Meta: High Potential

Jan. 27th, 2026 05:07 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith posting in [community profile] shes_awesome
I wrote a promo introduction for "High Potential" for [community profile] snowflake_challenge and I'm copying it here so more folks can see it. This show has a good set of awesome female characters. \o/


High Potential


Overview

"High Potential" is a crime dramedy based around Morgan Gillory. She is highly gifted with an IQ of 160, and like many gifted people, most folks refuse to put up with her -- hence "high potential" being a mockery. Average adults don't like smart adults any better than average children like smart children, with predictably bad results. Thus she has wound up working as a cleaning lady at a police station. This leads her to pointing out an error in an investigation, which eventually brings her to work for the police as a civilian consultant.

Read more... )
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

Bloods results from Friday afternoon came in. Read more... )

check in day 27

Jan. 27th, 2026 08:53 pm
lilly_c: Mirror!Kathryn and Mirror!Chakotay being affectionate in Cracked Mirror (Default)
[personal profile] lilly_c posting in [community profile] writethisfanfic
How is the writing going today?

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 0


Today I

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sent to beta
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researched
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althea_valara: Icon of Althea Valara, my main character from Final Fantasy XIV. (Althea Valara)
[personal profile] althea_valara
two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text

Challenge #14

In your own space, create a promo and/or rec list for someone new to a fandom. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it and include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


Let me meme at you:

HAVE YOUR HEARD OF THE
CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED MMORPG
FINAL FANTASY XIV
WITH AN EXPANDED FREE TRIAL
WHICH YOU CAN PLAY THROUGH THE ENTIREY OF
A REALM REBORN
AND THE AWARD-WINNING
HEAVENSWARD
EXPANSION
AND ALSO THE AWARD-WINNING
STORMBLOOD
EXPANSION
UP TO LEVEL 70
FOR FREE
WITH NO RESTRICTIONS
ON PLAYTIME?


Final Fantasy XIV is a fantastic game - but it wasn't always. Its first incarnation was considered a critical failure, so what did they do? They rebuilt the game from the ground up while simultaneously releasing updates for the original version. This way they kept the current fans happy while building something BETTER for everyone.

If you want to know more about the history of FFXIV, I can highly recommend watching the NoClip documentaries; the first one is here: https://youtu.be/Xs0yQKI7Yw4?si=s0qkn8zXX-9agX96

What they ended up doing was creating a calamity ingame that gave them the excuse for a branching off point for the new version. The final scenes of version 1.0 can be seen in the trailer for "A Realm Reborn", version 2.0 of the game and its new "base game":



As A Realm Reborn starts, five years has passed since the calamity, and the city-states of Eorzea have rebuilt - but threats still linger. There's the Garlean Empire which tried to take over Eorzea in the past at the Battle of Silvertear Lake, and has a new plan to invade Eorzea now. But there's also the Primal threat - primals being summoned gods of what's then called the beast tribes. One of the threats of the primals is their ability to enthrall subjects, so that the person only does what the primal wants.

As you start the game, you're just another adventurer - but one with a mysterious power called the Echo, which allows you to glimpse past scenes from others' memories. You start off doing things for your local city-state, making a name for yourself, but soon attract the attention of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn - an organization that works to prevent the primal threat.

Will you make the choice to join the Scions? What's in store for you if you do? That's the story of A Realm Reborn. Now, there are those who say ARR is weak story-wise but I personally feel it's a solid story with enough OMG! moments to keep you interested. And it sets up SO MUCH of the future of the game, so it's well worth playing on its own.

When you first start playing FFXIV, you may find yourself overwhelmed. The HUD (heads-up display) will look rather busy at first, and they'll be a lot of NPCs with quest markers to talk to. The most important ones will have this symbol over their heads:

The Main Scenario Quest Marker in FFXIV.

This is the Main Scenario Quest Marker. If you follow these markers one after another, you'll play through the game's main story. Note that the last marker of each individual quest will be green in color, letting you know that talking to that NPC will complete the quest.

Blue Plus Sign markers unlock things, like extra dungeons or jobs, and are usually good to check out, too. Any other markers can be ignored.

Gameplay is... well I'm not entirely sure what to call it, but you'll have a bunch of actions, abilities, or spells on your hotbar. Pressing certain actions will open up others for big damage, etc, and often, actions have cooldowns before you can use them again. There's an optimum rotation for each job, in which pressing certain buttons one after another will be the most effective. The game helps you though, by highlighting the next proper action(s) to do.

For those who may be scared of playing with others: there is now Duty Support! This is a system in which you can enter dungeons with NPCs rather than other players. You'll still need to do trials with players, but a large part of the game can be "soloed". But really, most players in FFXIV are pretty nice to play with. For instance, there is a "ready check" mechanism where a party member can ask everyone to indicate they are ready to go ahead with the fight, and this is used a LOT in Raids when you may have newcomers watching cutscenes. The vast majority of players will wait at least a little bit for the newbies to finish the scenes before progressing onto the fight.

The following list is my "starter guide" of resources, originally posted on Bluesky but now posted here as well.


FREE TRIAL - Includes the entirety of A Realm Reborn, the award-winning Heavensward expansion, and the Stormblood expansion, and allows you to play up to level 70 with no restrictions on playtime. There ARE some other restrictions, though! https://freetrial.finalfantasyxiv.com/na/

SERVER/DATA CENTER - choose a data center close to your region, then choose a server that's open for new characters. Those are indicated by the green person icon next to the server names on the Server Status Page: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/worldstatus/

NEW WORLDS - indicated by "New" on the Server Status page. They offer bonuses such as a leveling buff, FREE GIL!, and more: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/playguide/option_service/world_transfer_service/population_balancing/#anchor__001

WORLD VISIT - Couldn't get an account on the server you wanted to? You can visit other worlds and data centers using the World Visit System: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/playguide/contentsguide/worldvisit/

STARTING CLASS - pick your Disciple of War or Disciple of Magic starter class. Make sure to do the class quests as you level, and definitely unlock your job at level 30: https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Class

STARTING CITY-STATE - This depends on what class you start as. The city-states have slightly different stories to start off, but eventually merge into one grand story line. It really doesn't matter which you start in!

WIKIS - you'll have questions, where to get help? I prefer ConsoleGamesWiki for how fast it loads on my mobile devices: https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/FF14_Wiki

WIKIS 2 - The other major wiki is GamerEscape, which I turn to for more indepth guides or to research dialogue/lore: https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Main_Page

DUNGEON/TRIAL/RAID GUIDES - Mizzteq (MTQCapture on YouTube) makes wonderful, entertaining guides for the duties. Highly recommended! (Note: it appears she has retired in the past year but her past guides are still available!): https://www.youtube.com/user/MTQcapture

CONTROLLER GUIDE - Do you play on controller? It's a bit outdated but Squintina's controller guide has LOTS of good tips: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q_i5_X01hecbCOZOIN_71zceuSjWSuaN-OJdU6ZPV6s/edit

(C)HOTBARS - oh gods where do I put all these actions? Let XIV bars guide you! They have layouts for both Keyboard/Mouse and Controller: https://www.xivbars.com

TIMERS - FFXIV has a "weekly reset" and other events. Want to know when exactly that is? Check here: https://xenoveritas.org/static/ffxiv/timer.html

CHALLENGE LOG - Unlockable at level 15, this is a great way to get bonus experience and gil: https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Challenge_Log

RETAINERS - At level 17, you get access to retainers, which can sell items on the marketboard for you or go out on ventures to retrieve random (or not-random) items: https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Retainers

EUREKA TRACKER - for the Stormblood Relic Weapon farming zone - https://ffxiv-eureka.com

RELIC TRACKER SPREADSHEET - I love a good spreadsheet, and really like Wyn's relic tracker - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11N-u7o2-0cbL4E61rfpXHgAPK2X8S_lwyFUigKAQb08/edit?usp=sharing

RELIC TRACKER SITE - I've played with this, too! https://ffxivrelictracker.com

PVP MALMSTONE CALCULATOR - Calculates how many games you need to play to get all the malmstone rewards: https://belthesar.github.io/MalmstoneXPCalculator/

SQUADRON CALCULATOR - figure out how to train your Adventuring Squadron to level them up and complete missions: https://ffxivsquadron.com

FALOOP! - A website to track hunt marks and World Boss FATEs: https://faloop.app

CENTURIO HUNTS DISCORD - A discord server that can ping you for Hunt Trains, S Ranks, and World Boss FATEs: https://discord.gg/centuriohunts

HGXIV - A discord server for player housing enthusiasts: https://discord.gg/hgxiv14

If you're thinking of playing or returning to the game, do let me know! I'll be glad to assist in any way. <3 And if you're thinking, "This sounds great, but I have no time/money to play; can you tell me about the story?" -- LOOK NO FUTHER: https://altheavalara.neocities.org/ffxiv/

Check-In Post - Jan 27th 2026

Jan. 27th, 2026 07:55 pm
badly_knitted: (Tired Ianto)
[personal profile] badly_knitted posting in [community profile] get_knitted

Hello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.

Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?

There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.


This Week's Question: What are your crafting goals for 2026?


If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.

I now declare this Check-In OPEN!



althea_valara: Icon of a closeup of the Detroit Industry fresco. (Detroit Industry)
[personal profile] althea_valara
two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text

Challenge #13

TALK ABOUT A COMMUNITY SPACE YOU LIKE. It doesn’t need to be your favorite, or the one where you spend the most time (although it certainly can be). Maybe it’s even one that you’ve barely visited. But talk about that space and how it helps support fannish community.


Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so. Also, feel free to entice engagement by giving us a preview of what your post covers.


I kind of did this in Challenge 12! I listed communities and websites that I'm grateful for.

One other community space I must mention is Best Bar. They know who they are and where we hang out. They've been very supportive of me the past few years and I'm very grateful for that.

But really: Dreamwidth is one of my internet homes, and there's all sorts of great communities here! It's about time I post my list of DW community recs again. It was last posted in 2024, after all. Some of these may be dormant now but I'll include them anyway because I loved the idea of the community. HERE WE GO!!


[community profile] nacramamo is National Craft-Making Month, and is gearing up now to kick off in October. The challenge is to work on some kind of craft every day for 31 days.

[community profile] 100words is a drabble community for fiction of all kinds. They post weekly challenges there.

[community profile] birdfeeding covers everything to do with birdfeeding, gardening for wildlife, and related topics.

[community profile] crowdfunding connects creators, patrons, and fans of cyberfunded creativity. Watch for the mid-month Creative Jam with a new theme each time.

[community profile] reddit_refugees offers resources for newcomers to Dreamwidth.

[community profile] snowflake_challenge runs in January, and is a way to celebrate fandom and meet interesting people on Dreamwidth. There's also [community profile] sunshine_challenge that runs in the summer, but I'm less familiar with that one.

Newly added to the list since I last posted this:

[community profile] allkindsofdolls is what it says on the tin. If you love dolls, check it out.

[community profile] ladiesbingo is a bingo challenge to make works focused on the relationship between women, whether gen, femslash, or familial. I'm currently having great fun trying to fill my bingo board!

[community profile] getyourwordsout is a writing challenge community where you can challenge yourself by wordcount of number of days written per month.

[community profile] 10trueloves is a writing challenge where you pair a character with ten others (IIRC, they don't have to be romantic pairings, but I'm not sure; check the comm for more info!)

[community profile] 1character is a writing challenge where you choose a character and prompt set, then write one line sentences to fill each prompt.

[community profile] everykindofcraft is what it says it is.

[community profile] inspiredby posts writing prompts monthly.

[community profile] makezines is for folks doing just that!

[community profile] threesentenceficathon is happening RIGHT NOW. People leave prompts, other write short fills of 3 sentences or longer.

The past list of community recs:

[community profile] communal_creators is a community for creative types! A mini-round for time pledges will be happening this spring. ANY kind of creativity is welcome! We have people writing (both fic and original), knitting, crochet, vidding, storyboarding, baking, making websites... if it's creative, you're welcome here.

[community profile] ffprompts posts monthly prompts for the Final Fantasy video game franchise. As a big fan of this series, I'd love to see more fills for the prompts happening!

[community profile] addme_fandom is a place to find friends who share your fannish obsessions.

[community profile] lyricaltitles is a bingo fest for fanfiction and original fiction centering around using songs for inspiration!

[community profile] fan_flashworks is a multifandom comm that posts one prompt for the week you use to write a short fanfic.

[community profile] c_ent is for Chinese Entertainment, and comes highly recommended by a few people.

[community profile] booknook posts a weekly Read-in-Progress check-in posts on Wednesdays.

[community profile] reference_library is a place to gather helpful links and share them, run by [personal profile] senmut.

[community profile] sweetandshort is a low-pressure community for creating small fanworks / original works each week.

[community profile] moodthemeinayear is what it says on the tin: the folks there are working on creating custom Dreamwidth mood themes over the course of a year.

[community profile] 1word1day posts a vocabulary word a day!

[community profile] finalfantasy - of course this would be here, if you know me. It's been very slow there lately, but I'd love to see more activity there.

[community profile] awesomeers - they make a post for each day of the week in which they challenge the members to comment with Just One Thing you did today that you're proud of accomplishing. Of course you are free to post more than one thing if you'd like! I love the idea of this community, though I haven't been very active in it lately. I hope to change that, if only to congratulate other people. Also: we celebrate all accomplishments there, so something as simple as "I got out of bed" would be acceptable!

[community profile] do_it - A community for posting to-do lists to make yourself accountable to others.

[community profile] readingtogether - has seen some activity the past few months. It's not like a normal book club where everyone reads the same thing - instead everyone reads their own thing and posts their progress.

[community profile] justcreate - has weekly check in posts where you can update everyone on your creative progress. All kinds of creativity are celebrated there, including fiber arts, drawing, writing, and more.

[community profile] get_knitted - is similar to [community profile] justcreate but posts daily check-ins. The folks there are GREAT about commenting on each other's comments. It's not just for knitting, either - there are people there who do scrapbooking and jigsaw puzzles.

[community profile] drawesome - has drawing challenges. I haven't taken part yet because I am a very sucky drawer, but I hope to start there in the future.

[community profile] genprompt_bingo - for the writers! They generate bingo cards of prompts, with all the prompts being gen. You can, of course, write a shippy fic from the prompt; it's just the prompts themselves aren't meant to be shippy. I'm currently working on a bingo for my last card, wish me luck!

[community profile] allbingo - They do all sorts of bingos, mostly writing-related but I think they've had some crafting ones as well. There's new challenges monthly!

[community profile] agonyaunt - critiques letters to advice columnists and the answers the letter writers get. I love this community because it is filled with smart people that I am learning a lot from. I'm a person of a certain age, and I know because of the timeframe I grew up in I have a lot of inherit biases and whatnot. I try to be above those biases, but sometimes I don't recognize them. Reading the other commenters to [community profile] agonyaunt helps me recognize those biases and better myself.

[community profile] holiday_wishes - active in the last two months of the year. People post their holiday wish lists there, and others fill them! I really was blessed one year - I got a bunch of cards, some yarn, some chocolate, and some other sweet treats. ♥ I couldn't do much in return but I did send back cards to everyone who sent me things.

[community profile] thisfinecrew is a social justice community focused on the USA. It doesn't get as much action as it once did but there are still informative posts there once in a while. [community profile] thissterlingcrew is the UK equivalent.

[community profile] 3weeks4dreamwidth is a thing in which people post/interact more on Dreamwidth, to show love for the platform. ♥

[community profile] your_favourites is an icon making community that migrated over from LiveJournal. Looks like they have themes for members to create icons for, and then take a vote for best icon. I've joined it in hopes of finding more icons to add to my own journal.

[community profile] addme and [community profile] findingfriends are communities to help you find people to add to your Dreamwidth circles. The latter has a set questionnaire to use, and asks that if you use it elsewhere you include a link back to the community.

[community profile] journalsandplanners - what it says on the tin: for those who use a journal or planner to organize their lives. There's also [community profile] bujo for bullet journalers.

[community profile] anime_manga has seen some activity lately!

[community profile] fandomtrumpshate raises money for charity by creating fanworks.

[community profile] getting_started is a community with resources for those new to Dreamwidth.

[community profile] indie_games sometimes sees activity, and in the past, we did a play-together of A Short Hike which was really fun.

[community profile] common_nature is a photo community to share nature pics from your area, and has been active recently.

[community profile] followfriday recommends people/communities to follow each Friday.

[community profile] iconthat is another icon challenge community.

[community profile] signalboost is for getting the word out to others about people needing help in some way.

[community profile] twitter_refugees is for folks migrating to Dreamwidth from Twitter.

[community profile] bnha_fans is for fans of Boku no Hero Academia. It's modded by [personal profile] vriddy who I got to know during a [community profile] snowflake_challenge!

[community profile] comment_bingo is a bingo challenge community for commenting on all those fanfics you read.

[community profile] womansplace is a community that holds dual purpose: 1) Celebrate characters who identify as women or who are aligned with womanhood in transformative fan works. Events include community recs, a prompt fest, and a vid exchange. 2) Raise funds via a vid auction

[community profile] kittens_and_spitefic's goal is to prompt fan content by acting like a total troll and pretending to bash what you want to see up one side and down the other. Commenters then engage with the supposed "troll" by spamming them with cat (and other animal) macros and/or content that caters to everything the original poster professes to hate.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd I think that's it! If there's any interesting communities you know about that I've missed, feel free to drop them in the comments! And also feel free to share this post, I'll make it public so you can pass it around.
silveradept: A kodama with a trombone. The trombone is playing music, even though it is held in a rest position (Default)
[personal profile] silveradept
[community profile] snowflake_challenge would like us to recommend to others a way in to finding a place in a fandom that we're already part of.

Challenge #14

Create a promo and/or rec list for someone new to a fandom.


The two of those things are quite different, I might note. The promo is about trying to get people into a fandom based on the strength of the canonical materials (whether the smart writing, the intricate plot, or the hotness of the actors), and the rec list is about getting people into a fandom (or at least the transformative fandom part) based on the fanworks that are available to someone. Neither of these methods are inherently wrong, but depending on your approach, someone might get into the fandom with radically different ideas of what the source material or the fandom is about. (This is not necessarily a bad thing, but approaching something from the fannish side might make you suspect there's more nuance and depth to the source material than there actually is.)

Anyway, since I am both not very good at collecting new fandoms and not very good at getting and remembering works in the fandoms I have, this would normally leave me in a pickle about what to do, except I have plenty of older fandoms and recommendations for you that will make up for my utter lack of newish fandoms for you to experience.

Pern, RWBY, Into the Woods, In Other Lands, Long Live Evil )

Snowflake Challenge #6: Top 10

Jan. 27th, 2026 03:39 pm
swingandswirl: text 'tammy' in white on a blue background.  (Default)
[personal profile] swingandswirl
two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text


Challenge #6

Top 10 Challenge. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so. Also, feel free to entice engagement by giving us a preview of what your post covers.


That got long, lol... )

And that's my top ten fandoms! What are yours?



oursin: The Delphic Sibyl from the Sistine Chapel (Delphic sibyl)
[personal profile] oursin

Thinking about the 'how can you do/think about normal innocuous quotidien things' while shocking horrors are going on -

(Am not actually going to invoke pet genre of 'look at all these novels being written at a time when World War 2 was just about to begin/beginning'.)

This was just a coincidental thing that occurred to me when I was talking about something tangentially related when being a Nexpert for a journalist yesterday.

Who wanted to know about a certain sex manual v popular in its day and its author -

In the course of which I mentioned that it was not prosecuted for obscenity** unlike Eustace Chesser's Love without Fear (1940). One would have thought that possibly people had other things on their mind in 1940 than maximising matrimonial happiness, particularly considering that families were being broken up by men being conscripted into service, women being evacuated with their children, etc etc, but anyway, it was published, and sold several thousand copies before, in 1942, it was prosecuted for obscenity by the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Again, one would think people had other things on their mind. Anyway, Chesser and his publisher decided to take the case to court and plead not guilty before a jury, bringing three medical witnesses for the defence. The jury was out for less than an hour before returning a 'not guilty' verdict.

***

Yesterday saw snowdrops appearing in the local park.

*WH Auden, Musée des Beaux Arts (1940)

**However, the Pope did put it on the Index.

Fandom Snowflake Challenge #14

Jan. 27th, 2026 10:02 am
reeby10: closeup of a blue snowflake with a dark grey background and the words fandom snowflake in the upper left corner in white and blue (fandom snowflake)
[personal profile] reeby10 posting in [community profile] snowflake_challenge
Introduction Post * Meet the Mods Post * Challenge #1 * Challenge #2 * Challenge #3 * Challenge #4 * Challenge #5 * Challenge #6 * Challenge #7 * Challenge #8 * Challenge #9 * Challenge #10 * Challenge #11 * Challenge #12



Remember that there is no official deadline, so feel free to join in at any time, or go back and do challenges you've missed.

Fandom Snowflake Challenge #14 )

And please do check out the comments for all the awesome participants of the challenge and visit their journals/challenge responses to comment on their posts and cheer them on. You might just find your newest obsession!

And just as a reminder: this is a low pressure, fun challenge. If you aren't comfortable doing a particular challenge, then don't. We aren't keeping track of who does what.

two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text

james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
Image

Having successfully fled her home city with the proceeds of a spectacular heist, Aiah must now build a new life on that foundation.

City on Fire (Metropolitan, volume 2) by Walter Jon Williams

(no subject)

Jan. 27th, 2026 09:47 am
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] liseuse!

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