Rigel (n) : awesomesaucery

that would be greatly appreciated.

Currently trying to support a friend in a Very Bad Situation and it's desperately anxiety-inducing and my brain is trying to eat itself, which also makes me less useful as support, which is bad.

So if anyone would like to ask or discuss anything about Prophet or Dark Souls or IWTV or climbing or, you know, any of the somewhat cheering topics I sometimes ramble about, PLEASE DO. "More of a comment than a question" questions also very welcome.

I cannot guarantee replies in a timely or consistent manner (because of the Situation and also the bad state of my brain) but it would be deeply appreciated nonetheless.

I'm trying to type up posts each week as I watch the new episode of Critical Role. It's a combination of quotes, random thoughts, and some speculation, and it's full of spoilers (albeit vague ones in places).

( Spoilers under the cut. )

Daughter of Luck (2467 words) by Settiai
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Characters: Original Half-Elf Character(s) (Dungeons & Dragons), Original Human Character(s) (Dungeons & Dragons)
Additional Tags: Background Poly, Dungeons & Dragons Character Backstory, Family, Illegitimacy, Loss, Mother-Daughter Relationship, One Shot
Summary: Siân Valinta might be what half the city called her, a good half of them mockingly, but Siân Breyer was who she was and who she always would be.

To add to a previous post, my cleric, Siân, has had a really bad couple of weeks in-game. Over the course of the last two-and-a-half weeks or so, she has:

( A list of bad things under the cut. )

Poor Siân is well on her way towards a complete and total mental breakdown at the rate she's going.

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

And that's where we left off.

Well, we're definitely moving into exchange season.

The Dragon Age Poly Exchange already has assignments out, the Joining Exchange (a Dragon Age exchange focusing on Wardens) just opened sign-ups, Yuletide sign-ups are almost upon us, and Holly Poly has made a few posts implying it's coming up soon. Plus it's not really an exchange, but the Dragon Age Reverse Bang's deadline is at the end of the month as well.

And those are just the ones I'm probably participating in. I'm sure there are plenty of others, including some that might catch my attention.

Let's see if at least a few of them will properly kick my muse into gear... 🤞🏻

I am just saying.

Ever since I moved into the hotel, I've felt about watching television too late at night because I know from personal experience that sound carries. When I watch something after 10pm or so, I've turned it down low, which means I miss things. And that's been a big pain especially when it comes to Critical Role since it doesn't even start airing until 10pm, so if I want to watch live then I end up missing things because I have to keep it quiet unless I want to be an asshole.

As I mentioned in my most recent Critical Role post, though, I finally figured out an alternative that seems to be working well. It doesn't work for anything that I'm watching on the hotel's cable, but since most of what I'm watching in the evening/night is streaming, that means I use my Fire Stick. And my Fire Stick has the ability to connect to Bluetooth devices. Such as the ear buds that I usually keep in my purse for when I'm out and about, which I realized earlier in the week.

And, well, it's working great. The last few nights I've been able to watch movies late at night without accidentally disturbing anyone in the rooms next to me or above me. The video is playing on the shiny new TV that the hotel gave me, but the audio is entirely in my ears and not bothering anyone else nearby. For example, right now I'm finishing up watching The Martian, but it's essentially silent in my room because the sound's playing on my ear buds.

Now if only I had thought to do something like this ages ago...

("CARTOON PONY ON AMPHETAMINES.")

(And I just heard they cast Sheila Atim as Akasha, because half the casting is just raiding the National Theatre and it's glorious.)

The thing about IWTV (now being renamed The Vampire Lestat for S3, presumably at the demand of Lestat's lawyers) is that a) it would make Anne Rice roll in her fucking grave, and b) it somehow manages to be deeply truthful to elements of the spirit of the books in a way that a more "faithful" adaptation that didn't engage in such a vigorous Interrogation Of The Text couldn't do. It's fascinating, and it also hits in a particular way for those of us who read the first books as impressionable teens, and then, you know, grew up:

https://www.tumblr.com/silverbirching/752456802186182656/yessssss-and-he-watched-it-on-my

Anyway, the first two seasons are on Netflix and on BBC iPlayer in the UK, so if you're tempted, now is a very good time to catch up.

I am now enjoying being able to distress all my Souls-playing friends through my unironic enjoyment of Blighttown.

(It's a tough but genuinely awesome level which has a bad reputation because on release the intricacy of the environment and number of moving parts would destroy the framerate and people would have to try to get through it at 10fps. But this is no longer the case since the remaster! And everyone who's upset about spending lots of time plummeting to their death needs to get on my level because I've been doing that all through the game anyway; it's just usually funnier in Blighttown.)

ETA: I have run the second bell and thus officially left the early game and entered the mid-game.

Oh. My. Gods.

I've been playing clerics in D&D pretty much nonstop for ten years now, and in all that time I've never, never, never succeeded on a Divine Intervention roll.

Until tonight. With Kes, my adorable dumbass. We're level 14, and I rolled a fucking 11 on a d100. An 11! It succeeded! And it was fucking Kes!

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

And that's where we left off.

The Yuletide tag set when live yesterday afternoon, and I've spent the last day going through it to figure out A. what I want to request this year and B. what I want to offer.

I think that I've just about figured out what I'm requesting this year, although I'm still wavering back-and-forth when it comes to my final spot (or maybe two). There are a few things that ended up in the tag set that I wasn't expecting, and I'm hesitating a little on the decision because of it. I'll hopefully have it figured out within the next few days, though.

That said? The list of fandoms that I'm considering offering is currently sitting at a whopping 111, which is at least a fun number if not necessarily a reasonable one.

What can I say? There's been a lot of Critical Role related things happening this week thanks to NYCC. This post is about the adorably hilarious (and not at all safe for work) summary of the first three seasons of The Legend of Vox Machina that they released. In song format. Sung by Grog.

As I mentioned last week, I'm going to try to type up posts each week as I watch the new episode of Critical Role. It's a combination of quotes, random thoughts, and some speculation, and it's full of spoilers (albeit vague ones in places).

( Spoilers under the cut. )

Yeah, that episode was a winner too. So far, this campaign is starting off strong.

My biggest issue last week was that I couldn't turn the television's sound up enough to properly hear things without disturbing people around me, so I decided to try something new this week. I couldn't get my Fire Stick to connect to the headset that I usually use with my computer, but I was able to get it to attach to my ear buds, so I was able to properly listen to the episode without worrying about disturbing anyone else this week. And, hey, it worked! It was much easier not to miss things.

Oh, they've finally released the trailer for the first season of The Mighty Nein! And it looks amazingly good!

I've gotta admit, I'm very curious to see what they end up doing for this series. While I love CR2, the fact that the pandemic happened in the middle of it and they had to unexpectedly take a multiple month hiatus really caused some disconnect in the campaign itself. They've already said they're reworking some plot-related things for the animated series, and I'm really hoping that will fix some of the campaign's weaknesses because the story itself is amazing.

I really wonder what they're going to do with the release schedule. For The Legend of Vox Machina, it's had twelve episodes per season and they've released it in four batches of three episodes each over the course of a month. This series is going to have hour long episodes instead of half hour ones, so I really wonder A. how many episodes the season will be and B. if they'll release it one episode a week.

My suspicion is that it will be eight episodes released weekly, since that's what Amazon does for other hour-long shows like The Rings of Power. We'll have to wait for them to officially confirm it, though.

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

And that's where we left off.

Assignments just went out for the Dragon Age Poly Exchange, and I've got to admit that I'm very excited about my assignment(s) for this one.

As is the case for most single fandom exchanges, I offered Any and offered to take multiple initial assignments if needed for matching purposes, so I had no idea whatsoever what I would get. That said? My muse is definitely interested after reading the prompts that I was given, although some of them are very much not relationships that I ever would have considered myself.

I'm very curious to see just what I end up writing.

Well, I wasn't worried about tomorrow's game until the DM posted this message in the Discord.



Now? Now I think that I'm a little worried. What on earth is Erin planning on doing to our poor characters tomorrow?

ETA: It got worse.

Since the universe has made it clear that I have no control whatsoever when it comes to my actual life, I decided to focus on one of my virtual ones instead for a while.

I've never really stopped playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons since it was released in 2020, but the last few years I've mostly been logging on for 10-15 minutes each day to do my "dailies" and talk to my villagers since all of my collections are already at 100%. Since it's October, though, I decided to not only put out all of my (many) fall and Halloween decorations but also change some things up as well.

I'm not done yet, but I definitely spent a few hours last night and this morning curled up on my bed with the cats as I changed up some cliffs and rivers, dug up some flowers, planted new ones, moved some trees, etc. all while putting out enough pumpkin-related decor that every single one of my villagers commented on it.

Does it change much in the grand scheme of things? No, not really. But, you know, if I can't keep my actual life from imploding on me regularly, I can at least control the world of my tiny little digital island.