schneefink

Happy New Year!

I spent New Year's at my aunt's holiday house in a small town near mountains and it was very relaxed and very nice. (Too warm for early January, so I didn't even need to sit next to the oven.) The food was delicious. I ended the old year playing boardgames and then started the new one with a nice walk in sunshine with a great view and then a day of doing barely anything but nap, read, and go for another walk, in the dark that time.
Now I'm back home watching silly videos, trying to catch up on commenting, and working on my end-of-year summary, which somehow gets longer every year. Sadly DD still isn't home but maybe we'll watch something together later.

Fic I wrote for Yuletide:
New Sword in a New Era for Elemental
Fandom: The Misfit of Demon King Academy
3.4k, gen, post-canon
Summary: When he was four years old, Shin remembered his name.

Notes: I watched this show because of my recipient's prompts and I was glad I did. It's fun! It reminded me quite a bit of of "That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime," the fandom we actually matched on: both of them have an overpowered protagonist where "will they win the fight" is rarely even in question, both of them have devoted followers that they protect and try to take care of, both of them are genuinely kind. "Misfit" has fewer politics so far but I suspect that that's a "yet" and that there will be more in the future. (I haven't looked up what happens in the light novel yet.) It's also, contrary to my first impression, as silly: I laughed a lot when seeing the fusion xD
I wrote about a character with less than five minutes of canon screen time and gave him an OC family on top of it, but I enjoyed it and more importantly so did my recip.

Since the pandemic some important financial deadlines were pushed from September to December. It was definitely necessary at the time, since everyone was so busy with subsidies etc. that the September deadline was impossible, but I really hope that they'll change it back next year because having the busiest time of the year in December and especially between Christmas and New Year's is not fun. At least we have plenty of chocolate.

I got a fantastic Yuletide fic! Learning to Fly, Phoenotopia Awakening (gen, post-canon, 6k.) I'm especially honored that the author checked out the game because of my prompts. I'm not sure how well the story works without canon knowledge, you're definitely not going to get many of the jokes, but I'm still going to try and give a brief summary of what I think is necessary to understand it because it's a great fic and deserves more comments.

Spoiler for the entire PHOA game:

Most of the people of Gail's village were kidnapped by aliens. On her journey to find them again she meets Bart, a member of the Stellanites, humans who left Earth during the apocalypse a few centuries ago and joined the Galactic Federation. (Bart is still on his space ship, they can only talk through a golem head Gail found and carries around with her.) She also meets and frees Leo, a human prince who was kidnapped and probably tortured by alien mercenaries, and meets Lisa again, her best friend who avoided being kidnapped because she'd moved elsewhere. Bart warns them that the Astral Empire is planning to attack Earth and directs Gail to find a lost mythical weapon to defend the planet. Gail finds out that the "weapons" are actually genetically engineered super soldiers, called Phoenixes, that were put into hibernation after they played a part in the apocalypse, and also that Gail herself is a Phoenix. The first Phoenix the Stellanites manage to wake up is later called Zero by Bart, and he helps them defeat some alien mercenaries, called kobolds, that were also after the weapon. We find out that the Phoenixes help Earth repel the attack by the Astral Empire, but the Empire is still a threat, and Gail still plans to find her friends and family again.

I haven't had time to go through much of the collection yet, much less comment, but both fics for Steerswoman and Elemental Logic are great.

I passed my last exam! Meaning, pending some administrative stuff, I have my second Bachelor's degree! :D

Fiiinally. It took a little over five years, which is actually not bad considering that I was working the whole time and thirty hours per week for half of it, and also Covid. (Faster than my first degree, even. Thankfully I could transfer over some of the credits.) Most of what I studied was interesting, but also I was so ready to be done with it. And now I am! I'm proud of myself.

It's going to be so great not to constantly have classes or exams in the back of my mind... I might switch to working full-time, and eventually I'll start the exams to become a tax advisor (unless I change my mind and do a Master's degree instead/first), but not for a few months yet. First I'll take some time to enjoy this.

I went running today! For the first time in months. Not very fast and not very long, and it took me so long to gather the motivation that I barely caught any sun, but I did! Feels good. I hope I can get back to running regularly. November is not the ideal time to start but whatever.

I respond well to external validation and I remembered that I can make polls, so:

I almost forgot about Vienna Comic-Con this weekend, which would have been a lot more annoying than usual because this time I have tickets! I bought them before they had to postpone the event, that's my excuse for why it wasn't on my radar anymore, but fortunately someone I'd told about it way back then reminded me.

It was a lot of fun today. I mostly walked around looking at all the art and stuff, played some game demos, went to a panel about voice acting in video games, and then to the cosplay contest at the end. So many cosplayers, and so many of them looked fantastic. A lot of Genshin Impact, I noticed that even though I barely know the game (LB was into it for a short while, which is the only reason I even recognized anyone.) Quite a few very cool Star Wars and A:tla cosplayers too, a great Jester&Fjord couple, and a wonderful Obelix. I only saw one Hades cosplay, a Hypnos, but unfortunately that was at the very end and they'd already taken half of it off.

I managed to resist buying anything because I knew I'd be back tomorrow, so tomorrow the challenge will be not to spend too much money, on books (that I am skeptical I will find time to read, my to-read pile next to my bed just keeps growing) and other stuff (I know I don't need a Minecraft mystery bag but. I kinda wants it.) I was looking for some art for our kitchen but sadly didn't see anything that speaks to me yet. Lots of very cool "I'd want this if it was one of my fandoms" art.

Right now I'm too tired to do anything but not tired enough to go to bed yet. Tomorrow I'll try to go earlier than today, and I'll take a break for lunch with my parents, who conveniently live not too far away. I look forward to seeing hopefully even more great cosplays tomorrow :)

Why the fuck am I getting sick again. I was just sick for almost two weeks a month ago. Why now, when I have an exam on Friday. I hate this. I have no idea where I caught it, either, I've been very careful about wearing masks because I was worried about exactly this. I almost want to joke that at least it's not completely my fault that I can't focus on studying, but it doesn't help because failing this exam would be really annoying. Uuugh.

I just saw that I have not posted in a week, which feels weird because I've been writing so much, including things for DW: my "things I want to post" word doc is 42 pages by now - though, realistically I could probably delete about thirty of those because I'm never going to post them.
My current WIP, which started as a oneshot, is at 12k and already the third longest fic I've written (excluding the self-insert Mary Sue fic I wrote as a teenager that I never intended to show anyone) and might end up my longest when it's done, which might not even take that long at my current writing speed. (I wrote several hundred words at the office today, I'm not proud.) Probably depends on how much additional canon review I want to do for accuracy's sake. At least I already have a title I like.

I spent the last weekend at my grandparents', my first visit in almost two years, because a cousin of mine got married. I was originally worried that it was just a courtesy invite because we were never that close and even before COVID I barely saw him more than twice a year because they live on the other side of the country, but he and his lovely now-wife seemed sincerely happy that LB and I managed to come. (My mom couldn't because she finally caught COVID a few days before. Thankfully she seems fully recovered by now.) They had an ice cream wagon at the reception, which was a brilliant idea especially in that heat, and I also ate a lot of leftover ice cream the next two days.

This week I started watching "Severance" with DD, who watched it recently and loved it. Three episodes in and I appreciate it and find it interesting but I don't really enjoy watching it because it does such a great job with the uncomfortable atmosphere. DD reassured me that it doesn't have a tragic ending so I'll keep watching for now.

I'm also still watching many videos of people playing Minecraft, and I also, uh, started playing Minecraft. I know, I know, what a surprise, nobody could have expected that. Current task: get more iron to make a bucket to get milk to lift the ~curse so I can go back to the village.
ETA: I finally got a milk bucket! Only to realize I don't need it anymore because I died at one point ^^ (thankfully recovered my items though.)

Having in-person classes again is so much better for actually following the material. It would be even better if I was properly prepared every time instead of just somewhat, but whatever. There are only about 20-25 students in each class, which is very nice. I am also relieved that the windows are always open because I'm the only person still wearing a mask.

I really do get the feeling people forget the pandemic isn't just over and done with? My grandparents just caught it two months ago and my grandfather is just now getting better at going up stairs again, and he did get vaccinated three times. I would rather wear a mask indoors most times even if I "only" got flu-like symptoms and had to stay in bed for a week if I get it, I don't want that either. (Though I do understand why people dislike wearing a mask on public transport. It's already very hot here.)

My brain is being very annoying at the moment again, but that was to be expected. I just need to make it past the exams in June, then things will be easier for a while.

I thought about not starting a new game until the exams were over so I played a few rounds of Hades again, but that only reminded me how much I love Hades (fishing is slightly easier with the controller so I'm optimistic that one day I will get that stupid last fish!), so that wasn't really working out. I started Rabi-Ribi and am enjoying it a lot so far, I love how non-linear it is and how there are so many places I can go. (And the shallow part of me also enjoys all the beautiful young women in swimsuits or bikinis.)

I used to regret not doing more to refresh my Russian because it would have made it easier to read so much Russian fic. Now I regret it because there are by far not enough Ukrainian- or Russian-speaking volunteers at the welcome center for Ukrainian refugees and I wish I could have been of more help. Unfortunately I expect I will have plenty of opportunities to practice. Of course it would be smart to study at home but I am not at all sure I will manage. I feel like I have no brain for most of anything at the moment. There is just… a lot.

Tomorrow I go back to work after my vacation and I'm not at all looking forward to it, but it has to happen at some point. The vacation was worth it though, Paris was great. We went to many museums and even the opera (I hadn't expected a version of Cinderella where the stepsisters are not evil but I enjoyed it.) One of the highlights were the catacombs, soo many bones and arranged in pretty patterns too.

Another highlight was listening to the last nine episodes of season 4 of The Magnus Archives with dhampyresa, who had managed to avoid all spoilers, and being able to watch her reactions during such wonderful moments as that reveal in #158 ("…what?! Wait, go back…") and all of #160. It's so nice to be able to share the excitement/suffering, and being able to pet a cat at the same time (well, sometimes) is a very nice bonus.

I'd like another two days of weekend, please. Yesterday was, uh, kind of a wasted day (the bad cycle of "I don't feel like I have the energy to get myself some food, etc. etc." - hadn't had one of those in a while), and today was busy, and I would like to sleep for ten hours. Maybe I will actually manage to go to sleep early, instead of maaybe going to bed early and then spending more time on the tiny internet. Last week at work was very busy and next week will be very busy and the week after that will be very busy, with plenty of unpleasant meetings coming up, and I found out I failed my last exam (as I mostly expected) so spring will be even busier. I don't even really want to take a vacation because then it'll be even worse when I get back.
Meh, I'm whining again. At least I got cake for my birthday, that was nice, and some pretty flowers and other nice things.

I also played more Hollow Knight. …maybe I should look for HK icons.( Spoilers: Grimm Troupe DLC ending, final boss, lore questions )