that by the time that unfolds, I had zero reservations.

It also has one specific (hilarious) line that is very clearly there for us writers.

Increasingly, I can no longer claim I'm not a horror reader. More like, I'm a selective and cautious horror reader.

I nominated some fandoms I'm excited about for this year's Yuletide, but given the workload on the new project (and some other factors), I've been putting off signing up. Part of me is not entirely sure that it's a good idea for my time management. If I'm stressed about making a gift on time, I won't even enjoy the process (or the gift I receive) as much. So I'm thinking about it.

Meanwhile, I'm taking a short break from playing Galaxy Princess Zorana and watching a bunch of Blue Prince videos on YouTube.

There are about 50* fics that I want to write, but since I have about 50 other, unrelated things to do, on a fairly tight schedule, I doubt I'll find time to write one or two of these ideas. Maybe.

*not actually 50.

Been watching a lot of British crime shows and a few American crime shows. Not the big ones, the little guys with eccentric detectives in tiny small-town PDs, so there's some commonality there, despite the differences.

Then, from there, I somehow stumbled onto a show called Grosse Pointe Garden Society, which is technically a crime show, in the sense that crime happens in the show.

If I had to describe this phenomenon, it would be the plot of How to Get Away with Murder, but in the setting of Desperate Housewives, with some possible influences from Only Murders in the Building (a suggestion which may have been planted by how the title was translated). Faint notes of Glee.

For cast, it features the actress who played Michaela on HTGAWM, playing an older version of Michaela with a husband and kids, but she's a realtor; the actress who played Amy on Brooklyn 99, playing Eva Longoria's character from DH, but infinitely more compelling; and two more actors that I don't recognize, playing some kind of tedious hetero love triangle.

There are about four more episodes in the first season that I haven't watched yet. I'm still not sure whose murder they're covering up.

Currently, I'm working on writing three different things in (more or less) parallel. Two of them I can't talk about for reasons. The third is my (more-than-) half-finished Palia fic, which I expect to top out at 5 long-ish chapters, maybe six.

Meanwhile, I'm planning for a birthday when half the family is away on vacation.

I was watching Pantheon on my brother's recommendation, but I needed something more brain-turn-off-y, so now I'm rewatching She-Ra and the Princesses of Power for the first time in a bit. For something that hits so many of my sweet spots, I haven't rewatched it nearly as often as I might've expected. Maybe it's because of that middle season that was so short and wobbly. Which does not improve on rewatching, TBH.

What's really fucked up is that "feelings are facts" and "feelings aren't facts" are both statements that are true and necessary and important, despite the fact that they seemingly contradict each other.

BTW, since I posted about this to Tumblr, too, Turncoat Chronicle is 34% off on Steam until July 10th.

Overall reviews on Steam are positive! It's 180K thousand interactive novel where you play the heir to a usurper king, confronted with the grown heir of your father's old enemies. Choose between allying with the rightful heir (thus turning on your father), or forming a false friendship, then betraying them to your father. Or stab them both in the back and crown yourself.

In between, there's an aloof spymaster, a serene royal consort, a bratty younger brother, and, of course, the loyal guard who, with just a little bit of polish, can be passed off as a false-real-heir.

Hello, dear gifter! I am excited about whatever you plan to create for me!

If you click my exchange tag below, you can find a list of some of my past gift exchange letters, such as this letter from Just Married 2020.

My fandoms: ( Read more... )

General DNWs: ( Read more... )

Long Live the Queen

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Palia

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Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem

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Noblesse Oblige

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Dumbing of Age

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Original Work

(Warning: this one is long!)

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