the 31 years of january in the day of 2025

A university friend emailed me after a 6+-year gap in our communications, but she wrote the subject line in title case and that’s been the main thing putting me off responding for nearly a month. So that’s where I’m at right now.

Fic writing
  • 16 /threesentenceficathon fills in the earlier part of the month, mostly for Rise Of The Ronin, all listed here. As I said previously, it’s a fun way to try out writing for a new fandom, although I don’t think I’ll ever write a fic that’s less than several thousand words long and be pleased with it. Posting anonymously (as far as the comm is concerned) is giving me very welcome 2021 vibes; I’m feeling very over being perceived as far as Dreamwidth communities are concerned tbh, although at the same time I don’t want to participate in anon comms either. This is what I think they call “making things difficult for yourself for no particular reason”.
  • Started posting the big lad, as noted several times, and about which there is nothing to say other than what I say every week at great length.
Films
  • Saw Sonic 3, much better than Mufasa; the Guardian review gave it three stars mostly for Jim Carrey, which is fair enough, although I remain a Knuckles enjoyer.
Gaming
  • Playing the game set in the terf wizard school. It’s much the same as most other games I play (explore a large area of land, pick up random shite, do quests, fight stuff and level up, bond awkwardly with NPCs, be the chosen one or something), and based on a setting I was extremely into as a child (I’m a nerd from the UK born in the early nineties, a childhood influenced by harry potter enjoyment is pretty much compulsory), and actually much more diverse than many games in terms of gender and race, and yet it’s … quite boring? Once I realised you can explore quite a lot outdoors it went up in my estimation I think, and I’ve discovered there’s a tragic plotline involving two young men, so maybe that’ll pique my interest more … idk.
  • 100 hours into Rise Of The Ronin. ~lissajous is also now playing it by choice and not just because I’m forcing him to. Slowly getting through all the missions on midnight mode even if I have to consume hundreds of items and never play anything where the level is less than ten below mine in order to do so. Everyone is still so cute, I love them all. Also contractually obliged to say it’s coming to PC. I want everyone to play it and express opinions about it, and at the same time, due to everything that has happened in online fandom communities ever, I want nobody to play it and express opinions about it.
  • Getting back into Pokémon Go for some reason. I haven’t missed a daily research stamp since the start of the year.
Music
  • Usual stuff has restarted. We’re playing Rachmaninov 2, which is … ambitious? Also a piece called The oak; I am not yet a fan. Maybe I will be by the time we get to the concert, but for now it just reminds me of boring orchestral video game music actually.
  • Went to a metal gig in a really nice venue that I hadn’t been to before! It was three local bands, all of whom were good lads. My two local friends came too and we all had a nice time.
Reading
  • True tales of Redruth by “the people of Redruth” (they clearly did not have any library management software in mind when they came up with this): some interesting parts, too much space given to schoolchildren.
  • Too like the lightning: was fine. I might read the rest of them at some point. The “special Hogwarts houses but you get to choose your own” trope is getting a bit tired imo; having said that, I’m going to note that I would be a Blacklaw for ideological reasons, but I suspect I would also have had an embarrassing Gordian phase as a teenager. Also, as someone who doesn’t really care about gender, I think the impact of the gender and pronouns stuff was lost on me to some extent. I seem to remember there was at least one moment in the novel where something happened that was supposed to be poignant and significant, but I just laughed at it … that kind of sums up my general reaction, I think.
Recs
  • Final Fantasy fanart recs of the month:
Techbro
  • Moved all the stuff I posted on Tumblr (mostly screenshots of my boyos in Rise Of The Ronin) to my website. I can’t believe I was once on Tumblr for like seven years; this time I lasted about four months.
  • Got a new phone; all 150-ish of the /threesentenceficathon tabs I had open were on the old one, which is why my output plummeted after the first fortnight.
Work
  • Simultaneously “we’re so back” and “it’s so over”, in more ways than one.
Upcoming
  • Going to see the Dan and Phil tour tonight! I’m looking forward to it.
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