estirose

Finally beat the Final Fantasy II pixel remaster!

2026-04-04T20:14:40Z

So I finally sat down and beat the Final Fantasy II Pixel Remaster. I haven't been as enthusiastic about this one because I was not happy about the removal of the bonus content that was introduced in later versions (Arcane Labyrinth and Dawn of Souls mostly, the secret concentration game was nice but I didn't weep over its loss). I do like the updated music and the fact that Firion's sprite no longer looks like his throat has been cut.

I honestly had more trouble with the earliest levels of the final final dungeon (the game runs you through 2 different dungeons right after the other with no break) than I did with the bosses, to be honest. There are monsters that drain a great deal of your health, and while I tried doing some grinding, poor 4th party member got killed repeatedly there.

For the final boss, I took him out in 3 rounds. Firion had two of the strongest swords in the game, the party had decent protection spells on them, and Maria Osmosed (drained mana points) the hell out of the final boss to the point that he couldn't cast any magic. I had Guy prepped to do healing/revival, but a round of elixirs before the fight + Maria and Firion made it unnecessary. (Poor 4th party member couldn't make a dent, so they resorted to their Drain spell to at least chip at the final boss' health.)

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Fatal Frame 2 Remake - first 2-ish chapters

2026-03-14T04:00:31Z

Trying to keep this spoiler-lite.

So as I noted in my Demo review, they moved things around, and this is (mostly) great because it makes this old game feel fresh and new.

Combat is a bit of a slog and if you're a veteran player you're going to have to re-learn fighting. They did nerf things a bit so that people new to the game are not spending ten minutes fighting the early ghosts - now others are complaining that this makes the game too easy. While I get being rewarded for skill and strategy, a lot of the professional reviews for the game remarked how awful the combat was/how tanky the first few ghosts were in early game, and I have to agree (it also doesn't help that the tutorial screens need to be clearer and maybe set a little earlier).

It could be that they have to undo some of the nerfing to keep the challenge up, or leave the nerfing to the easiest setting, story mode, to make those fans that love the strategy bits of the new mechanics happier. I don't care. Keep the lower chance of the ghosts suddenly getting really pissed at you, that's all I ask.

I'm adoring the new areas, and I appreciate not having to backtrack to the first location to get (story item) like I did in previous games. Also, slightly more room to fight (story item guardian), which I really appreciate.

Apparently there are some stealth mechanics involved. Can I state how much I hate stealth mechanics? I didn't enjoy them in Fatal Frame 3 either.

On the trivia side, there is a new-ish Itsuki scene just before Mio meets him. I say new-ish because it looks like a reuse of a bit from one of the Wii remake endings. (Shadow Festival ending, to be precise, my favorite ending ever!) The Wii remake endings got cut for this game, but at least a bit of Shadow Festival lives on!

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Don't rely on AI coding.

2026-03-12T01:05:27Z

My audience probably isn't much into having AI help code software, but I ran an experiment just out curiosity. Basically, I asked 3 different AIs (ChatGPT, Claude, and Llama) code a Stardew Valley Content Patcher mod. I am very familiar with coding these things and can easily spot errors. None of them got the coding right.

( What I asked for, and what the AIs had issues with )

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Wrote a 2nd fic for the CDrama Excellent Women.

2026-03-09T03:55:20Z

Grab a paintbrush and follow me (508 words) by Estirose
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 剑兰女探社 | Excellent Women
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Yang Moli/Yao Zhidi (Excellent Women)
Characters: Yang Moli (Excellent Women)
Summary:

Yang Moli after the events of episode 32.

(Slight deviations from canon)

Episode 32 is the most current episode; it looks like the drama will have a season 2 (which is already filmed). Also, part of the last scene irritated me so I made minor alterations to it, otherwise Moli would be in emotionally worse condition than she is in canon.

I really don't expect either of these fics to get many hits; they might be a F/F couple but they're an obscure F/F couple on an equally obscure Chinese Web Drama. I'll definitely be asking for this fandom for Yuletide just so I might not be the only writer for it.

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Fatal Frame 2 Remake demo impressions

2026-03-06T03:11:39Z

So the demo for the 2nd Fatal Frame 2 remake (basically, there was the original, then the Wii remake, and now this one) came out and it works just fine on the Steam Deck.

The community has discovered that a great deal of the outside areas are available (but obviously all the buildings are locked). I haven't poked around because I'm more interested in the gameplay. Said gameplay is pretty much chapter 1 of the game - wandering around the first house and encountering a ghost twice.

Needless to say, now that I know it works on the Steam Deck, I've purchased the deluxe version of the remake for download and playing next week.

There's a new handholding mechanic that I love very much - I've always felt bad that Mayu, the sister, is always left limping behind you, and it makes so much sense to hold hands with her. (The healing mechanic does not hurt.)

Other things:
* There are minor changes to things - Sae is missing her dialogue outside the Osaka house, the newspaper article about Masumi is found in the Osaka house instead of the trail to the village, Miyako's ghost heads in a different direction than in earlier games, the flashlight is found in a different location, etc.
* Save points have item shops, like Fatal Frame 4. (Another concept that was a thing in Fatal Frame 4 also makes a return, but not in the demo - however, you can see it if you go into photo mode.)
* You now have willpower, which depletes when a ghost attacks you, and health. If your willpower goes to 0, then ghosts start draining your health.
* Miyako, who is essentially the tutorial ghost for this game and normally a fairly easy ghost, whipped my behind. I didn't die, but I came really really close. (I replayed both of her battles in this chapter.) She charges at you a lot, and if you're not used to it - especially early on in the fight - she will take a chunk out of you. Part of the issue is that you need to aim the camera in her face, and sometimes her face is a bit hard to find. Yay upgraded graphics?

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With Your Antique Pen (Excellent Women, Yang Moli/Yao Zhidi)

2026-03-01T23:26:20Z

Fic for the Chinese Web Drama "Excellent Women"; I'll post it on AO3 when it comes back up. Yang Moli POV.
( I'm still working my way through this drama, but I had to write fic for this f/f pairing. Later episodes might invalidate this fic, but so far there's no back info on how these two got to know one another. )

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estirose @ 2026-02-28T19:02:00

2026-03-01T03:07:21Z

I've been watching the Chinese web drama "Excellent Women" on IQIYI, because Lin Fan is in it. Did not expect a possibly lesbian or bi character to essentially be hitting on Lin Fan's character.

I posted on Tumblr with two sets of screenshots: https://www.tumblr.com/estirose/809851002507395072/i-love-this-exchange-from-the-chinese-web-drama?source=share

We'll see if she hits on anyone else, but so far it's only Lin Fan's character. (As of this writing, only episodes ~~1-6 are available to me of a 24-32 episode webdrama~~ (I forgot I had IQIYI VIP, which gave me access to the entire run as it played out) - short episodes, at least, only about 15 minutes long plus credits.)

(Also, I guess the female cast sung the opening theme? And Lin Fan rapped!)

( Small spoilers for episode 32 )

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Happy Birthday, Stardew Valley!

2026-02-26T15:12:32Z

I had to dig around a bit, but apparently I heard about this game around March of 2016; I bought it on GOG for its full price on March 30th of 2016. At that point, 1.0.6 had been released about 10 days before (and 1.0.7 would be released a week later). Version 1.0 was released on February 26, 2016, so I was about a month late to the party.

Now it's 10 years old, with a retrospective video and the Symphony of Seasons concert showing up on Youtube later today. I've written a bunch of mods for it. Not fancy mods by any stretch, but mods!

Please enjoy this picture from early on when I was playing my first game and romancing Maru (and even somewhat matching the male suits!)

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Idlewater Solo TTRPG & Cozy MMUGS Solo RPG by Sarah Solo

2026-02-26T04:03:19Z

I picked up both of these from DriveThruRPG. I have yet to play either of them, I'm just looking at their systems.

Cozy MMUGS is $5 USD and Idlewater is Pay-What-You-Want (default $2 USD). They're both variants on the same idea of a life of farming, mining, foraging, and other things you'd expect from their video game equivalents. They're what are considered "solo journaling TTRPGs" (though the author says the journaling is optional), where you write out what you did each day. If you've never heard of journaling RPGs, it's where you have a slightly guided adventure with the dice working more or less as your gamemaster/guide, and you're expected to log/journal in a story format what you did each day as your character.

Of the two, Idlewater is definitely the simpler of the two systems. It's vaguely d20 System based, though it doesn't use the OGL because it doesn't need to. You roll for six stats which very much resemble D&D ones but have different names (for the most part); you also have one skill related to each stat. It comes with its own setting (which is actually based off a related RPG) which seems to be magic-based even though there is no magic in the game, and includes an entire town full of locals. You do the same things that you'd expect in a farming-type cozy video game, such as farming, mining, dungeon delving, blacksmithing, hunting, and selling - oh, and of course, relationships. You are limited by a stamina type system where you have a limit as to how much you can do each day. There's also a weather system, and if you're really unlucky, there will be some days where you feed your animals and then go back to bed.

(This is likely the earlier of the two works and could have used a couple more editing passthroughs; for example, the setting has 12 30-day months split into 4 seasons, but the villagers have the typical "Summer 4" type birthdays; for some reason, the more Constitution stat equivalent you have, the easier it is for you to get hit... and so on. Also, the PDF contains several pages of descriptions about the various ancestries in the setting, some of which supposedly have magic, but there is no magic use in this game....)

Cozy MMUGS is kind of a more detailed version of Idlewater. It uses the author's own dice system (instead of Idlewater's vague d20 System), has a generic setting, and no set village - though you could easily lift Idlewater's characters for it sans that game's setting info regarding their ancestries (or including their ancestries, if you want). It has similar 6 stats (with the same 3-18 number spread as Idlewater), but has more skills, and an xp system so you can go up in level and increase your skills. It also has magic and a related MP system, but no concrete magic powers - very much write your own.

ETA: So there are 3 possible types of rolls: the Oracle Check, which is a simple yes/no question, the rare stat last resort stat check, which is a pretty standard roll at or below stat check, and the regular skill check. The regular skill check goes something like this: roll 2 d12s, and then a die according to how many skill points you have (you can have 0-3) in the related skill. The higher your skill, the bigger your die. If you match or beat at least one of the d12s, you have a success; if you match or are higher than both, it's a great success. If you have a modifier based on the related stat, you add or subtract it from your skill roll before comparing.

Personally, I'd blend the two. Use Cozy MMUGS' system, but include Idlewater's alchemy and plants, along with its calendar system. I'd import Idlewater's village full of folks, use Idlewater's calendar (and set the villagers' birthdays to be spread throughout those months).

( My notes on how I'd merge Idlewater's stuff with Cozy MMUGS )

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Quickish early impressions review of Starsand Island

2026-02-13T02:22:08Z

This came out yesterday-ish and I may have spent too many hours last night + a little at breaks playing it (and starting over once or twice). I bought it because Pathea authorized a crossover for the My Time At... series (My Time at Portia and My Time at Sandrock - Gust, Ginger, Nia, and Fang with X) and I am all for that. I don't know if they're in the game yet.

I feel that at early access it shouldn't cost 40 USD or equivalent. I paid about 25 USD, because of 30% launch discount + a bit extra because I owned at least one of/both My Time At games (I essentially got a loyalty discount because I owned multiple games from a different publisher....)

( Some controversies that I've discovered since buying the game )

Anyway, this is definitely a cozy game. It reminds me greatly of Portia/Sandrock, with a little bit of Fantasy Life in terms of the professions. It currently has no storyline other than really going up in profession levels, which I find I'm really appreciating. I also appreciate that other than the game's urging that I pick up the crafting profession, I'm pretty much allowed to be on my own.

There is romance in the game, which does nothing for me, but as they phase in the romance/marriage system the devs have stated that you can romance regardless of your gender, which I appreciate.

The five professions are crafting, exploring (combat), ranching, planting, and fishing. Crafting goes well with the other four professions, while exploring complements crafting, and ranching and planting complement each other (in particular, the first ranching animal - rabbits - can eat the weeds in your garden, saving you the trouble of hand weeding - I haven't poked around with this much though as I'm not fond of ranching in my farming games).

There are resources scattered around your cabin. The ones that are within the fence don't renew, but the ones outside seem to, which is good. You can in fact decorate your cabin, and in fact, you start your time there by making your own bed. (If you get unlucky with the resources and are desperate, the general store also sells them.)

I've barely poked at farming and ranching and not at fishing yet. I've mostly done crafting and exploring.

Each time you go up in rank (your first rank is apprentice, and then you go up to junior, and apparently there intermediate, senior, and expert levels), you first do a craft for the person in charge of that profession for your certification, and then you take on a task for a local resident (a challenge; you need to complete it before you can ask about the next level). This requires more and more materials and more and more running around.

The local "mines" are actually a mystical forest with ores in it. You can fast travel to any camp in this forest that you've unlocked - which means that you need to fix the fast-travel at every camp except the first. You can also sleep and make food at these camps should you need to. You'll need to do certain things to unlock the paths to these camps.

Things are pretty laid back, and if you're not farming, you don't have to really worry about the seasons. If there's one piece of advice I'd impart it would be to not hurry things. Just finish the apprentice crafter certification (and maybe the apprentice explorer certification) and you're good until you want to move on.

Oh, and if you need guidance - your profession quests are tracked by default and the game makes sure you don't get lost by giving you a glowing trail of stars towards where you need to go. You can turn this off, and in fact, you can turn off the directional marker. Which as someone who gets irritated by such things, I really appreciate. The glowing trail of stars sometimes hiccups, once leading me in a loop around somebody's house. But it can be really useful for finding NPCs you need to give stuff to, which is really handy for the crafting master who likes to hide in her basement.

ETA: I posted a guide to the starting quests on my Tumblr.

( Notes and such that are a bit more spoilery )

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AO3 PowerShell PSA

2026-01-29T01:36:36Z

There's a nasty bot going around telling authors in a comment to run a Windows PowerShell command to "make sure your IP is on the safe list" as "AO3 is going to block thousands of IP addresses". AO3 is doing no such thing! It actually is meant to panic authors (who use Windows) into running a malicious command designed to permanently delete everything in their Documents folder.

Here's the command broken down, and what it does:
Get-ChildItem: This is telling it to essentially list an entire directory.
-Path "$env:USERPROFILE\Documents\": This lets Get-ChildItem know that you want it to list your Documents directory.
-Exclude *.archiveofourown: This is put in to make you think you're reaching out to AO3. In reality, it's just telling it to exclude all files with the file extension *.archiveofourown (that is, files ending with .archiveofourown). Chances are you do not have any files named that.
-Recurse: do this for everything in the directory, including all subfolders and everything in them
|: take what you've got so far and use it with the following instruction(s).
Remove-Item: delete files/folders.
-Force: Permanently delete, no retrieving from recycle bin.

So to put it together: "List this entire directory, not including anything with the file extension .archiveofourown; we want to look at all subdirectories and files as well. Take this listing and delete everything permanently." And needless to say, your computer will do this without asking you if you are sure!

The big thing to take away from this is Never, ever run a command you don't understand!

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ModDrop PSA

2026-01-25T01:41:57Z

This was shared in the Stardew Valley official Discord, apparently you should be very cautious in downloading from ModDrop and stick to NexusMods for Stardew Valley mods. Apparently there's nobody moderating ModDrop and therefore stolen and/or malicious mods are getting uploaded there.

I do have a mod on there (Raven's Mystery Box Exchanger), it is not being deleted from there and I'm not uploading it on Nexus, mostly because I uploaded it there for a grand total of one person to be able to grab it easily - having other players grab it was nice but far from critical, and I don't take offense at people being warned from downloading from there. I will also be the first person to tell you that you need to be careful of any executables where they're not expected (bat, exe, sh) and be cautious of .dll files (to a lesser extent - be aware there are plenty of benign community mods with .dll files!).

(I really do need to get into my github and update it with all my freaking mods! But that's for another day.)

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Yuletide 2025 reveals!

2026-01-01T21:25:03Z

I wrote the following fics this year: As we read the pages (Chants of Sennaar, assignment), Sketches in the Alley (Jewelpet Happiness, pinch hit), Dispel the Shadowed Sights (Stray, pinch hit), Stone-bound Murmurs (Chants of Sennaar, treat), Measures of Words and Gestures (Chants of Sennaar, treat), I didn't mean take her alone (Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, treat), Kept in a Faraway Land (Fantasy Life, treat), A Trabeal, Like a Heart (I Want to be a Wall, treat), and Playing Xiangqi (Mulan (Animated Movies), Treat).

(I also got an awesome gift, which I raved about in another post!)

I picked up four new fandoms, but unfortunately still working my way through two of them (Night in the Woods and Gnosia), maybe next year for those two! I also had some computer issues this year a few days before Christmas and had to rewrite 1 3/4 treats (part of "A Trabeal, like a Heart" and all of "Playing Xiangqi") because they hadn't been backed up. That was fun!
( I can ramble a bit, notes about my Yuletide fics underneath cut )

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So far, I am loving Fantasy Life i's roguelike mode

2025-12-30T20:31:37Z

( Spoilers for the new roguelike mode )

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Yuletide gift fic~!

2025-12-25T05:12:26Z

Just wanted to quickly mention my awesome, awesome gift fic for Yuletide 2025!

I was a Tailor in my Dreams (1108 words) by Anonymous (ETA: TheSecondBatgirl!)
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Fantasy Life (Video Game), Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time (Video Game)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Shushu | Taylor, Choucho | Flutter | Yuelia, Player Character (Fantasy Life)
Additional Tags: Slice of Life, Introspection, Reconciling Fantasy Life and Fantasy Life i
Summary:

Taylor had always known that she would be a Tailor. She never thought she have anything more than a Life.

Mostly about Taylor, one of the awesome tailors from the game Fantasy Life (3DS), who reappears in Fantasy Life i! My writer is obviously very familiar with both the original game and this year's sequel, and used the name of one of my Player Characters (Erion) from my fanfics, which was flattering! (I have to wonder if Taylor's new companion is my current FLi PC, named Esti!)

(Also, proud to say that I guessed correctly on this one - TheSecondBatgirl introduced me to Fantasy Life!)

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Kind Words 2

2025-12-16T05:14:55Z

I picked Kind Words 2 up as part of Humble Bundle's Wholesome Snack bundle. I was actually expecting to get into Spirittea more (which is very spare in its explanations, to put it politely) and Botany Manor, which is a puzzle game, but I have found myself mostly playing this game. I have it on my computer, not my Steam Deck, because it's very keyboard-heavy.

Kind Words 2 is kinda-sorta a MMO. But instead of battling creatures, you're holding asynchronous conversations and writing advice and encouragement to people who ask for it. You can also post your own worries and someone might reply back! You can also get recommendations for things like games, songs, and music. I asked for a particular subgenre of mysteries and got back two recommendations - one for a book series I was already familiar with, and one for a book I think I've heard of.

If the person likes your recommendation/advice/encouragement, you get a sticker. You can also send stickers if you like someone else's recommendation/advice/encouragement.

There's also a spot where you can literally yell into a void.

I'm liking it a lot. It reminds me in a vague way of Glitch, except just... being there for one another. You're not going to spend hours in it, and there's a limited amount of messages to reply to, but it's very nice.

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FandomGiftBasket has revealed!

2025-11-02T18:21:25Z

I got three awesome Fantasy Life icons and this Stardew Valley fic, focusing on Maru and Sebastian:

bodies into pillars of light (803 words) by redhandedtamarin-requests
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Maru & Sebastian (Stardew Valley), Abigail & Sam & Sebastian (Stardew Valley)
Characters: Maru (Stardew Valley), Sebastian (Stardew Valley)
Additional Tags: vaguely atmospheric piece, basically just a sweet convo between maru & sebastian, abigail and sam mentioned but do not appear onscreen
Summary:

Siblings - especially half-siblings - can be complicated. But when Sebastian needs his sister, Maru is there.

(I only wrote one gift for the exchange, for "I Want to be a Wall" - meant to write more, but with RL events my creativity just dropped for a while! But the recipient seemed to like it.)

Here's the collection!

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Fandom Giftbasket 2025 empty/half-full baskets

2025-10-25T18:14:28Z

( I am not familiar enough with these fandoms but somebody on my friendslist might be )

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And I am all signed up for Yuletide!

2025-10-14T23:49:58Z

I requested 5 and offered 12 fandoms. Had to bucket offer some.

I might add more fandoms/shift things around - I'm waiting for the Interactive Fiction post to see if there's any fandoms that appeal for IF before signups close. I had fun the first time doing IF and I'm hoping to stretch my wings with the IF stuff this year.

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Dear Yuletide Writer 2025

2025-10-11T03:20:13Z

( Yuletide 2025: Assemble with Care, Cozy Grove, Fantasy Life, Fantasy Life i, My Time at Sandrock )

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estirose @ 2025-10-10T00:02:00

2025-10-10T00:04:24Z

The Yuletide 2025 tagset is out!

I'm the only nominator for most of my choices! My Time at Sandrock was only me but My Time at Portia is nominated too.

Fantasy Life i was the only one with another nominator - they nominated Carla, Laura, Paulette, and the very last buddy you can get - to go with my choices (Chemmel, Mira, Monsieur Cobra, Worldbuilding).

No Fatal Frame, interestingly, but I'll live. Plenty of Kamen Rider, Ultraman, scattered Super Sentai, and Power Rangers.

I see plenty of stuff that I want to offer but I'm happy with requesting only what I nominated.

Also, I submitted a correction for the tagset, though not for any of my nominated fandoms - somehow Earth: Final Conflict ended up with duplicate entries for Will Boone.

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Discord had a breach.

2025-10-04T18:28:25Z

Or actually, the third party system that Discord uses for customer service did.

I got a notification... not on the email address for my regular Discord account, but the throwaway I used for suggesting a way to improve their business' customer service reputation. (This happened in April and the TL;DR version is I said "maybe if you're going to ban people, give them more details" as I saw that people were being banned with no details as to what they were being banned for. I was told "LOL, you have to use the same discussion board people use to suggest features! Maybe we'll even listen." And when I asked for a supervisor, the correspondence abruptly ended.)

I used the throwaway address because I didn't know if somebody at Discord would be vindictive enough to decide my Discord account needed banning because I was annoying them. And it turned out to be a good thing, as the throwaway doesn't have my personal information, account name, card details, etc and can be easily deactivated (in fact, it has).

This was only their customer service system and not actually Discord's main servers, so the only stuff at risk is anything that was disclosed to them. I know a lot of people use Discord, and if you have never corresponded with Customer Service or Trust & Safety, you should not see any issues.

ETA: Unfortunately that might include payment info, IDs etc. It's a mess; I got away lightly because my only interaction with that system was to tell them it was bad and I used a throwaway with no info about me.

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Yuletide noms are getting approved!

2025-09-28T21:23:04Z

(Yeah, I'm overly excited for no reason.)

Of the fandoms I nominated this year:

* Assemble with Care doesn't have any fic on the archive/isn't wrangled, so unsurprisingly it might take a bit for the mods to double check the character names. ETA: Approved 10/2 with all 4 characters!

* Cozy Grove is approved! I'm not surprised, because it's the easiest of my bunch to check (I'm essentially requesting the same characters as last year and it's a tiny tiny fandom).

* Fantasy Life is a canonical tag, but of the 3 characters I nominated, only Taylor (under Shushu | Taylor) is canonical; Chic and Madam Purl have never been tagged, and the last character is worldbuilding. 10/2: approved!

* Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time does not have a canonical tag. I would not be surprised if both games were put under Fantasy Life by the tag wranglers in the end - and I'm not actually overly bothered by that. Also, one of my noms is a one-shot NPC quest giver with limited dialogue (Monsieur Cobra) who just got introduced recently so he might take a sec. (The others are Chemmel, his assistant Mira, and Worldbuilding, all of which are easy to find.) ETA 10/1: Approved, all characters (including the cobra) - a bit amusing that the fandom with the harder to find character got approved before its older predecessor with easy to google information, but that's how the random approval screen cookie crumbles, I guess.

* My Time at Sandrock: This is getting very close to the limit (900+ works complete in English over 1000 words; 1400+ all together), so it's definitely going to be over the limit next year. So even though I went with two characters with canonicals (Heidi and Trudy), this one might take a bit of time to get approved. ETA: Just after I hit "post" I rechecked and this is approved!

Interestingly, they set up the Fantasy Life characters as (Fantasy Life Video Game) and the Fantasy Life i characters as (Girl Who Steals Time) - I'm figuring out if I should raise this up because it took me a second to recognize my own noms.

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Did my Yuletide nominations!

2025-09-16T02:21:51Z

(Have to enter them into the coordination spreadsheet!)

Assemble with Care: Joseph, Izzy, Carmen, Helena.
Hoping for Joseph and Izzy missing scenes, though I'll happily also take Carmen and Helena rediscovering their sibling bonds. (These are the four people that Maria, the protagonist, helps in the game.) Also this is a quick game that someone can pick up quickly and write for me.

Cozy Grove: Patrice, Ursula.
It's no secret I adore these two bear spirits and their stories, and I keep hoping I'll get fic for them.

Fantasy Life (3ds): Worldbuilding, Madame Purl, Taylor, Chic.
I want Tailor Life fic! Also, worldbuilding, especially now that we have the distant land of Mysteria that's greatly implied to be reachable by ship.

Fantasy Life i: The Girl who Steals Time: Worldbuilding, Mira, Chemmel, Monsieur Cobra.
Worldbuilding for this one as well (I want some fic about the various islands and their inhabitants), along with Mira and her boss Chemmel. I also tossed in Monsieur Cobra, aka the nonhostile King Cobra who gives you a quest in Ginormosia and hangs about after. Yes, I want fic about a minor NPC, especially since he seems to have a history with Anne.

My Time at Sandrock: Worldbuilding, Heidi, Trudy, Email.
I realize that Email is only mentioned (though she appeared in some early Multiplayer betas) in the main game, but she's still a known character and I think it would be interesting to have fic for her. No great loss if she isn't approved, however. Heidi and Trudy are my favorite MTaS characters and this is likely the last year this game will be eligible - it's at 885 fics after filters. (I may or may not keep Email nominated; Trudy, Heidi, and Worldbuilding are definite, though.)

ETA: I dropped Email on this. I am asking for Heidi and Trudy on my letter. I also dropped worldbuilding since I realized I'm mostly interested in Heidi or Trudy-centric fic.

I've got mixed feelings about the two Fantasy Life games being merged if it comes up. On one hand, they do take place in the same universe/on the same planet, as evidenced by the buddies, the references, and the random Castele paladins at ( spoiler locations ). But on the other hand, I'm worried that someone only familiar with the newer game will be very confused by prompts set in Castele or Port Puerto. A lot of people tag both games for newer game-set fic.

... You know what? If it comes up I'll just record all the NA Tailor dialogue for Taylor/Purl/Chic(/Zippy/Spoolie) onto my Dreamwidth if it comes down to it, and go for Taylor, Monsieur Cobra, Worldbuilding, and Mira (alternatively, Chemmel or Purl).

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Yaaaay!

2025-09-14T04:06:52Z

With everything going on in the world, I missed an announcement that was in the Nintendo Direct!

Fatal Frame II remake! The costumes look different, but I think it's at least taking some cues from Deep Crimson Butterfly, which along with Fatal Frame IV and V was (re-)released on some form of the Wii (and therefore easier to bring to modern devices). And again, it is not Switch-exclusive.

I'm hoping they ditch the ghost hand mechanic that really was annoying in Deep Crimson Butterfly (and IV, and V). It's the only bit of the game I really didn't enjoy.

Oooh, they seem to have added the ability to run, something that didn't appear until Fatal Frame V... before that, the fastest any of our protagonists moved was maybe a very slow jog.

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