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It turns out if you really want to raise the profile of your writers' union, all you need to do is announce LLM-generated works are eligible for awards, as long as they are not entirely LLM-generated.
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Tonight in the basement of the Harvard Book Store where the part of the HVAC which replaced the original location of mysteries and crime makes enough industrial noise for me to wear earplugs while browsing, I gestured a choice of directions at a T-junction of shelves to a woman laden with bags in both hands who responded in an immediate tone of cheerful accusation, "You're half a man," and then before I could say anything and see which way she reacted, "Half and half. Cream. I'm just kidding," on which she turned around and left the way she came. Happy Saturday before Christmas?Current Music: The Beaches, "Last Girls at the Party"
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I probably didn't need to, but I have taken all of next week and the following Monday off. My workload is fucking insane but fuckit, I can only do what I can do, as multiple people told me this week.
I have just borrowed Cahokia Jazz and a YA novel by EK Johnston from the library, so I'm set for that. And I'm meeting my oldest friend in the world in LA next month, so she can go to the desert for the first time, so we're sending each other links and stuff, and that's fun.
Tonight I will set up the batter for those insane Dark and Stormy cookies -- though I do them as bars, it's so much easier and the texture is more controllable -- and tomorrow I will make a crustless quiche for my BIL's birthday. Sunday is a cookie exchange, Monday is wrapping. It's gonna be a nice week, or it would be if not for all the rain.
Why did the rain wait until I was on vacation?
Happy holidays to y'all!
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A determined artist faces potentially lethal criticism.
The Merro Tree by Katie Waitman
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I quit two phone games recently and want to work through some feelings about it.
Farm RPG
I started playing Farm RPG a while back because I was looking for something that was like Stardew Valley but more idle focused.
On the surface this is the case, but it’s not so much an idle game as it is a clicker. Some resources accumulate over time once you've bought the upgrade, but for the most part you are clicking to obtain them. Fishing is a twitchy “click on the moving dot” affair. Farming involves waiting (minutes, hours, days) or expending an item, but is not very profitable.
There are villagers to befriend (not marry) and quests to complete, but there’s a cynical snideness to the writing that didn’t really work for me. Some quests require items you get from sending your animals to the slaughterhouse, which I didn't want to do and used workarounds that just take longer (weeks/months instead of days.)
All of this I could deal with but I’ve reached a point where I cannot progress in the story without putting the raptors I have raised in a fight club and I just don’t want to. They’re good raptors! The only alternative I could see would involve many, many more months of grinding.
And then one day I missed finishing my daily quests, took a step back and asked, am I actually enjoying this game? Am I looking forward to doing the daily tasks or is it tedious?
So I’ve stopped.
nb. there is a social aspect to the game which I turned off shortly after starting. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I engaged with the community.
Pokémon TCG Pocket
If you want the feeling of opening packets of collectible cards with cute art but don’t want the clutter or to spend actual money, this game is almost perfect! You can open 2 packs a day for free! You can make decks and battle (against the computer or online)!
You can spend real life currency on a monthly subscription to open an extra pack a day, or à la carte to reduce the time until you can open new packs. But I wasn’t even tempted.
I quit because quitting Farm RPG made me question if I actually enjoyed this game too, and I thought how long the app takes to load every time, how unlikely it is that I’ll ever complete my collections, how I always battled in auto mode because it was slow and not interesting to me… so I’ve quit.
--
What games have you recently quit? What are you Actually Enjoying right now?
I have been trying to read more but ironically most of the time this is more engaging than playing a game and leads to more time on my phone.
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Last night on a snow-salted suburban road I saw a deer bound suddenly through the splash of the headlights, followed a moment later by what must have been a pair of coyotes because it's been centuries since there were wolves in this part of the world. It was so folkloric, I expected to see riders the next moment, or the moon. After days of sleepless free-fall and headache it hurt to breathe through, I spent much of this afternoon unconscious, which was terrible for my exposure to daylight but produced vivid dreams only occasionally suggesting a surrealist facsimile of same, such as the second-story view onto a green quadrangle where a policeman was bleeding out milk. Hestia is trying to climb through my arms as I type in her best doctorly fashion. In nearly half a lifetime of chronic illness, I don't think I have ever felt this daily-basis bad.Current Music: Spoon, "Chateau Blues"
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(Re: the previous entry.)
Dragonslayer Ornstein & Executioner Smough (also known as Oreo and S'mores, Biggie and Smalls, Pikachu and Snorlax, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and any other name the fandom can come up with) are one of the most iconic boss fights in the entire Dark Souls series.
There are much harder ones in later games (and in the DLC), but they're still legendary and still regarded as a Serious boss fight.
They're also a famous mid-game difficulty spike and cause of rage quitting. Conversely, if you can get through O&S, people often say you should have the skills to beat the rest of the base game.
The major issue is that it's a duo boss fight, with one agile speedster (Ornstein) who can zip most of the way across the room in a single move, and also throws lightning, and one heavyweight bruiser (Smough) who is slower but not that slow -- he has a charge attack to close distance fast that hits like a freight train -- and does huge amounts of damage.
So for the first phase of the fight, you have to try to keep track of where they both are simultaneously (not to mention where you are in relation to the room, so you don't back yourself into a corner and get trapped) and constantly manoeuvre to try to be able to get in a hit on one without being hit by the other.
If you kill one of them, the fight goes into a second phase where the surviving one absorbs some of their powers (so if it's Smough, he gets lightning, while if it's Ornstein he gets sized up and picks up part of Smough's moveset) and also restarts with a full and vastly increased health bar. Though there is a general consensus that the second phase is more manageable than the first phase simply because you're not having to fight two bosses at the same time.
Illustrative example of someone doing the fight:
(You can summon an NPC or other human players to try to help you, but the bosses get extra health to compensate and it's still tough. And also I have been having enormous fun trying to beat all the bosses without summons so far, and am averse to the extra complications and unpredictability of having more people -- human or NPC -- in the mix while I try to figure out a fight. Though I've also had enormous fun being a summons for other people on boss fights, so zero disrespect to people summoning*, it's an excellent game mechanic.)
As I may have mentioned once or twice, my brain has huge difficulty tracking multiple moving objects (which is why I can't drive or cycle on the road) and I have the reaction speed of a slime mould.
So yeah. I knew O&S are the big mid-game stopper and I was very aware that this could potentially be the point where I hit a wall and the game became flatly impossible for me. Or at least where I'd have to summon to get through it.
And that did not happen. I solo-ed O&S.
It took multiple sessions over multiple days before I mastered it, but that's standard for me on DS boss fights. And I had SO MUCH FUN. It's SUCH A COOL FIGHT.
I did a thing that was a real achievement for me and I am very proud, and especially given the shitshow this year has been, I'll take it.
{*Necessary disclaimer only because Dark Souls fandom has historically had a section who are toxic as fuck and would like you to know that you didn't really beat the game if you summoned or used magic or whatthefuckever else they disapprove of.}
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The tabletop fantasy roleplaying game from Kobold Press of high adventure in a Labyrinth of infinite worlds, and more.
Bundle of Holding: Tales of the Valiant
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Micah was a co-worker at the theatre. He was the sort of person who becomes a front of house manager by age 18.
Micah Aaron Tajone Kalap Obituary
As it happens, the bridge nearest the funeral home was just torn down. As a result, access looks like this...
(Buses are even worse)
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Can a community of otaku save their apartment building from gentrification? Should a community of otaku save their apartment building from gentrification?
Princess Jellyfish, volume 1 by Akiko Higashimura
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How great would it be to talk with animals, through magic or technology or… whatever?
Five Books About Conversing With Animals
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On this particularly bright and sleepless morning which began with a formal call from the career center, events otherwise known as ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) radiantfracture and Existential Comics having conspired to bring the Tractactus to the forefront of my mind, I have decided that the most cursed translation of Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen is "I feel that if a person can't communicate, the very least he can do is to shut up."Current Music: Tom Lehrer, "Alma"
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Starmen marooned in barbaric America!
Hard Landing by Algis Budrys
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So
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Dec. 16th, 2025 @ 11:19 am
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... I just beat Ornstein and Smough.
For anyone who would like context -- Symbalily meets and gets to grips with O&S, from the timestamp: https://youtu.be/3TKhwbveyVE?si=14uuwYlVq1ywUwRk&t=5681
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The TRAVELLER 2022 UPDATE corebook, ALIENS guides, sector sourcebooks, and more.
Bundle of Holding: Traveller Explorations (from 2022)
A high-power 800-page adventure for Mongoose Traveller that uncovers the greatest mysteries of Charted Space
Bundle of Holding: Traveller Ancients
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2025: Scientists are astonished when the largest ever dinosaur fossil trackway does not lead into the House of Lords, Tate Britain breaks with English tradition by returning looted art, and in a shocking break from centuries of Catholic precedent, the new Pope is a Cubs fan.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 26 Which 2025 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
View AnswersAnnie Bot by Sierra Greer
1 (3.8%) Extremophile by Ian Green
0 (0.0%) Private Rites by Julia Armfield
1 (3.8%) Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky
17 (65.4%) The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
15 (57.7%) Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock by Maud Woolf
0 (0.0%)
Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.
Which 2025 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Annie Bot by Sierra Greer
Extremophile by Ian Green
Private Rites by Julia Armfield
Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock by Maud Woolf
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For the first night of Hanukkah, my mother accompanied me to None Shall Escape (1944) at the Harvard Film Archive. It snowed into the late afternoon, silver-dusting the unsanded streets. The wind chill feels like zero Fahrenheit. spatch and I lit the first night's candle for strength.Current Music: Bruce Adler, "Hu-Tsa-Tsa"
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