flamebyrd | Recent Entries

I have, over the past couple of years, accumulated a vast amount of card-making supplies, and I never make cards. Therefore, I would like to send cards to people on the internet!

Poll #26385 Holiday cards

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 4

What name should I use for you?

Postal Address (including name to use for address)

Preferred sentiment(s)

Season's Greetings/Happy Holidays
1 (25.0%)

Christmas-related (including carols)
0 (0.0%)

Happy New Year
3 (75.0%)

Yuletide Greetings
1 (25.0%)

Happy Solstice
1 (25.0%)

Hello (or similar)
0 (0.0%)

A fannish holiday (e.g. Candlenights) I will specify below
0 (0.0%)

Something else I will specify below
0 (0.0%)

Write-in sentiment suggestion(s):

Choose some themes/motifs (optional)

Christmas (trees, wreaths, lights etc)
1 (25.0%)

Santa hats*
0 (0.0%)

Hot season/Summer
2 (50.0%)

Cold season/Winter
1 (25.0%)

Unicorns
1 (25.0%)

Dragons
1 (25.0%)

Dinosaurs
2 (50.0%)

Woodland creatures
0 (0.0%)

Australian animals
2 (50.0%)

Ducks
1 (25.0%)

Space
3 (75.0%)

Flowers
2 (50.0%)

Bees
1 (25.0%)

Sea creatures (jellyfish, octopus, etc)
3 (75.0%)

Abstract/geometric
1 (25.0%)

If you'd like to receive a birthday card, when is your birthday?

* Please note that if this is chosen with an animal you are likely to receive an animal wearing a santa hat.

Sentiments are intended to be suggestions, not prescriptive. All occasions are welcome!

Themes and motifs are chosen from the materials I have available. Make of that what you will.

Things have been pretty rough recently for various reasons, so I'm going to distract myself from all that by talking about a few things which have been bringing me joy.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons 2.0
A couple of months ago I decided to do a bit of date manipulation to finish off the art collection (by resetting the same day over and over) so I could finish my museum and maybe quit the game. I accomplished this, and Nintendo promptly announced a huge update with thousands of new items and new things to do every day. So I'm back on that horse and loving it again.

I've updated my dream at DA-4989-3336-9453. It's been raining so once again there are flowers everywhere, and I've rearranged a few things so all my spare flowers are hanging out on the beach. Which is to say, if you need flowers, please let me know! New things since last time are a new entrance with two bridges, a farm area, the beginnings of a treehouse, and a redesigned museum garden. Also, the clock room is getting out of control.

I also spent way too much money on packs of the new Amiibo cards so if anybody wants to trade doubles, I'm in!

Speedrunning
Pokemon: Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, Nintendo Switch remakes of the 2006 Nintendo DS games, were released the other day. I mention this not because I'm playing them (I'm not), but because the speedrunners have discovered a ton of new glitches and strategies to go fast, and I'm loving watching how excited they are to find them. So far this includes:
- If you turn the music off, the game skips all the level up and healing jingles and it shaves minutes off the run.
- If you hatch an egg in front of a particular NPC he will no longer block you from proceeding to Sunyshore City while it is experiencing a blackout
- If you use surf immediately after fighting a trainer near the water, you can float over the terrain (or under it) and progress the story in unintended ways, including by skipping Victory Road completely

It's still early days and they're still trying to figure out what categories and rules to formalise on the leaderboards, not to mention the risk that any of these glitches could be patched at any time, but it's the discovery process that's bringing me joy anyway.

Mini Metro (iOS)
Friendship ended with desktop PC version, now mobile version is my best friend. I'm not going to say I'm good at it, but I also haven't linked it to any social media, which means it won't show the global leaderboards, so I have no idea! I'm finding I get the most joy by coming up with my own challenges, usually "only use the 3 lines it starts with".

Unpacking (PC/Switch/Xbox)
This is a very fun, short puzzle game about unpacking a person's boxes into various dwellings over their lifetime. It has a wonderfully subtle type of storytelling, as you get to know the person through their belongings, what changes and what goes with them from house to house, along with the decisions you have to make about where to put their belongings in each house. Very cute pixel art, some of it very nostalgic. It's short for how expensive it is, but I really enjoyed it. Since I finished the main story, I'm just achievement-hunting now.

So what happened here was that my friend and I came across a promo Tweet for the upcoming manhua adaptation of this Chinese webnovel which had a very poorly translated summary, and in the course of finding a better summary I became intrigued enough to read the first couple of chapters of the translated novel and then I finished it within 48 hours.

It's omniscient POV, like most Chinese webnovels I've read, but you're mostly in the head of Xue Xian, who is a very arrogant, belligerent millennia-old black dragon. His narration is frequently hilarious. The love interest is an amnesiac monk - the strong, silent type.

I really loved all the characters in this and I found the ending very satisfying and romantic! It's very readable too, I didn't find it dragged too much and each chapter left me eager to read the next. Even though the content is quite serious the tone is very light.

( Content notes: )

( Vaguely spoilery musing. )

I read JQ's translation. Translator's introduction is here, then you can get to Chapter 1 here, and once you reach the end of the edited translation you can access Chapter 63 from here.

I haven't written anything in well over a year, but sometimes an idea just won't let you go.

Strategic Retreat (2689 words) by Flamebyrd
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 全职高手 - 蝴蝶蓝 | Quánzhí Gāoshǒu - Húdié Lán, 全职高手 | The King's Avatar (Live Action TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Hán Wénqīng/Yè Xiū, Hán Wénqīng/Yè Xiū/Glory
Characters: Hán Wénqīng, Yè Xiū, Zhāng Xīnjié
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, Light Angst, Rivalry, Bickering, Didn't Know They Were Dating, Sharing a Bed, sometimes a family can be two people and a video game
Summary:
Han Wenqing waved off the anxious front desk staff and planted himself in front of the slumped figure. "You must have a death wish, coming here in the middle of the season."
In which Ye Xiu makes himself Han Wenqing's problem, and Han Wenqing is up for the challenge.

( More Author's Notes )

A couple of months ago my friend told me she was watching and really enjoying a Chinese drama on Netflix that was:
- Just like a sports manga, except about online gaming
- Almost entirely romance-free
- Featuring a healthy dose of secret identity shenanigans

Sold, I said! Except that I'm very bad at watching things, so I decided to seek out the novel instead. It hooked me very quickly, and then I realised it was over 3 million words long.

Anyway so I read it all, accidentally through less-than-legal means because the officially-licensed site that hosts it did not make it at all clear that all chapters beyond 90 were behind a poorly-described paywall, not just a login requirement. I'm not going to say I read every word - a lot of the battle sequences (and there are many) I just skimmed for dialogue.

And then I convinced my spouse to watch the live-action drama with me! We're up to episode 20 and really enjoying it, with a couple of caveats:
- When the show is trying to be funny, it gets extremely cringey
- We really want to punch some of the antagonists in the face
- Sometimes the heartfelt speeches about the power of Glory get a bit cheesy

There is an animation available too (on YouTube, legally) that I would like to watch eventually if I can convince anybody to do it with me.

So, am I recommending this? If you love long drawn out sports power fantasies about being the absolute very best at the game while mentoring new and under-appreciated players into greatness, definitely check it out! If you don't, I don't know that it will make you a fan of the genre. It really shines in showing the way all the pro players know each other and relate to each other as friends and rivals both on and off the field (as it were), and the mentorship parts can be really touching. There are also moments that are completely heartbreaking. The protagonist is an asshole but somehow I love him anyway, and the secondary (and tertiary) characters almost all have distinguishable traits that makes them memorable and fun.

🎮 My gaming YouTube profile suggested a Let's Play of Mini Metro, a puzzle game about building urban train systems, and about halfway through I got twitchy wanting to try things, so I went in search of where I could buy it. (As an aside, I really recommend IsThereAnyDeal for getting an overview of the pricing of PC games.) Anyway, it told me it was on sale on the Humble Store (sadly, it isn't anymore), however before I headed over there it occurred to me to search my inbox in case I'd already bought it in a bundle, and it turned out it was in the Itch.io Indie Bundle for Palestinian Aid! So I loaded it up on the media PC and had a happy couple of days building train lines. I can definitely see it being a stressful game for some people, but I found the ability to continue in "endless" mode took the stress out of it for me and I could just enjoy trying to optimise my system.

🎨 My watercolours and swatching tools (see last post) finally arrived! I had a nice, chill time swatching all 34 of my watercolour tubes (although now my shoulder hurts - maybe I shouldn't have done all 34 in a single day). I have updated my watercolour spreadsheet with the new colours accordingly, although I didn't think to mark them in any way. I should have added a date column on this. Now I just need to... make some art? That sounds fake.

🖼 Relatedly, I just discovered the concept of Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) and I love it and want to make some. I also have a box of blank watercolour postcards I recently rediscovered! Filing tiny art under the list of things I'd like to post people if I ever get around to making a form.

📖 My library hold on Rainbow Rowell's Any Way the Wind Blows came in, so I'm about to start reading that. Here's hoping I like it more than Wayward Son!

I feel like I've been coasting on neutral for a while, so here are some random good things in my life to remind myself that there are things to talk about.

* I made a large pot of ultra strong T2 Sticky Choc Chai, adulterated with extra loose leaf Ceylon tea, and froze it in 1/2 cup portions. Now I can just defrost one with some milk and extra water and have chai without the trouble! It's really good.

* Had my second Pfizer dose on Monday. Spent Tuesday in a feverish haze but was feeling decent again by Wednesday. You go, little immune system!

* Finished Chicory: A Colorful Tale with my spouse and thoroughly enjoyed it. I haven't quite got 100% of the things yet but I'm pretty close! I wanted to do a full reaction post but to be honest, I don't have a lot to say. The soundtrack has been bringing me great joy and brightening my workdays.

* On that note, I got a new contract for part time work until the end of the year. This is ideal, because I'm also studying.

* I got this set of photopolymer stamps for swatching watercolours, which I loved so much I immediately ordered a stamp and die set to do individual colour swatches. It's shipping from the USA so it will be A While before it arrives, but I am looking forward to having some neatly categorised swatches.

* Speaking of things that are shipping from overseas that I won't see for a while, I ordered Yet More Watercolours and am impatiently waiting for them to arrive. Relatedly, I'm also waiting for a new palette to arrive because I've run out of room in my existing one...

* I also bought more materials for making greeting cards! Would anybody like to receive a random card in the mail?

Summer Games Done Quick is on right now, raising money for Médecins Sans Frontières|Doctors Without Borders!

I'll probably do a highlights list once it's over, but I wanted to call out this run now specifically because it's so unusual and clever:
Paper Mario "Stop 'n Swop" by JCog in 26:12.

If you've watched that and are confused, I don't blame you in the least, and offer these additional resources:
Pastebin by JCog attempting to explain it
A YouTube video explaining in detail how this trick was discovered (this was what I was really interested in)
The runner's Reddit AMA

I recently purchased a very cute little travel watercolour palette - Eraldo Explorer's Watercolour Set from Riot - with intention of replacing the paints with my own tube watercolours. Hilariously it turned out the existing paints are glued so firmly into the pans that I can't remove them, and the replacement empty half pans I purchased are too big. So now I have to carefully sand down 1mm from each pan to make them fit.

ANYWAY, once that's done I need to choose 12 colours to go in the travel palette and I would love to hear from other people who work with watercolours. I mostly paint flowers and landscapes but with a travel kit I might end up doing urban sketching... To be honest I spend more time researching paint pigments and watercolour techniques than actually painting.

I've shared my watercolour spreadsheet here.

Questions and advice welcome!

🎮 I missed the chance to post here about the Indie Bundle for Palestinian Aid on Itch.io, but I did buy it, so if you have any recommendations for games in this bundle please send them my way!

🎮 Chicory: A Colorful Tale, a game I Kickstarted way back in 2019, just released! It supports local co-op play, where the second player controls an additional paintbrush, and I really wanted to take advantage of that and get my spouse to join in. This kicked off a very frustrating 45 minutes trying to get the game to recognise two controllers, and ended with purchasing a new bluetooth card and completely reinstalling Windows. So I've only played about an hour of the game, but I'm enjoying it so far!

🎮 I'm still playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons nearly every day. I've been working hard on redoing various parts of my island - my goal was to finish it and upload a new dream before the snow settled. I failed at finishing everything but I did update the dream, so check it out at DA-4989-3336-9453 if you like.

🎮 A while back I came across the Kickstarter trailer for Unbeatable: A game where music is illegal and you do crimes. It's one of the best Kickstarter game trailers I've seen, it really gives an idea of the aesthetic the devs are going for, includes actual gameplay and has fun high-energy attitude. There's a demo out now - it's a simple two button rhythm game which I completely failed at, but on the bright side it has difficulty settings and a no-fail mode, and the final version promises more accessibility options.

Still playing:

Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo Switch)
A bunch of my friends have reset their game and started over anew, but I'm still too attached to my current island to do that.

This is definitely the longest I've played any Animal Crossing game, and I believe the first time ever that I've caught all of the fish and bugs. I'm not going to say I've played every day, but the longest I've ever gone between playing was 2 weeks - and I caught up by time travelling through a day at a time so I didn't miss any individual day in-game.

I'm currently redesigning the rear half of my island, including the residential part, so that's fun (sarcasm). I recently dumped a bunch of fossils in front of my museum, which turned out to be right under the flight path and it looks awesome. Also, I finally gave in and added a second player to the island so I could pass some of the seasonal furniture taking up space in my storage to their houses.

Fossils: 74/74
Bugs: 80/80
Fish: 80/80
Sea creatures: 40/40
Art: ????

Spiritfarer (Various platforms):
My issues with connecting with the story did not improve over time, but I enjoyed the gameplay enough to finish it. I haven't quite hit 100% completion yet (still have to catch some more fish) but I've completed the story and found all the hidden objects.

Recently completed:

Donut County (Various platforms)
This was available on XBox Game Pass for PC, so I downloaded and it played it through from start to finish over a couple of nights (it's short). It's like Katamari Damarcy if the people the tiny prince rolls up in his ball called him out afterwards to say "WTF, why did you do that?". Cute story, fun gameplay that I didn't find especially challenging (with two exceptions). The only skill it requires is puzzle solving and the ability to move a cursor, except for the final boss battle which needs some quick movement and coordination.

Up next:

If I keep my XBox Game Pass subscription I might try out Octopath Traveler or Undertale. Otherwise, I bought Final Fantasy IX for Switch a while back and I'd like to pick that up again.

Ikenfell is a "turn-based tactical RPG about a group of troublesome magic students", available on PC/Playstation/Xbox/Switch and largely developed by one person (Chevy Ray Johnston). I played it on PC via the Xbox GamePass.

I enjoyed it a lot, even though I had to use the difficulty settings in order to make the battle system tolerable. The plot is very linear, which for me is a selling point (no pesky decisions to make!), and went in some unexpected directions. There are lots of queer and non-binary characters, and their identities are not treated as plot points. The save points are adorable sleeping kitties. The soundtrack is by aivi & surasshu who are apparently best known for creating the soundtrack for Steven Universe.

The general pattern of the game is: You are given a place to go to chase down a plot point. You walk through a dungeon to get there, fighting monsters, solving puzzles and hunting out secret extra items. You fight a boss battle (or two). You are given another place to go. Repeat.

Skills required:
Timing (adjustable, can be disabled)
Tactical combat decisions (can enable an instant-win option)
Puzzle-solving (logic, observation, timing)

Content warnings:
Can be enabled in-game! ( Spoilers )

( More thoughts under the cut (Spoiler-lite) )

( Actual spoilers go here )

But like I said above, I genuinely enjoyed it despite its annoyances. Solid use of my 22+ hours.

While I'm posting... The amazing

reena_jenkins has made a podfic of my Star Wars fic, Accessory!

[podfic] Accessory (50 words) by reena_jenkins
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leia Organa/Han Solo, Chewbacca/Leia Organa/Han Solo
Characters: Leia Organa, Han Solo, Chewbacca (Star Wars), C-3PO (Star Wars)
Additional Tags: Podfic, Locked In, Pre-Relationship, trope bingo, Awkward Conversations, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: M4B, #ITPE 2020
Summary:
He turned to her with a sharp grin. "And how about you? Still think you'd rather kiss a Wookiee?"

I don't think I posted about this here when I wrote it last year, but it helped me out today, so here goes:

Bookmarklet: Show Spoilers (Beta)

This will take whatever text you have highlighted and make the background colour white and the text colour black. I use it on my mobile browser to show spoilers where people have made the text and background the same colour.

(When I opened up the link to paste it in I reread my code and immediately felt the need to re-do it because it was hideous. Why am I like this!)

I bought this because I'd watched a little of a Let's Play on YouTube, it was on sale, and I got some money for Christmas.

I'm enjoying the gameplay a lot - there's always something to do next, so I find myself doing 4+ hour marathon sessions that are only stopped because the game crashes (Reddit seems to think this is possibly a memory leak, which tracks). I'd estimate I'm about halfway through at this point, although it's hard to tell - I'd say I've sunk 10-12 hours in.

However, this is not my full review of the game - this is a little bit of musing about game design, specifically why some aspects of it aren't working for me. ( It's not really spoilery, but just in case I'm putting it behind a cut. )

Not an especially productive year, but this list is definitely longer than last year's.

Edit: Just corrected the subject line from 2021 to 2020, marking probably the first time in life I've ever written the new year instead of the old year (and not the other way around).

Books
魔道祖师 | Mo Dao Zu Shi | The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation - 墨香铜臭 | Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
人渣反派自救系统 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - 墨香铜臭 | Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
重生之朗朗星空 | Rebirth of a Movie Star - j112233
梦溪石 | Peerless - Meng Xi Shi
网恋翻车指南 | Guide on How to Fail at Online Dating - 酱子贝
Network Effect - Martha Wells
Edge of Nowhere - Felicia Davin
The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins (audio, read by Phoebe Judge)
The Leavenworth Case - Anna Katharine Green (audio, read by Phoebe Judge)
The Place Between - Kit Oliver
Red, White and Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Boyfriend Material - Alexis Hall
The Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Sunshine - Robin McKinley
Conventionally Yours - Annabeth Albert
The Princess and the Fangirl - Ashley Poston

Comics/Manga/Graphic Novels
Tonari no Robot - Nishi Uko

Video Games
Completed games (to the end credits, not necessarily 100%) are marked with *
Stardew Valley*
Child of Light*
Animal Crossing: New Horizons*[1]
Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice*
Katamari Damarcy Reroll
Spiritfarer

Movies
封神榜 | League of Gods (2016)

TV
(At what point do I admit that I don't watch scripted serialised video content anymore and remove this heading from the list?)

Audio
(I only list narrative audio here)
The Far Meridian - Seasons 1 & 2

Music
Child of Light (OST) - Beatrice Martin / Coeur de Pirate

Live Events
Ha. Ha. Ha.

Recorded Theatre and Opera
Aida (Met Opera, 1984)
Hamlet (Globe)
Rigoletto (Met Opera, 2016?)
Jesus Christ Superstar (2012?)
Cats (1997)

[1]: Hey, it has end credits!

I finished the non-DLC cases in Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice and I have this to say: I had a lot of issues with this game and would not recommend it without a lot of disclaimers but somehow it still brought a huge smile to my face.

I guess I'm just still weak to these ridiculous characters and their relationships.

(Gosh Phoenix and Edgeworth were fun in this game. It was only a handful of scenes but it made me happy.)

I decided it was finally time to tackle the most recent Ace Attorney game to be localised in English (which was released in 2016).

I'm enjoying the puzzle-solving gameplay and the characters, as always, but I'm finding the new prosecutor this game introduces extremely frustrating and I need to rant about it a bit.

( The rest is spoilers. )

If you enjoyed Celeste (the difficult platformer about climbing a mountain while confronting your fear and self-doubt) and are looking for a fun way to replay it but don't want to replay the whole thing from start to finish, check out the Celeste Randomizer mod.

Basically it takes all the rooms and jumbles them up according to a clever algorithm that takes into account entrances/exits/keys/etc. You finish when you reach a room from the end of one of the regular chapters. There's a ton of settings for difficulty, length, type of path, that sort of thing.

It's been out for a while but I just updated and realised there's now a "basic gameplay" mode (so not using any of the advanced movement they teach you in the postgame content), and "easy" difficulty (which turned out to be too easy for me... who knew?), which is basically all I wanted from this mod.

I've been enjoying it on "basic gameplay", "pathway", "short", "normal difficulty" for when I want to play a game but don't want to try anything new or too frustrating* (I'm looking at you, Celeste Chapter 9).

You need Everest, the Celeste mod loader, to run it. PC only as far as I'm aware.

*Your mileage may vary.

(Reworked from a tiny rant I just had at my friend over Signal.)

The assignment I'm currently working on is to write a business case and it is, in effect, an extremely dull fiction-writing exercise.

If I have to make up all these details about a fictional city council I'd like it to be not... records management process improvement.

Dear My Instructor, can I make this assignment about the records manager feeling strangely attracted to the software vendor but unable to act on their feelings because it would be inappropriate? Best Regards, Me.

(The fictional business profile we've been given even addresses their desire to be an "LGBTI inclusive organisation" so I'm practically obligated to write a queer romance about this.)

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Page generated Jun. 17th, 2026 11:19 pm

Random Thoughts

Recent Entries

It's a holiday card poll!

Assorted good things

Book: 铜钱龛世/Tong Qian Kan Shi/Copper Coins by 木苏里/Musuli

Fanfic: Strategic Retreat (The King's Avatar, Han Wenqing/Ye Xiu, AU)

Novel/TV: The King's Avatar, by Butterfly Blue

More assorted things!

Some good things

A quick Summer Games Done Quick highlight

Watercolour palette woes

Games!

Gaming update

Game: Ikenfell (2021)

Podfic: Accessory (Star Wars, Han/Leia[/Chewie?])

Bookmarklet: Show Spoilers

Thoughts on game design in Spiritfarer (2020)

What I read, watched or listened to in 2020

Game: Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice (2016)

On Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice

Celeste Randomiser

This will be the only work of fiction I've written since April.

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