missizzy

I'm oddly proud of this Trinket-prompted one.

( Vex would later think Trinket has sensed something off about Percy from the beginning, probably without consciously realizing it. )

Day one included "Dawn" as a prompt, so I wrote a fic for the morning after from "Seige of Emon." Mild adult content in this one:

( For the first moment as Percy wakes, encased in the familiar sheets he again instinctively knows as his home once more, he's a little confused as to why he feels the warmth of another person against him. )

I must say, I've been feeling vindicated lately for my keeping my personal website and continuing to post all my fic on it, even as sometimes I've wondered if there's any point to it anymore. I've also really started wishing there was a Critical Role fanfic archive in existence somewhere. The show came into being too late for it, of course, but now there are multiple reasons I'm thinking maybe we shouldn't have everything solely on one website. It's too vulnerable to outsider and insider difficulties both. I've been through enough to understand that we need AO3, but having only it is very much another matter.
Meanwhile, in a week where we are feeling a necessary loss of old content, and a day when even those of us who weren't surprised can't help but be disappointed by the Emmys again, I want to list some of the things about my current fixation that made me happy this week:

( Spoilers willy nilly )

Mom and caught the tail end of Biden's speech last night, where he once again called for unity. She, whos has been extremely anxious about us losing both her pension and my salary, thought it perfect. I just wish I could still believe he's right.
I meanwhile, spent much of the week watching my way through nearly ten hours worth of various nerdy-ass voice actors playing their way through two different worlds where things all going to the hells was not averted. And after the large amount of fun Tuesday's one-shot turned out to be, ( Thursdays's campaign episode was a different matter... )

I finished the Caduceus puzzle yesterday. Possibly the most difficult puzzle I've ever worked on, but it really got fun once I started getting the trickier pieces put into place. Or the odder shaped pieces, and there were certainly a lot of those. My mom insisted on taking a photo and blogging about it. Trying to explain who Caduceus is to her has been interesting. She did manage to get that he was a cleric for a goddess known as the Wild Mother, and when she asked about his ears, I did end up explaining that he's basically a big pink cow. She also noted his androgyny.
For my next puzzle, I'm probably going to go to Labyrinth in DC and see what they've got there; I wouldn't mind a high fantasy one. Possibly next weekend, if I can get there Saturday, though I'm booked for Sunday and Monday they won't be open.

So Critical Role has finally switched casts, and at quite a time to do it, too! It seems we're going to be left in suspense for a very long time about some things. (Especially if the actors do end up having to strike, which would probably result in at least a brief pause, and that's if the studios give in quickly.) But wow, was this week's episode all too enjoyable. ( And we thought things were wacky so far... )

I landed a room in San Diego's Manchester Grand Hyatt. I'd put it down as my third choice, mostly because it was third in the list my sister sent me. She got in to make her request a handful of minutes after I did, but ended up with a room in a less coveted, if still downtown, hotel. We both booked, but she's talking about trying to upgrade mine to a double if we can. At least we both got rooms. I heard at least one account of someone who got in as early as I did, but still somehow got nothing!
Which was why, when I learned they'd be charging my card on Thursday, I nearly panicked, because I knew immediately the charge would get itself rejected for possible fraud. My bank always does that for any charge of more than a couple hundred, even when I'm trying to pay the dentist I've cleared charges from with them multiple times, and you'd think they'd have payments to that practice down as probably not fraud by now. So I went and contacted the bank, asking a simple question about clearing a charge beforehand, mentioning I could lose a hotel room over it. Tuesday morning I was instructed to reply to an email with the details, which I did.
And it seems they did nothing with it, because come 1 AM on Thursday, the charge was indeed rejected. Thank goodness my insomnia showed up that night, so I knew it within minutes. My bank does at least make it very easy to clear rejected charges with them, and I quickly had it cleared, my payment info resubmitted, and the charge went through about an hour later. So I've secured the room, but I am still feeling very put out about it. For the first time in my life, I've contemplated venturing out of the credit union and trying a commercial bank.
Though at least the relief over that being dealt with made me less stressed over a couple of things that have happened since, including a metro stall that would've made me miss my bus last night had I been less lucky. Although there, of course, I was also helped by getting to watch the State of the Press video. Around the time it started with Matt and Mica getting "caught" by the camera talking about a Chauffage/Crosswinds star-crossed romance, I was left to remember exactly why I love these people so much. Pity their games are showing up at a later con I won't be going to, but I suppose they might not have everything ready in time for San Diego.

Hammered it out after I finished watching this week's episode of Critical Role, when my mood was darkest. I decided to sleep on it before posting, but now I'm going ahead. Warning that this contains not only spoilers and a major character death, but what is effectively a suicide.

( And suddenly, Keyleth could see exactly what lay before her, for the rest of her life. )

Did a little flipping through the TV channels just now, and they seem to mostly be talking about the Super Bowl. Would've thought they would've waited until tomorrow for at least some of that, but I really am out of touch with mainstream society these days. Can't seem to find any Four Continents coverage either, though at least I've been able to watch a couple of the woman's medalists on YouTube.
Maybe I really should just stick to a final weekend's worth of Legend of Vox Machina watch parties instead. But I've found I feel the opposite way about this season than I did about the last one. First season, I thought the show really got good in the final episode. Second season, it was good throughout, ( until the big climax... )

To think, at the beginning of this week, we Critters knew it was going to be an eventful one, even before they dropped a surprise maproom stream on us. (And now I've still got an hour left to watch on it. Yes, I've actually been watching the VOD after being stuck at work unable to stream it when it was happening.) But did anyone think they'd announce more animated stuff *now*? Honestly, I'm still a little worried about the long-term, since the critics will insist that all the campaign adaptations will tell pretty similar stories about bands of misfits fighting monsters and such. (They tend to miss things like The Mighty Nein's story sometimes being a little more complicated than that.) But it'll be worth it for however much we get to see. Especially if they do adapt the Calamity as a movie.
It was quite a week for my group to resume our Call of the Netherdeep campaign, after an involuntary month off. I still can't remember exactly where Schist got the wand of paralysis that is currently sitting in her inventory. She got to use counterspell for the first time, which probably saved most of us, since we were fighting a pretty powerful caster, and even with the fireball avoided she went down to only ten hit points after her second attack.