badfalcon: (Garcia)
[personal profile] badfalcon

Journaling Prompt: What games do you play, if any? Are you a solo-gamer or do you view games as a social activity?

I’ve been a gamer for as long as I can remember. It started with Space Invaders on the Amstrad CPC 464 in the mid-80s - that clunky green-screen magic, the beep-boop intensity, the sheer novelty of it all. And I never really stopped.

Over the years, I’ve collected a fair few consoles: SNES, Gameboy, Playstation, PS2, Wii, Switch. I’ve still got them all, too. There's something oddly comforting about holding onto those pieces of plastic and circuitry, like keeping a time capsule of different versions of myself.

I’m definitely a solo-gamer. Always have been. I think it’s the introvert in me. I like slipping into a gameworld on my own terms, no pressure, no voice chat, no audience. Just me, the screen, and whatever rhythm the game wants me to fall into.

My favourites fall into a few categories:

Old school side-scrolling platforms
Tight levels, tricky jumps, that sense of flow when everything clicks. Still satisfying as hell.

Racing games
Especially Rock & Roll Racing, which lives in my memory as pure, chaotic joy. The soundtrack! The mayhem! The fact I can still hum the menu music unprompted!

Millennial dream games
AKA my happy place. Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, Story of Seasons, Stardew Valley, Palia. I will always love games where you can farm, fish, befriend villagers, decorate your house, and wander around making little To Do lists for yourself. Peak comfort.

I know gaming is a social thing for a lot of people, and that’s great, but for me, it’s always been a way to unwind, to self-soothe, to get lost in a world I don’t have to share unless I choose to. A quiet kind of joy.

Two cozy-living titles are landing in August that have me genuinely buzzing - Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar and Tiny Bookshop

Grand Bazaar is a remake of the classic Harvest Moon DS: Grand Bazaar, rebuilt for Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, and PC. It looks like it'll hit all the familiar beats of the series - the crops, the bazaar, the friendships - with some extra structure and energy, like planning your stall layout, managing inventory, ringing the announcer bell, all while engaging with townsfolk and growing relationships

Tiny Bookshop 
feels like someone peeked inside my brain and made a game out of it. You run a little travelling bookshop in a seaside town, stocking shelves, making recommendations based on people’s moods, and slowly building relationships with the locals. I played the demo earlier this year and it was fantastic. It's out next week and I can't wait!

Both games feel deeply me. They’re about building worlds, making meaningful (but low‑stress) choices, and finding comfort in routine. Can’t wait to build my bazaar stall and decorate my little bookshop by the sea.

the blue cheese incident

Jul. 27th, 2025 10:37 am
runpunkrun: silverware laid out on a cloth napkin (gather yon utensils)
[personal profile] runpunkrun
I played a hilarious trick on myself. I had a coupon for a free Follow Your Heart vegan cheese, and the Kroger had fake parmesan (with ingredients I avoid), fake feta (but they were out), and fake bleu cheese (which I didn't like even when I could eat cheese).

But the coupon was about to expire and it was free, so I got the bleu cheese style crumbles as an experiment. Hilariously it tastes (and smells!!) just like blue cheese, only not quite as strong. I sprinkled some on my salad and didn't hate it and so I kept sprinkling because I don't get many novel flavors these days, and now it's actually starting to grow on me. It's tangy and creamy and kind of melts into the salad dressing in a pleasing way. If only it didn't taste like blue cheese.

Anyway, if you're a dairy-free-ish person who likes blue cheese, I recommend this! It's vegan, soy-free, and gluten-free, and I had my dad, a cheese-eater and gorgonzola enthusiast, try it and he was surprised at how good it was, saying it could pass as the real thing. I'm really looking forward to trying their feta. I have high hopes that it's similarly realistic.
Current ingredients: Filtered Water, Organic Coconut Oil, Modified Potato Starch, Sea Salt, Potato Starch, Natural Flavors, Less than 2% of: Potato Protein, Organic Vegan Cane Sugar, Calcium Phosphate, Lactic Acid, Caramel Color, Spirulina, Beta Carotene for Color.
badfalcon: (Stop Look Listen)
[personal profile] badfalcon

There’s just something deeply compelling about watching two characters navigate uneven ground - whether it’s age, experience, authority, or institutional power - and still manage to build something charged and intimate between them. Not despite the imbalance, but through it. That slow burn of restraint. The ache of wanting something they shouldn't. The negotiations of trust, timing, control, and care.

This is especially compelling when both characters are competent in their own right, but operating from different registers: mentor/student, coach/player, commander/civilian specialist, master/apprentice. The imbalance isn’t about helplessness - it’s about the impossibility of an even playing field, and the intimacy that arises anyway.

These dynamics can be messy and complicated and so emotionally satisfying when done right. They let fiction stretch into questions of loyalty, respect, control, vulnerability. What does it mean to choose closeness, when there are rules saying you shouldn’t? What does it cost, to reach for someone who could say no with a word?

Some personal favourites:

Jannik Sinner/Simone Vagnozzi – restrained affection, a coach who holds himself too tightly, and a player who sees straight through him
Jannik Sinner/Darren Cahill - built on loyalty, history, and the kind of attention that feels more like possession if you look too long
Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi – power wrapped in devotion, connection shaped by discipline, love made sharper by its impossibility
Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg – the sentinel and the grad student who never stops talking, thrown together by biology and staying for each other
Jethro Gibbs/Tony DiNozzo – command and obedience with a side of locker room banter and unspoken everything
Jack O’Neill/Daniel Jackson – sarcasm vs sincerity, orders vs ethics, saving the world one lingering look at a time

 

And yes, this is entirely about fiction. These dynamics let us explore things that might be fraught or even dangerous in real life but that, in the hands of a good writer, become vehicles for emotional tension, character growth, and that delicious blend of intimacy and restraint.

Give me the power imbalance that heightens the stakes. Give me the age difference that adds weight to every decision. Give me the mentor figure trying not to fall. Give me the younger one pushing every boundary, knowing exactly what they're doing. Give me the slow unravelling, the look that lingers too long, the moment someone steps just half an inch closer than they should. Give me the ache of wanting what they shouldn't - and wanting it well.

I want characters who should know better - and want it anyway.

I want stories where love is inconvenient. Where it’s earned. Where it burns, quietly and ferociously, just beneath the surface.

I will never be over it

badfalcon: (Sinner)
[personal profile] badfalcon
The emotional rollercoaster of ADHD, now featuring Jannik Sinner

I’ve loved tennis for as long as I can remember. I was a kid when Boris Becker won Wimbledon for the first time, and I still remember the shock and thrill of it. Every summer, I’d watch the big tournaments—Wimbledon, the US Open—cheering for favourites, crying over finals, holding my breath through tiebreaks. Tennis has always been there in the background of my life.

But this past year? Something changed. I didn’t just watch the tournaments. I tripped and fell face-first into the tennis rabbit hole, and my ADHD brain never looked back.

Suddenly I wasn’t just watching finals—I was streaming early-round matches from obscure courts in the middle of the night. I was memorising ranking points, tracking players through Challenger events, and refreshing draw sheets like it was my job. What had been a familiar hobby became a full-blown hyperfixation.

And honestly? It makes perfect sense. Because tennis, as a sport, is practically tailor-made for the ADHD brain.


🧠 The ADHD Brain Craves Chaos (And Tennis Delivers)

People talk about ADHD like it’s a lack of attention—but really, it’s an avalanche of attention. A constant, restless hunger for stimulation. We don’t just want something to focus on—we want everythingall at onceright now.

Tennis is perfect for that. It’s always moving. Always shifting. There’s no off-season, just a weekly churn of tournaments: new cities, new surfaces, new stories. Matches run almost 24/7, thanks to international time zones and overlapping events. And my brain absolutely eats it up.

Some days I feel like I’m conducting an entire symphony of tennis in the background of my life. I’ve got live scores on the BBC site permanently open. I’m lurking in Discord servers, scrolling Tumblr, catching up on fan analysis, watching streams on one screen while doing something completely unrelated on another. If I can’t watch, I’ll listen—commentary in my ears while I work, drive, cook. I always want to know what’s happening, who’s playing, and what it means for the rankings.

And I’ve had so many favourite players over the years. McEnroe, Becker, Agassi, Hewitt, Ferrero, Ferrer, Henman, Rusedski, Nadal... names that marked different eras of my life. Right now? It’s Jannik Sinner. I’m a little bit feral about him, if I’m honest. His calm intensity, the way he’s grown, the narrative of it all. My brain has fully latched on.

Hyperfixation means I don’t just enjoy tennis—I need it. I collect every detail, chase every stat, build an emotional attachment to players’ arcs like they’re characters in an epic novel. I cheer like a maniac. I grieve their losses like personal heartbreaks. It’s deeply immersive, and deeply ADHD.


💥 The Joy of Feeling Everything

One of the secret superpowers of ADHD is intensity. When we love something, we love it big. It’s not casual; it’s not background noise. It’s a full-body, full-brain experience. And with tennis, that intensity finds the perfect outlet.

I get emotionally attached to players like they’re old friends. I follow their arcs, their interviews, their off-court stories. I root for the underdogs, the veterans on a comeback, the teenagers making their first deep run. I feel the drama of a five-setter in my bones. I get actual adrenaline spikes during match points. Sometimes I have to pause matches to pace around the room like a sports parent at a school final.

Tennis gives me endless narratives to invest in—rivalries, redemption stories, unexpected breakthroughs. And the sport’s natural unpredictability? Chef’s kiss. My ADHD brain thrives on that kind of emotional volatility. It's dopamine with a scoreboard.


🌀 …But Also, It Can Get a Bit Much

Of course, the flip side of hyperfixation is that it’s not always healthy. ADHD doesn’t really come with a dimmer switch. When I’m in it, I’m all in. And sometimes, that means I burn out.

I’ll watch twelve/thirteen hours of matches in a day (first day of Wimbledon there were TWENTY SEVEN matches I wanted to watch), forget to eat lunch, and then feel completely wiped out with post-slam emptiness when it’s all over. I’ll refresh pages and track rankings like my mood depends on it—and sometimes, it kind of does. There are days when I realise I haven’t listened to music or read a book in weeks because all my spare time is going to livestreams, stats, and press conference clips.

And when a favourite player loses—especially if it’s early, or unexpected—it can hit harder than it should. It feels silly sometimes, getting so upset about a sport. But hyperfixation doesn’t really care what’s “rational.” It’s real. The emotions are real.

There’s also the ADHD guilt loop: the moment I step back and go, Should I be this obsessed? Should I be more balanced? Should I care less? The truth is, I don’t always want to care less. But I do try to remind myself to pause. To breathe. To let myself step away when I need to. Because I know the cycle by now: fixation, immersion, burnout, reset.


💛 Letting It Matter

I’ve learned not to fight it anymore—this way my brain grabs hold of things and refuses to let go. My ADHD doesn’t always play by the rules, but it’s not broken. It’s wired for passion. For deep dives. For connection.

Tennis gives me structure and chaos at the same time. A rhythm that’s always changing. A story that’s never finished. It gives my brain something to build with—facts, feelings, routines, predictions. It’s comfort. It’s stimulation. It’s joy.

Yes, sometimes I have to pull back. Sometimes I have to take a breath and remind myself I don’t need to follow every match or know every stat. But other times? I lean in. I let myself feel it all. The wins, the losses, the late-night streams. The Tumblr memes and score-watching tabs and yelling into the void with strangers on Discord.

Because in a world that often tells neurodivergent people to be less, to be quieter, calmer, more contained—hyperfixation can feel like resistance. Like claiming joy on our own terms.

So yes, I am currently obsessed with Jannik Sinner. Yes, I do keep live scores open while working. Yes, I cry over matches and scream over fifth sets and watch tennis like it’s the greatest drama ever written.

And honestly?

It kind of is.


runpunkrun: Dana Scully reading Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space' in the style of a poster you'd find in your school library, text: Read. (reading)
[personal profile] runpunkrun
A good old fashioned young adult novel about being stranded on an inhospitable planet and struggling to live off a steadily declining cache of resources. In one case, it's an alien world far in the future, and in the other, the dying Earth those colonists left, where the last inhabitants are about to extinguish themselves through nuclear war. Ah, children's lit.

This is actually a sequel to The Darkness Outside Us, but if you're a chaos demon you might be able to read this without having read the first. Partly because it stands on its own while gently reminding the reader what happened in the first book, but also because it fully retreads some of the same ground.

Because half of this book was telling me stuff I already, basically, knew, I was much more interested in the sections on the alien planet with its frontier survival vibes and foreign mysteries. I wanted to spend all my time there rather than on Earth, since I already knew that was a lost cause, and any new information we got in those sections could have easily been worked into the future segments and much of it, in fact, was. But it wasn't a chore to spend time with the original versions of Ambrose and Kodiak as they come to terms with the lies they've been told and try to undo some of the damage they caused, and together the two parts of this book tell a full story that comes to a satisfying conclusion, whether or not there's ever a third book in the series. But if there is, I'll be there.

Contains: queer dads; child harm and references to child death; wild animal harm/death; mental illness with intrusive thoughts; gun violence; nuclear apocalypse; climate disaster.

This week in Tennis Dads History

Jul. 22nd, 2025 12:04 pm
badfalcon: (Tennis Darren)
[personal profile] badfalcon
So, you may have noticed over recent months, that I rather adore both of Jannik's coaches - Simone Vagnozzi & Darren Cahill who are generally known as the tennis dads. They (Darren especially) are very much my niche on Tennisblr (I mean, my username is [tumblr.com profile] tennisdadsaficionado which kind of gives it away

But most people... they don't know anything about them, other than 'Jannik's coaches' and things that Jannik has teased them about (like Simone's highest ranking being 161).

Me? I first saw Darren play in 1987, mixed doubles final at Wimbledon. His highest singles rank was 22 and his highest doubles rank was 10. He was a good player. Don't get me wrong, he's a fucking incredible coach, but he was a good player too. Simone's pro career lasted 16 years

So I started a little series, looking at the tournaments that have happened this week in previous years

On the ATP tour
Croatia Open, Umag
Simone- played 4 times in single, got knocked out in Q2 twice (2008 & 2012) and R32 twice (2010 & 2011)
In doubles, he played 4 times and got knocked out in R16 every time (2005, 2008, 2010 & 2011)

Darren has never played Umag

Generali Open, Austria:
Simone has never played Kitzbuhel

Darren - reached the SF in 1987 in singles
In doubles, reached the QF in 1985

Washington Open, USA:
Simone has never played Washington

Darren - reached the QF in 1988
In doubles, he reached the QF in 1990

And looking at the Challengers circuit we have one tournament:

Tampere, Finland
Simone - reached R16 in singles twice (2008, 2009)
In doubles, he reached the FINAL in 2009

Darren has never played Tampere

Also, I've just started looking the ITF/Futures circuit for Simone (which, for the record, is much fucking harder to follow!)
Valladolid, Spain
2003 - 1st round singles

San Marino
2004 - 1st round singles
2008 - 1st round singles, 1st round doubles

Poznan, Poland
2007 - 1st round singles

Orbetello, Italy
2012 - 2nd round singles, FINAL in doubles
2013 - QF singles, WON in doubles

Aarhus, Denmark
2014 - SF singles, WON in doubles

and for Darren? We have some of ye old Grand Prix as well which gives us:
Washington DC, USA
1988 - 2nd round in doubles
1989 - 1st round in singles
1990 - QF in doubles

South Orange NJ, USA
1989 - 1st round in doubles

Hilversum, Netherland
1985 - QF in singles, 1st round in doubles

Stratton Mountain, USA
1988 - SF in singles, QF in doubles

Davis Cup Qualifying
1989 - WON in singles, WON in doubles

Stuttgart, GER
1989 - 2nd round singles

Toronto, CAN
1990 - 3rd round in singles, 1st round in doubles

#661, Bashō

Jul. 21st, 2025 11:27 am
runpunkrun: john sheppard and teyla emmagan in uniform and standing in a rocky streambed (hold the stillness exactly before us)
[personal profile] runpunkrun
a wild boar
is also blown about
by the typhoon
     -1690

Translation by Jane Reichhold.

俳句 )

✨glimmers and good things ✨

Jul. 20th, 2025 07:03 pm
badfalcon: (Geeks at Work)
[personal profile] badfalcon
The past week’s been a foggy one — low on energy, high on friction. I’ve barely touched the computer, partly because I’ve had nothing to give, and partly because every little thing felt like too much. Office politics have been quietly draining, I forgot how much fandom drama can wear you out even when you’re not trying to be involved, and I’m still figuring out how changes in my joints are shifting my spoons, my energy, my everything.

I know those are the days I need the glimmers the most — but sometimes, when everything feels heavy, even looking for them is hard.

But today I’m back at the screen. I want to keep trying. These soft, bright moments matter — especially when they’re hard to find.

✨ today’s glimmers and good things ✨

🌸 I let myself stay in soft clothes all day, and tried not to feel guilty for needing rest. It felt like the kindest thing I could do.
🎧 I listened to music that matched my mood perfectly, and it felt like being held in just the right kind of quiet.
📖 I spent the afternoon reading, letting myself drift a little in someone else’s words. It was soft, and it helped.

@fan_writers

Jul. 20th, 2025 10:07 am
runpunkrun: benton fraser writing a letter (a long letter on a short piece of paper)
[personal profile] runpunkrun
Banner with text: fan_writers.dreamwidth.org: talking about writing. Black and white image shows hands typing on a laptop and a pen making revisions on a piece of lined notebook paper.
New comm for meta about writing! Moderated by fandom staples [personal profile] mific and [personal profile] china_shop!
badfalcon: (Geek & Proud)
[personal profile] badfalcon
So Darren posts his Wimbledon photo dump, right? Perfectly normal, very expected. There’s Jannik kissing the trophy, there’s the on-court hugs, the celebrations, the team somewhat drunk on champagne - clean, tidy, emotional but, like, manageable.

And then.
And then.


...there’s more... )

darren cahill what the hell?!

  • Jannik in the ice bath, grinning like he just won “most adorable glacier,”

  • SIMONE in the background, shirtless and smug and looking absolutely incredible (I'm slowly winning people over to the Simone love and this is definitely helping!)

  • full team garden party energy with shirtless Europeans melting in the heatwave, empty beer bottles, and one (1) fully clothed Australian man in the corner like, “I’m too sun-safe for this chaos,”

  • and finally, the coup de grâce: Jannik curled up asleep on the couch like a feral little nap prince while Darren sits next to him grinning like he didn’t just send us into a spiral.


AND ANOTHER THING.

Did anyone else clock that every framed photo above Sleeping Jannik™ is of Darren himself at Wimbledon?? Like. Sir. You’re napping under your mentor’s greatest hits montage (LMAO). How am I supposed to focus. How is this not already the opening scene of a slow-burn, emotionally tender polyfic. (spoiler alert: it is!) I am hanging on by a thread.

Anyway I am once again asking Darren Cahill to stop feeding my packfic/polycule brain like this. Or don’t. Honestly, don’t. I am thriving. I am spiralling. It’s fine.

...that said, we really do need to talk about the conspicuous lack of mostly-naked Darren.
Feels targeted. Feels cruel. Feels like censorship.

This post brought to you by: emotional damage, shirtless Europeans, and Darren Cahill’s ongoing refusal to take his damn shirt off.
Shirtless Simone: ✅
Ice bath Jannik: ✅
Mostly-naked Darren: ❌ and I am formally filing a complaint.

Plas Newydd, Anglesey

Jul. 19th, 2025 08:33 pm
lurkingcat: (Default)
[personal profile] lurkingcat
We drove out to Anglesey on Wednesday to visit Plas Newydd, which we'd somehow failed to visit when we actually stayed on Anglesey.

PXL_20250716_144142710.MP

The original house on the site was built in the thirteenth century but the current building was started in the early fifteenth century and has been expanded many times since. I failed to take any photos inside (I have very definitely lost the habit of taking photos), which I'm regretting now as some of the rooms were presented in the state that they would have been in the 1930's. That's a lot more recent than most National Trust properties and I found that very interesting. But the thing that I really should have taken a picture of was the amazing Rex Whistler mural in the dining room. There's a picture in the Wikipedia entry that really doesn't do it justice. Not that a photo was really going to capture all the perspective tricks in it. As you walk from one end to the other, some of the perspective changes and things like the wet footprints on the quayside change direction.

The house is set in a lovely garden that we would have explored more of but we made the mistake of taking the path out to the rhododendron garden first. There is a warning sign that the path is a little tricky but that didn't really cover how slippery it was after the rain. Inevitably I stumbled and slid a little about halfway along the route and my ankle twinged. I thought it was okay but by the time we actually reached the rhododendron garden it was quite sore and [personal profile] battlehamster ended up taking my rucksack on the way back so that I wasn't putting too much weight on the ankle. We sat and had some ice cream and took a very gentle walk along a much smoother path, saw a couple of red squirrels, and then headed back to Portmeirion.

I don't think I've done anything serious to the ankle but we're back home now and it's still unhappy enough that I caught the bus into town to get my hair cut this morning rather than walking down the hill. Which is a bit frustrating because I enjoy walking and it's my main form of exercise. Hopefully the ankle will settle down again in the next couple of days.
runpunkrun: chibi rodney mckay hugs a robot and thinks "mine" (robot scientist)
[personal profile] runpunkrun
I was like, can I make this work for [community profile] fancake's "Working Together" theme? And I decided I could not.

So I'm going to slap it in here for now because it's too good not to share immediately:

RADIOACTIVE by Murderbot [vid] (30 words) by pollyrepeat
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Murderbot (TV)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Characters: Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries)
Additional Tags: The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon (Murderbot Diaries), Fanvids, Video Format: Streaming, Embedded Video
Summary:

A vid or fanvid is a video edit, often set to music, produced by fans, known as "vidders."



No spoilers for Murderbot, and all the spoilers, I guess, for The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.
runpunkrun: Dana Scully reading Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space' in the style of a poster you'd find in your school library, text: Read. (reading)
[personal profile] runpunkrun
Perihelion's people notice it's been acting strangely since it returned from its last solo mission. A short story set after Artificial Condition.

My favorite thing about this series is Murderbot and ART and their favorite humans. My least favorite thing is all the descriptions of walking around. This has both. I would have liked it a lot better if it had spent half as much time describing the path they took through the spaceport facility and twice as much time exploring Iris and Peri's relationship because that's the important stuff, right? I wanted to learn more about their relationship and the ways Peri changed after meeting Murderbot and what Iris thinks about those changes. Here I was thinking ART was always like this, but it seems Murderbot might have had more of an effect on ART then it could have known.

Instead: Transit schedules. :(

Read it for free at Reactor.

Profile

SG1 Mission Report: The SG-1 noticeboard community

July 2018

S M T W T F S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
2223242526 2728
293031    

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 29th, 2025 12:51 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios