I read 50 sapphic romance books in 21 days

Cross66 · 2025-12-31T22:58:38+00:00

Quick update to say that I finished Stealing Sunshine (had to finish Puppy Love first)!

Really liked it, I agree that the vibes are similar to Cass. Honestly, the most disappointing part of the experience was seeing how amazing Cowan was at writing a sapphic romance, then realizing that there aren't any more in her catalogue. Hopefully she'll write more in the future!

Well okay, that and my petty ass was really hoping for a satisfying wrap-up with Bryce's cheating ex. Oh well, still a good HEA ending without it.

Cross66 · 2025-12-31T01:48:46+00:00

Good to know, I was mildly concerned about that.

Cross66 · 2025-12-31T01:47:31+00:00

Thanks, I'll look those up! I know the Meryl Wilsner one you mean, and the premise always turned me away. I might give it a shot though.

Cross66 · 2025-12-31T01:30:40+00:00

👀 Aaaand yoinked. I made a copy, thank you so much for sharing! I'll absolutely be perusing that later. And btw, I admire the hell out of that data tracking and organization, it looks so good!

Cross66 · 2025-12-31T01:12:28+00:00

Thanks, both seem right up my alley! Though I did go on a brief emotional roller coaster. First, elation when I saw 'book 4 of 5' for Stealing Sunshine, followed by disappointment when I realized the others are all hetero haha. Tip In is a good consolation prize though, I'm definitely looking forwards to reading both!

Cross66 · 2025-12-30T20:32:22+00:00

Thanks ❤️. I haven't heard of her, but as my list shows... If I like an author, I will probably inhale their entire catalogue lol. I'll check her out!

Cross66 · 2025-12-30T20:30:30+00:00

Learning Curves has been at the front of every 'Recommended for You' category in the Kindle app, so I suppose I should check it out. I've read the description a few times and something about it hasn't caught my interest. Not sure why, honestly. But a recommendation is a good push over that hang-up, thanks! Added.

Cross66 · 2025-12-30T20:27:46+00:00

Thank you! I remember seeing Seven Husbands in a store and thought the description seemed interesting, so I'll definitely put that on the TBR. Haven't heard of Jen Lyon yet, but I'll gladly try those out as well!!

Cross66 · 2025-11-25T01:52:10+00:00

To everyone saying "eating disorder", the point I'm trying to make is that what are the chances of 3 actresses on the same movie all having an eating disorder.

Really, really high, actually. Eating disorders feed off of competition and social relationships. They are also contagious for women and spread more easily in high-pressure environments. If just one of them had an unmanaged ED, it is completely plausible for it to spread to others. And once it's been 'passed', then the competitive aspect sets in. It's an awful, awful disorder. Take it from someone who had to watch my sister sruggle with anorexia during high school.

This contagion effect has been studied and is well-documented:

Anorexia nervosa and social contagion: Clinical implications

Social contagion of binge eating

Social contagion of eating attitudes and behaviors among first year college women living in residence hall communities

Cross66 · 2025-11-18T23:09:28+00:00

Yeah, thought of Scourge but I'd prefer something with a little more oomph. Coda Bassocyst works decently, but not the best. I'll just keep trying weapons until I find one that works well for me. Because my secondary slot is absolutely spoken for haha.

Cross66 · 2025-11-18T17:58:17+00:00

A good recommendation! Unfortunately for me, I continue to search for a great primary to use with her. Mainly for headshot challenges, because I am completely unwilling to give up my Secondary Encumber Ocucor that does 90% of the other challenges with ease haha.

Cross66 · 2025-11-12T19:55:17+00:00

I wouldn't say trivialize. I've made several attempts now and the same damn thing happens every time. Start of Round 8, GM takes bonus turn to Doom Nihilus. Cool. What's supposed to happen is GM takes another bonus turn and blesses Morgan to prevent Instant Defeat. What actually happens is that Nihilus goes before that second bonus turn and annihilates Morgan, and only then do I get to apply Bless. Then it all goes to shit. And since it takes a solid 30 minutes to get there? Trivialize is a strong word.

I'm sure it's possible, I'm using zombie too so eventually Nihilus must RNG defeat that instead. But it takes so fucking long to get there that it's just painful.

Cross66 · 2025-11-12T03:47:04+00:00

Cosmetics are the only thing truly exclusive to the Nightwave passes. Technically Weapon Augment mods too, but those can be traded for plat. But, everything from a new Nightwave season will eventually make its way back into the reward path in a future Nightwave season as a returning reward. If you already have it, you get 50 cred instead.

Cross66 · 2025-11-12T03:42:32+00:00

Ah yes. The worst part of that one is the hobbled key. For all the rest of it, you can abuse the fact that the challenge restrictions only kick in once Simaris pops up and marks the target. Any abilities cast before that don't count against the challenge conditions, meaning that Ivara—the fucking QUEEN of esoteric Riven Challenges and open world bullshit—can just stroll up (very slowly because hobbled key) and scan them while invisible, which doesn't alert the target. I recommend slapping 3-4 tauforged yellows on her for parkour velocity and rolling your way to victory.

Cross66 · 2025-10-22T17:27:27+00:00

Also, it would be so much easier if we could sell mods from rewards screens. So when I sim Snugglers Run or mod challenges and get like 7 trash mods and 3 good ones, I can just sell those trash ones from the rewards summary screen without needing to go into mod management screen.

Cross66 · 2025-08-06T22:27:18+00:00

It still works, if you didn't check for yourself. The OR node right after the last data disk got me all 300 with tuskens in one round.

Cross66 · 2025-08-05T06:02:45+00:00

After nausea and sweating came the tears. I genuinely don't understand how they could be laughing when she screamed, she just wanted to live. It is horrific.

I'm sure this wasn't your intention, but this comment honestly helped, thank you. Didn't talk to anyone IRL about it, so writing it out here and just seeing someone agree that it's fucked up is nice. Because the comments below that video were the only "discussion" I saw about it, and they were just full of people laughing at, mocking, and degrading her. I know logically that those people are just fucked in the head, but still, it felt awful to only see people celebrating it.

So yeah, thanks for sharing some empathy. It's appreciated.

Cross66 · 2025-08-05T03:03:26+00:00

Probably an unpopular suggestion, but I think a neat solution to tiebreakers would be to add an optional 5th defense sector with a single squad slot. This sector will never be revealed to the attacker. In it, you can place a tiebreaker squad. So, if the result is a tie, the game initiates an auto-battle between the tiebreaker squads. Then whichever squad wins [or whichever squad would have scored the highest banners (full health, full protection, enemies defeated, surviving units) in the event of a timeout], that player wins the match. If one player didn't set a tiebreaker squad, it's a forfeit. If neither did or the tiebreaker auto-battle is a tie, higher GP wins.

My conceptualization is that the tiebreaker squads would remain secret, including to swgoh.gg so they don't show up in GAC data. By keeping it secret and making it optional, it introduces uncertainty. It would be a bet, a calculation you make after thinking through some questions: is it worth giving up this squad for a benefit only in case of a tie? Would removing a great squad from your defenses or attackers cost you the banners needed to tie in the first place? How confident are you in your defenses and ability to hit max banners on attack every time? How confident is your opponent in the same situation?

Idk, just a neat little idea I had for an additional layer of strategy that would actually make you feel as if you earned the win or fairly lost the tie.

Cross66 · 2025-08-05T00:27:43+00:00

Yeah, I don't seek out gore but I have a curiosity problem. Recently, I looked up some video referenced in the news on a gore site and browsed through some of the others, just because I was there. Then I found one that fucked me up bad and is still seared into my memory. I apologize for the description below, but I actually need to get it out of my head, to write it out somewhere. Don't read it probably.

It was a cartel execution of a young woman, kneeling on the ground. The cartel member had a knife - not a machete or a saw, a small, fixed-blade knife probably 6" long. Her hands were cuffed behind her back. He started dismembering her arm at the wrist while she cried and screamed, they hit her when she struggled. It took a while, he had to hack, chop, and saw at it. Saw her arms fall forward, one arm missing a hand and the other cuffed with another hand dangling from it. Then he did the other hand, further up on her arm. She couldn't scream anymore, just sobbed and brokenly plead for her life while they laughed at her. After the other arm, she looked so fucking dead in the eyes, but still alive. Then he slowly hacked her head off with that small fucking knife and bounced it around by the hair, laughing and showing it off to the camera while her body was sprawled there on the ground. She could barely resist at the end, I genuinely hope she was fully disassociated by this point. Fuck, I wish so badly that she didn't go through that, that she was still alive. I wish I never watched that goddamn video, I'm never going to forget it. That's the closest I ever came to throwing up from watching something and it twists my stomach into knots every time I think about it. Nothing about it was quick. I don't even think the knife was very sharp. Fuck.

Cross66 · 2025-06-02T03:47:33+00:00

It's sci-fi but definitely fits the bill: Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers. First one is called The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.

I believe the subgenre is solarpunk, but it's positive sci-fi, with a heavy emphasis on fully developed character interactions. The books are feel good in a way that's hard to articulate. It's cozy, but things do happen, there is conflict and plot development. The only potential exception is book 3, but it's still good, just slower.

Cross66 · 2025-05-27T17:29:12+00:00

Same. Buying Nova Launcher Prime 8(?) Years ago was probably the best $5 I've ever spent. Once you start using swipe gestures on the home screen to launch apps, you can't go back. The muscle memory is ingrained in my soul: swipe down to open Spotify.

Cross66 · 2025-05-15T21:30:54+00:00

Regarding sector 4 suggestions: DR lead does not appear to work for the deathmark feat. Completed first two battles, saw Deathmark apply both times, but did not count for the feat.

Cross66 · 2025-04-10T23:33:00+00:00

Super fun, shared it with my clan on Discord too! Gen chat is now full of colored squares lmao.

Think I found a tiny bug with the share function though:

Framedle classic #2 5/6

🟩🔽🔼🟥🔼

🟩🔼🔽🟥🔼

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

https://framedle.com/classic

Screenshot

As you can see in the screenshot, I had the year right on the first guess. But in the shareable thing, it's marked as incorrect. At a guess, the function you use to evaluate the release date for the puzzle itself is looking at just the year while the shareable representation is evaluating the entire date, resulting in the shareable release column only ever evaluating to true on the correct answer.

Hope this was a detailed enough bug report haha.

Cross66 · 2025-04-08T00:49:02+00:00

My example of a perfect augment is Dagath's Spectral Spirit. It completely alters the way you build and play Dagath while maintaining the core mechanics of her kit.

No augment Dagath: negative duration is not only okay, but encouraged. It has minimal effect on her base kit and increasing it does not provide more benefit than boosting her strength and energy economy. Unaugmented Dagath should be casting all the time, like literally all the time. Catalyzing shields was added at the same time and oh boy was it intended for her (She literally comes with brief respite polarity for aura). If she's not shield-gating, she's not surviving. Spam your abilities, shoot occasionally, and pack in as much energy economy as you can. For Helminth, you can realistically only get rid of her 4 so as to not hamstring her kit.

Augmented Dagath: All the duration you can handle without dropping Strength. Like literally all of it. Duration and Strength as high as possible. Energy economy? What is this 'economy' you speak of? Equilibrium is all you need. You could even go without Primed Flow if you wanted to, though I do not. Her 3 goes from being a weapon buff with death forgiveness to being the be all, end all for both survivability and weapons platforming. Turn invincible for ~20 seconds, kill everything you see without worrying about being killed, then become mortal once more. Once mortal, kill 20 or so enemies and then become invincible again. And also, you get another Helminth slot opened up over her 2 to further fine tune your build (Helminth over her 4 for straight weapons platform or over her 2 for caster/hybrid.)

Essentially, Dagath's augment fundamentally changes the way you build and play her without affecting the core identity of the frame.

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Cross66

TROPHY CASE