missizzy

I finished this little narrative prelude this morning, right before I started streaming.

( The Final Afternoon )

I think in the future, I may actually hold off on buying badges for AwesomeCon until the schedule is actually announced. I can't do that for any event I travel to, perhaps, but I don't think this one even sells out like that. If I'd done that this time, I'd have gone yesterday and tomorrow, and my foot probably would've been very grateful for the day off in between to boot.
As it is, the highlight of the event for me this year was absolutely Neil and Devora. Doing a podcast together has made the two of them a brilliant double act. They were playing off each other perfectly even before they had cause to demonstrate some of the practical issues of mocap using their water bottles. But the audience also helped with some of their very creative questions; Devora even joked she might come back to DC just for the questions. One of them was what was the last line each of them recorded for BG3. Unfortunately Devora couldn't remember what she'd done last, and Neil couldn't remember the last line, either, but he did remember and relate the last thing he did for it, which now makes me want to play origin Astarion.
I managed to buy a few things as well, including a cute drawing of Mulder and Scully eating Chinese food. Today I also attended a panel of those searching for any signs of life in outer space, which ended up feeling more like a reminder of just how much we have found in space this century, even if we haven't yet found that.
But I am currently planning for my first ever stream to be in a week's time, so now I must buckle down. I finally downloaded OBS this evening, though I haven't tried to install it yet.

My sister seems to be recovering. She tested negative for Covid Friday night, but her symptoms remained too good a match to it to rule the possibility out. But meanwhile, my mom got a message from Amazon declaring her gift for my brother-in-law was undeliverable. No explanation, of course. And when the main reason I don't argue with my family about paying Bezos for all our gifts is the supposed reality that they're much more likely to arrive on time if we do. Mom's now working on ordering that one from somewhere else. Next year I just might order mine from somewhere else as well.
Aside from that, I still had a good five days off. Finally finished watching Agatha All Along, my feelings about which are kind of mixed. Also played a lot of my Gale origin run, and ( left off yesterday... )

And I am still writing about the characters from my first Baldur's Gate 3 playthrough. This fic was inspired by the prompt on the Tav-ern of Tales discord "Karlach Gets a Hug," and is mostly about said companion, though it is very much Sara Tully's Karlach.

( Embrace )

I am currently in the process of making my first Daggerheart character. My D&D group this week is going to be missing a player whose character is kind of vital to the exact events we've reached, so we decided to do a Witherwild one-shot. I've come up with a faun renewal druid with all her stats and equipment and even a pair of experiences, but haven't tried to deal with any of the backstory questions yet. I think she's actually terminally ill, but I don't know if that'll end up mattering any.
I'm also nearing the end of the first act of my Gale orgin run. It's been fun, poking my head into all the corners and quests that I didn't do the first time around. Today I successfully obtained the Blood of Lathander for the first time, and I'm currently planning to end the act by going back to the Grymforge, actually finding and using the forge this time before also using the elevator for the first time as well Other firsts have included using the tadpoles and using mods. So far only Astarion's taken the former, and wow, but those things really do make you powerful. For the latter, I've currently got a cute mod that lets Gale take Tara around with him. I chose it randomly from multiple such mods, and it turned out to be a little silly with the spells, but she came in handy today against the Githyanki. The final thing to take out Kith'rak Therezzyn was her Magic Moussle, and her turning Gale into a cat so she could dimension catflap him was kind of priceless.
Watched plenty of the US Open too. Have been very glad to see Naomi Osaka making a run, even if she had to continue it at Coco's expense today.

A year after my attempt to get a Steam account fell victim to my inability to get past their bugged recaptcha, I am now seriously tempted to try again, just so I can get Date Everything! It's only available for PC through them. Unless I wait until the hard copy comes out, but I haven't even tried to use my CD drive since I finished copying all my music over, and I don't even know whether it'll still work on not. I've seen some of it be played through on Twitch, including the first meetings with both Ashley and Marisha's characters, and I've watched a couple of the promotional clips, including Dryerstarion's intro.
And speaking of which, I've finally followed Neil Newbon on Twitch, after watching a good deal of his playthrough on YouTube. He finally got to his character's big moment this week, and just now. A moment we were all anticipating, many of us dreading, ( but then... )

Since Patch 8 came out Tuesday, I've been on a bit of a photography spree through my old savefiles, taking photos partially to add to my tumblr entries, and also just for fun. It's been harder with the first two acts, though, since I deleted way too many saves in my quest to reduce my lag issues. I've had to replay parts of the game just for screenshots. And I can't get back to the magic lesson with Gale, because the new patch has put multiple scenes with Astarion in the way! I don't know if I would get that scene if I started that playthrough now. I'm starting to understand why people are mad about him getting all the content.
Another thing that happened this week: "Even if We're Just Dancing in the Dark" has now gotten multiple kudos for the third day in a row, though it got more yesterday and Thursday. My Daredevil fics have been getting plenty kudos in recent weeks, but rarely more than one or two for any one fic per day. I'm wondering if someone recced it somewhere. I'd really like to know who did, if so...

The cables and speakers arrived yesterday. Unfortunately, I still can't plug the monitor in, because it's got a fancier socket than I realized. So these two computers are still sharing one monitor, which might even be making the internet worse on both of them, though I hope that eventually moving the new one to another part of my room over a meter closer to the modem in mom's office might help with that. The speakers, on the other hand, worked maybe a little too well; I ended up taking the computer's volume down pretty low. They aren't the steadiest of speakers either.
But they're still very usable, and with audio, I can now use the computer for the purpose I bought it for. It took me a lot of time to download Baldur's Gate to it, and though I found the instructions again for moving the savefiles over, the folders didn't form until after I opened the game, and though I then immediately moved the files in, when they didn't appear at first, I got worried. I started a Gale origin run, marveling all the time at how fast the game now responds to my commands, not to mention the new phenomenal quality of the imagery I couldn't have before. I got to his meeting with Lae'zel (I had thought about him romancing Wyll, up until the moment she landed in front of him, and hello, future wife vibes!), then went back to the main menu, and the save files were by then showing up. I went to various spots from my first playthrough at random, reliving the endgame fights, taking Scratch for a walk in the park, exploring a couple corners I'd overlooked the first time round, kissing Gale multiple times, all without lag, and loving how beautiful my Tav now looks in it. Plenty of gamers probably take that sort of thing for granted, but I don't think I ever will.
The final test, of course, is to see if Elder Scrolls will run on it. That I try tonight.
What with us going back into the office full time next week I have to go out anyway to get tights I hope won't rip immediately, and I'll get a plug while I'm at it. I'll carry a photo of that damn socket on my phone into the store to make sure I get the right thing this time.

Yesterday I finally managed to get in touch with the guy from the IT service, and learned that the kind of graphic cards these games require basically mean you need to get a proper gaming PC to play them. We've bought all our stuff from this service for years, but they don't sell those. He sent me links to a couple of possible PCs from a big computer store, and strongly recommended I get a service plan from them, too. Except that you can only get those if you actually go to their store all the way in Fairfax. Not really practical for me. My sister has now contacted two of her gamer friends, and hopefully I can get some further guidance from them.
I've started thinking hard about how I can migrate my files myself, if need be. I even looked up where on my computer my BG3 savefiles are. I'd kind of really like to take those with me, maybe even relive some of my favorite moments from my first playthrough without the lag. Those I've also been going back and taking more phone photos, just in case I end up needing those to remember it by.
(I actually went through the whole Act I weave scene, intending to see it to the end this time, but Sara failed that second check again! Guess that's just an inevitable part of her and Gale's story.)

I finished Baldur's Gate late last night. Stayed up past midnight to finish the epilogue and even watch much of the credits, but they go on for a very long time indeed, too long, in the end, when I had to go into work today. It very obviously took a crazy amount of work to make such an elaborate game. I got my happy ending, and I feel like I should write something, but I'm not sure what to write, and that may even end up depending on whether I get accepted to write for the Galemancer magazine, since I did apply for that. Application deadline is tomorrow, so I should find out soon enough.
Today is my last day in of the year. After it the library closes until the second, and we'll all be teleworking. I'll be taking most of next week off anyway.