Cinderlite

Hello! I stole this A to Z Questionnaire from khaosinkinema ! I saw it, and was immediately invested. I enclosed it behind a cut, though, because it's strikingly long. Feel free to steal it from me as well if you're equally intrigued! 

( Click to see my A to Z Information Meme! )

Recently, I had the revelation (thanks to my partner) that I could have a career in Web Design (or perhaps other coding) without the need for college and math courses if I used Code Academy instead. So that's precisely what I've done. The entry fee is steep (around $330 for a year, but that's the Professional version!), but it's far cheaper than college itself, so I'm already doing loads better. The price will also keep me motivated to keep working, so I don't feel guilty to wasting my money.

It also helps that I love web design and coding, at least the HTML and CSS that I've experienced thus far. I love making websites look pretty with some simple (and sometimes, more elaborate) coding. I've been frankensteining code together for my websites since I was fourteen. Granted, it won't be as easy as what I was doing, but that's what Code Academy is for. It'll teach me everything I need to know, and then it'l be up to me to put it in action and practice it. That sounds like something I can do!

I'm about halfway through the first course on HTML, and my notes are pretty long. They'll be great to reference if I forget something (I can't just read something once and remember it, I need to do it repeatedly to memorize things). I can't wait to get to the CSS. I won't lie, so far, that's what I'm most excited about. It's going to be a lot of fun, I think, to be able to create projects on my own. Ultimately, I'll be able to build my own Toyhou.se layouts and charge for them. I'll be able to make websites (well, I already do!) and build them from scratch. It's going to be great!

Honestly, this could be it for me. I don't think college is necessary for having a career in web design, so long as you have an impressive portfolio. I think it's more about connections than anything else, and while I know college is meant to introduce you to said connections, I'm hoping that Code Academy will pick up some of that slack. There's a forum on it that's already proven to be exceedingly helpful. I've asked a few questions, and I received an answer for each one within an hour or two.

I'm using VS Code for my preferred platform for coding. I've watched a few videos on it from Code Academy already to figure out how to make it work, though I intuited a lot from it as well. I've got a neat black and pastel pink/purple theme for it and some nifty plugins to ease my quality of life. It's cool, too, because one of them lets you see what your code would look like in practice on a live website. There's also a plugin that prettifies your code for you, which basically enhances the readability of it. That's awesome.

Alright! This was a good break, but I need to get back to practicing the HTML I've learned (half of which I already knew) in the form of a project issues to me by Code Academy. Wish me luck!

Homestuck:

Once again, I have been awake since the obscene hours of the wee morning due to a nightmare. I got up, ate, responded to the roleplay, and immediately began re-reading of Homestuck.

I've only ever read it fully through once, but it was always due to my struggle with re-reading the very beginning of the comic. I don't overly enjoy the humor of it, so it just feels tedious to get through. My partner suggest that I start with act 6 instead for once, that since I've already read the comic through in its entirety, I don't have to read it from the beginning every time. I think that's a great idea! I'm already having a blast with it, liveblogging on my private server to make it easier to find key moments later on to refer back to them for roleplay purposes. It'll make a good refresher in the future!

Act 6 is the second to last act of Homestuck, but it's also the largest by far. It's bigger than all the other acts put together. From what I recall, Act 6 has six acts, and each of those acts have six acts as well! So it's going to be a good while before I finish the comic at the leisure pace I'm reading at. I read the entire thing in about 2 and 1/2 weeks the first time I read it, but I was reading it for 12+ hours a day every day during that time. I won't be doing that this time around. I'll be reading in between doing other things like roleplaying or chatting or going to doctor appts and stuff like that. It'll likely take a month or two, but I'm cool with that as long as I eventually get around to finishing it. I feel like, then, I'll re-read act 5. I read some of it in recent memory, but the end of it is a little fuzzy for me. It's also the act where the trolls come in, so I'm always thrilled to re-read that.

It's p impossible to read Homestuck like it was meant to be anymore, thanks to flash being retired and VIZ Media poorly taking over the site. Thank god for the Unofficial Homestuck Collection being made available to anyone who wants it for free. It's a custom web browser made to read Homestuck and other MS Paint Adventure comics. It not only allows flash, but has high-quality versions of all of it. There are accessibility options, all the official canon music (some of which were made by Toby Fox, creator of Undertale!), and a ton of other shit related to it. It's a labor of love, and it's wonderful. ♥

Homestuck really is unlike any fandom I've ever been in before. It used to be so absolutely massive that it changed the way fandoms and conventions in general worked. I doubt there will ever be a fandom like it again, but I'm prepared to spend the rest of my life loving it and indulging in it, with brief moment of hyperfixations with other fandoms in between. It's my pleasure!

( Check out a few notable panels and pesterlogs from Homestuck! )

Things have gotten a little better since my last post! Sometimes, it's hard to remember that life is a journey that goes downhill as well as uphill. Which is to say that some days are better than others (and some are worse than others). I have more energy than I did before, enough to actually do some things. Which is nice! I love it when my brain actually lets me do stuff!

Baldur's Gate 3: (No Spoilers)
I love this game. I've put in about 40 hours total and I'm still in act 1. I know, I know. That's a lot of time to spend without anything to really show for it. I don't really know what I've been doing with my time, lol. Some days I just don't accomplish anything. It's probably because I was trying to figure out how the mods worked (I wanted pretty armor) or because I reset the game at one point to try again. I'm also using WeMod to make the game fun. I'm not really much of a strategist, so it's pretty necessary if I want to actually beat the game. And I do! It's a lot of fun. I like the characters a lot. I think Lae'zel is my favorite (which is funny, I think, because most people find her to be pretty abrasive). That's what I like about her though. I've always had a thing for girls that are kind of mean.

Homestuck:
I've begun roleplaying with my partner again. It's a lot of fun! It always is, haha. We're doing a roleplay regarding Homestuck, namely the Signless and Nepeta. They're big on the Signless/Disciple relationship, and I think it's pretty sweet, too. So finding a way to include their descendants in the roleplay is key -- and fun. Of course, Karkat is there too. They're all great characters. The other day, we spent like 6 hours just talking about Homestuck one night. It was a great distraction from my own mind. I love when I get the chance to just talk with them for an extended period of time. They always enlighten me with their meta, or explain things from the comic that I missed and make it fit together perfectly like puzzle pieces. They're so good at it. Honestly, my partner is pretty great. I don't think I gush about them as much as they deserve. ♥

Hello! I know most of the people that read my blog aren't into Good Omens (which is fine!), but I'm in the throes of a hyperfixation and want to give a few fic recommendations for the miniscule few who are.

Lately, I've taken to reading fic again, and it's been amazing. I forgot how enjoyable it was... largely because my depression doesn't let me read very often. It really takes an intense hyperfixation to motivate me to do... well... anything!

Witness the Fall, by Waifine :: 15,000 words :: PG
Crowley never talked about his time as an angel. Aziraphale never asked. But when Hell sends Crowley a package containing his most painful memories, it is Aziraphale who is plunged into the nightmare history of when his beloved friend, the angel who had once been Crowley, was hurled from the Heavens into the bowels of Hell.

Review: hhhh, this fic took my emotions and dunked them into a vat of angst. It hurt, but in the best way possible. I was completely enraptured by this fic, desperate to know what happened next. It had some of my favorite themes -- i.e. "Crowley was Raphael before he Fell!" It also did an amazing job of turning canon things on their head for the sake of angst. ♥ It's made me reconsider the way I write Crowley and Aziraphale especially, and makes me want to do better.

There Is a Light And It Never Goes Out, by bongbuster420 :: 18,000 words :: PG-13
"Crowley," Aziraphale slapped his book shut and turned to him with a worried glance. "Have you heard anything of Raphael recently?"
Crowley thought he might choke.

Review: I love this fic. It's another take on the "Crowley was Raphael before he Fell" theme, which you can tell I like based simply on the fact that it's a reoccurring theme that I'm rotating inside my head. Extremely well executed whump, and pretty much everything I could have dreamed of. It hurt so good reading it!

Some things are worth believing in (Including you), by Phoenix_of_Athena :: 3,500 words :: PG-13
“Warlock,” Nanny had said, and cupped his face again, “I want you to promise me something. I want you to promise me something, and it might seem odd, but I need you to do it, okay?”
“What?” said Warlock.
“Just promise me,” said Nanny.
“I promise.”
“Good,” she’d said, “Now, if you ever—and I mean ever find yourself in a situation like this again—one that seems scary, or one where any normal person would be in danger—I need you to pray. Pray to Aziraphale or to Crowley to come and get you.”
“Who’s that?” asked Warlock.
“Just promise me,” insisted Nanny in a voice like iron, “Aziraphale and Crowley. Can you repeat those names?”
“Y—yeah. Azif—Aziraphale and Crowley.”
"Good boy."

Review: Another great fic, this time about Warlock being kidnapped and Crowley and Aziraphale coming to the rescue. It got me right in the feels when I read it. I don't know if I was emotionally compromised at the time or what, but it had me in borderline tears. Absolutely worth the read, I recommend it full-heartedly.

I've since abandoned a few fic I was reading, and finished a 50k one last night, but while they were decent, I'm not recommending them for one reason or another. I fully intend to read more fic in the near future, and maybe a little more roleplay as Aziraphale on the side.

Has anyone else watched the newest season of Good Omens yet?

My partner and I watched it separately the day of release, but came together to talk about it after. We've been roleplaying it ever since! It's my newest hyperfixation. I'm absolutely obsessed, and it's all I'm thinking about. It's so nice to have a new hyperfixation again. I missed the motivation that comes with it. I feel like I could do just about anything!

While my partner takes a small break from the roleplay, I'm working on a fic for it (so look out for that! soon!). The fic I'm working on is about Aziraphale's Fall from grace, and the aftermath of it. 😇 I've got about 1,000 words for it so far, but I should finish it some time within the next few days (outside of appointments I have).

It's going to be a relatively short fic, but that's mostly because I'm testing the waters with it. I'm still figuring out what my Aziraphale and Crowley are like and tweaking them until they sound just right.

I'll admit, it's weird to have a ship that's so wholesome. Usually, I can only get into the enemies to lovers dynamic and while that's not wrong for Aziracrow, that aspect is already explored in canon. There's no need to rehash that.

Anyway, I would love to have someone to talk to about Good Omens! It's so good, and I just want to scream about it some more.

WeMod Cheat Engine:

Did you know that Epic Games has the Kingdom Hearts series? I think I'm going to buy it next month after I get paid. Not because I don't already have them, but because this presents me with an opportunity to actually play and beat all the games. What I'm getting at is a cheat engine called WeMod. It's a program you can use for a monthly subscription (it's cheapish, and worth it if it means I'm actually able to play games) that allows you to have unlimited health in many games. It has more features than that, but they're mostly specific to each game you choose. I mostly use it for the unlimited health.

I know people frown and look down on others for cheating, but I don't know why, so long as it's not affecting anyone else. If I'm playing a single-player game and cheating, I'm the only one benefitting. I didn't grow up playing games, so they don't come to me intuitively. I'm bad at them. I've always been bad at them. There's nothing more frustrating than buying a game and not being able to play it and wasting your money because you suck at it. I hate that! So I use WeMod, something I discovered recently, and it's amazing. Suddenly, it feels like I have all the games in the world before me available to play. The only issue with WeMod is that it sometimes makes the games I play a little glitchy. That's annoying as shit, but it's still worth it if it means I can play the game.

Kingdom Hearts:

I love this series! It's extremely nostalgic to me, since I remember playing it a few times as a teenager (and giving up because it was too difficult, haha). I've watched the "game movies" of the entire series before, but I don't retain it very well. I think if I played each game individually, I would remember what happened in it better. So I'm thrilled at the idea of playing through it, and actually being able to follow through and beat the games. That's so exciting! Especially since I always get near the end of KH1, but I'm never able to finish it due to one part I can never beat. Kingdom Hearts is one of my all-time favorite game series. It's a little convoluted, but it's always so much fun, and I love seeing all the characters from other Final Fantasy games! 

Mass Effect:

I was playing Mass Effect 2 recently, and it was a lot of fun. I beat the game a few days ago and booted up the 3rd one. I got through it so much quicker with WeMod helping. I usually get super stressed and agonize over each battle. There are even some DLC that I can't play all the way through because it's too hard that I got to see! It's super cool to have all the knowledge of the game behind me, and to move forward with that. The only annoying thing is that, in ME2, the audio occasionally cut out and I had to reload to get it to work again. It was rare, though, nothing like having to redo the Squad Points for every mission in ME3. That's seriously annoying, so I think I'm just going to do the ones I intend to use the most instead of all of them. It just takes too long otherwise. I can't tell if these are WeMod glitches or if they're a result of something going on with the game, though. I'm almost certain that I have no mods installed for Mass Effect, but the game kept freezing up and acting like I did (before I even turned on WeMod), so I can't be sure that something I did before didn't mess with it. DX

Persona 3 Reloaded:

I've been learning a lot lately about what the new Persona 3 remake is going to entail, and I'm super hype for it, if disappointed at the same time. Apparently there aren't going to be social links for the boys? Only the girls? That's stupid, even if they plan on showing their storylines in another way. They have the perfect opportunity to modernize the games, and they're only partially doing it. I also heard that they're getting rid of FeMC for it, which is also a bad move, in my opinion. I don't know why they can't just give you the option to be a boy or a girl when you start the game since they already have storylines and art for all of that. I highly doubt that they'll allow gay characters either, at least with the intention to let you have a queer relationship and not mock it. It's really a shame, because they create such great ship potential in their games. I bought the port for Persona 3 on Steam, but I'm glad I never played it (unlike Persona 4 Golden) because I'd rather wait for the remake. The original sounds tedious and frustrating. I'll probably still buy Persona 3 Reloaded regardless, though, because I want to experience the story. I've heard that it's arguably the best one in the series.

Smooth Plume:

I finished my D&D character's profile on Toyhou.se! I spent about $5 on the profile, and it took me about a week to finish it. Some of the links on it doesn't work, but that's my fault. I moved things around and broke the links to Plume's Spotify playlist and Pinterest board. It's a shame because it otherwise looks good. I'm loath to redo the profile, and I'd probably break it again if I did because the process of moving things around sucks. I'm really proud of how it looks, though apparently it has a white background for most people. It has a dark background for me, but I think that's because I'm using dark mode on the site.

Now I need to start working on the D&D Journal for Smooth Plume. My partner drew the art for her, and is making fancy pages for me to put in my journal with all the information I need for the campaign. I didn't expect them to do that, but I am grateful because they have an eye for design. I'm waiting for the A5 Sheet Protectors to come in the mail, so I can start putting it all together. I have so much stuff for it that I bought, and it's going to be thrilling to work on it. Probably next month, though, because I don't have the money right now to print out so many pages from the library.

Fantasy High:

I finished Dropout's Fantasy High D&D campaign yesterday! It was so good. I didn't see many of the twists coming -- I'm kind of bad at that. I usually figure things out minutes before they're revealed, lol. I'll be sparse about it, so there aren't any spoilers for the campaign for whoever might want to watch it, but I had a blast with it. There were so many loveable characters, and I grew fond of almost everyone. The final epic boss fight was hilarious to watch. I laughed myself hoarse throughout this series -- which is saying a lot, because I'm not the type of person who finds many things funny. I'm generally kind of picky, but they've got a good cast of comedians playing D&D.

I've also turned my friend onto the series and Dropout altogether. Just today they signed up, and started watching Fantasy High too. I can't wait to talk about it with them. It really is the perfect D&D Campaign to start out with. Next, my partner and I are going to be watching A Crown of Candy. I'm super excited about it. Everything I've heard about that series is incredibly intriguing. I'm probably going to start watching it immediately after posting this journal entry. Wish me luck!

Glasses:

I went to the eye doctor today for a new prescription for my glasses. I found out that on top of one eye being far-sided and the other near-sided, I also have deviating pupils, lol. There's a fix for that and my astigmatism, though, so I'm going to get that when I buy my new glasses from Zenni soon. I have decided on these two frames for my regular and sun glasses. They're going to be awesome, and I really can't wait to see how they look on me. I'm hoping to get them in time for my birthday next month!

While I was at the eye doctor, I met one of the workers there, and she was incredibly nice. We had a lot in common, surprisingly? We both loved games, including Mass Effect, and Arcane as well. She even knew about Homestuck! She complimented my Ita Bag and my charms after recognizing them. ♥ We ended up exchanging phone numbers before I left, and I look forward to hearing from her in the future and potentially even hanging out. I don't have a lot of IRL friends, so this could be great for me!


Books:

I've been reading a lot of books in the last month and a half. That's to say I read about 8 of them in that time frame. There were some superb ones like the For the Wolf duology, which I loved. I'm such a sucker for new takes on fairy tales and anything to do with deities. The For the Wolf duology also included my favorite romance trope: enemies to lovers. I was so sucked into the second book. I couldn't tear myself away from the pages. I also really enjoyed Legends and Lattes. It was a good palate cleanser of a book that focused on a (minor) sapphic relationship between an orc and a tiefling opening a coffee shop. I can't wait for the next book in the series to come out this December.

The books I've spent the most time reading recently are from the ACOTAR series. I snubbed it for a long time because while I love romance, I usually don't like the tropes in published work. That remains to be true, but I didn't mind it overly much in A Court of Thorns and Roses. It had some stuff I didn't appreciate, but it easily suckered me into the series. I'm on the last book in the series, now, and it's good, even if it makes me roll my eyes sometimes. The writer has a tendency to use the work "barking" incorrectly, and it always gets a laugh out of me, even though it wasn't meant to. All I've got to do is finish A Court of Silver Flames, and then I can tick off two of the goals in my reading journal.