missizzy

So I think the situation is currently stable with the old computer. It's the new one's that's become the trouble. I'd already gotten concerned about the red light flashing on it, but then Sunday it started acting up, and last night it became unusable. I've been in contact with my IT people and this evening I sent them the entire list of parts I bought for it; I had to dig into my emails for that. I'm currently terribly afraid I did mess up while assembling it after all, and it just took two months for the consequences to show up. I've got protection on the chassis and the motherboard, but I'm not sure I have it on anything else.
I just finished watching this week's episode of Weird Kids. That show is rapidly becoming comfort viewing for me. Especially since Ashley is about my age and Taliesin is about my sister's, so a lot of the cultural things they talk about are things I have memories of hearing about or being into. (I was into American Girl, too. Still have some of the books. I wish I knew exactly where my old Felicity doll went.) And I grooved out like mad to that theme.

A few months ago, I bought a ticket to a Critical Role liveshow in Camden, right next door to Philadelphia, and booked my train tickets and hotel room to give myself a day to see the sights as well. I had not anticipated, perhaps, that come the first week of December, it would get extremely cold out, and also, I would be in no mood for our country's historical lore.
Still, I tried to make the best of it. I found some artistic exhibits to go see in Philadelphia that I could ultimately get to, including some pieces of history I minded less. I'm actually less scared of certain pieces of real history, now that I've accepted that all the times periods have had their great pieces of ugliness just like ours does, and see things associated with more ordinary people who lived okay lives then has become a very real comfort right now. I had my day at PAX Unplugged, got to play a little bit of a Daggerheart demo, and also ended up participating in a train game called Ticket to Ride, learning in the process that train games are very much a thing people like to do; there was even a tournament going on. I came in last, but am actually pretty proud of how well I played, considering the other three people involved all knew what they were doing and I didn't.
I had chosen the hotel because so many people going to the live show were staying there. Unfortunately, it was not at all conveniently located for the rest of the week, but it did mean only a short walk to the venue and thanks to the other showgoers around I didn't have to walk either way in the dark alone. I quite enjoyed the show itself, and will always remember being in that audience for the big final HDYWTTD, because that's a bigger moment when an entire audience is going wild over it.
It was also a good thing it was so close when I realized early on I was going to want to spend Saturday resting up before going over, and that was before I got laid low by a terrible episode of indigestion early that afternoon. Indeed, my body is not very happy with me right now; the various aspects of this trip took their toll. I have to hope my more normal routine will help with that.
I also finished the Wyll/Karlach fic that I hope to post fairly early this week, but I'm not sure quite when.

For the past month, I have spent a large amount of time consuming three pieces of Critical Role-related media. And right now, I have mixed feelings on all three.
The moment last week when two bands of adventurers came together, and the entirety of this week's episode? Felt very much like the payoff of years of invested storytelling that it was. The seven people who suddenly had to be playing two people all rose to the occasion with aplomb, giving us all the interaction we would want from such a meeting, with the two remaining people at the table happily keeping up alongside them. That one's going to be a fan favorite, no doubt about it. But I have been getting more and more wary about how likely Bells Hells are to be idiots at the end of this, because I'm sorry, but the fact remains that releasing Predathos is an act of idiocy at best, and an act of arrogance at worst.
Were I to watch the new season The Legend of Vox Machina having never seen the original source material, I think I would unequivocally love it. Even the over the top moments like the end of episode seven are great when you watch with the right mindset. But I don't feel like I'm watching the adaptation of the original story we've all been waiting a year and a half for. I feel like I've had this season sold to me as something it's really not, and that's a problem. ( And that's when... )
I've also been listening to the audiobook of What Doesn't Break, and I'm currently in the middle of chapter 9. I'd be further, if the story wasn't often hard to get through; a large part of what's getting me through it is the knowledge that it's going to end with her meeting Imogen. And in that aspect of the novel Cassandra Khaw is proving a skilled author who's getting it right, aided in the audio version by a virtuoso performance from Marisha. But she is also turning Exandria into the kind of world you'd expect to see in some old fantasy paperback where women are hated and downtrodden the way they kind of haven't been at all in the rest of canon. In fact, it very much feels like she wanted to write a story about a lesbian (Laudna's in fact being bi is outright erased) in a hostile world, even when said world has also been shown to be way more queer-friendly than ours. It's to the point that I'm afraid I must hope we don't see any of Marquet besides the Taloned Highlands, because I would not trust this author with any non-Western coded society.
I suppose any or all of three of these things could soon end better than I'm currently anticipated. But I don't know.

The new season of Doctor Who. The showrunner may be a guy who's done it before, but it seems they understand the time lord's gotta change with the times. I love that he sings and dances. ( I love that this week... ) I'm quite enjoying Ruby, too. And while I maybe remain a little dubious about the Regency episode's main influence being Bridgerton, I do appreciate that they at least addressed the matter of time travelers doing dancing that well-to-do Regency folk spent years learning how to do properly.
Baldur's Gate 3. Especially Gale. Got to a scene where he tried to teach my barbarian Tav a little magic this week, and seriously, how does anyone refrain from romancing this bloke? Though the camp conversation I had with Astarion this week also increased my appreciation for Neil Newborn; I'm starting to understand why he won awards for his performance in this game. And hey, maybe at some point I'll be able to navigate one of the game's puzzles without having to look up the answer. I've got a lot of game to go; surely I'll manage it sooner or later, right?
We finally have Vox Machina third season release date! Maybe I'll even get to hear more about it in San Diego, too. Although it already looks and sounds like we're definitely getting a few things we've been waiting for...

So far, the beginning of my forties has not been much fun, honestly. But this morning, I have decided, that after seeing weeks of people going after her for issues that were more or less out of her control, I am going to write about how awesome Aabria Iyengar has once again been.

( There will be spoilers involved... )

It has been a very long week. Dealing with the various issues that came up during the week related to my mother's treatment was the most stressful thing, but it wasn't even the only one. By the time the house internet was fritzing out early Friday afternoon, I was seriously wondering if I'd picked up a jinx, because things were starting to feel a bit ridiculous. Though after I went to see mom, and one of my sister's friends drove me home, she basically revealed she's having a pretty similar year so far, and so is just about everyone she knows.
She was also nice enough to take me for the groceries this morning, though I didn't even need much; one human and one cat consume a lot less than this household that until recently had two each has been used to buying. I was even flashing back to my experiences shopping and cooking on my own in grad school. (Except I paid twice as much money as I did back then!)
I also bought my Awesome Con badges this morning, then this afternoon went out to Dupont Circle and picked them up at the comic book shop, where I also bought Exquisite Exandria. I'm not terribly likely to cook many of the dishes in there, especially since they're all written to serve at least four people, but on top of the lore, the framing device of the quartet of Exandrians gathering recipes and trying to make sense of their own world's lore is pure delight, and I keep cracking up.

Finished this final fic this morning.

Title: The Tempest in Winter
Fandom: Critical Role
Characters: Keyleth/Vax
Disclaimer: My deepest respects to Marisha.
Warning: Character death
Note: Final installment in my Vaxleth series, taking place after Search for Bob.

( A song for a heart so big/ God wouldn't let it live )

So I've read some of the reactions to last night's episode of Critical Role, ( and I'm starting to wonder if I'm the only one who... )
I am currently nearly done with Anthony Trollope's The Macdermots of Ballycloran, which has very much been the First Novel He Wrote, with the kind of accompanying issues of putting together a compelling a story such works often suffer from. There are certainly much stronger moments in it as well. It perhaps says something that Trollope definitely exposes the evils of colonialism in it when, knowing as much as I do about him, he probably only partly realized he was doing so; he was good enough at observing and recording miseries, and recognizing their immediate cause, while still being blind as a Britisher of his time. ( Although it does rankle that... )
Quite excited about the upcoming Laudna novel. It'll be very nice indeed if it ends with her meeting Imogen-and the audiobook would of course allow us to literally hear that meeting with Marisha and Laura's voices. Though I'm still holding out hope for a Lord Estheross novel someday.

Note things get explicit in this one.

( It shouldn't be surprising to see him heading for the manor instead of the castle, especially when he's now been doing so for three weeks, but still, as Percy comes to its door, he sees the eyes of passers-by on him. )

Going in once more, but first, a look at Vex right after the events of "The Elephant in the Room">

( Vex isn't even sure how long she stands there. )