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Apologies for the lack of a November update. My reaction to the disaster of the American election was to withdraw, snail-like, into a tiny circuit of comfort games, shows, and reading, and I just started to re-emerge a week or two ago.

Things That Helped

1. Stardew Valley

God fucking bless ConcernedApe for arranging to release the 1.6 patch to mobile on the same day. I found considerable solace in exploring the content with my original farmer. Sax (the same name I give my first toon in every RPG I play ever since reading the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson) has been with me since 1.3, when I made her the very same day that I quit Guild Wars 2 over that game openly beginning a transition to pay-to-win with the greediest possible implementation of build and gear templates.

In 2018 I went from this:
Guild Wars 2 female sylvari ranger, druid build Guild Wars 2 female sylvari ranger, soulbeast build 
To this:
Stardew Valley farmer, green and mauve color scheme
And never looked back. Sax's farm was in year 30 before 1.6 dropped. I've done so many things on it. In 1.3, I once spent 3 years ageing 54 fruit trees to iridium quality, outdoors. Sax would wake up, kiss her wife Emily, go outside to wipe out any grass that might have spontaneously sprouted in range of the trees which would stop them ageing until it was gone, and come back in and go to bed to do it again the next day. Those orchards will be on that farm until the destruction of western civilization. I propagated huge-yet-navigable mushroom tree groves back when there were no mushroom tree seeds so you had to pave all around the first trees except for the spots where you wanted seeds to sprout, and wait for them to throw seeds into those spots. I've broken more than one type of currency counter.

So anyway, it was fun to have new completionist things to do. I explored with a new save too, of course, but there's something special with my main. She's in year 32 now, and I'm back into a groove of playing a day or two to get sleepy at night.

Thank you, satisfying and soothing retro pixel game.

2. AMC's Interview With The Vampire

Maybe a strange choice of comfort content after the above, but I was a fannibal once too! And IWTV really does feel like a spiritual successor to NBC's Hannibal, with its artistic and meaningful attitude to violence and gore, its compelling fucked-up characters, and its storylines of disastrous romance. Yes, I know the books predate it all, including Thomas Harris's novels (I really wonder if Hannibal Lecter's mother is Italian because Lestat de Lioncourt's mother is Italian). I read some of them myself as a teen and was forever changed by Anne Rice's no-holds-barred style of overwhelmingly lush sensory descriptions for everything. I haven't gone back to reread them; I have a feeling much of the material has aged like milk and even then I thought many of the actual plots themselves were rather stupid and I've heard that only got worse in later books.

But I think the show is fantastic. I was delighted to learn there are blu-rays and purchased both seasons. (If only Our Flag Means Death did the same...) I think I've watched every episode 3 times now, and the finale of season 2 considerably more times than that. Luckily it was a fandom friend who turned me onto it so I have someone to scream at and force to view the best of the Tumblr shitposts and meta and fanart and so on, otherwise I would be insufferable.

Thank you, toxic gay vampire drama.

3. Fanfiction

I am a voracious fanfic reader always, but in times of trouble I especially sink my teeth into rereading my old favorites. I have most long fanfics that made a big impression on me downloaded as .epub files (AO3 makes this very easy) and I took a thorough tour of them last month. Castlevania, The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, a few new IWTV fics, even some of my own fics. 

Thank you, fanfic writers, for the same unrestrained, exuberant creativity that has inspired me in so many ways for so long. 

Which brought me back to:

4. My own writing! 

Secrets of Sleipnir has always been an exercise in writing even more exactly what I want to read than I could achieve in fandom. That didn't change when taking a heavy blow to my morale. Slowly but surely, my desire to continue the story came back. It helped a great deal when a dear friend did a reaction thread to book 3, which has about the same energizing power as a few dozen excellent AO3 comments. It also helped when I considered that the particular rising powers that be hate exactly my kind of writing the most, and so making more of it is, in its own small way, an act of resistance - even if only by feeding the flame of joy in myself and a few readers.

As someone said, and which I may in fact embroider on something the next time I pick up a cross-stitch project, the horrors persist but so do I.

In practical terms, this means the first draft of book 4 just crossed 46,000 words today. It feels a little more first draft than some of the previous books; I may have to let it sit for longer and edit it harder, because as I said in October the material is heavier than my usual. But I am determined to see it through, to earn the books (4 of them at last count, 2 more in the current arc and 2 standalones) waiting on the other side of these events.

Bluesky

I recently passed the 1-year mark on Mastodon, and I can say that I enjoy microblogging! I've been hearing some good things about Bluesky, and after exploring it with Bridgy Fed I decided to graduate to full cross-posting with an app, so that most of my posts go to both platforms at once. I don't really know what I'm doing there yet, and I can't say it doesn't feel very much poised at the top of an enshittification luge chute, but I'm willing to give it a chance. The shorter character limits on Bluesky have certainly made my writing meme answers more concise! There, as everywhere, I am saxbrightwell.

Smashwords

Having seen very little response with a smaller discount during the last Smashwords sale, especially compared to the satisfying amount of Number Go Up during the sale previous, I have decided to participate again at the giveaway level this holiday season! 



All my books will be free on Smashwords from 12 December 2024 to 01 January 2025. If you take advantage of this, in lieu of payment I would greatly appreciate reviews and links on your own socials. My own hype can only go so far; the hype of others has exponentially more impact!

That about wraps it up for this month. Take care, stay warm (or cool!), and have fun!

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