Hello everyone and welcome to my May 2023 update. Keep reading to see how I was Geeking By in May!

Other than a sinus infection, which is normal for this time of year when the weather is starting to warm up, most of my physical symptoms were just my normal health conditions. A combination of pollen levels going up and neighbours burning bonfires tends to always lead to at least on sinus infection. This time I didn’t leave it as long before calling for antibiotics and had the nurse saying to me “well usually we tell you to do all the things you have already done first…”. It was such a sigh moment. Even when we do all the right things there’s always that fight to prove it to get the help we need. It’s frustrating.

I did at least get the antibiotics and also a handy decongestant nasal spray, which while it tastes absolutely vile, clears my nose and sinuses out so well! I think that helped more than the antibiotics! It is one of those ‘don’t use for more than 7 days’ ones though, and considering its strength I can see why, so I’m only using it when I’m super blocked up.

In other health news, I’ve been continuing my therapy appointments and been making some great breakthroughs. She introduced a new technique to me, and we’ve been using that to talk through a lot of things. I only have a handful of sessions left with her, and I’m going to miss my time with her.

Every time I get to this section I have to look up last month’s post to see where I was 😀 Aha yes, so I finished the Endwalker side quests pretty quickly, much quicker than I expected because there is hardly any in Ultima Thule. I guess that’s mainly because it’s where a lot of the main story stuff happens, or there could be post-Endwalker main story stuff that happens there. That’s a bit confusing, isn’t it? For Final Fantasy XIV there is a main story quest line for each expansion, and then new patches bring in new content which I refer to as the post-expansion main story because while it can be connected to the expansion storyline it’s also separate from it. In other MMORPGs, especially World of Warcraft, their main storyline goes on through multiple patches before concluding with you beat the big bad of the expansion. In FFXIV you’ve beaten the bad guy before the first patch comes out.

With all the side quests done, I got a bit lost on what to do for a bit until the new patch came out. I think I mentioned it way, way back, but I’ve been waiting for the duty support dungeons for level 60 to 70 to open up. They finally did in the last expansion, and of course, now that they’ve opened I’ve not done a single one /facepalm. Before the patch there was a dungeon and raid event which gave currency you could exchange for items such as mounts, pets and so on. It often means you can get things much easier, and often cheaper, way. I’ve got quite a few mounts from doing it this way.

The problem was that I go through phases where my anxiety is too high for me to do things with other people in game, and that event required me to do just that. I did a few and got enough to buy one pet, but I was also feeling ill at the time and just couldn’t be bothered. It didn’t help that they changed the dungeons/raids that you needed to do for the event, updating it to higher and therefore, harder ones. That was bad because it meant more difficult ones that I didn’t know that well and had only done once or twice. But it was also good as it meant a higher chance of getting the NieR: Automata themed raids which drop some gorgeous items that I want for glamours – and I got lucky! I finally got the thigh-high boots I’ve been after for ages:

Due to not wanting to do dungeons, I still haven’t unlocked the third beast tribe for Endwalker. I’ve been using the other ones to continue to level characters and been doing a few dungeons on my own. I finished levelling my Black Mage and my Ninja to level 90 which makes four level 90s now. While levelling them I also did the Endwalker role quests for magical ranged dps and melee dps, and enjoyed both of them.

Using the Pixie dailies I got my Gunbreaker to level 80, and I’m now working on getting my Sage to 80 (she’s 79). It will be my Reaper after that. I’ve been using dungeons to get my three lowest levels up slowly; Astrologian (62), Paladin (63) and Marauder (64).

I’ve also started to do some ocean fishing to get those achievements done for pets. I’ve just been doing a bit of this and a bit of that. Chris made me my set of crafting gear and that meant I could do the Endwalker custom deliveries. I’ve finished Anden, and just have a little bit more of Ameliance.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on my Island Sanctuary and while the XP between the higher levels is a bit of a grind, it’s also so relaxing. It’s a very similar experience to Animal Crossing, yet still very Final Fantasy. Things got a lot easier when I hit level 10 and was able to fly. I’ve started catching rare animals and that comes with a whole new frustration of them evading the trap or running away!

I’m currently halfway through level 11, and level 12 is a soft cap. It was the old cap before the recent patch, so I’ll get a bunch of new stuff to do again when I hit 12. I have plenty of resources now and don’t need to go out to farm anything. I just go there every day to do a few things, send stuff off to be made and sold and that’s it. Once I don’t need XP any more I can do even less and have everything automated which I like. The only reason I don’t have it automated is that you don’t get any XP that way, and you lose a massive chunk that way.

Once again there were no movies watched in May 2023. I’m just not feeling them at the moment. I was still in the middle of a huge British crime TV show kick at the start of May.

• Case Histories – Season 1 & 2 – Starring Jason Isaacs and Amanda Abbington, this show is based on the Jackson Brodie detective novels by Kate Atkinson. I liked some of the episodes, but wasn’t the biggest fan of this one. It also annoyed me that they couldn’t find a Scottish actor to play a Scottish character *sigh*.
• Ridley – Season 1 – In comparison, I loved this one. Starring Adrian Dunbar as a former police detective who retired after his wife and daughter were killed, he ends up being lured back as a consultant. It’s another one where the main character is a little bit quirky, and sees things other people don’t. What I also loved was that the episodes don’t have an obvious bad guy, and they really do surprise you with the reveal which is very unusual in crime dramas. The cast is fantastic, and includes the fabulous Julie Graham. Apparently many people complained about this, but I loved it; the main character owns a bar and at the end of each episode gets on stage and sings a song. Dunbar is Irish and has a wonderful voice, and in a very NCIS: Orleans way it rounds off the show nicely. But apparently British shows don’t do that sort of thing *rolls eyes*.

• The Commander – Season 1-5 – Time for the rant of the month 😀 This is going to include major spoilers for all seasons so if you ever plan to watch this show please skip to the next image. I picked this one up for two reasons; it stars Amanda Burton from Silent Witness, and it’s by Lynda La Plante who created Prime Suspect which was great. Apparently, La Plante wrote this specifically for Amanda Burton. Good lord, it was terrible to start with. It’s about a female police commander who has risen through the ranks due to her skills. In the first season she gets intimately involved with a convicted murderer who has been released from prison, despite everyone telling her how bad an idea it is. When it becomes clear that he is responsible for the new killings and has used her as a false alibi, she decides the only way out of it is to bug his home, take a gun along with her and try to force a confession out of him one way or another. You can imagine how well that goes down.
• In the second season, the events of that are still being held over her head. An outside investigator is brought in to investigate her and also to investigate a police involved shooting she was investigating in season one. She was sure there was a cover-up (there was) and said as much in her report. But to keep herself safe due to her mistakes with the serial killer she helps the cop she was investigating cover the shooting up, going completely against everything she stands for. While this is all going on she is emotionally manipulating the female police officer working under her, and sleeping with her partner.
• Things get better in the third season when finally the writers stop the commander from sleeping with every male she comes into contact with, and she finally starts doing her job again. I’m all for powerful women having a life outside the job, but the writers of this show only seemed to care about drama. Of course, they had to give her a reason for her “reckless” behaviour and her sudden change, so her sister who was dying from cancer dies at the start of season three.
• For two seasons the show is pretty good, until we get to the last season when the commander does something utterly stupid again. A newborn baby has gone missing, and the parents are a detective and his wife that she knows very well. She snatches a baby from a suspect when she sees it in danger in a car and instead of taking it from the parents due to any number of credible legal reasons which would have given her an excuse to check its DNA, she rushes it home to the desperate parents. Yep that’s right, without verifying it’s actually the right child and of course, it’s not. She does all this in front of paparazzi and ruins her career – that’s how the show ends. I was just left thinking, right of course, missing baby and a woman goes “crazy” and loses all sense of self.

• Perry Mason – Season 2 – After the last show, this was a pleasure to watch. I loved season one and season two built on that and then some. I highly recommend watching this show if you haven’t already.
• Grantchester – Season 1 – 7 – I’ve been considering this show for a while and wasn’t sure if it would be for me. I’m a fan of Robson Green, but a crime show with a vicar?! I wasn’t sure how preachy it was going to be, and then after one episode I realised two things; it’s not that type of show, and I was hooked. The vicars in Grantchester are not your normal vicars, they’re swoon worthy, they drink, smoke and oh yes, they have sex lives. This show covers a huge amount of topic, and has some incredible actors and characters. It’s also based on a book series by James Runcie.
• Doom Patrol – Season 1 – 4.5 – Doom Patrol has been on my to watch list for ages, and I’ve finally got around to it. I’m actually glad I left it so long that I could just binge-watch it rather than have to wait for it because now I’m caught up, and I have to wait for the last half of the final season, and I’m not happy! Absolutely love this show, and I am so glad that they included Danny Street in it.

In May 2023 it seemed that most of the books I read were either very good or were very disappointing. I had two DNFs this month. Here is the full list of what I read:

• The Book That Wouldn’t Burn (The Library Trilogy #1) by Mark Lawrence
• Twice Cursed: An Anthology
• The Malevolent Seven by Sebastien de Castell
• Burn the Negative by Josh Winning
• Charming by Jade Linwood (DNF)
• The Albion Initiative (Newbury and Hobbes #6) by George Mann
• Burrowed by Mary Baader Kaley
• Kill Your Darlings by L.E. Harper (DNF)

Here are my book reviews for May 2023!

[rcno-book-listing ids=”30866, 30939, 30956, 31002, 31067, 31087, 31045″ wc=250 readmore=”Read my review”]

I’ve been updating a few pages on the blog, including my Currently Reading and Currently Watching pages.

More importantly, the GeekDis Information Hub has been updated with information about this year’s event as it is happening next month! I moved it to coincide with Disability Pride Month because during last year’s event I noticed that there was a large amount of ignorance regarding accurate disability representation. Too many people were making lists of books that had disabled characters without doing any research about whether the books contained harmful representations. They also were only sharing bestsellers, books that they had obviously heard about, and the majority of them were written by non-disabled authors.

After two years I felt that GeekDis was now established enough that it wouldn’t feel as though I was stepping on any toes. I had also come to realise that September was not the best time of year for an event, whereas July is the start of summer and people have more free time.

For those who have never heard about GeekDis, it is an event for disabled and neurodivergent people to get together and talk about disability representation in pop culture. It’s a free virtual event that is open to everyone who identifies as disabled and/or neurodivergent (or whichever language you prefer). You can learn more about it and see what content was created previously over at the information hub!

For those of you who are not disabled and/or neurodivergent who would like to support the event please find out more here 🙂

Thanks for joining me for my monthly Geeking By update and seeing what I got up to in May 2023!

How was May for you?

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