Laughter Through Tears

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.

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.

I obviously had a bad couple of nights in terms of sleep etc., but I'm coping mainly by trying to distract myself.

Distractions I've indulged in:

1. Palia. Still very heavily playing this, especially this weekend, making up for the fact that I didn't play much over the week.

2. Reading the tagset/request summary for justmarriedexchange. Probably gonna sign up today or tomorrow, and yes, I did nom Palia, too.

3. Over the last week, I've watched enough Kruggsmash Dwarf Fortress videos that I had to talk myself down from getting the game (for reasons).

4. Finally watched the last season of Community. It sure is a bunch of television episodes.

5. Also catching up on the most recent season of Leverage: Redemption, and yes, there was a moment that made me scream at a pitch audible only to dogs.

6. When I fail to do these things, I read the news, which depresses me.

I formulated this post originally for the lore channel of the official Palia Discord server. It got a pretty positive response, so I decided to post a backup copy to Dreamwidth.

I know there's been a lot of chatter about the connection between ancient humans, Flow, and the emergence of Majiri people. I haven't read all the threads (so many!), so I probably missed a bunch of important stuff, but it's made me think. Especially in the context of Subira's temple quests, the consoles, and the "protocols" that they mention.

IIRC, two protocols are mentioned: the "Cosmos" protocol (here) and the "Mirror" protocol (which apparently predated it). Mudan personally enacted the Mirror Protocol, as per his letter to his wife (here). We have reason to believe that both protocols were attempts to fight whatever mysterious "shadow(s)" brought about the downfall of Mudan's golden age.

( More lore and speculation )

Alternatively, I could be full of it. That's always a distinct possibility.

For various reasons, I spent (almost) the entire weekend playing Palia. Normally, I'm not an MMO person, but the cozy vibes reeled me in.

Tumblr's recent flood of shipping polls made me think of this again.

( Table of 7KPP ships )

I'm playing winter, now, and it's an interesting season for the plot. The winter feast was fun. I finished the second [redacted] which led to a big plot reveal. I need to get my third [redacted], plus, I have a wedding planned. I've got all the farm's outbuildings completed. I'm guessing that pretty soon, I'll get the prompt to write the spell to change the season back to spring again.

I've unlocked all the fish but one and all the cooking recipes but one. I have almost everyone's favorability up to their max, except two of the Ravenwood folks and the two teens (who I can just ply with pizza until they like me). And yes, I'm aiming to unlock as many achievements as possible with my first game. This game is fun, but I don't think it has that kind of replayability (maybe the other kind).

It's also true that I will never resolve my feelings about Confines of the Crown.

Yes, I've been thinking about dating sims, lately.

Four years ago I brought home my new desktop computer. He's a very good boy who's allowed me to play many games in theory, but realistically, mainly Skyrim and The Sims 4. I'm predictable.

My week off is going pretty well, so far. Of course, the main goal is to try and give my brain a rest, and turning my brain off isn't that easy. I thought I might want to play more games and read more this week, but I have a backlog and it's a struggle not to think of these things (which I love! and genuinely want to read/play!) as to-do list items.

I'm okay, really. I got to see my family last Friday and I have a grocery order coming in. Covid numbers are still going down, although we're gradually opening up after second lockdown, so that trend is expected to reverse sometime this week. I'm really okay. It's just that I still sometimes get too grumpy too easily from very minor irritants, and I still don't know why that is.

(For the record, I'm never asking for advice unless I specifically ask for advice in explicit terms.)