Not much today because a good portion of the day was spent getting ready to go back home and then getting there, but YAY I'M HOME! I had a fun "vacation" with the dog, but glad to be back in my own space.

1. one creative thing I did today

Worked on a swatch for a knitted tee. Just a row or two, but I touched it.

When I got home, I did some searching on Ravelry to find something for a Nerdopolis challenge. For those new around here: Nerdopolis is a crafting tournament in which we get themes to craft to. One of the themes this month is "deep space objects", so I've been looking for stuff that is reminiscent of spiral galaxies.

I found a great hat that I wanted to knit, but (a) I wasn't sure I'd have time because it was densely knit worsted weight AND double-layered, (b) I went to purchase it and it said "This designer is not taking payments at this time." Tried their Etsy store, and it's closed. Ah, well. I had previously started a crocheted doily that I might finish, but I wasn't digging it, so I dunno. The end of round is coming, though, so I'll need to make SOMETHING.

2. one thing I'm proud of today

I cleaned the house before I left, to my satisfaction. Also left a note to say how good the dog was, here's some things they should know about, and thanking them for trusting me with their home and dog.

3. video game progress

I logged into FFXIV just so my console would be ON (I had shut it down completely before I left), which meant I did the PlayStation 5 OS upgrade and new TOS agreement. Now the console is asleep, or will be soon. I'm purposely leaving it sleeping so when patch hits tomorrow night, it gets updated and I won't have to wait for it before I play on Tuesday morning. I didn't do much in game, just checked retainers (they sold a bunch of things! That's what happens when you don't log in for over a week) and spent some poetics on HW relic materials.

and that's it for today.

Friending Meme! Come make new friends!

OKAY FOLKS it is time for another round of Althea's List of Interesting Dreamwidth Communities! I last posted this during snowflake_challenge this year, so just a few months ago, but I've stealth added some more since then.

Rules:
1. Share freely! This post is public for that reason.
2. If you know of a good comm and want to see it featured, comment and I'll very likely add it.
3. I refuse to add comms that full of bigotry and hate. That seems to not be a Dreamwidth thing, but I am sure they are out there. I'm here for supportive / fun places!

And now, here's the list! They are roughly in reverse chronological order to when they've been added, so newer ones are at the top. EDIT @ 12:22pm: I've redone the list to be broken down roughly alphabetical by category, which should make it easier to manage!

---

Dreamwidth

Non-official communities to help make your time on Dreamwidth more rich.

• 3weeks4dreamwidth is a thing in which people post/interact more on Dreamwidth, to show love for the platform. ♥


• addme_fandom A friend finding community, but with a specific fandom focus! Interested in a particular fandom right now and want more people to talk about it with? Here’s a good place to find fellow fans!


• addme_fandom is a place to find friends who share your fannish obsessions.


• findingfriends : Similar to the addme communities but with a more in-depth approach, including things like posting style and what sort of interactions you’re looking for. Takes more brain power than the addme comms, but I imagine that the connections result in a higher level of compatibility.


• followfriday recommends people/communities to follow each Friday.


• getting_started is a community with resources for those new to Dreamwidth.


• moodthemeinayear is what it says on the tin: the folks there are working on creating custom Dreamwidth mood themes over the course of a year.


• reddit_refugees offers resources for newcomers to Dreamwidth.


• snowflake_challenge runs in January, and is a way to celebrate fandom and meet interesting people on Dreamwidth.


• sunshine_challenge Like snowflake_challenge but runs in the summer months (northern hemisphere, but our Southern Friends experiencing winter are welcome too!)


• twitter_refugees is for folks migrating to Dreamwidth from Twitter.

Bingos

Creative or commenting challenges based on a bingo card.

• allbingo - They do all sorts of bingos, mostly writing-related but I think they've had some crafting ones as well. There's new challenges monthly!


• comment_bingo is a bingo challenge community for commenting on all those fanfics you read.


• genprompt_bingo - for the writers! They generate bingo cards of prompts, with all the prompts being gen. You can, of course, write a shippy fic from the prompt – it’s just the prompts themselves that are gen.


• ladiesbingo is a bingo challenge to make works focused on the relationship between women, whether gen, femslash, or familial. I'm currently having great fun trying to fill my bingo board!


• lyricaltitles is a bingo fest for fanfiction and original fiction centering around using songs for inspiration!


• vid_bingo is a community for vidders to use bingo card prompts to inspire vids

Prompts

Writing or creative challenges that are prompt-based but not bingo cards:

• 100words is a drabble community for fiction of all kinds. They post weekly challenges there.


• 1character is a writing challenge where you choose a character and prompt set, then write one line sentences to fill each prompt.


• 25poemsamonth is a community where a 25 prompt table is posted at the beginning of every month and then, members have until the beginning of the next to fill as many prompts as possible.


• fan_flashworks is a multifandom comm that posts one prompt for the week you use to write a short fanfic.


• ffprompts posts monthly prompts for the Final Fantasy video game franchise. As a big fan of this series, I'd love to see more fills for the prompts happening!


• fic_promptly is created for leaving prompts and answering prompts. All fandoms are allowed, as are original work and real-person work. Fills can be fics or poems. There is no minimum/maximum word count.


• inspiredby posts writing prompts monthly.


• kittens_and_spitefic 's goal is to prompt fan content by acting like a total troll and pretending to bash what you want to see up one side and down the other. Commenters then engage with the supposed "troll" by spamming them with cat (and other animal) macros and/or content that caters to everything the original poster professes to hate.


• sweetandshort is a low-pressure community for creating small fanworks / original works each week.


• threesentenceficathon People leave prompts, other write short fills of 3 sentences or longer.

Writing

Writing-related communities that aren't Bingos or Prompts.

• 10trueloves is a writing challenge where you pair a character with ten others (IIRC, they don't have to be romantic pairings, but I'm not sure – check the comm rules for more info!)


• getyourwordsout is a writing challenge community where you can challenge yourself by wordcount of number of days written per month.


• makezines is for folks doing just that!

Icons

Icon-creating challenges and other icon communities.

• iconthat is another icon challenge community.


• your_favourites is an icon making community that migrated over from LiveJournal. Looks like they have themes for members to create icons for, and then take a vote for best icon. I've joined it in hopes of finding more icons to add to my own journal.

Books

Read-alongs and other book communites:

• booknook posts a weekly Read-in-Progress check-in posts on Wednesdays.


• queerbookclub is a no pressure book club dedicated to fiction books of all genres that are queer in some way! each month we take suggestions on what the next month's book should be and we vote on it. if you're not interested in the book for the month, that's perfectly fine!


• readingtogether - has seen some activity the past few months. It's not like a normal book club where everyone reads the same thing - instead everyone reads their own thing and posts their progress.

Crafts and General Creativity

• everykindofcraft is what it says it is.


• get_knitted posts daily check-ins. The folks there are GREAT about commenting on each other's comments. It's not just for knitting, either - there are people there who do scrapbooking and jigsaw puzzles.


• justcreate - has weekly check in posts where you can update everyone on your creative progress. All kinds of creativity are celebrated there, including fiber arts, drawing, writing, and more.


• nacramamo is National Craft-Making Month, and is gearing up now to kick off in October. The challenge is to work on some kind of craft every day for 31 days.


• communal_creators is a community for creative types! A mini-round for time pledges will be happening this spring. ANY kind of creativity is welcome! We have people writing (both fic and original), knitting, crochet, vidding, storyboarding, baking, making websites... if it's creative, you're welcome here.


• drawesome - has drawing challenges. I haven't taken part yet because I am a very sucky drawer, but I hope to start there in the future.

Culture

Communities focusing on a specific culture.

• c_ent is for Chinese Entertainment, and comes highly recommended by a few people.


• latam is a new community for people to come together to talk about latinamerican music, films, food, culture, fandom, and more! Everyone's welcome, no matter where you're posting from! And you can also post in your language (official languages of the community are Spanish, Portuguese and English!)


• senzenwomen is a community regaling the histories of women in and around Japan, 1868-1945. Thanks to vriddy for signal boosting this fascinating community!

Nature

What it says on the tin.

• birdfeeding covers everything to do with birdfeeding, gardening for wildlife, and related topics.


• common_nature is a photo community to share nature pics from your area, and has been active recently.

Fandom & Gaming

Communities about fandom in general and in specific.

• allkindsofdolls is what it says on the tin. If you love dolls, check it out.


• anime_manga has seen some activity lately!


• bnha_fans is for fans of Boku no Hero Academia


• fandom_on_dw : Pretty much the same as above, honestly, but it’s good that there’s more than one place that hosts this kind of thing!


• fandomcalendar : This is a community dedicated to announcing fandom events, which can include fandom-specific friending memes.


• fictional_fans : A community for all fans and fandoms. If you’ve got a post you want to make about fandom in general, or a specific fandom that doesn’t have its own community, this might be a good place to check out.


• finalfantasy - of course this would be here, if you know me. It's been very slow there lately, but I'd love to see more activity there.


• indie_games sometimes sees activity, and in the past, we did a play-together of A Short Hike.

Social Justice

Because the world is a mess and we just need to fix it.

• fandomtrumpshate raises money for charity by creating fanworks.


• thissterlingcrew is the UK equivalent of the below.


• thisfinecrew is a social justice community focused on the USA. It doesn't get as much action as i once did but there are still informative posts there once in a while.


• womansplace is a community that holds dual purpose: 1) Celebrate characters who identify as women or who are aligned with womanhood in transformative fan works. Events include community recs, a prompt fest, and a vid exchange. 2) Raise funds via a vid auction

Other Communties

These didn't fit in the other categories but I feel are interesting enough to warrant being on this post!

• queerly_beloved : An anti-exclusionist queer space to get together and talk about all things queer, including intersectional matters. Hosts a weekly recommendations thread, but more and other content is very welcome!


• 1word1day posts a vocabulary word a day!


• agonyaunt - critiques letters to advice columnists and the answers the letter writers get. I love this community because it is filled with smart people that I am learning a lot from. I'm a person of a certain age, and I know because of the timeframe I grew up in I have a lot of inherit biases and whatnot. I try to be above those biases, but sometimes I don't recognize them. Reading the other commenters to agonyaunt helps me recognize those biases and better myself.


• awesomeers - they make a post for each day of the week in which they challenge the members to comment with Just One Thing you did today that you're proud of accomplishing. Of course you are free to post more than one thing if you'd like! I love the idea of this community, though I haven't been very active in it lately. I hope to change that, if only to congratulate other people. Also: we celebrate all accomplishments there, so something as simple as "I got out of bed" would be acceptable!


• bujo for bullet journalers.


• crowdfunding connects creators, patrons, and fans of cyberfunded creativity. Watch for the mid-month Creative Jam with a new theme each time.


• do_it - A community for posting to-do lists to make yourself accountable to others.


• holiday_wishes - active in the last two months of the year. People post their holiday wish lists there, and others fill them! I really was blessed one year - I got a bunch of cards, some yarn, some chocolate, and some other sweet treats. &hearts


• journalsandplanners - what it says on the tin: for those who use a journal or planner to organize their lives.


• reference_library is a place to gather helpful links and share them, run by sharpest_asp


• signalboost is for getting the word out to others about people needing help in some way.

So in the recent post by wavesagainstrocks on how you do fandom, I said the following:

I do sometimes feel I am too narrow-minded in my fandoms, because except for yarncrafts and Final Fantasy, I don't really venture out of those areas? I keep saying I'm going to play more single-player games on my own, but it's so EASY to default to FFXI or FFXIV or replay a comforting game. Earlier this year I was playing Epistory (Typing adventures!) which I was enjoying, and I don't think I have much more left so I should probably finish that. I also played about two hours of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and immediately was interested... but the activation energy to do something new to me is hard to find. So easy to just... not do it.

WELL FOLKS! I am away from home watching my sister's dog. My PS5 is back home, so no FFXIV - neither potato computer or mom's laptop can handle it. I could play FFXI on potato computer, but I left its gaming pad at home. Which means either fumbling with keyboard controls (and I am NOT good at them) or seeing if my Switch Pro controller would work.

But that, for once, sounds like too much effort.

So what to do? Well, I brought my Switch along! Now, I could replay FFXII. I was supposed to be doing a random job challenge of it recently, but only played an hour. As much as I like FFXII, I think... I think I don't want to replay a game right now.

Which means I am going to start FINAL FANTASY TACTICS today!

Okay, okay, it's another FF game. But I've never played it. And I have long felt that lack of experience in it as a hole in my gaming knowledge. There's a REASON it's way up there with the Zelda series as a "most wanted to play" game.

I know surprisingly a lot about the game, for not having played it. First, I have an idea of what the gameplay is like, because I've played the shit out of FFT: Advance. Seriously! My game file had like 180 hours put in it.

Second, I know many of the characters already, from them having shown up in first FFBE/WOTV and then when I did the Ivalice raids in FFXIV. This also means I know many of the bigger enemies, too.

I also helped R51 at Caves of Narshe update his FFT section for its recent re-release. This means I know EVERY SINGLE item, weapon, and armor in the game, because I proofread those pages. I know where stuff drops from, or is poached from. I know all the locations, because I checked their map pages for correct links.

My posts will be FULL OF SPOILERS but I ask that you PLEASE not spoil me for anything I haven't talked about yet. Thanks in advance!


( here spoilers start )

(copied from Bsky. Click pics to embiggen.)

So I wasn't a finalist this year in the FFXIV Fan Fest art contest, but I'm still proud of what I made. Here's the story of how I came to knit Alphinaud. colin-ryan #ffxiv #knitting


[Image Description: A close-up on the face of a knitted doll of Alphinaud from Final Fantasy XIV. He's got blue eyes, pointy ears, and a mess of white hair.]

Last May, my depression flared up. Lots of little things were going wrong, and I lost confidence in myself. I needed to do SOMETHING to regain my confidence, so I decided to knit Alphi.

Knitting is my safe space. It's the one area of my life where I am fearless and unafraid to try new things. Because it's just yarn, folks - if you make a mistake, you rip out and redo it. The yarn doesn't mind! (well, most of the time).

So I knew I'd be knitting SOMETHING, and settled on Alphinaud because I adore his character. He keeps moving forward, even when things go wrong or are especially hard. He doesn't give up. I could use a bit of his courage, and hoped knitting him would help.

Knitting his body was the easy part. The pattern is my own design that I've knit at least 10 times before, so it was just a matter of doing it again and making slight changes as Alphinaud is on the slimmer side. It took 22.5 hours over the course of 20 days.


[Image Description: A knitted doll of Alphinaud from FFXIV. He's NAKED! SCANDALOUS! He's got blue eyes and pointed ears. His white hair cap has been knitted and sewn on, but the strands of hair haven't been placed yet in this picture.]

The clothes would be trickier, as I'd be designing them from scratch based on his in-game Sage outfit.

I started with a boot. I wasn't sure how to do the flaps at first. I tried doing foldover flaps but could not wrap my head around the logistics needed for the fold. I scrapped that and then tried flaps separately. That worked better!

I was testing different yarns, though, and the yarn I had tried was too gauzy held singly. So I scrapped that attempt and tried again with the yarn held double. It worked better, but made a tight boot that could stand up on its own. Oops!

Eventually, I gave up on the boot and started on his white tunic. I tried knitting the split hem first, but it was NOT going well.

So I put the tunic aside and knit his pants. This wasn't too bad, because I'd previously made pants for other dolls so it was just a matter of a few alterations to be true to his in-game pants.

This brought me to end of July 2025. Life improved. I had regained my confidence and gotten busy with stuff, so Alphinaud went to the wayside for a time.

Then in late January, the Fan Fest Art Contest was announced! Now, I actually did consider making some other things for it, but some quick calculations told me I didn't have the time. So back to Alphi I went.

His white tunic was first. I goofed on my first attempt by not making an opening at back that would allow it to pass over his head. So I ripped and redid it.

I knit the tunic top down, ending with a point made by decreases on both front and back. It was then time to make the "tails" of the tunic.

Here I made a collosal error: I went off memory, and did not double check the reference picture. I thought there were three tails on both front and back. I dutifully knit them. WRONG!

So I had to rip out all that work and redo the tails. This took a lot of contemplation and experiment to get them right!

I started the tails bottom up. Doing the silver stripes was easy. The problem was that the angle of the tails' bottoms did not match the angle of the tunic bottoms. I would need to determine how to account for that angle.

The answer, after much trial and error: SHORT ROWS! I knit the bottom of the tails first, then did short rows to turn a corner and square off the top, then did decreases along the top to match the angle of the tunic. WHEW!

I finally finished the white tunic on February 26, and went on to the boots, which I reknit in heavier weight yarn. That worked better!

I did not finish the boots until March 2nd. Time was running out - the deadline was the 6th. Would I finish in time? I still needed to do his coat, gloves, and place/style his hair, at the very least.

I started his coat next. Thankfully, I've made doll coats before, so had some idea of how to do it, so I didn't waste much time figuring things out.

Even so, I did not finish the coat until 6:17pm CST on the 6th. EEP! Just a few hours left to deadline!

I took a break for dinner, then went back to it. I started placing hair, spending 40 minutes on it and stopping at 8pm.

I had previously done the first glove when taking a break from the coat, but needed to knit the second. That took 1 hour 13 minutes, finishing at 9:14pm CST.

Finally, I finished the hair. It took me another 1 hour 16 minutes. I finished at 10:30pm CST - 3.5 hours before the midnight PST deadline.

I'd done all the knitting I could. I had planned on doing smaller details as well, but there just wasn't time. Still, I felt he was recognizably Sage Alphinaud. Time for photos!

Unfortunately, photos took some cursing and extra time. To get decent photos in the horizontal layout required took me another hour and a half.

I submitted my official entry just after midnight CST - about two hours before the deadline. Here's those pics. They are not great, so I am not surprised I did not make finalist.


[Image Description: My official Fan Fest entry photos, showing a knitted doll of Alphinaud in his Sage outfit. There's three pics, a larger one on the left showcasing his front, with two smaller pics on the right showing him from the side and back. He's got white hair in a braid, pointed ears, and is wearing a white tunic, blue coat, black pants and white boots and gloves. A charm on a silver necklace completes the outfit.]

Am I disappointed? Of course. But still: proud of myself. I perserved and worked hard and got it done to my satisfaction. Here's some close-up glamor shots taken today!


[Image Description: A knitted doll of Alphinaud from FInal Fantasy XIV. He's got a mess of white hair, pointed ears, and blue eyes. He's wearing a white tunic with tails. The tails have silver stripes at an angle. He's also wearing a blue coat, black pants, white boots and white gloves that are open on the back of the hand.]


[Image Description: A close of up a knitted doll of Alphinaud, showing off his glove. It is white with an opening on the back of the hand. The doll's "hand" is a simple gathered tube without a thumb, so the glove is pretty simple too.]


[Image Description: Close up photo of a knitted doll of Alphinaud. You can see the bottom of his black pants in the photo, but the subject of the photo is his white boots. They go halfway up his leg, and have two flaps about a quarter of the way down.]


[Image Description: A close up of the tunic for my knitted Alphinaud. It's white, featuring a garter stitch panel on front with two pointed tails. The tails have silver stripes set at an angle.]


[Image Description: A knitted doll of Alphinaud, from the back. He's got a mop of white hair on the top, with a neat braid falling down his back. He's wearing a blue coat and white gloves. You can just see the tails of his white tunic peeking out from underneath the coat.]

Alisaie supervised during this process as I had previously knit her--five years ago, so my gauge changed. This meant Alphinaud turned out smaller as I had tightened up some over the years.


[Image Description: A knitted doll of Alisaie from Final Fantasy XIV, sitting in a gaming chair. She is supervising the knitting of her brother. So far, just his head is knit to just under where his nose would be. His blue eyes have already been placed. The knitting is on four small double-pointed needles arranged in a square.]

Here's the twins together - and yes, Alisaie is LIVID at being the bigger, more "rugged" twin. bethanwalker colin-ryan


[Image Description: Knitted dolls of Alphinaud (left) and Alisaie (right) from Final Fantasy XIV. Alphinaud is in his Sage outfit from Endwalker and is wearing a blue coat, white tunic, black pants and white books and gloves. Alisaie is in her Shadowbringers outfit and is wearing a short red dress, thigh-high knitted boots, and a beige bolero trimmed in white fur. They were knitted five years apart so my gauge changed in that time, and Alphinaud turned out smaller than his sister. Yes, Alisaie is LIVID at being the more "rugged" twin.]

I hope you enjoyed reading this journey. I had a blast working on this (and also headaches at time) and would do it again in a heartbeat. I WILL make more dolls in the future. Deciding who will be the fun part!

Congratulations to the Fan Art finalists! You are all amazingly talented. And to all the players and fans: keep forging ahead. It's worth it.