nekare

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

And that's where we left off.

Okay, everything about the last 2 episodes of Abbott Elementary ("The Mall" parts 1 &2) was THE BEST.

( spoilers )

I haven't laughed so hard in a while.

In other news, my nephew and I keep texting each other "wtf?" about everything the Mets have done (or not done) this offseason. Today we were just like, "Wtf?" The Mets now have like 17 second basemen. Hopefully at least one can pitch and one can play left field, because those are the spots they needed to fill. Now they are going to put Bichette at third and Baty in left? What is happening!?! Also, have an obligatory fuck the Dodgers!

Meanwhile, the Rangers' sell-off begins. It's the right thing but ugh, it's going to be hard if Panarin goes to Florida. I can and do root for Detroit and Dallas, but I cannot root for Florida. I guess we'll see what happens. Maybe they'll be able to foist Miller off on someone else too. *crosses fingers*

*

I rewatched this one tonight, mostly for the Timov of it all, but also ...

( Spoilers for the episode )

I had a very long anxiety dream last night that involved trying to get home and failing repeatedly. First I told the driver I lived at my old address on the Upper East Side, then other people joined the ride and demanded to get dropped off before heading to Queens. The then driver bailed and a new set of passengers took over the driving and refused to exit the BQE to the LIE to get me home. Eventually I was dropped off on what appeared to be Hillside Avenue, which is not far from me in the waking world, but somehow in the dream the walk never brought me any closer. Ugh. I guess it was a new spin, since usually I'm trying to get to work in these dreams, but it felt like it lasted all night (I did sleep through for about 6 hours straight, so maybe it did).

Anyway, despite the ongoing trashfire, some cool stuff is coming:

- NEW SIX OF CROWS BOOK IN JUNE!!!! It's supposed to be the "private correspondence of Kaz Brekker with a mysterious person identified only as 'I.'" KAZ/INEJ EPISTOLARY STORY!??! I am seated and ready. Take my money, please!

- You probably already know this, but The Pitt was renewed for a third season last week.

- Pitchers and catchers report in less than 1 month. The Mets only got worse over the winter, so who knows what the hell is going to happen, but that is always a sign spring isn't too far away!

- The (NY football) Giants may be getting an actual factual head coach? I don't expect miracles but maybe they won't be embarrassing next season?

I feel like there were one or two other things I meant to post about but can't remember what they were. Oh, there's a new Fonda Lee novel coming, too! I do want to try out Matt Fraction's Batman at some point, and Cass's new book, but since I generally wait for the trade paperbacks (in ebook form anyway), they're not always top of mind. Still no release date for Alecto the Ninth (is it ever coming out?) and no kindle edition for DCC: Parade of Horribles but I keep checking!

*

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

And that's where we left off.

For pretty much all video games (at least TTRPGs), I typically have a minimum of three playthroughs going at any time. Baldur's Gate 3 is no exception and, while I'm trying to stay in the habit of playing at least a few times a week, I'm alternating between the playthroughs that I'm focusing on.

The main reason for the multiple playthroughs is that it helps keep me from burning out if I have several different characters who are doing different things at different points in the game. If I'm not in the mood for one particular character's story or the particular part of the plot they're dealing with, I can always switch to another.

On that note? Meet Apophis, my embrace Dark Urge.



I've got to admit, I usually stick with the more good-leaning playthroughs, but it's kinda fun to let loose with the occasional evil one. The playthrough as a whole moves a lot faster than it does when you're playing a good aligned character (and are a completionist like me) since a lot of the various side plots and such start being cut off the later you get in the game, because the characters involved are all dead. And there's some interesting cut scenes and such here and there that you'd otherwise miss, as they're only available when you're taking the evil route.

Major potential spoilers for most of the game, including discussion of some definitely evil actions.

( More under the cut. )

Two days of work down, three days to go. Let's see if I can make it through them. Preferably without strangling any coworkers. 🙃

Overall, it's going to be a busy week. I have D&D tomorrow night, as usual, but my Friday game is also supposed to start back this week after three months of not playing. I'm sure that's going to be very chaotic as everyone tries to remember how to play their characters, both mechanically and personality-wise. Especially since we kinda left off on a cliffhanger thanks to my cleric succeeding on a Divine Intervention.

In addition to that, Critical Role starts back this week after several weeks off. And I still haven't watched the last episode of 2025, because I knew it was going to be entirely combat-based. So, uh, I should probably try to do that during work tomorrow or Thursday if I want to be able to try to watch live on Thursday night.

On the fannish side of things, the first quarter of this year is surprisingly exchange-filled for me, mostly because there's a bunch of new Dragon Age exchanges cropping up that are run by people that I know. In the past, the late autumn and early winter has been the busy season, but several of those have died off the last few years (you're very missed, femslashex) so that time of the year isn't nearly as exchange heavy as it used to be for me.

Holly Poly (multifandom poly relationships) and The Platonic Ideal (Dragon Age platonic relationships) both already have assignments out, the Crow Contracts Exchange (Dragon Age Crows focused) is in the middle of nominations, Spectre Requisitions (Mass Effect rare relationships) starts nominations later this week, Pride's Solace (Dragon Age Solas focused) starts nominations later this month, and Gaatlock & Lyrium (Dragon Age dwarves and qunari focused) is supposed to be sometime in the spring.

In addition to all that, I'm trying my best to set aside at least a little time most days to play video games. It's easier to find the time some days than others, but I'm doing my best. I've learned from past experience that it's healthier for me overall to, you know, set aside some time to actually do things that I enjoy. So I'm giving it a whirl at least. Right now, I'm mainly focusing on Baldur's Gate 3, but Animal Crossing: New Horizons is getting a free update in the next day or so which may see me playing a bit more of it for a while.

Speaking of health, the less said about my sleep schedule lately the better. It's very much its usual chaotic self, which is about as fun as it sounds.

I barely slept on Sunday night - maybe about 3 hours in total? - so I called out yesterday and went back to bed. I felt better but not great upon waking again after actually sleeping for another 2 hours, and spent most of the day zoned out on the couch, looking at tumblr. Last night I slept hard and today I woke up feeling much better, but ugh, sleep should not be so hard!

I know it's just January and winter but I can feel myself withdrawing and hermiting up, so if I'm late in responses to comments, that's why - it's definitely not you, it's me.

*

Ages ago, I said that I was going to start making posts about my various OCs in video game playthroughs since I mainly play TTRPGs. And then, you know, I never actually did it. So, since I actually managed to spend most of yesterday and today playing Baldur's Gate 3, let's talk about the playthrough that I focused on. Minor spoilers for early Act 3 and a few very, very broad ones for Acts 1-2.

Meet Taviana.



( More under the cut. )

I FOUND IT AGAIN. I read a post on Tumblr a while back on a particularly nicely done instance of color symbolism with Londo on B5, and I finally found it. (More beneath the cut.)

( Spoilers for the whole show )

I've got French onion soup simmering away in the slow cooker (I sliced almost 3 lbs of onions last night and my eyes - even with the stupid onion goggles - were not happy with me) and I just took a pan of baked oatmeal out of the oven to be breakfast for the week. I was waffling between the oatmeal and another batch of orange cranberry scones, but the oatmeal won out because it used up a bunch of stuff - the dregs of both a bottle of honey and a bottle of maple syrup; the last 2 eggs in the carton (I still have a carton of eggs in the fridge, but now just the amount a normal person would have); the rest of a bag of frozen strawberries; the rest of a bag of chocolate chips; what was left in the bottom of the jar of cinnamon; and what was left in the container of rolled oats (exactly 3 cups - exactly as much as needed for the recipe). I still have cranberries in the freezer, though, so orange cranberry scones are probably still in my future.

Now I'm trying to decide if I want to make a loaf of bread to go with the soup. I originally bought a small loaf with my groceries on Friday, but then ate it as cheesy garlic bread for a couple of meals. *hands* The heart wants what it wants, and in this case, my heart wanted cheesy garlic bread.

Since the slow cooker is working, I can't use the KitchenAid (it is blocked in by the InstantPot), so I want a no knead kind of bread, but also one that is only going to take 2-3 hours, nothing that needs an overnight rise. I think I might end up making the old, reliable peasant bread (halved to only make 1 loaf). It's easy and fast (for bread), and doesn't require a stand mixer.

Hmm...

*

I don't think I posted about this at the time, but there was an absolute odyssey involved in getting the original batch of B5 script books that I ordered.

The original process was this:

I'd known about the existence of the B5 script books vaguely for a while, but hadn't really thought of buying them before. In October, when I came back from traveling, I googled it and found a massive site called "B5 Books" that had authorized editions of all the B5-related books available, which was a lot of them, not just the script books but tons of other stuff as well.

They had closed yesterday.

But wait! They were staying open through the weekend (like 2 more days) because they'd had technical issues. So I splurged and ordered an absolute ton of books (about 2/3 of the total script books out there, mainly focused on episodes I especially wanted to read about). I would have preferred to order just one to find out a) what the books were like, and b) what their customer service was like, but ... closing in 2 days! So I gave them my credit card info for a quantity of books that I don't want to think too closely about.

A month went by.

I got a shipping notice and a tracking number, and and then a box arrived .... with 2 books in it.

I contacted customer service (a bit nervously, in the hopes they'd still actually answer). To their credit, they were very quick to respond; evidently there was a second tracking email I hadn't received for some reason, for the box with most of the rest of the books in it. (They sent me a free digital book to make up for the emotional distress, too - they were really nice.)

This was back in December, and I was leaving on the 13th, Saturday, so I periodically checked the tracking info for the box. It showed up in Fairbanks over the previous weekend, and showed that it was supposed to deliver on Monday.

Monday came and went. About mid-week, the tracking info showed that it had traveled out of Fairbanks again. (Why??) I had visions of the box going all the way back to the sender for some reason. Meanwhile, I had planned to spend the last couple of days before I left diving into my new books, but as the week ticked down and it continued to tease me ... I guess not. Finally, on Friday, I got an actual "out for delivery" notice, and then a notice that a "pick up at post office" slip had been left. Also, Friday was our last day of actual mail delivery (we'd put a hold on it until after Christmas that started on Saturday and went for 2 weeks, i.e. about the amount of time that the post office will hold a box - you know, this box with $100s of books in it). I was headed to the airport Saturday afternoon, but I figured it should be possible to stop by the post office on the way.

I picked up the mail.

No slip.

I thought, okay, maybe I picked up an early batch (yesterday's? our mailbox is on the highway and both the mail delivery and our collection of it is kind of haphazard) so when Orion got home a few hours later, I asked if there had been a slip in the mailbox.

Nope!

So now my package is on hold at the post office, I GUESS, with no ability to redeliver and our mail delivery not starting until after the approximate return to sender date. We hunted all around the mailbox just in case it had been dropped. No slip.

I ended up printing out the tracking number and taking that to the post office on our way to the airport, and that DID work and they DID have the box and I got it, YAY. (Orion said that the slip spontaneously showed up in the mailbox when he was headed home after dropping me off, so WHO KNOWS what was up with that.)

Anyway, all of that ended up working out in the end, and I enjoyed the books so much that I went on Amazon to see if I could find used copies of the ones I didn't have. I ordered a few more, and I just checked the shipping info and discovered that one of them - from a 3rd party Amazon seller - was sent via Fedex and supposedly delivered on Thursday afternoon, i.e. 2 days ago.

Guess what I don't seem to have!

Orion says that Fedex often leaves deliveries in random places around the yard - he's found them on piles of construction supplies, left at the door of the shop instead of the house, etc. Inauspiciously, it snowed a few inches last night, so everything is covered with fresh snow. Also, it was dark. Still, we took flashlights and went and hunted high and low in all the places that a package might be, ranging from likely (covered with snow beside the door) to unlikely but possible (at the doors of the various outbuildings like the greenhouse, on top of random vehicles in the yard) to the highly unlikely (at our road sign, in our mailbox). Not a single sign of it! I don't know if it was delivered to some other house, mistakenly marked as delivered when it's actually fallen under the delivery truck seat, or if a very soggy B5 book is going to turn up four months later when the snow melts, but seriously, WHAT EVEN. I've never had a book go missing like this in all the time I've been ordering used books off Amazon!

Anyway, further updates from the B5 script books are coming soon, and maybe I'll have this particular book eventually, or maybe not.

Stumbled across this one again, and it's still so good.

Catch a Body
by Ilse Bendorf

Salinger, I’m sorry, but “Don’t ever tell
anybody anything” is a string of words
I would like to wrap up in canvas and sink
to the bottom of the Hudson, or extract
by laser from the ribcage of all of us
who ever believed it, who felt afraid
to miss someone, to be the last one
standing. “Tell everyone everything” is
not exactly right, but I do believe that if
your mother looks radiant in violet
you should tell her, or when a juvenile
sparrow thrashes its wings in dustpiles
and reminds you of a lover’s eyelashes,
you should say so. We are islands all of us,
but we are also boats, our secrets flares,
pyrotechnic devices by which we signal
there’s someone in here we’re still alive!
So maybe it’s, “don’t be afraid.” We can
rewrite Icarus, flame-resistant feathers,
wax that won’t melt, I mean it, I’ll draw up
a prototype right now, that burning ball
of orange won’t stop us, it’ll be everything
we dream the morning after, even if we fall
into the sea—we are boats, remember?
We are pirates. We move in nautical miles.
Each other’s anchors, each other’s buoys,
the rocket’s red, already the world entire.

Since I'm getting back into vidding again, I decided to put my vids (that are on AO3) in a collection for easier browsing.

Introducing Sholio Vids!

I tried doing it as a series at first, as I've seen some other vidders do, but this really didn't work for me because it means the oldest ones stack at the top, unless I do them in reverse order, I guess. Also, since I'm wildly multifannish in my vidding habits, making it a collection makes it very easy to pick and choose by fandom, as most people would probably want to do.

I actually have a LOT of vids that aren't on here. I didn't start regularly putting them on AO3 until the late 2010s, so (for example) all my AC ones, my White Collar ones, and basically everything before 2017 isn't on here. (Except one Highlander vid for some reason.) And it looks like there were a few even during this time that I never put on AO3. Also, a lot of my old vids aren't online anymore: a lot of my old Youtube embeds simply Ceased To Work for reasons unknown, and I think the oldest downloads no longer work either.

I started posting vids in 2006 - I was already making them (that started in 2002 or so) but it was 2006, in SGA fandom, that I got confident enough to start putting them online. Which makes 2026 my 20th vidding anniversary (vidiversary?), and one thing I'd like to do is get most of those old vids back up online if possible. That's an ongoing project for 2026 - stay tuned for details!

(Also, I am FINALLY working on subtitles for my recent vids, the Murderbot vid at the very least! I eventually decided to just handwrite the SRT files, which really doesn't take too much time; it's just a bit nitpicky to get the timing synced. It's not up yet, but hopefully soon.)

Okay, I'm going to spend all day tomorrow playing video games if it kills me. My plans to set aside time for gaming over the holiday break never actually happened, and with everything going on in the world right now it will do me good to just get offline for a day and spend it wandering Faerûn or Thedas or the Andromeda galaxy.

I'm not sure yet which game I'll focus on, but it's definitely going to be Baldur's Gate 3, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, or Mass Effect: Andromeda because I have ongoing playthroughs in all of them that have been gathering dust for too long.

MY SHOW! MY SHOW IS BACK!!! Ahem.

The Pitt: 7 am - 8 am
( spoilers, mostly just incoherent squeeing )

My show is back! I AM EXCITE!!!

*

Thanks to my podcasting co-host's connections, we got screeners for the first six episodes, and here is my low-spoiler review as per the rules of the embargo. 

TL;DR it has a huge heart, and a series about rebuilding democracy and the infrastructure of a functional society in the wake of imperial decay and environmental devastation is exactly what the world needs right now. It overtly follows in the footsteps of Prodigy, as a jumping in point for a young new fan, and the relationship between Holly Hunter as the Academy chancellor and Sandro Rosta as a new cadet who is skeptical of Starfleet and the Federation (and with good reason!) is a real gift. 

I'm reluctant to commit to this, because recency bias is a thing, but it's absolutely my favourite live-action series of the streaming era (and you guys will recall that I loved Discovery and wrote a lot of fic for it!), and I think it's very possible I love it more than Voyager. Certainly it has the best opening six episodes of any Trek bar TOS. 

To add to a previous posts on the subject, my cleric, Siân, has had a really, really, really bad couple of weeks in-game. Over the course of the last three weeks or so, she has:

( A list of bad things under the cut. )

Poor Siân really 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.

I rewatched Neroon's introduction episode last night (and then a few more across his arc). It's so fascinating going back to season one now!

( Spoilers )