#caed speaks

[caedharlowe]

NYE Resolutions Meme

Tagged by @a-gay-bloodmage to list 6 or more resolutions for the new year. Thank you for the tag! Some of these ambitions are particularly ambitious, but that’s what they’re for.

1. Shamelessly cribbing off AGB’s process, and aiming for weekly fic uploads, either one-shots or new chapters. I’ve already written down 52 prompts, and filling out and writing ideas for some of them. I enjoy the process of writing, and it’s so easy to slip from the rhythm.

2. Participate in more Bangs! I’m looking forward to DABB’s 10k Bang, as well as a 10k Minibang that goes live in the first half of 2026.

3. Draw more! Gonna be boring and *also* say weekly upload for this, too, if not more often. I miss drawing, and while I’ve had other important stuff going on, I want to get back to that in the coming year. Posting is less about engagement, for this, than accountability.

4. Finish my diploma. It’s a self-paced 2 year traineeship, and I’m going to try and get as much done in a year as I can, so I’m not bound to the same workplace for so long.

5. Cook more often. This is something that’s gonna happen naturally once I move house, but it’s still a deliberate intention I have. I wanna try out all of the foods.

6. Visit my parents more often. Living with friends soon is going to make that more of an option, as I’ll have somebody who’s willing to feed Pirate for a day or two while I’m away. This last year it’s been either board Pirate (expensive) or do a day trip (deeply unpleasant when they live 4 hours away).

6 people for 2026, I tag @birdylion @procrastinatetovictory @vampiremonday @shycuddledragon @chekhovs-strap-on @isenstar777 if you would like to talk about any resolutions or exciting plans you have for the new year!

[caedesdeo]

New crafting experience: cross-stitching on 27 count evenweave for the first time (instead of 14 count aida)

Interim conclusion: I am not particularly impressed with you, fabric that works in blocks of 3. You are fiddly with odd numbered hole counts and have REALLY FUCKING TINY SPACING FUCKING HELL WHY

.....

I’m getting used to it.

[caedharlowe]

thought I was being so so brave and relaxed at the dentist check up today but then my fitbit started yelling at me and it turns out I was so so brave and also sitting at a heart rate of 45bpm for like half an hour

[caedharlowe]

Apparently I have 45k likes here. Terrifying. Working my way thru them backwards. Slowly

[caedharlowe]

in study hell atm but here is a Pirate

[caedharlowe]

I've never actually had anyone I'm close to die before. yeah, I knew two of my grandparents before they died, but I was a kid and they were holiday visit kind of grandparents. My friend I've known for years, who I hung out with so many times, who helped talk me through my relationship breakdown, who reached out before I even realised I was feeling suicidal. How can he just die. I keep thinking maybe I misunderstood "the body of a 33-year-old man has been located". but he's dead. that's not the missing person update for someone found alive.

and I keep hesitating to send a message to his partner, because it feels like that will make it real. but hiding like that isn't what he would want, and its not what I want either.

[caedharlowe]

I *need* to know about their First Blight. like. it lasted nearly two hundred years. the only Blights we've seen in game have lasted a year, and less than (though doubled). was the first blight mild in comparison? was it the same terrible waves of darkspawn, but for generation after generation? how much culture and history was around and got lost due to all the death and destruction.

like. imagine if in-game the fifth and last Blights were predicted to last even half as long. yeah, the dwarves and the tevenes both got decimated, more than decimated. people would have been desperate for any solution. they were drinking the nastiest potions and casting the bloodiest spells until they figured out the joining ritual.

how much magical knowledge was lost, that people could survive, that not every single culture got wiped off the map. whatever any of the dwarves did to survive, it was justified. Orzammar and Kal-Sharok both.

[caedharlowe]

anyway what was up with the multiple aravels in D'Meta's Crossing. were the clan members supposed to be part of the ~100 townsfolk the mayor sacrificed, or were they a nice bonus. Bellara is familiar enough with the town to know it's market day, and what that would look like, but there's barely a passing comment about the blight pushing the aravels around.

strife and irelin mention rescuing three dalish settlements from the waves of darkspawn, so we know they're known about and cared for. bioware pls. give me something