bedes: Fanart of Natsuki from Doki Doki Literature Club, holding a cupcake up to her mouth and smiling widely, about to take a bite (natsuki)
Plan to make a post about New Year's and 2024 later. For now... Christmas was actually somewhat pleasant this year, and not a mess of religious trauma feelings! Holy cow! First time that's ever happened to me.

I got a gift from my boyfriend mailed to me – it's the limited-edition Christmas Cinnamoroll Build-a-Bear, and I love it so much! I also got some really cute clothes (a calico cat-themed cardigan from my favorite shop, Leikya, plus the matching hat), Furret plushies (one shiny and one normal, named Marmalade and Mocha respectively), and, my big prize of the year, my Steam Deck!! I considered asking for a whole gaming laptop, but then I remembered that the most graphic-intensive game that I own is literally Fields of Mistria, a pixel game, so I decided I prooobably don't need one. But Misty, my computer, bless her heart, is just absolutely garbage at running video games. I also love portable gaming a lot (I've literally never taken my Switch out of handheld mode), so the Steam Deck being extremely similar to the Nintendo Switch already had points in its favor. It also turns out there's a button mode to make the ABXY buttons the same as they are on the Switch! I also immediately got to modding the appearance of it to match my aesthetic tastes, of course. It's super easy to mod and customize, because it's essentially a small Linux computer and has a built-in browser! Here's what it looks like for me currently:

A photo of a Steam Deck's homepage, with a customized, minimalist theme and a Fairy-type Pokemon-themed background.

I also customized the sounds for the UI to be the sounds from Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I was surprised there wasn't a Needy Streamer Overload UI soundpack, but, looking over the source code, it seems relatively simple to make, so I'm considering just making it myself. I already have all the soundbites from my computer customization, so it should be pretty simple!

(Okay, between you and me, I just took a break from writing to completely create a Needy Streamer soundpack and submit it. I was right! It was easy.)

All of this, of course, means I have hopped directly back on to my Fields of Mistria addiction. I've been playing it, like, nonstop for the past few days. God, I love that game.

I also have other things I'm working on: all of which I need to write down, lest I forget. I'm working on a Dungeon Meshi MV, of sorts, and also pixel art of my Fields of Mistria player character. I wanna do my 2024 Year in Review, plus something about my relationship with art lately. Since I've graduated college now, I need to get my certification, and I also have to start driving lessons so I can get a job, and put the money I got from Christmas in the bank.

Whew. It helps me to list out the things I wanna do like that. It stops my brain from pacing around my to-do list like a tiger in its cage.
bedes: An icon of Bede from Pokemon, looking towards the camera. (bede2)
I would make this video required watching for everyone in the entire world, if I could. It discusses over why they literally don't make things like they used to, and why so many products are so shit nowadays, with multiple real-world examples throughout. Not only that, it explains what you can do about it.

Support Right to Repair!


bedes: An icon of Kabru from the Dungeon Meshi manga, smiling bashfully (kabru)
I've been toiling away at this project since I initially talked about it, but I think everything's all set up to start accepting members now! So, here it is: [community profile] dunmeshi!!

This is my first time sharing this community, but I don't plan to start promoting it more publicly until January. I know a lot of people are going to be online then for [community profile] snowflake_challenge, so it seems like the optimal time to start spreading the word. I'm also going to try to become an affiliate of [community profile] anime_manga, as well as get on the Animanga Communities on Dreamwidth masterlist.

(Also, not what this post is about, but something neat: I redecorated my journal a bit! Trying to keep all of my icons to basically just one color was getting to be a pain in my side, so I started using a preset PSD instead, and changed my journal to match. I'm very pleased with how my journal turned out – it's a lot more vibrant now!)
bedes: An icon of Kabru from the Dungeon Meshi manga, smiling bashfully (kabru)
I've been pondering making a community for one of my interests. None of my current 'big 3' hyperfixations (Alien Stage, Dungeon Meshi and STUDIO INVESTIGRAVE games) have a community of their own. I know for a fact that INVESTIGRAVE's games do not have an audience here on Dreamwidth, because I'm the only bitch who comes up when you search "Dead Plate" (their most popular game). If we, again, use searching via interests as a reference point, there is more of an audience for Alien Stage, but nearly half of the results for it have journals which have never updated even once. Which leaves Dungeon Meshi -- 3 whole pages of people who name it as an interest!

I went ahead and made the community, gave it an icon and made it an associated graphic. I thought I might-as-well claim the username now, as I could always just delete it later. It's still being set up, though, so I'm not gonna link it until it's actually ready for members.

So far, this "Creating a Dreamwidth community" masterpost that was shared with me has helped a lot with the fine-tuning. I'm currently having to duke it out with the current "can't apply styles to communities" glitch, and with figuring out the final details.

Currently, the rules I've decided on are as follows:
  • The "treat others with respect" rule. This includes bigotry and harassment.
  • A rule regarding which content requires a cut. Right now, I'm requiring a cut for triggering content, image-heavy content, large images, explicit sexual topics, and long text (3+ paragraphs). I'm also more or less yoinking the approach of [community profile] bnha_fans regarding spoilers for the anime: spoilers for the anime require a warning and cut, but, unless a post is tagged as anime-only, the comments are fair game for all discussion.
  • Provide a source for fanworks you didn't create, and only do so for artists who are okay with credited reposts.
I'm running into an issue with regards to "taboo" content. I'm a survivor who is triggered by subjects that a lot of fandomfolk on here tend to enjoy, which means I would not be able to moderate said content. (I also just plain don't really like to interact with folks who post that stuff a lot, if I can help it. I probably wouldn't be able to help it, though, if I ran a community, which is fine, I guess. Community-runners have to talk to all sorts of people they may not like.) However, if I put, "No fanworks depicting these things," in the rules, I know from experience that I'm going to get a bunch of disgruntled people (either to my face, or in "fandom wank"-type communities) yelling at / about me for being a prude, anti, fascist, probably not even a real victim (yes, real example), etc. Which, you know, I would prefer to not happen. But that still doesn't change the fact that I can't moderate that without triggering flashbacks, which I would also prefer to not happen.

Ugh, I hate dumbfuck fandom discourse. Why is "I don't want to see triggering content" seen as a declaration of war on among fandom olds?? Christ.
bedes: Icon of Kangel from Needy Streamer Overload whistling (kangel)
A lot of datahoarding resources assume that you're intimately familiar with command prompts, webcrawlers, scripts, and more. But what if... you're stupid? What if you're extremely unfamiliar with those sorts of things, looking to have your hand held through the entire process? What if your name is Azure and you have an account called bedes on Dreamwidth.org? (Wait, that's getting too specific.)

Well, these resources are for you! Idiot-proof resources I've gathered for archiving stuff online! As tested and approved by an actual idiot!

(Quick disclaimer: I call myself "stupid" and "an idiot" lightheartedly, and as a morally neutral descriptor. Being stupid about certain things isn't bad! Which is why I'm making this post!)

Read more... )

If you know of any data-hoarding / archival resources that wasn't mentioned here, and you think even a total Python-illiterate doofus could get working, link it in the comments below! (Also, please include if it involves or requires any downloads, just because I think that's useful info.)
bedes: An icon of Bede from Pokemon, looking towards the camera. (bede2)
I felt like this was truly the only choice for this week's highlight, given how popular Honey is. Fair warning: this is a "part 1", which isn't clearly advertised in the video title, but it still contains a lot of damning evidence about how Honey steals from creators, and purposefully gives their customers worse coupon codes while telling them it's the best one available, to stop them for searching for better ones. Among other things.

Frankly, it all stops being surprising once you remember Honey is owned by PayPal.


bedes: Icon of Kangel from Needy Streamer Overload whistling (kangel)
There's something deeply fascinating about watching a company fumble the bag over and over again, wouldn't you agree? That's what this video's all about, with the distinctive flavor of gaming history! Melody does a great job, as she usually does, covering everything in an engaging and humorous way.


bedes: An icon of Marcy from Amphibia thinking (marcy)
So, the CEO of United Healthcare, Brian Thompson, was shot, and I feel like the general public has reached a level of class consciousness that is genuinely threatening the top dogs. More at 8!

I'm not gonna hide that I'm celebrating the bastard's death. Every purchase, every meal, every home this man had, it was all a celebration of death. Just that his was a celebration of the deaths of The Filthy Poors. There are hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been personally ruined by United Healthcare, many of which whose lives were lost in the process. That demon personally assured that the lives of disabled Americans under his care were a living hell. So, no, I'm not gonna cry when he's shot dead in the streets. In fact, I watched the video of him getting got, and I actually had quite a laugh. To see such a man shot dead, to see his last moments where he realized he was not as invincible as he once believed, with bullets with, "deny", "defend" and "dispose" written on them, was good for my karmic diet. And, hey, you can't argue with results. Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield originally said that they were going to stop paying for anesthesia if they felt a surgery was "going on for too long", and they quietly rolled back the decision immediately after the shooting.

I'm a filthy anarchist, though. What about the people on the right? I said that the general public reached a level of class consciousness, right? Well... yeah. There were a few uploads by popular right-wing figures, such as Ben Shapiro, whose comments were full of right-wing viewers saying, "It's not just the leftists." Facebook posts on the subject had laughing emojis be the highest response. This was an issue that crossed party lines, and, from the bottom of my heart, it was the closest that being online had come since the summer when Pokemon Go was first released. The shooter highkey became an American hero.

Continue? )
bedes: An icon of Bede from Pokemon, looking towards the camera. (bede2)
I see a lot of folks saying that they "block/mute and move on". Which is a good practice, and this post is not about knocking it. Instead it's asking, how exactly does one do that on Dreamwidth?

Per my understanding, there is no "blocking" on Dreamwidth. There's only banning someone from your account. Banning someone from your account doesn't, however, prevent the user from commenting on your community posts, prevent you from seeing their comments, nor does it even prevent you from seeing their posts from the communities you subscribe to. You can block anonymous comments, and enable selective comment screening, but, per my understanding, that's about it.

Is everyone and their mother just using the Dreamwidth Blocker Userscript, like myself? Or are there some other trick(s) that I don't know of?

(At the risk of going on a tangent: I know that it's a leftover from Livejournal, but the complete inability to preen your feed experience via blocking or muting someone is a serious turn-off for me. I really like Dreamwidth otherwise, but when "block and move on" and "curate your experience" has become, like, some of the core tenants of fandom, it's really annoying. I shouldn't need to download an extension that only sometimes works, just to not see upsetting darkfic on my feed. Because it's my feed! Let me remove the things I don't want to be there! Aarrrgh!!)

A longer post about The Current Events is in the works, and is gonna be published hopefully later today, but I just wanted to ask this question (and complain a little bit, because what are journals for if not that?).
bedes: Icon of Kangel from Needy Streamer Overload whistling (kangel)
(Cross-posting from the [community profile] vsynthrecs community.)

Type: Song
VSynth Featured: Gumi
Warnings: Heavy religious themes and imagery
Link: Pray To Me by Mizu



Reccer's Note: This is probably one of my favorite vocal synth songs to come out recently!! It really hits the "proud sinner"-type beats that I love to see in fiction. Plus, the MV rules -- I admire the details of the upside-down cross in her eyes, and her form changing slowly over the course of the song.
bedes: An icon of Marina from the official Hana vs Dango Splatfest art (marina)
(Cross-posting from the [community profile] holiday_wishes community.)

Hello, everyone! My name is Azure, and this is my first year participating in Holiday Wishes! I'm a relatively young (in my 20s) queer individual big into fandom! I look forward to fulfilling some wishes. In the meantime, here are mine!

ΛšΛ–π“’Φ΄ΰ»‹ ΰ­§ βœ‰οΈ β€§β‚ŠΛš .⛸️ β„οΈŽ ⋅

1. Help me move!

I'm currently saving up to move out of my parents' home! They forbid me from going on HRT, so I'm trying to get away from them as fast as possible. Plus, being trans in a red state has never been the safest in the world...

My Paypal.me is here (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/azuremist), and my Ko-fi is here (https://ko-fi.com/azuremist)!

ΛŠπŸ§£β˜†Λ‹β˜•οΈ

2. Comments on my partner and I's fics!

I am [archiveofourown.org profile] AzureMist on AO3, and some fandoms I've written for include Dungeon Meshi, MILGRAM, and Pokémon, among other things! If you're familiar with any of the fandoms I've written for, from 2021 onward, I'd really, really appreciate it if you could spare some kind words!

My partner is [archiveofourown.org profile] verdantscribe on AO3, and lately, he's been really bummed about the lack of comments on his fics. So, if you'd comment on any of his 3 most recent ("Le Judas", "Dissos: NMDA Receptor Antagonist", and "Hallucination Panic"), that would be amazing! Especially if you're familiar with their source materials (Dead Plate, Dungeon Meshi, and Cold Front, in order).

ΛŠπŸ§£β˜†Λ‹β˜•οΈ

3. Art of my OCs!

I'm basically always looking for art of my fursona (https://toyhou.se/4817527.azure) and persona (https://toyhou.se/7930464.azure-persona)! I'd also really love art of my Dungeon Meshi OC (https://toyhou.se/28234949.tamir). Linked is a page with each character's information and gallery!

ΛŠπŸ§£β˜†Λ‹β˜•οΈ

4. Some support for my art tumblr!

A reblog, a kind comment, or maybe even a follow for my art tumblr, [tumblr.com profile] artsy-azure, would warm my heart!! It's brutal out here for us artists online in this day and age...

ΛŠπŸ§£β˜†Λ‹β˜•οΈ

5. A custom Winamp skin

No, you have not been transported back to 2001. I recently downloaded Wacup (a Winamp remake for the modern age)! However, I can't find a Winamp skin of my childhood fave, to complete the 2000s fun: Amulet Spade from Shugo Chara! If anybody has the ability, I'd love to see a Winamp skin featuring her! (If you need help finding official art of her, hit me up in DMs or shoot me an email. I have oodles!)

ΛŠπŸ§£β˜†Λ‹β˜•οΈ

6. Paid time on platforms

Namely, this includes paid Dreamwidth, Discord Nitro (I'm @bede908), and Tumblr Premium (I'm @azuremist)! It's super appreciated!

ΛŠπŸ§£β˜†Λ‹β˜•οΈ

7. Enamel pins

Especially cute / "kawaii" ones, ones in pink, and ones depicting rabbits~! I'd also be thrilled to receive any pins for my fandoms (I'm really into Pokémon, Dead Plate, Dungeon Meshi and Alien Stage right now).

ΛŠπŸ§£β˜†Λ‹β˜•οΈ

8. A multi-tiered display case

I've recently gotten into collecting figurines! Which means I've also recently gotten into cleaning dust off of my figurines. A display case, at such a size that it can be sat on top of a desk without taking up the whole space, would help me a ton!

ΛŠπŸ§£β˜†Λ‹β˜•οΈ

9. Icons matching my layouts' color scheme

My icons (click here to see them) all follow a distinct color scheme that match my journal's layout! I'd be grateful if someone could make me a Vincent (Dead Plate) or Ivan (Alien Stage) icon fitting that color scheme.

ΛŠπŸ§£β˜†Λ‹β˜•οΈ

10. PIPE DREAM - life-sized Furret plushie

Hey, you never know if you don't try!

For basically as long as I've known about it, I've been desperately trying to get the life-sized Furret plush. Furret is my favorite Pokémon of all time, and its comically large size is easy one of my favorite things about it. But it's also been out of stock for as long as I've known about it, too. So, if anyone happens to have this big guy, to finally get my hands on it would be a Christmas miracle!

ΛšΛ–π“’Φ΄ΰ»‹ ΰ­§ βœ‰οΈ β€§β‚ŠΛš .⛸️ β„οΈŽ ⋅

Thank you and happy holidays to you all! If you need my physical address, DM me here, or email me at azures.mist@protonmail.com! (Sorry for the hassle. My momma always taught me to never put my address online publicly, ha! As apologies for the extra steps, I'll e-mail you a photo of my doggy next to whatever you sent once it arrives!)
bedes: Fanart of Natsuki from Doki Doki Literature Club, holding a cupcake up to her mouth and smiling widely, about to take a bite (natsuki)
Path: Moonlight Trail
My goal: 20,000
Current word count: 20,402

Wordcount goal: GET!!

I'm super proud of myself!! It's not like the first time I passed a revised goal -- I feel like I worked for it, and succeeded at a challenge. As-of now, I'm also 4th on the Moonlight Trail leaderboard out of 24!

For my last few projects, I finalized my suicidism article, wrote the text for a small zine I'm making about my favorite fanfic tropes, wrote a template for one of those DeviantArt-style "journal memes" for Sheezy.Art (a website I might dedicate a whole blog post to someday soon), and outlined a fic!

Said fic is extremely self-indulgent. I've been rewatching Shugo Chara with my partner lately, because it's extremely nostalgic for me, and it reminded me, in part, how much I love Tadase, but also... God! The Shugo Chara fandom was just so weirdly homophobic towards him! (The first time I ever heard or read the f-slur was actually by a Shugo Chara fan, directed towards Tadase. True story!) So, of course, I've taken to headcanoning him as queer in earnestness, to reclaim All That Shit that I had to see as a latent queer child. Which is basically what the fic is about -- Tadase being queer, treated genuinely, in a "5+1 things" format!

I don't know if I'll ever finish it. The Shugo Chara fandom is, like, super-mega-dead at this point, and Shugo Chara feels a little bit... embarrassing to write for? Especially this kind of fic, where the point is (not to be cheesy) trying to heal my inner child. Although, maybe that's a reason why I should write it. The only reason why I'm embarrassed about it is because it's a really old fandom, mostly for young girls, and the subject is that of queerness. None of that should be considered embarrassing! Maybe considering writing for my elementary school interests is bringing out the "elementary schooler bullied for his interests" in me again...

Writing it all out like this... yeah, I think I am going to finish it! But definitely not right now. I need a break from writing for a while, as I do after every writing challenge. Especially since I went from one writing challenge (drabblefest) right into another (Rough Draft Month)! But I feel like I've earned my break. I'm happy with myself.



bedes: An icon of Marcy from Amphibia thinking (marcy)
Path: Moonlight Trail
My goal: 20,000
Current word count: 16,543

I wrote my review for Cold Front, and I started outlining my article about suicidism. I'm hoping to start writing that article today, or tomorrow. Fingers crossed! Especially because I have this week off from college.

As you can see, I bumped my wordcount goal down. I initially bumped it down to 15k, and then ended up passing it while outlining my article. I tried really hard to let myself be proud, but it was hard, because I was basically almost at 15k when I chose to bump it down. So, I chose to bump it back up again to 20k. I think that's doable for me even at this point, so here's hoping!

Of course, my mental health is still, as the kids say, Bad. But I feel a lot better about this challenge after changing the word count goal, and stopping that "daily minimum word count" nonsense.
bedes: Art of Mikuo, the genderbend of Hatsune Miku, in the outfit and stylings of Project Voltage's Fairy-type Trainer Miku. He has a small ponytail, and is holding up his pillow to rest his face against it. His eyes are sleepy and half-lidded. (mikuo)
I knew I would get obsessed with Cold Front, so I put off playing it for ages. I then played it, and became obsessed with it. Who could have foreseen this?

Putting jokes aside: I do have a lot of thoughts about the game, so I wanted to write them all down. This review contains spoilers!

My first criticism is that Augustine is a hockey player who is symbolically represented by a bear, and yet, he is a twig. Excuse me? That is a description of a character that should obviously be a beautiful fat man. Cowards. Pussies. (Although, thinking about the members of STUDIO INVESTIGRAVE's only fat OC and how he's drawn, Augustine probably wouldn't be drawn well if they did. OOPS who said that)

Continue? )
bedes: An icon of Bede from Pokemon, looking towards the camera. (bede2)
I'd never heard of Bad Cinderella before this video (fake theater kid, smh), but that didn't stop me from being sucked into this video and possessed by the forces of Messy Theater Drama. A super interesting case study regarding everything from the unrelenting greed of billionaires to the way that pop culture props up feminist ideas while still simultaneously being misogynistic.

bedes: Fanart of Lain, looking tired with bags under her eyes (lain)
Path: Moonlight Trail
My goal: 25,000
Minimum words to hit each day: 834
Current word count: 11,837
Current average words per day: 789

My motivation was temporarily boosted by writing "An Excerpt From the Biography of the Devourer of All Things Horrible" (under the temp title "History Hates Lovers"), and I've gotten more comments on it in just a few days than I have on all of my works combined for the past few months. People are very sweet, and that makes me happy.

But, immediately after that, my mental got bad again. I've been struggling really hard to write. I literally only got out of bed at 6pm today; I spent the rest of the day sleeping. I wrote precisely 33 words yesterday, and that was a bullet point list of low-effort things I could write today. Today, this blog is probably all I'll write, but I might make a small attempt at writing a review of the game Cold Front.

Again, I feel the urge to quit the challenge entirely. But I'm trying to compromise with myself first, see if that's a possible way to go about things. Even if I don't meet my goal, that's okay, right...? I didn't make my goal last year, and that was fine. Or maybe I could adjust my goal to 20k, or maybe even just 15k.

I think what's really killing me is this idea of an "average daily word count". Missing even one day messes with the average so bad, and I feel like I've failed massively every time I fuck up and can't do my 834. Which isn't great when you're currently fighting with everything you have to just keep staying alive.

I dunno. I'm tired, even though I slept in as much as I did... I think I'll consider changing my word count goal the most heavily. I need a win right now.
bedes: An icon of Bede from Pokemon, smirking towards the camera. (Default)
Rating: G

Fandom: Delicious in Dungeon

Characters: Kabru, Laios Touden, Marcille Donato

Relationship: Kabru/Laios Touden

Words: 1,762

Content Warnings: Time period-appropriate sexism and homophobia, implied racism

Tropes: Unconventional Format

Summary: Some words from King Laios Touden's biography, regarding the debated existence of Kabru of Utaya.

Notes )



Read more... )
bedes: An icon of Marcy from Amphibia thinking (marcy)
This week's video is about news on the older side (relatively)! I feel like it did a great job summarizing why, exactly, Watcher's proposed streaming service received such a violently negative reaction in comparison to other streaming services started by YouTubers. It also briefly covers the topic of Watcher's financial mismanagement, and, yeah, I've definitely passively thought it seems like they're spending way too much money for a while now.


bedes: Art of Mikuo, the genderbend of Hatsune Miku, in the outfit and stylings of Project Voltage's Fairy-type Trainer Miku. He has a small ponytail, and is holding up his pillow to rest his face against it. His eyes are sleepy and half-lidded. (mikuo)
Path: Moonlight Trail
My goal: 25,000
Minimum words to hit each day: 834
Current word count: 7,659
Current average words per day: 851

It's no secret that my mental health's been in the gutter, so I've been struggling to write. Still, I've managed to keep my average word count per day above my goal. Thankfully, just before The Big Incident, I started a sillier, more low-pressure project to write an article rating all of my pride flags. I just finished and uploaded that to my personal site today. It made for a good buffer while I tried to get my act together. I even had the 2nd highest wordcount out of everyone on the Moonlight Trail at one point, so that was cool!

I'm going to be starting on a project that I'm very excited about next: the one I've temporarily named "History Hates Lovers", until I come up with something better. I hope that doing a project I've looked forward to will motivate me, and not just end up making it come out like garbage. A lot of today was pooling together the research and resources regarding the relevant topics. Research is one of my favorite parts of writing, especially for something like "History Hates Lovers" which largely relies on historical elements, so I'm having fun with it.