starlady | Reading

For anyone who may be Dark Souls-curious, here is a very long video essay of which I've only watched part (because I'm trying to limit spoilers) and of which I mainly want to rec part -- the first 30 mins or so, where the essayist discusses something that the mythology about the game’s supposed uber-difficulty tends to obscure, namely the gorgeous, generous array of different tools and options that it gives you for engaging with its difficulties, and how it tries to teach you to use them:

Watch on YouTube

I think this is some of the stuff that prompted me to declaim “Dark Souls loves me and wants me to be happy.”

The game is difficult, it is intended to be difficult (and I still don't know if, for me, it will at some point be insuperably difficult), and progressing and learning through difficulty and failure is the core gameplay loop. As mentioned, it took me a total of seven hours to beat the most recent boss, the Capra Demon. I am currently camped out in the Depths, where I intermittently fall through holes and get cursed by basilisks. I recently got invaded for the first time, by a player who watched as I ran directly under a slime and got enveloped, facepalmed*, and then waited politely while I extricated myself before murdering me**.

And yet my major feeling at this particular moment is of being spoiled (in the pampered sense, not the knowledge sense): I have too many good weapons to try (my beloved halberd, now upgraded to +7, a Balder Side Sword -- a rare and coveted drop -- and a Black Knight Sword)! I'm having to actively try not to over-level! I have so many upgrade materials! I have the world's largest stockpile of charcoal pine resin (purchased on my endless boss runs back to the Capra Demon, so I'd spend any souls I was carrying and not distract myself with losing or trying to retrieve them) so I can make my weapons burst into flame any time I want! I have opened the latest incredibly-convenient shortcut! There's a handy new merchant just before the next boss! I am holding an armful of presents and Dark Souls keeps trying to pile more on top!

{*I went off immediately afterwards to Google "dark souls how to facepalm”, but it looks like you have to join the Forest Hunter covenant to learn that emote and I have other plans. Still tempted, though.}

{**I had expected to loathe being invaded — and had initially planned to play offline mainly to avoid that, but did not for reasons which need to be a different post — but in the event, it was brief, non-inconveniencing, and actually pretty funny.}

serenity_ribbon posting in

yuletide

WARNING: Do NOT submit nominations here. Post for coordination ONLY.

This post is where people declare what they have nominated, or ask other people to nominate for them. So if you do comment and/or add your nominations to the spreadsheet, that's great, because it helps other people decide what to nominate, but it WILL NOT result in your fandoms or characters being in the tagset. The only place to nominate is the Yuletide tagset. Use the comments on this post and the coordination Google spreadsheet to coordinate nominations with others.

For information about nominating fandoms and characters, what is eligible for nomination, and other important links and announcements, refer to yuletide_admin.

Nominations run Monday 15th to Friday 26th September. Nominations will be approved after that time.

Before tags are approved (after September 26th), you can only see your own nominations.

You can nominate up to 5 fandoms and up to 4 characters in each fandom.

Please copy and paste the following information to comment on this post. Every item is optional except fandom.

A nomination is something you plan to nominate. A request is something you're hoping someone else will nominate for you, because you ran out of slots.

View and edit the google sheet here: Yuletide 2025 Nomination Coordination Station.

If you can add your information to the spreadsheet yourself, please do! That would really help. PLEASE DO NOT SORT THE SHEET. If you want to view the list by nominated fandoms, use the autogenerated "sort by fandom" tabs.

During the nomination period, the spreadsheet will get re-sorted by username daily at (approx) 6PM GMT, to keep the data tidier.

Help Wanted

If you have a few minutes and enjoy a bit of data entry, please volunteer to update the spreadsheet with information the comments in this post! If you do, add the data from the comment to the spreadsheet and reply to the original comment with Added to spreadsheet.

(h/t to

ashling for the original coordination station post text and spreadsheet!)

Current Mood: excited

torachan

1. I finished another puzzle this morning.

This was from the same company as the pottery one, so it has weirdly shaped pieces and curves and flat-edged pieces that aren't actually part of the border, and I'm still not sure how I feel about that, but it was fun to do. This brand doesn't have a ton of puzzles that actually appeal to me, but I wouldn't rule out getting something from them in the future.

2. It was nice and overcast for most of the day today but soooooooo muggy. But I'd rather have overcast and cool(er) and muggy than sunny and hot and muggy.

3. I made another rhubarb pie this morning. We still have so much rhubarb lol. After having so much trouble finding it for years, we went a little overboard buying it from the lady at the farmers market. But it's all nicely chopped up and portioned into baggies in the freezer, so we can take our time using it.

4. On one of our walks today we saw the giant tortoises out in the yard and they were eating carrots! We do see them fairly often, but usually just eating grass.

5. Tuxie!

yuletidemods posting in

yuletide_admin

Why should I nominate?
To create the pool of fandoms available for this year’s Yuletide. More at AO3.

What can I nominate?
Up to 5 rare fandoms and 4 characters you want to request or offer. See what’s eligible here.

When can I nominate?
From now until 26 September, at 9pm UTC. Please check the date and time in your own timezone! Until then, you can also edit your nominations.

Where can I nominate?
Tag set.

Who can nominate?
People with AO3 accounts who intend to take part in Yuletide. You may use only one account for nominations. If you don’t have an AO3 account, add yourself immediately to the invite queue or email the mods.

How do I nominate?
First, check what's eligible. Then go to the tag set on AO3, and make sure you're logged in. Click "Nominate" at top right, enter your fandom and character choices, and click Submit at the bottom. Check the results on the page to make sure you entered them correctly. You don't have to submit all your choices at once - you can change your mind and add or edit your nominations until nominations close.

If you need to explain or argue for your fandom, please make a case for it on the Evidence Post as well as nominating on AO3.

Do I have to use fandom tags that exist on AO3?
Please do, unless:

There is no tag for your fandom (it's totally okay to nominate something with no fic!). Make one up, following this guide.

The tag that exists on the Archive describes a larger fandom with many parts and your fandom is one distinct part or subset. In this case, instead of using the tag that exists already, please use a tag that describes your specific subfandom.

The tag that exists on the Archive has the words 'All Media Types' or '& Related Fandoms' in it. Please don't use a label that includes those words without arguing for it on the Evidence Post

Please label fandoms according to the Archive's wrangling style. If you’re not sure how to label your fandom, please ask.

When will I see what was nominated?
Not for a while, sorry! You can share what you've nominated and coordinate with other participants at

yuletide. Moderators will approve tags starting approximately 28 September, and will release the tagset in early October. We will post questions about nominations between now and sign-ups, so please keep an eye on this community.

The Additional Tags at the bottom of the tag set are a new feature from 2023. Here is a post explaining how they work and some background (1, 2).

Disambiguation
When a character name could appear in more than one fandom, or is common, or short, please put information in brackets after the name to show where it belongs. For example:
-Bonnie Parker (Bonnie and Clyde 1967)
-Robin Hood (Prince of Thieves)
-Tulku (The Shadow 1994)
-Leonardo da Vinci (Da Vinci's Demons)

Disambiguation will also solve your problems if you receive the error message: “This character was rejected because it was nominated in another fandom.” If that happens, add more information to the name and resubmit.

Worldbuilding "character"
In most fandoms, you may nominate worldbulding as a character tag, in the format Worldbuilding (Your Fandom Name). However, mods will not accept "worldbuilding" nominations for RPF fandoms or where it is nominated without explanation for a purely mundane canon - there should be a clear fictional element to worldbuild around. See 2021's discussion post about worldbuilding; you may also find recent requests helpful to see how people have used this option.

Other character tips
If you submit a character that is new or rarely used on AO3, a suggestion from AO3 may appear in bold and in brackets next to your nomination after it has been submitted. This is okay, and does not mean that your nomination will be automatically changed. However, if you don't have any disambiguation information in brackets after the name, you may want to add it, because there may be another character with that name. Even if your character has two names, such as “Harrison Chase” or “Elizabeth Burke”, that name may appear in multiple unrelated fandoms.

RPF and Anthropomorphic fandoms must be nominated with characters. Other fandoms will be approved without characters if none are nominated.

Superhero and similar names may belong to more than one character. For example, Batman’s Robin could mean Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, or Stephanie Brown, among others. Please make sure it’s clear which one you mean - in cases where it’s ambiguous, please use their “wallet” name.

We don’t accept group nominations if the group contains named, distinct characters (for example, under Chalion Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold, we wouldn’t accept The Five Gods as a character). However, we will allow distinct groups that do not contain individual, named characters. If it may be difficult for us to determine whether this applies to your nomination, please comment in the Evidence post.

Check your nominations!
After submitting, check that your nominations have gone through: click away from the tag set, click back, and, if still logged into the same account, you should be able to see "My Nominations" at top right. Check the spelling and formatting! You can edit your nominations until the nominations period ends.

Enjoy!

PS: as pre-approved nominations can only be seen by mods, consider discussing your nominations with other participants on

yuletide or at the Discord. In particular, please see this year's RPF discussion post.

Schedule, Rules, & Collection | Contact Mods | Tag Set | Community DW | Community LJ | Discord | Pinch hits on Dreamwidth
Please either sign in to comment, or include a name with your anonymous comments, including replies to others' comments. Unsigned comments will stay screened.

flowing_river posting in

fandomcalendar

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

kaberett

Reading. Tiny bits of Solutions and Other Problems and The Painful Truth.

Listening. More Hidden Almanac.

Exploring. Chester, including Chester Zoo!

Eating. Almost all of my favourite field foods, including raspberry and lemon curd toasties, noodle pots with the addition of the prepped salad bits (spinach! red onion!), the giant lemon and sugar crepes, and flapjack. ("Almost" because the cake options CHANGED.)

Observing. The Milky Way. Something that might have been some kind of satellite or might have been some kind of shooting star. CHESTER ZOO, etc. At least one field bat.

torachan

Currently Reading
A Gallery of Rogues
72%. Sequel to A Dictionary of Scoundrels. Middle grade murder mystery. I hope there will be more in the series after this as I have enjoyed these a lot. I'm listening to this one as an audiobook and like the narrator.

The Murder Next Door
64%. Historical f/f murder mystery. I'm enjoying this so far, though I had to keep checking to make sure this really was the first in the series as it kept referencing things at the beginning that made it sound like there was another book before this.

The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State
No progress.

Recently Finished
Just Another Dead Author
I enjoyed this! Looking forward to the next book in the series.

The Map of the Stars
Final book in the York series. Despite being over 500 pages long, it felt really rushed and slapdash at the end, and left a lot of loose ends. This series had a lot of really neat ideas and was overall a fun read, but seemed to have trouble wrapping it all up satisfactorily. (A huge number of reviews on Goodreads have similar caveats.)

Eerie Basin
Short horror story about a woman who wants to take over the bar she works at when her boss retires, but he refuses to, saying that it's cursed. This was all right, but felt very predictable.

The New Girl
Cute middle grade graphic novel about a girl who moves to Quebec from Romania and struggles to fit in due to the language barrier. It seems to be heavily inspired by the author's own childhood, but set in the present day.

I Left the House Today!
Collection of web comics from the author of the book above. I actually did not realize that when I chose them (they were both showing on the new section in Hoopla), and The New Girl is definitely the better of the two. These comics were fine, just observations about life in general, but nothing that really grabbed me.

Kamonohashi Ron no Kindan Suiri vol. 18

yhlee

cyberghostface posting in

scans_daily

( Scans under the cut... )

iamrman posting in

scans_daily

Writer: Chris Claremont

Pencils: Arthur Adams

The X-Men get pulled in to the shenanigans in Asgard.

( Read more... )

tafadhali posting in

vidding

Title: Voice in My Throat
Fandom: Sense8
Music: "Voice in My Throat" by Pearl & The Beard
Summary:

I walk down the road and I'm alone again but | All these years I've travelled down a lonely pathway
You will be the voice in my throat | You have been the voice in my throat

Notes: Made for

colls for

fandomtrumpshate

AO3 | DW | Tumblr

superfangirl1 posting in

scans_daily

( Read more, )

iamrman posting in

scans_daily

Plot: Keith Giffen

Script: J.M. DeMatteis

Pencils: Mike McKone

Inks: Peter Gross

Some mobsters try to lean on Scott for protection money.

( Read more... )

skygiants

We watched Scavengers Reign because it was enthusiastically recommended to

genarti as fun animated science fiction about being stranded on an alien planet with interesting alien biology. Which is true! This is not incorrect! Not Mentioned was the extent to which it is also very definitely lovingly animated body-and-survival horror ..... every time we watched we checked in with each other like 'still good to proceed? not too much eugughghhhhhh?' '[grimly] let's watch at least one more episode and see what happens,' and in this way we eventually crawled through all twelve episodes.

NONETHELESS I do think it was very good, once we acclimated to the eugughghhhhhh factor. (I ended up higher on it than

genarti did, in some part because I liked the ending for my favorite character better than she liked the ending for hers.) The first episode introduces you in media res to the several sets of people stranded on this planet that the show will be following:

- Sam and Ursula, an older man and younger woman traveling together, who've developed a plan to bring down their heavily damaged ship, the Demeter,, still in orbit around the planet with most of the crew in cryosleep; Ursula is fascinated by the planet and interested in learning more about it, while Sam is laser-focused on Getting Out Of There
- Azi, a motorcycle butch who's been in crop-growing survival mode supported by (a) Levi (unit), a pleasant manual labor robot whose behavior is becoming increasingly altered by some kind of planetary growth thriving in its innards
- Kamen, alone and still trapped in his escape pod, on the verge of death until he encounters a telepathic creature that brainwashes him into symbiotic/parasitic collaboration, and yet somehow his biggest concern is still His Divorce

Over the course of the story, we learn through flashbacks more about who these people were on the Demeter and what happened to strand them on the planet, while they cope (or don't) with the various challenges of the planet and the hope of escape provided by the Demeter. The real fears that the show evokes, IMO, are isolation and transformation -- being, yourself, transformed without your knowledge or consent, or, perhaps even worse, seeing your only companion changing into something unrecognizable and untrustworthy. These are things that scare me personally very much and so I often found this a very scary show! But -- like Annihilation or Alien Clay, the two other stories that Scavengers Reign reminded me of the most -- it also evokes the flip side of this fear, the beauty and wonder of the transformative and strange. The animators loved animating these weird alien ecosystems.

You can watch the trailer here:

Watch on YouTube

(The trailer is very clear and accurate to the amount of body horror in the show. From this you will be able to tell that we did not in fact watch the trailer before we began the show itself.)

A second season was planned, but has not been ordered and may never be made; IMO the first season does stand as complete but I would very much like to see the second season and I hope it happens.

iamrman posting in

scans_daily

Writer: John Arcudi

Pencils: Jan Duursema

Inks: Michael Bair and Rick Magyar

J'onn is under investigation by Cameron Chase of the D.E.O. after allegedly assaulting a criminal.

( Read more... )

yhlee

(cross-posted to

communal_creators)

Earlier:
- part 0: preliminaries (includes partial glossary of terms)

Watch on YouTube

I know there are a lot of people who haaaaaate being forced to sit through video but since audio playback is inherent to the enterprise...This is under a minute, promise.

This is a brief demonstration of the opening of one of my compositions partially engraved (~sheet music typesetting) in Dorico. The two industry-standard engraving apps in media composition scoring are Dorico and Sibelius; Finale used to be a third but was sunsetted to much consternation.

If you come from classical music (especially classical orchestral music), you may be ??? about the score formatting. This is because scores for session orchestra and concert/classical orchestra have different formatting! (See part 0: preliminaries for more detail as to why). Differences for session orchestra you see here include:

- Score is in C (NOT a transposing score for the conductor - nota bene, transposing is "allowed" for octaves), but we won't have e.g. horn in F or trumpet in Bb.

( Read more... )

As for playback:

- Guess what, Dorico and Sibelius at the level of orchestral scores are spendy. :]

- I'm using NotePerformer, which is the standard higher-quality playback engine, especially if you don't have time to mock it up in the DAW (or you're an art/concert composer for whom a mockup is not part of your workflow). But that's also money (~$130 USD).

NotePerformer is pretty credible with a lot of orchestral instruments. You still have to massage its output. For example, in Sibelius [not shown] you can set playback to molto espressivo (LOTS OF FEELING) vs. senza espressivo (NO FEELINGS EVER!!!) (etc). My experience is that particular instruments can be less "real"-sounding and the "vocalists" (both SATB choir and associated "solo" voices) are absolutely terrible, as in "my vacuum cleaner sings more credibly than this" terrible.

Aside: There are some good vocal VST libraries for specific use cases. I hate that I am often able to straight-up identify "Oh yeah, XYZ floating ethereal ~Celtic Twilight vibes soprano 'ahhh' ululation in this trailer/score/whatever was $SPECIFIC_VST_LIBRARY" because, apparently, I have no life; but this is not unusual in this field.

I know at least one full-time composer/orchestrator/musician who straight-up bounces NotePerformer output and then processes that in the DAW (reverb etc) and, you know, this person makes a living doing this. So that's one route one can take.

Why, you ask, can't we just export this score-stuff into a DAW with all the fancy (...spendy) VST instruments and "paste in" nicer/more individualized instruments? Dorico (and Sibelius) do in fact export to MIDI and MusicXML. [1] This is a very reasonable question that will be the topic of the next walkthrough (part 2), mainly because it's a surprisingly (annoying) complicated topic as to why this is rarely straightforward. (Let me tell you all about negative track delay...)

[1] Missed these glossary items earlier!

( brief explanations of MIDI and MusicXML )

Happy to answer questions, although I have no idea if anyone else finds this interesting. :p

caramarie

I was wondering if a fic I’d thought I’d written was something I’d just imagined very intensely, but then there was a month missing in my box of journals, and I was able to find the journal the fic was in shoved way back on my computer desk.

It’s my journal from when the restructure was announced last year! Featuring entries where I was determinedly not writing about that and instead making such comments as ‘I’m worried if I met [Megumi] Ogata in real life, she would easily be able to manipulate me.’ A vital concern, right there.

Anyway, am I in shock at the prospect of an AU version of SDR2 coming out next year? Sure am! Also, would not put it past anyone involved for this to be some sort of bait-and-switch. I guess we will find out!

iamrman posting in

scans_daily

Writers: Kim Yale and John Ostrander

Pencils: Pablo Marcos

Inks: Romeo Tanghal

Manhunter is hired to find a missing woman. However, he isn’t the only one after the woman.

( Read more... )

caramarie

Pop star Oliver invites rando shop assistant Matty to his concert, not realising he has invited a yandere into his life.

( Spoilers etc )

torachan

1. The weather today was sooooo nice. Overcast most of the day with some sun in the afternoon.

2. We had a nice morning at DCA. Left before the sun finally broke through the clouds, and before it got crowded.

3. We stopped at Trader Joe's on the way home, and since it was still overcast and I was feeling like another walk, I decided to walk home from there (about a mile and a half) and let Carla drive home with the shopping. I stopped at the farmers market on the way for some fruit leather and juice. No watermelon lemonade, but there was calamansi juice.

4. Gemma looks annoyed at being disturbed.

There's treasure everywhere

"If you like Dark Souls, it's hard to shut up about Dark Souls"

Nomination Coordination Station 2025

WARNING: Do NOT submit nominations here. Post for coordination ONLY.

Help Wanted

Daily Happiness

Yuletide 2025 Nominations Open

Multifandom Exchange: AspecEx - Sign-Ups are Opened! Nominations Close Soon!

vital functions

Weekly Reading

a 3-ply yarn

Eddie Brock: Carnage #7-8

Uncanny X-Men Annual #9

New Vid: Voice in My Throat (Sense8)

Deadpool/Batman: Spoilers Concerning Steve Rogers and Wonder Woman's Friendship

Mister Miracle (1989) #6

(no subject)

Martian Manhunter (1998) #5

sampled orchestral mockups + music production: part 1: brief demo of engraving software + playback

I guess this is a Danganronpa post

Manhunter (1988) #6

Lurker (d. Alex Russell, 2025)

Daily Happiness

Profile

Links

February 2025

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags