I am so freaking proud of my new base. It's really lovely and I had so much fun building it.
This game has such potential for creativity. The building blocks are much like Lego, really. And playing it helps me gain more confidence with problem solving, project management and tenaciousness. Never thought I'd get that much out of a simple game.
Have a look at my base. No, it's not perfect, but it's mine, as they say.
@Firlefanz The main issue I had with raids was, I would spend a LOT of time building or dealing with the farm, so every time raids happened I was in the middle of a project and got annoyed haha. I also hear that some of the late game raids just become ridiculous.
Main (in the mutual game) had two raids in a row where four trolls descended on our base each time. Fortunately, I could lure them away (and kill two each time).
In one raid, they destroyed one portal (not difficult to fix, fortunately), in the other raid, they smashed in one wall of our house. (Wood.)
It's so fair that we don't lose materials when things get smashed.
It hasn't really been making international news, and even our German media have been lazy about reporting this - but I wanted to let you know that hundreds of thousands of Germans are out in the streets and towns, protesting against the right-wing extremists here in Germany.
I was out myself today, along with 15,000 others in my town, for Holocaust Memorial Day. 100,000 in Düsseldorf alone, plenty more across the entire country. More protests are planned for tomorrow.
Hundreds of them, even in small towns. In fact, one quarter of the entire population of Spiekeroog, a small island in the Wadden Sea turned out today - 200 of them.
I am immensely proud of this movement, of the fact that the "silent majority" is rising and becoming visible. Clearly demanding human rights and better policies rather than sidling up to the new Nazis in our country.
These protests are peaceful, non-violent and family affairs. I saw quite a few small children today.
Here is an article from the Guardian, from Sunday a week ago - when 1.5 million Germans were out in the streets, not just "more than a hundred thousand", as they say... The protests have gained momentum since then.
We need this all over the world. We need to show those extremists that we do not want them.
Of course, there's a bit of a catch. Yes, it's up on Amazon, Google and Kobo, but the other stores are still taking their sweet old time. (Looking at you, Apple and Tolino.)
Which means that the link below isn't yet as fully functional as it will be in a couple of days. Apologies!
So I'm starting so share good things. And I want to create a new hashtag or so to use when you want to jump into sharing hopeful news.
Below is an article about how to change cities so they heat up less. We'll need this in order to survive the heatwaves that will happen more often and become stronger.
Dictionary.com laid off all its lexicographers this month.
Presumably to replace them with AI. (My opinion.)
Sadly, thesaurus.com and dictionary.com are two of my most important resources when writing. I will look for alternatives now, because they basically decided to stop being a good service.
Enshittification is spreading at an ever increasing rate. It makes me sad. I thought we were headed towards a good future. Instead, it's turning... brown. 😬
@Firlefanz For German-English I've been using dicct.com for years. And then I checked the words in the thesaurus...
I don't think they are associated with any of the money-grabbers.
@Firlefanz Das stimmt, Mastodon ist gerade im Vergleich zu Twitter ein sehr viel netterer Ort. 😄
Aber es gibt halt Fanfictions, die viel Wert auf die Nähe zum Original legen und manche, die völlig abgedreht sind. Oder auch Was wäre wenn Fragen erörtern, die dann ja auch zu ganz anderen Szenarien führen.
Jeder nach seiner Fasson, denn am Ende tut es niemandem weh, wenn es viele Fanfictions gibt. Vielleicht erhöht es sogar noch den Bekanntheitsgrad des Hauptwerkes.
I haven't even gotten to the print stage yet. I assume everything about that process will cost more than I have to spend at present. I know Kickstarters have worked for lots of folks. Maybe they work better if you already have a following?
@Firlefanz Plotting IS writing. THINKING about the plot and moving it forward IS writing.
Don't get discouraged - I can't write actual words without the support structure. I've been plotting for months. Almost have the last volume of my mainstream trilogy locked into place.
Plotting IS writing.
@Firlefanz Great that you're getting more words. I like that part, too.
I know a lot of pantsers who think as you do - and love that excitement.
I think it is innate - you are what you are, and have to spend time when you start writing learning exactly what that means for you. I thought I was a pantser; I'm not. Doesn't matter.
But each of my books has had this front-load of time spent on plot/structure, and I use that to know what to write next. That's me. It's still exciting.
@Firlefanz
Ich will mal fragen, wenn ich darf:
Kurzfristig: Ist das ein Erfolgserlebnis, das du schon oft hattest? Oder eines, auf das du noch wartest?
Langfristig: wird das einziges Einkommen sein? Oder ein Nebeneinkommen? Oder ein Haupteinkommen? Hast du schon berechnet, wieviel du monatlich brauchen wirst? (Du brauchst die Summe nicht zu enthüllen, ich will nur wissen, ob du sie weisst.) 😀
It was basically a 50% chance, with almost 600 submissions and 300 books in the running.
I'm very excited. Of course, we will wait for the finalized list, and then we'll wait even longer for the reviews to trickle in. Eventually, each reviewer will list three favorites, and the final winner will be chosen from those 30 books.
I doubt South will be among those, but one can dream.
@Firlefanz I've never entered, but I did the SPSFC two years ago and made it all the way to the semifinals, but I'm not sure how because every review I saw seemed negative. Regardless, I was pretty pleased about it. I'm rooting for you.
Took care of one more frazzling thing today (yes, even though it's Sunday), read through what I have of the spicy shifter story and realized it still needs quite a few more chapters.
shoves it to the backburner again
(We'll see what Writer Brain says about that...)
And since I promised, I did format Sky tonight. I think it looks good, but see for yourself below.
@Firlefanz@wandering_free awesome! For some reason my follow button is blanked out and won’t let me click on it. This is the case on every profile I go to. I’ll have to reach out to mastodon support if it doesn’t blow over, but I will absolutely follow you when that is fixed, if it didn’t already work just by clicking the broken button lol. Did you get a notification saying I followed you?