schneefink

I was very amused by the Austrian TV commentator's reaction to Austria's Eurovision win: "Really? After eleven years, again already? Is that even possible if you're not Sweden?"
Also amused by the immediate reactions of "very cool, but so expensive, can we even afford that?" because of the recently (immediately after the national election, by complete coincidence of course) revealed giant budget deficit. At least last time afterwards it was calculated that Eurovision was a net win for the economy as a whole and also the city (but not for the network.) Fingers crossed it'll be in Vienna again, this time I'd love to maybe actually go.

I was too sick for the semifinal watch parties this week, unfortunately, and I only caught most of the finale. Not one of the best years imo but still fun. I wish they'd reduce the flashing lights. I was happy to find out one of JJ's songwriters/managers was a singer of "Who the hell is Edgar?", that song deserved a lot more points two years ago.

After my February exam I decided to prepare better for my next one. It helped a lot that this time all the classes were a few weeks ago and not months. But then various things happened that were great but had unfortunate timing, and on top of that I got sick last week. Ugh.
Fortunately despite that I think the exam today went well :) I won't find out for about 1.5 months but I'm optimistic.
Now I don't have another exam until October and no classes until July, very nice.

I did finish Astalon: Tears of the Earth last week. ( Astalon standard mode 100% )

Catching up on reviews:

The Monday after it came out I went to watch A Minecraft Movie with six friends. I really wanted to watch it relatively early because I know I am bad at avoiding spoilers, and the plan mostly worked. I had a fun time! Was it a fantastic movie, eh, but was it entertaining, definitely, and it was a lot of fun to see so many Minecraft things as live action.

( Spoilers )

I also enjoyed Mumbo's video about his consulting work on the movie, with all of the unused ideas. And Scar and Grian interviewing the director during the Hermitcraft charity event (timestamp) and the director being so enthusiastic about Mumbo's work. Tall drink of water indeed.


Back in February I played Iron Diamond, a game that I saw recommended on r/metroidvania as "not very long, very good exploration, colorful, and cheap (especially on sale)," and all of that was true. The map and upgrades were great. The boss fights ranged from fun to too easy (to be fair I was playing on casual) to dumb (stupid yeti), the story was okay, the controls took me a while to get used to and I still didn't love them by the end, but overall I had a good time. The graphics weren't the best but that didn't really bother me.
I got to the end credits at 85% completion in 11.5 hours.


More Astalon: Tears of the Earth: ( Spoilers )

mcytrecursive had author reveals. I wrote three fics! I have periods of feeling very insecure about my writing, so it was especially nice that I had a good time writing all three, felt very positively about them, and then got very nice comments.
The first two are probably readable without knowledge of the fic they are based on, but all of those are great and you should read them anyway.

cut your chains in shining blue for strifetxt, Hermitcraft
Recursing: Untamed Beasts by WhisperNorBury
1.6k, Cub & Scar gen, prequel
Summary: Five times Cub killed Scar's summoner.
AN: My assignment, and the hardest one to write. Especially to settle on the five things, for a good progression and to make each of them different and interesting. I think it turned out very well! I was almost done when I remembered that Minecraft has respawns so now most of it takes place on hardcore worlds.

Etho's Escort Service From Hell for alice_not_alice, Hermitcraft
Recursing: MailDemon AU by azzayofchaos
1.5k, Cleo & Etho gen, demon AU
Summary: Cleo has fallen into Hell again, and this time she might need the help of a friend to get out.
AN: I wanted to write a treat for Alice, discovered this AU in the prompts, and wrote it basically in one go. Cleo and Etho are so much fun together, and I was reliably informed that I did achieve "funny."

(watch) where fears and dreams come true for Odaigahara, Hermitcraft/Life series
Recursing: lost in the dark (he's got a heavy heart) aka Hunger AU by definitelynotshouting
2.2k, Grian & Scar & Cub gen, canon divergence
Summary: Scar came with Grian when he left Hermitcraft and figured out a different way to keep him fed.
Cub finds them.
AN: Tagged as "downright fluffy compared to the original (a low bar)," but it does still have some angst, it would not be Hunger AU Grian otherwise (at least not without changing the premise.) Hunger AU is very angsty which is great but also made me want fix-it fic (at least partially...) and when I remembered that it's set in season 8 and thus pre-Scarland I got the idea for this, and I think it works.

I also got a fantastic gift:
star of the west horizon by Odaigahara, Hermitcraft
Recursing: a rare talent indeed by these_godforsaken_halls
6.7k, Grian & Cub & Scar gen, fairy AU post-canon
Summary: “I’m leaving for a while,” Grian tells Xisuma, who goes very still indeed at the suggestion that a fairy might spend the night outside of the hollow. “Just for a few days, now that I’m healed– I won’t be going far, and I’ll be extremely careful, I swear it, you don’t even know careful until you’ve seen how careful I’ve been, and Scar’s saying I’m much better at hiding than I was, anyway, so there’s no need to worry on that account.”
“Goodness, er, well–”
“And I’ve already packed, including all the pixie dust I’ll need,” Grian says firmly, “but you can look through what I’m bringing with me, if you’d like. To be sure I haven’t taken anything I’m not supposed to.”
“I’m not sure that’s necessary,” Xisuma says, and this is good, because it means Grian successfully diverted him from the main thing he was likely to object to. Grian can fly circles around Xisuma if he’s devious enough. He used to dodge scouts all the time, before–
Before.
He used to bait hawks.
Why I love it: Gorgeous. Fantastic character voices and relationships, perfect post-canon road to recovery, beautiful backstory flashbacks, wonderful atmosphere, just, so good.

I had such a good time with this exchange, I already look forward to mcytblraufest, which is doing a Battleship format this year and I'm excited.

L. told me she listens to audiobooks even though she prefers reading books because she has more time for listening than reading and I decided to give it a try. So far this year I've read two books and listened to seven, so this seems to work. Mostly this is because I can listen to audiobooks on walks and public transport, while if I actually read something on public transport it's usually fanfic for some reason.
I've listened to two series since February, and I enjoyed the narrator for both of them.

Threads that Bind by Kika Hatzopoulou, consisting of Threads That Bind and Hearts That Cut
YA fantasy series set in a ~post-apocalyptic world in which descendants of deities have their powers, inherited through family lines and strictly assigned to each sibling. Io, the main character, has the power to see and cut fate threads, including life threads.
An insta-kill power is tricky to consider in fights or other confrontations: you have the upper hand as long as your opponent believes that you are able and willing to kill them. If they realize you don't actually want to kill them, well…
I really enjoyed the mystery aspects of this, especially in the first book, and the family problems, and I was not optimistic about the romance since it features a literal soulbond but I was pleasantly surprised. The second book was slightly weaker imo, especially the mystery resolution, but it got bonus points because I really enjoyed

spoiler

Bianca

and Io's relationship with them.

The Scholomance by Naomi Novik, consisting of A Deadly Education, The Last Graduate, and The Golden Enclave
In a world with a secret society of wizards constantly hunted by monsters that try to kill them, they send wizard children to a school without teachers where they are stuck for four years to learn magic while still being attacked by monsters. El, with a talent for dark magic and a prophecy proclaiming her an evil sorceress, aims for survival and later reaches for more.

I read a lot of fantasy, I'm used to books requiring a certain suspension of disbelief. I can't remember the last time I struggled this hard to ignore worldbuilding that didn't make any sense and had to remind myself so often not to think about the details. And I don't even know why, I'm pretty sure objectively the worldbuilding isn't any more flimsy than many other books' that I've read, and additionally probably some things are not as bad as they seem if I thought about them in detail. I suspect it's because I had some strong "yeah no" moments early on that colored the rest, like the amount of children dying and a lot of the set-up of the school. What made it worse is that I got the impression the books really wanted to convince me that it all makes sense, and they tried, but unsuccessfully. It wasn't until the third book that I found the world much easier to accept.

What I did really enjoy were the class struggle aspects of it, and El's anger. Her world sucks and yes she gets to be angry about it. And she struggles to deal with that anger and doesn't always do it well but it also gives her strength to fight the injustice she sees. She does have special protagonist powers, vast amounts even, but she also needs that anger, and even special protagonist powers may not be enough to fight an entire entrenched unjust system. The narrator did a good job with her character voice (I wonder if I'd reacted slightly differently if I'd read the book.)
Also, maw-mouths are fantastic and scary monsters.

( Spoilers )

I got my assignment for mcytrecursive a little over two weeks ago and have since then finished two treats, am around halfway done with my assignment, and am planning another treat. (Definitely not because I'm procrastinating on my assignment, ahem. It's a bit trickier than I expected it to be.) Every time I'm stuck in a period when writing is hard I forget how much fun it can be, and right now I'm really enjoying it. Feels good.

My first time signing up for the MCYT Excursive Exchange and I'm very excited! All of these stories are great and I'd love to read some more in those worlds, I hope you have fun playing in them :D

( General likes and DNWs )

( Dead Hometowns and Undead Machines )

( a rare talent indeed )

( Untamed Beasts )

I'm very tired. Both weekends since my exam have been full of classes for the next exam; tomorrow is my first day off in a while, and I already made plans with my family and with friends so while nice it's not going to be a free day either. At least I can finally sleep in for a little bit. LB wants to go ice-skating tomorrow but I told him I don't think I'll have the batteries for that, even though it's a shame.
L is on a short notice two week work trip, silver lining that that's happening while I have little time anyway. I'm very glad for modern communication.

A few quick reviews:

New Hades II major update! I played several hours after the last major update in October, so I was surprised that this time I only played a couple of runs. I think it's because with the last boss they added I also loved what they meant for the story, while the new new boss is a cool fight (I won on my first try but only because of god mode and it was still very close) but a less interesting character. And the few new plot progression dialogues I got were a reminder that naturally I remember less after not playing for several months, and that's even more relevant in Hades II than it was in the first one because the plot is a lot less straight-forward and there's also quite a few character and relationship developments that I want to watch closely. I might change my mind (and there's at least one more major update planned before the full release), but right now I think I won't play that much more in EA for now; but then probably start a new save in version 1.0. I'll definitely have an advantage because I already played over a 100 hours (though also an adjustment to not have all the upgrades anymore) but they're still changing boons anyway so figuring out the best combos now would only be temporary anyway.
I don't regret having played in EA so far though, I've had a lot of fun and I got to discover things myself and already have many cool theories about how the story will go.

Flow (2024 film): L and I watched that in the cinema and enjoyed it a lot. Great atmosphere, beautiful visuals, kinda, hm, dream-like storytelling that I loved. (At times it almost seemed like the animation had a low frame rate, not that I know anything about animation, but it didn't really bother me.) Not much is explained, which fits very well. L and I had completely different initial theories on the ending and I like both of them.
I thought the animals were very well animated with their body language etc., but I'd be curious about the takes of cat people in particular.

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett:
( Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries )

I read 19 books in 2024 (the arbitrary goal was twenty, which I would have managed if not for unfortunately getting sick.) All of them in English and all fiction, 14 fantasy and 5 science fiction.
My goal for this year: I think 24 books should be doable, and I think I will try to read at least two non-fiction books as well.

The last few:

( Daughter of the Deep )

( When Among Crows )

( The Tainted Cup )

( Coraline )

I'm having my familiar problems with making myself study, which is very frustrating and anxiety-inducing and so on. But today at least I made some good progress with an online study group and we're planning to meet again, that'll certainly help.

As some more or less productive procrastination I managed to reduce my browser tabs from 935 to 93 (edit: 65.) Not bad! I closed many many rec lists and many posts I wanted to comment on and many articles etc., I might have found cool things but realistically I would never have looked at most of them anyway. And now the likelihood that I'll actually look at/read/watch the remaining ones is much higher.

I went for a walk again today, which definitely did me good, and I was unpleasantly surprised that I didn't make it up the hill without a break to catch my breath so clearly I need to do that more often.