makeashrine

Been writing a bit, or trying to... by a bit I have three thousand more words than when I started, and by trying to I mean the last sixteen days or so. I genuinely do not remember! My memory has felt kind of dodgy this grocery cycle, proven to me by me struggling to once again retain narrative whilst doing shb patches. I read the words but it's performative and the line is forgotten entirely as soon as it goes off screen. This is the downside with writing regularly it seems 😔 my ME has deteriorated that much, in that I now have to trade off one for the other... and explains why silksong and then base shb went so well. But I want to be creative and balance my mental health of doing something for a finished product and getting back into doing something, so...

It is not my big wip that needs edits, but something I started working on in small spurts on my phone to try to get past feeling nauseous and unwell anytime I tried writing for my girls as the doubts would just eat at me. It's set after the ending of Even if it makes you cry, so right after Amélie makes the decision to leave Talon as Ashe is her next target, but indulges a measure of weakness and goes to say goodbye to her for good, and instead stays with Ashe because Ashe asks her to ask, and that promising to do so is a lot easier said than actually done. Change is hard. Is she even capable of it, does she deserve it? Especially for an assassin used to being ordered and always in limbo. She exists in the now, not the future, and clings to the past... when she can bear to, at least.

This makes her spontaneity very real. And I was going to have them become fiercely codependent off the bat, a lot of angst and a lot of talking, and also include some spice for what would be their second time sleeping together (somehow all the more significant than the first because this is affirmation, they know who each other is, they left and they're angry but they came back and there's joy, love brings both sorrow and joy, etc)... and all this tied in with excellent timing of Amélie leaving Talon in canon and her being confirmed to be on a formula to suppress bad memories, and me being like ok I'm going to write withdrawals and her wondering if she should leave all of herself behind and how tasty it would be if someone loved her hard enough that she felt as though she doesn't have to suppress the bad memories anymore. Or want to. She doesn't change, she is incapable of change. But she is changing and that uncertainty frightens her, when death is so absolute. So maybe Ashe sees her with her pills and tells her it's okay... that she likes her as she is, and who she will be. Because she likes her blue. :]

I still don't know if it's very good, though 😭 I go through stages of liking then hating it, which may merely be attributed as being tired. I've been awake a lot during the day, which is nice to see daylight, but more than twelve hours awake multiple days in a row has a big bad knock on effect in the days following... even if I manage to sleep for nine to ten hours consecutive, which you think would be enough!!! Alas.

Did get to work on some Dark Knight adjacent prose I've been looking forward to doing for a few days though. ( Read more... )

I have a few scenes to go and early groceries tomorrow so I'll have to leave it until mid week, but I'm hoping to maybe reach an end in the next couple of weeks...I'm at 5k now, so knowing me it'll probably be about 10k words in total, lol.

Post-Shadowbringers adventures continue. Last week I did all the Nier raids (my beloved) and Eden 1-8, which I only paused on as you can't do 9-12 until Thancred and Urianger leave the First. I also did 5.1 this week - I really like 5.1 as it wraps up a lot of quandries leftover by SHB itself in that you don't really get a lot of time to see Eulmore out the other side of their leader abandoning them and their recovery from the influence of meol. You see a little, Alphinaud asks the important question of the next step being the most important one to take, and it is somewhat understandably rushed to keep the pacing, but it's largely reactive, and not on a day to day basis - how do they keep the change to their society going? How do they reach a stage that I, the player, can feel confident in giving the benefit of the doubt to them, when previously I hated being in Eulmore for any length of time due to being so disgusted by it? 5.1 answers that. Ran'jit gets one throwaway mention in npc dialogue, proving how pointless he was to the narrative at large. 5.1 also majorly introduces a cure for tempering being put on the table, something that has been dogging the wol since Ifrit in ARR, and Alisaie truly is the kindest person in this entire game ;w; she is always thinking of others before herself and her own well-being, always.

I started Bozja this weekend! Partly for glam, partly as Khlip has to go for Prih lore related reasons... an eagle for an eagle... I did try to queue in for Gaius weapons, but after 25 min at peak times I had to give up... I do really enjoy there's a bunch of side content for SHB that's introduced to you in msq and voiced, it makes it feel more mandatory, and a lot of it is on the Source so you get to catch up on the war with Garlemald that the wol has largely been absent for. I should maybe-hopefully get through to 5.3 during this week, although I am not looking forward to Elidibus wol... I've done this fight twice legit and remember nothing of it due to the sheer amount of pain it caused me so we'll see how bad it is for me past graphic update.

Overwatch had its launch, rewards are bugged (lol) because ofc they are. This means if you wanted to get both branches of rewards for the lore event you can't, they've been broken for four days of seven, yay :) couple this with unplayable lag on psn for day one, endless disconnects, five new heroes and a bunch of genuinely new players and tourists and it's been a little hellish. Due to the servers being so flunky I haven't touched stadium yet this season, as competitive points are also bugged and no way I am relying on up in the air promises of retroactively applied points for that, no thank you. Aim assist promises also did not pan out... there has been no new lore bites since launch, I'm antsy about Ashe but even more "okay but you should really do a lens for Overwatch the organisation atp given the attack on their main base, surely???" but no, no.

Sanrio is not my thing but Kuromi Widowmaker has invaded my brain, she's so cute. She has moogle wings (to me).

Of the new heroes, I have ended in the wild state of... not liking the three female characters at all, LMAO. ( in my boys era )

Once the bugs are fixed (maybe??) I will get my gold weapons and decide what I want this year for comp... I have to add to the girls list, and seemingly Mizuki at this rate... the Crimson Wolf red looks much better in game as expected, except for the caveat of the Talon watermark all over the weapons, woops. It looks okay on thin weapons or designs where the red isn't applied to the bulk but the wrapping instead, which does mean it looks good on Ashe's mythic gun, and that's important to me. It also looks good on Wuyang P5 Joker, I may have to do it for Joker... and perhaps some of the other "evil" skins we have like Infinite Empire, Mirrorwatch Talon/normal Talon, we'll see.

They did however change 2/3rds of my mains in stadium so we'll see what the climb is like when I get back to it. I may have to learn stadium Orisa in earnest. Here comes horse.