we're going places

Nightmares upon nightmares again, and earlier than usual. When I dragged myself out of sleep, it wasn't even 11 AM. Not crazy about this. I had some Monster before I showered -- I also made my mom shower before I showered -- and Gorgug did curl up under the sheets with me, briefly. Poor thing was extremely confused because yesterday I changed my sheets and folded up my winter blanket (left around just in case, I'm not that optimistic), and then slept with a smaller blanket and ended up kicking it off anyway.

My sister's been hogging the washing machine since Saturday and it seems like it may or may not rain this or that day over the next few days, so I probably need to steel myself for doing a quick load when she leaves later, so I'm sure to have clothes to wear (that I like and are comfortable... if you looked at my closet you'd be like, what the fuck, but unfortunately my cold/cool weather rota does not encompass even half of that, and it is still cool enough indoors for long sleeves) on Saturday. If I can, I'd also like to start individually washing that winter blanket, the charcoal gray blanket I'm currently using, my green winter coat, and my house shoes. Either pair. Though I may throw the one I haven't been wearing in the trash at this point, god knows how many times Ciri's peed on them by now.

Ciri was in heat last week and I was exhausted the whole time, to the point that I felt drunk when I went to the store Saturday morning. It was kind of funny because my mom had been hypocritically side-eying my picking up 5% abv cocktails in a can the day before, but also: not pleasant. I'm slowly recovering from that, but the nightmares aren't helping. Neither are the bouts of depression.

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I've been experimenting with extremely low-grade alcohol for a couple of weeks -- and by low I mean "I don't think this counts as breaking sobriety," because the tipsiest I've felt has been 'unexpectedly happy,' twice -- to see how my body takes to it now it's been off it for three years, and also so I could try a drink I saw at Primaprix that looked right up my alley except for the 5% abv. It was delicious. They no longer stock it, of course. ( More chatter about this. )

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Three episodes behind on The Pitt, caught up on 9-1-1 (Buck ;__;) and decided to finish 9-1-1 Lone Star for some reason. I have two episodes left and I assume they're gonna make me cry again so I've been putting it off a bit. This show is a telenovela. For all the NDEs in 9-1-1, at least you can kind of assume things will turn out okay, with one glaring exception. Season 4 of Lone Star was just melodramatic hit after hit, and Judd has been depressing in season 5. Carlos, too, to some extent. I do still really love Nancy and Marjan though. And TK and Carlos's relationship. And Paul. ( Ramble/rant, with spoilers. )

Anyway. I am trying to convince my brain mice to let me do things. I just wanna make maps and edit pictures and the mice are like, "what's that? We don't know how to open an editor suddenly." I'm halfway through Trespasser on Dragon Age: Inquisition, where I am missing most of the trophies for some reason? I'm pretty sure I did the DLC last time, but who knows. It was 2020. I accidentally locked myself out of a bunch of companion quests, but I'm just not putting myself through this game again. It would be so goddamn replayable if combat wasn't so tedious. I have it on easy! It should not take this long to defeat a bunch of bandits! At this point if they had an accessibility 'one-shot enemies' option I would take it. Goddamn. Let me shoot them in the head. Let me shoot them dead in the head, specifically. At least Veilguard let me aim.

I'm very pleased I made a guy and experienced the Dorian romance, though. He is just delightful.

I borrowed a prompt list from leanwellback and yarnofariadne and I don't know how much of it I'll get through, but today's actually produced something? I haven't written a poem in forever, but I sometimes think up some lines, get in the shower, sit down and can't be bothered to type them in. This time I did. Growth! Or something.

#5 dandelion

these ephemeral things
we were taught to wish on: the
flash of light, the flickering fire, the
keratin, metaphorical enamel -- each hope
a snuffler, the smoke
folding into the fabric we breathe in.
It's in the last exhale that their aim is clear:
to come back in a year, ready
to scatter.

Nabbed from out_there -- I liked this set of questions, so I decided to break my self-imposed moratorium on this kind of meme and answer them.

50 This or Thats

1. Bagels or donuts?
Bagels. There is something about the specific taste of donuts that really bothers me for some reason.

2. Bar soap or body wash?
Body wash. Soap is way harder to use in the shower and then you end up with a tiny sliver and it's just weird.

3. Being afraid or being embarrassed?
Embarrassed could lead to a panic attack, and it's awful and sometimes you keep going over it years after the fact, but like. Afraid is way worse.

4. Big bash or intimate gathering?
Intimate gathering. I hate crowds.

( cut for space )

I woke up enjoying the sunshine, and then my mom told me not to use up too much hot water and I like, inwardly spiraled? I'm still recovering from the irritability/frustration/sadness. I put music on largely to make myself cry, which worked when combined with me avoiding isolation by telling people how I was feeling. But the music is still on and I'm on my laptop and that's kind of a red flag for how I'm feeling at any point in time to be honest. I don't usually listen to music. I'm trying to do it more, because I used to at least shower with music until my sister, many years ago, decided I couldn't do that anymore, but I still only tend to listen while I update my planner.

I... took two hours to do things just with notebooks. And then I got on my laptop and I still haven't turned it off. I'm touch-starved, I've known for a long time, but I think I am also appreciation-starved. It rears its ugly head when I decide to speak back to my sister and my sister takes it poorly and starts insulting me. I don't know. I wanna be told I'm pretty. I wanna be told I'm funny, and that I did a cool thing in a game if I did one, and that I'm good at, I don't know, whatever anyone sees me being good at, other than persevering.

Anyway. Haven't seen last week's The Pitt yet, but I have been playing Dragon Age: Veilguard like my life depends on it. I'm just really into it and it's taken over my brain a little bit. I'm trying to enjoy it instead of feel guilty for the stuff I'm not doing. I'm keeping up with chores and talking to people, so it's not that bad.

( Veilguard babble. )

I can't remember if it was January 26 or 27, but either way, I'm three years sober? I can't believe I've been on bupropion for three years, is the weirder part. I've been playing ttrpgs for that long! Wild.

My Pathfinder 2e adventure path actually ended (ish) this week -- we beat the BBEG of Age of Ashes in a really tough fight that didn't draw out as much as I expected, but I definitely threw everything I had at it, hero points, focus points, high level spell slots, expensive potions (to fly over the acid pool), the one single-target nonspecified damage spell I learned ages ago for no particular reason and never used because Kauri is a druid and leans elemental (Disintegrate), just. Everything. And I got the killing blow with a Pulverizing Cascade, which was really cool because it's the one water spell Kauri has continued to use even once we hit the level where we get 6th rank spells and I stopped using Hydraulic Push and Crashing Wave so often. Even after that, I flavored all my cold spells as drawing moisture from the air, so it's been a whole thing and it's nicely thematic. We'll see what we need to wrap up beyond that this Friday, but we handled pretty much everything else beforehand, so I will be making a character (or two?) for Season of Ghosts soon. I'll miss my baby though.

Fantasy High (the campaign I'm in, not the D20 series) also wrapped up its freshman year quest this past weekend, in session 50 just to be extra satisfying. We went to hell! And then to Annwn. I'm excited to see what yarnofariadne does for our next quest, and what she continues to do with the Celtic mythology theme I dropped on her, if anything.

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As far as my personal life, I'm... okay? Low on money, like my mom is gonna have to actually ask her sister or I'm gonna have to ask online for help with the electric bill low, but what else is new. I finally found the missing package from Springfield today; ( the ordeal )

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Anyway. I'm gonna go back to my DungeonFog tutorials. I was hoping to make a little battlemap for the last session of my Friday group's Christmas Adventure, not sure if I'll manage that, but at least I'm getting through the tutorials. Don't think I've ever approached a thing this way but hopefully it will help with the feeling of 'oh god what do I do with this interface,' even if I picked the map maker that felt closer to what I'm used to. It certainly feels like the Correct Thing to do, like reading the manual before you fuck with stuff. But I have always been too impatient.

Have also been doing jigsaw puzzles and I sorted my sister's Arkham Horror puzzle last night, so I can fall back on that if the spoons really are gone. I try not to get started on the jigsaw puzzles before 8 PM because I'm very bad at stopping. I finished my previous one at 12:30 AM on Sunday with Ciri rolling over it and not letting me see the empty slots I had left. It was a fun extra challenge. I really love that puzzle to pieces, though. I'm very frustrated that I can't figure who got me it, but it was on my wishlist Christmas 2024 and I spent all of 2025 stuck on that one lady with the horse (really stuck on puzzling at all, I enjoyed the puzzle once I got started).

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Puzzling has allowed me to watch The Pitt as it's airing so far (unsure on new doctor, love Mel to pieces, love the new nurse, love Mohan always and forever) and almost catch up on 9-1-1 -- I'm up to the second episode of S9. Honestly, puzzling while watching some of those S8 episodes made it more bearable, and then I locked in to enjoy Seismic Shifts because I do love me a good fictional disaster. I need to post some Buck/Eddie recs for spikedluv at some point, I said I would for holiday_wishes and I've got a few but I want to list a couple more.

(As an aside... when did we embrace the portmanteaus, and why? It feels so wrong to use them. So fucking wrong. But they're so widespread that it also feels weird to use the normal slash form for pairings! What IS up with that, god.)

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Oh, I posted some photos of my planner decor~ journalsandplanners here if anyone is interested! Still figuring out the day-a-page format. This page is my favorite so far, and I've gone through like, all my pens and markers to figure out what works for headings like that and doesn't bleed like a motherfucker. (There are some markers that are the perfect color but holy shit you can see them through TWO whole pages. And they're decent paper!)

Anyway. Happy Thursday! Hope things are going well for all y'all. <3

I've been meaning to post all month, but Snowflake didn't appeal to me all that much, plus there's a lot of history there for me, even if I wasn't directly involved with the drama.

However, one thing I will be taking from Snowflake is the top 10 lists, outsourced. Ask me for any and I'll answer in the comments!

I am also going to make a little wishlist, much smaller than the one for Christmas. This is stuff that would make me happy:

1. Jigsaw puzzles
2. PS5 gift cards
3. Subscriptions to my ko-fi, which I'm planning to turn into a place to share all my TTRPG card, homebrew, merch and map designs
4. 4. Art of my PCs from the TTRPG campaigns I play in

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It's been a pretty stressful month, money-wise. We've managed, but it is what it is. Doesn't help that it's cold and that I'm the only person in this house who's capable of not taking things out on other people. I've been doing jigsaw puzzles and deleting photos from my backlog and trying to figure out a permanent set-up for my day-a-page planner, which I keep meaning to post about to journalsandplanners. I took pics and everything.

One upside that's been keeping me sane is the soft light my friend Nate got me, which I use to get selfies even when it's too dark because winter. It helps my self-esteem a lot, even if I'm more aware of the way my skin keeps breaking out. I figure most of that is coming from the same place as the daily nightmares.

So I finished Silksong, and then I finished it again because I'd somehow missed a spool fragment and wanted 100% completion, and then I finished my second playthrough but with the Act II ending, and then I cursed myself and tried to beat Grandmother Silk twice and started a third playthrough, this time on the PS5 version of the game so I could get all the trophies again. I'm up to Act III with Silk Soar like 25 hours in, which is impressive, and banging my head against the Skarrsinger fight again, which is not.

The financial situation continues to be not ideal, but maybe it will improve soon? I'm also trying to get some things going -- a pixieset shop for my prints, and I want to make some battlemaps and put them up on ko-fi maybe along with those ttrpg cards I wanted to design this summer but never did. I'm doing a little better in general, in the getting things done department. Not great by any means, but better.

The puzzle I mentioned last post is taking some kind of shape, or at least some of the pieces are (the shape is a horse and a rider). I'll go get some big sheets of cardstock tomorrow so I can keep the puzzle on my old desk instead of on small sheets of cardstock where it doesn't fit.

The vertical drying rack is a lifesaver, tbh. It rained on my clothes outside last week and they were so drenched it took them five days to go back to just damp in places. This last load laundry I divided between the rack and the outdoor clothesline, and it's rained on them again. I think I might do a tiny laundry load tomorrow and then toss the outside clothes in there for a spin cycle or twenty and hang them indoors as well. I'm honestly surprised by how quickly they dry in my room, but absolutely not complaining.

I didn't make a post about it here because I'd already been whining about it everywhere else, but last week on Monday, I got a package I'd ordered -- torn and empty. Just a torn, empty envelope that the delivery guy was like, shrug about and ran off without even telling me what I could do about it. So I went to the physical store and they said they couldn't do anything about online orders, and then called the delivery company and they opened a case, then they closed that case on Tuesday. I had to call the online store then and in fairness, everyone was nice about it, but as the days passed I got more and more frustrated, and I basically lost the entire week to paralyzing anxiety (compounded by my mom suddenly pointing out that she was for real running out of money, despite having asked her a million times to keep me updated precisely so it wouldn't shock me into paralyzing anxiety). Even emailing to ask for updates only got me an automated message.

Since it still wasn't resolved this Monday, I called again, and at least I got actual information out of the person who responded -- they'd been waiting (allegedly, but I believe it) for the delivery company to get back to them about their search for the items I ordered, and the delivery company was taking its sweet goddamn time. Apparently they HAD received my emails and tried to fast-track it for my sake, and I finally got a bit of a timeline -- that if the delivery company didn't find the stuff in 48 hours, they'd process a refund. I did not think the delivery company would find the stuff, to be honest, because it looked far more like "someone ripped this open and stole the contents" than "the paper caught on something and ripped and everything fell out." But okay.

So finally today I got a resolution and I should be getting the money back in the account I paid from (my Wise.com account, which I mostly got just so a specific friend of mine can send me money, because for some bullshit US/Canada sync reason they couldn't keep doing it through Paypal) soon, I hope. The upside is they still seem to have the one item I was afraid I wouldn't be able to order again, and also it's on sale now. So I may end up saving money.

I'm still boggled about a delivery driver just giving somebody an empty package, like what kind of policy has to be in place for that to happen? That's fucking weird. But at least I no longer need to be worrying about it.

I've been playing Silksong since about a week after it came out, when I realized it was out for PS4 AND reasonably priced. I'm in Act 3 and have slowed down considerably because there's just... not that much left to do. ( Spoilers probably? )

There are still games on my PS4 that I haven't played, but nothing I'm truly excited about, and I'm trying to convince myself that it's not a horrible idea to buy a PS5 for my birthday on Black Friday (birthday is Nov 8) given our current situation. I don't want to like, find myself with no emergency fund, so I did make a wishlist and I'd really love any donations towards the PS5, since I don't actually expect anyone to get me the whole thing. My Paypal is battlesinthemorning@gmail.com.

If I don't end up buying the PS5 it'll go to bills, it's not like I'm gonna fuck around with it. I felt bad enough yesterday when I bought a 24 eur vertical clotheshorse so I have somewhere indoors to hang clothes during the winter when it's raining, since the dryer gave out last spring and no one ever fixed it. And I have already gotten use out of it.

I'm behind on literally everything and the SAD is hitting HARD. Doesn't help that I'm on my period too. My sister has been nicer to me recently but she was also screaming at my mom earlier so that's not helping either. I just want to be able to do something to make money, literally tackle any of my stupid ideas (TTRPG card design, dice bags) and see if they get any traction but the momentum is dead and buried.

Betrayed by fandom osmosis: I thought all the episodes of the last series of Taskmaster were out. Imagine my disappointment when I went looking for episode 10 and realized episode 9 had a timestamp of 5 days ago.

I started watching season 3 of the Australian version, but I kind of don't like anyone in the line-up. Maybe if I give it some time.

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I haven't seen the last two episodes yet, but I am greatly enjoying Cloudward, Ho on Dropout.

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Seven months after I stopped playing with my Sunday group (and roughly three after they moved to 7 PM EST and I was fully freed from thinking about rejoining them), I've come to realize how much I dreaded that game, felt judged for my choices, and did not trust the DM with a character I was deeply invested in. I still struggle with my ADHD and general social faux pas (plural) and have moments where I beat myself up or wanna crawl into a hole because I feel I was super annoying/took over too much, but I trust my DMs, I have fun, I look forward to every session. It's much freer.