Rigel (n) : awesomesaucery

For anyone who may be Dark Souls-curious, here is a very long video essay of which I've only watched part (because I'm trying to limit spoilers) and of which I mainly want to rec part -- the first 30 mins or so, where the essayist discusses something that the mythology about the game’s supposed uber-difficulty tends to obscure, namely the gorgeous, generous array of different tools and options that it gives you for engaging with its difficulties, and how it tries to teach you to use them:



I think this is some of the stuff that prompted me to declaim “Dark Souls loves me and wants me to be happy.”

The game is difficult, it is intended to be difficult (and I still don't know if, for me, it will at some point be insuperably difficult), and progressing and learning through difficulty and failure is the core gameplay loop. As mentioned, it took me a total of seven hours to beat the most recent boss, the Capra Demon. I am currently camped out in the Depths, where I intermittently fall through holes and get cursed by basilisks. I recently got invaded for the first time, by a player who watched as I ran directly under a slime and got enveloped, facepalmed*, and then waited politely while I extricated myself before murdering me**.

And yet my major feeling at this particular moment is of being spoiled (in the pampered sense, not the knowledge sense): I have too many good weapons to try (my beloved halberd, now upgraded to +7, a Balder Side Sword -- a rare and coveted drop -- and a Black Knight Sword)! I'm having to actively try not to over-level! I have so many upgrade materials! I have the world's largest stockpile of charcoal pine resin (purchased on my endless boss runs back to the Capra Demon, so I'd spend any souls I was carrying and not distract myself with losing or trying to retrieve them) so I can make my weapons burst into flame any time I want! I have opened the latest incredibly-convenient shortcut! There's a handy new merchant just before the next boss! I am holding an armful of presents and Dark Souls keeps trying to pile more on top!

{*I went off immediately afterwards to Google "dark souls how to facepalm”, but it looks like you have to join the Forest Hunter covenant to learn that emote and I have other plans. Still tempted, though.}

{**I had expected to loathe being invaded — and had initially planned to play offline mainly to avoid that, but did not for reasons which need to be a different post — but in the event, it was brief, non-inconveniencing, and actually pretty funny.}

D&D is cancelled tonight so that the DM can drug herself into a stupor and try to get more than 3-4 hours of sleep for once. As for me, I think that I'm going to take a short nap for the next hour or so and then settle in to play video games all night.

I'm leaning towards playing more of that Mass Effect: Andromeda playthrough that I started last weekend, although I may switch over to Baldur's Gate 3 or Dragon Age: The Veilguard for at least a while. We'll just have to see what my brain seems most interested in tonight.

Hey, there was a positive for once today!

Me: Here's my money to cover another another week in the hotel.
Hotel Manager: Thank you. Would you like a brand new 43" TV to replace the 13-year-old 32" TV that you currently have?
Me: ... so is this a trick question?

But, yeah, they apparently are updating some of the televisions in the hotel, and the manager likes me enough that I'm near the front of the list. Which means I got a brand new TV in my suite today!

My poor cleric, Siân, has had a really bad couple of weeks in-game. Over the course of the last not even a full two weeks, she has:

- woken up from being held captive by mind-controlling plants for a week
- found herself in a prison camp in the middle of a warzone
- watched a friend die while trying to escape said prison camp
- failed to resurrect said friend
- watched the resurrection fail again when someone else attempted a higher level spell
- found out that her family has been accused of treason and placed under arrest
- found out that a bunch of powerful nobles want to make her father emperor
- saw the instant destruction of an entire town via a weapon of mass destruction
- watched the friend who died come back to life separate from his still-dead corpse
- given up the very last gift her deceased mother ever gave her
- had a bunch of ancient knowledge magically dumped in her head
- had her right arm chopped off
- found out that her father named her his legitimate daughter due to obvious coercion
- had her right arm unexpected regrown by way of alchemy
- almost been killed by malfunctioning golems
- almost watched her entire group be killed by a shadowspawn beholder
- been publicly seen with magic users in an empire where magic is illegal
- been involved in a very bloody battle
- joined a pirate fleet
- found out that the empire-wide newspaper has been smearing her name
- almost been killed by assassins
- found out an assassins' guild with a reputation for never quitting has been hired to kill her
- been involved in another very bloody battle
- found out that she's one of the most wanted people in the entire empire
- almost been killed by lightning
- almost drowned
- died instantly from a magical trap while in a shadow plane surrounded by enemies

Considering the circumstances of her death, I'm honestly not sure what's going to happen. Resurrection may or may not be on the table, especially considering the rest of the group is about to go into a pretty massive bit of combat without a healer.

Next week, I'm planning on basically just being off camera the entire night unless something very unexpected happens. I'll figure out future plans after I see what happens in-game over the next, uh, 60 seconds or so.

They do technically at least have access to an item that will let them cast unlimited Gentle Repose, but said item is on their ship which is currently shrunk and inside a bottle. Plus said item is being used on the dead body of the group member who came back to life by other means and therefore has both a mostly-alive body and a corpse sitting on the ship, so... yeah.

(Don't ask. Trust me.)

In tonight's game, ( the rest under a cut for those who don't care. )

And that's where we left off.

Autumn starts in about a week-and-a-half, and the first day of fall is on a Monday this year. Which, you know, kinda bodes well for new beginnings in my mind since it's the first of the work week at least. And, considering how things have been going so far in September, I feel like I really need a set point for a fresh start.

So, you know, Mabon works fairly well for that.

Things have been pretty chaotic in my life the last year or two for a variety of reasons, and I think that I'm going to force myself to set up a strict daily schedule to start following again come September 22. I won't stick to it forever, but I've found in the past that the structure really does help me even if it's just for a month or so to get me back in the habit.

Now I just have to force myself to start thinking about a set schedule that will work for me while still having some flexibility for when things don't go quite as planned...

I've fallen behind on watching Critical Role's various specials and miniseries since they went on their CR3-to-CR4 hiatus, mostly because they've been releasing them on Beacon and then eventually showing them on their Thursday stream. That's made it hard for me to convince my brain to keep up with things, because I need a set schedule to follow every week that I'm watching alongside other people, so... yeah.

This is part of why I have trouble watching a lot of streaming shows (it was a problem with Rings of Power especially but there have been lots of others that I just never got around to watching at all), because for my brain there's a difference between "watching live with everyone else" like with more traditional shows and "watching it when I have the time because once it drops everyone's watching it at different times so it's pointless to watch it immediately."

Anyway, I really want to force myself to get caught up in the lead-up to CR4 starting - if only to get myself used to watching their long episodes again - so I'm going to list out the various specials that I still need to properly watch. And then I'm going to try to set aside the time to watch them over the next few weeks. If I can manage it, I may also try to make a few posts about them as I watch them, but watching them in the first place is my priority.

If I have time, I'll also try to watch Age of Umbra, which I started but had to drop because of stuff going on with work and IRL at the time. It's lower on the list, though, so we'll see if I manage it. And, hey, if a miracle happens then maybe I'll even find the time to watch some other miniseries they've had going further back that I never found the time to watch.

But, yeah. We'll see how it goes? Live Shows are the "must watch" part of the list. Everything else is just gravy.

( List under the cut. )

In tonight's game, ( the rest under a cut for those who don't care. )

And that's where we left off.

Side by Side (1506 words) by Settiai
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Oghren & Female Surana (Dragon Age)
Characters: Female Surana (Dragon Age), Oghren (Dragon Age)
Additional Tags: Alcohol, The Black Emporium Exchange, Friendship, One Shot, Sparring
Summary: Oghren might have been a nug humping bastard, but he couldn't just stand by and do nothing after he realized that the big scary Warden everyone was talking about was barely more than a kid.

Please enjoy this eloquent depiction of The Capra Demon Experience:



(Content note for animal harm in the form of killing horrifying skinless zombie dogs. Also one man's slow descent into existential despair.)

This is a notorious point where a not insignificant number of people ragequit and stop playing the game altogether.

Also as previously mentioned I struggle badly with tracking multiple inputs, I have the reaction speed of a slime mould, and my default combat state is "panicked and flustered."

It took me about 7 hours (spread across multiple days -- admittedly, most of this time was doing the boss run again and again and again and then dying within seconds of the fight starting) and I am very proud of myself.

(And right now I am dealing with a medical stressor -- hopefully nothing, but had to go get some tests, waiting on results -- so I will take my distractions and wins where I can get them.)

I'm still trying to raise some more money to throw at debts, so would anyone be interested in any of the following Nintendo Switch games?

Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! (example on Amazon)
Spyro Reignited Trilogy (example on Amazon)
TemTem (example on Amazon)

For payment, I have CashApp ($Settiai), PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle (nancy.lynn.foster@gmail.com).

If you know anyone who might be interested, please point them my way. I managed to sell the Echo Show from yesterday, which definitely helped, but I could still really use another $150-200 and managing to sell these games would take a chunk out of that.

It's been a stressful kind of day because Capitalism™, so let's try to pull my brain over to fandom for at least a little bit tonight.

The Yuletide team posted an announcement that they're going to experiment this year with letting people have more nominations and requests. It's up to 5 fandoms per nomination and 8 fandoms per request for 2025, and they'll make decisions on future years once they see how much chaos is unleashed this year.

I'm very excited, because that means I have extra spots to play with! On the other hand, my current list of possible Yuletide fandoms is at 30something at the moment. Which, you know, is probably less than helpful. I really need to start narrowing it down, huh?

I know it's a long shot considering Amazon is Amazon, but would anyone be interested in buying an Echo Show (2nd Gen) 10" in black charcoal? Or know anyone who might want one?

I'd be willing to accept any reasonable offer, as I really need to come up with some extra money as soon as possible. It's used but in good shape. There's no listings on Amazon since it's an older model, but there are some available on eBay for comparison. I could have it in the mail either this weekend or early next week at the latest.

For payment, I have CashApp ($Settiai), PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle (nancy.lynn.foster@gmail.com).

If you know anyone who might be interested, please point them my way.

And it's gone!

In tonight's game, ( the rest under a cut for those who don't care. )

And that's where we left off.

The brain weasels have been out in force the past few, uh... well, I was going to say days, and then I realized that it was more like weeks, or months, or years. So let's just leave it as "quite a while" and be done with it.

Anyway, it's September. Autumn is around the corner, which is my favorite time of the year, and I'm desperately going to do my best to force myself to remember how to be a person instead of a constant ball of panic. It's easier said than done with some of the money and work stress going on, but hey! I'm gonna attempt it anyway.

One of the things I'm going to do is really properly attempt to make at least one or two at least fannish-adjacent posts a week. I'm still hoping to make some video game posts like I mentioned in the past (Baldur's Gate? Dragon Age? Mass Effect? something else entirely?) but Critical Role is coming back for its fourth campaign next month so I'm hoping that will pull me back into on that front. Not to mention The Mighty Nein animated series starts Season 1 in November.

Plus exchange season is coming up! There several ongoing and upcoming Dragon Age exchanges, Yuletide is just around the corner, and Holly Poly will be shortly after that. And who knows? Maybe there will be something new that catches my eye.

I just need to focus on the little things and keep putting one foot in front of the other. 🤞🏻