Lise – Page 22 – Lise Fracalossi

One day in Skyrim Requiem

On a whim I decided to play around with Requiem, a Skyrim “roleplaying overhaul” mod. It’s one of those big mods which is pretty much guaranteed to be incompatible with anything else, so I thought it would be easiest to install on top of my clean Skyrim install on my new computer.

A word about my mod philosophy, and how it led me to Requiem: the three factors I value the most in game mods are immersion, roleplaying, and surprise. To this end, in earlier Skyrim games I’ve used a lot of immersion mods (Frostfall, IMCN, etc). Roleplaying-wise, I generally have a story and guiding direction for every character I play.

Surprise is the hardest one to get, because installing mods that actually work tends to involve knowing what you are getting into. Ever since reading this famous article, I’ve been dying to capture the feeling embodied by this quote:

Where would the adventure and discovery be in simply picking something off a menu? I didnâ€™t want to install, say, â€œReally Pretty Flying Boat House Modâ€ only to walk over, see it, go â€œOooh,â€ and be done. I wanted to turn corners and actually be surprised by what I found.

So, Requiem bills itself as a roleplaying mod. I am down with that. It claims to reward tactical gameplay, which I feel syncs well with immersion. I’ve heard its difficulty compared to “if Dark Souls and Dwarf Fortress had a baby.” I knew it de-leveled the world, so you got the danger of Morrowind, where if you wandered where you weren’t supposed, you’d likely get killed by cliff racers — but you also could get quite badass gear randomly. Also, it’s one big mod, so I can install it relatively blindly, not knowing quite what I’m getting.

So I jumped in head-first. Didn’t even read the Player’s Handbook, as I wanted to be surprised. (That might have been a mistake).

Executive summary, after playing for 3-4 hours (and barely surviving Helgen): impressive, but not sure if it’s for me?

The setup is extensive — you need a mod manager, SKSE (Skyrim script extender), SkyUI, and the unofficial patches. After you do all that, you have to run Requiem’s own SkyProc patcher, the Reqtificator, to generate a compatibility patch with other mods (even though I had none installed other than the ones it recommended, I did this anyway). It probably took me about an hour to get it set up, but I was a) shooting the shit with my ESO guildies on TeamSpeak all the while, b) dealing with Windows UAC issues because Skyrim was installed in my C:\Program Files directory.

That was the easy part.

I started up a new game, went through the usual cart ride to Helgen. At first, not much is different. Strangely, my first reaction, after a year away from Skyrim, was “my god, hair is uglier than I remember.” I might have to look into some mods to fix that.

Requiem didn’t run its startup scripts until you get to the tower and Hadvar unties you (or, one assumes, Ralof, if you go the other way). It immediately gives you three perk points to spend. “Huh, that’s interesting,” I thought.

Little did I know I wouldn’t be getting out of there without them.

This character was based on the protagonist of my novel-in-progress, a spy, diplomat, and poisoner (herself loosely based off Milady de Winter from The Three Musketeers). I made her an Imperial with blue eyes and blond hair and cheekbones that could cut diamonds. I named her Hibernia Leonis, because of course I did.

Skillwise, I wanted her to specialize in Alchemy, Illusion, Lockpicking, and Speechcraft. I put two of my three points to Alchemy and Illusion; as my third skill, I ended up picking One-Handed, as I figured I’d probably need some sort of weapon to get out of there. (And I figured Speechcraft was already buffed due to being an Imperial).

Illusion was the most interesting of these; with one point in it, I got to choose two spells. I chose Charming Touch and Frightening Orb, figuring I could use these to repel or calm enemies.

I picked up everything useful in the first room, followed Hadvar around the corner…

And promptly got one-shot by a Stormcloak.

So. Um. Clearly I had not chosen optimal skills. Let’s try again.

(repeat x 20)

I did finally leave Helgen and reach Riverwood. In order to actually get out, though, I had to assign those first three skill points to Heavy Armor/Block/One-Handed.

Here’s what I learned about Requiem along the way:
– Health doesn’t regenerate on its own. Stamina and magicka do, but very slowly (especially while doing anything else). I had about one spell in me before my magicka was completely drained. I’m okay with this; Morowind was this way.

– My spells often didn’t work. I don’t mean they failed in the way spells could fail in Morrowind — I cast the spell fine, it hit the enemy, but the enemies didn’t stop attacking me, or run away in fear. From what I am reading now, this is typical of the Illusion spells I choose, as my starting Illusion skill of 5 or whatever is pitted against a calculated “mental resistance” score for the target. That’s cool, buuuuut… it made Illusion useless as a way to get out of Helgen.

– Alchemy is also useless for getting out of Helgen, as the first perk just makes you able to use Alchemy tables, of which there are none.

– One-Handed weapon seems minimally useful without a shield to block with. And that’s useless without the Block skill.

– Walk speed is slow, and encumbrance makes it slower. And my max encumbrance seems really low. It took a long time to walk to Riverwood. I had time to contemplate why Hadvar walks so strangely, and why I’d never noticed before.

– Food regens stamina and magicka (and sometimes health), but only out of combat. Which honestly I have no problem with; I always thought the “scarf down as many apples as you can while fighting a dragon” was kind of ridiculous.

– Raw meat drops your stamina and magicka unless you’re a race with poison resistance, i.e. Bosmer or Argonian.

– Merchants are likely to rip you off. Hey, it’s wartime. This wouldn’t have been so bad with my racial power (modified from vanilla to help with haggling instead), except I couldn’t remember how to use shouts/powers, thanks to it being so long since I last played.

– Pretty sure this is a bug (or just due to my choice of font) but a lot of the tooltips are missing the glyphs for their keybindings, so you’ll see “Press __ to Ready a Weapon.”

Apparently you can turn these tooltips off in the .ini files, which was part of the recommended setup I missed.

– You pretty much can’t do anything if you don’t have a skill in it. I tried to lockpick those cells in the torturer’s room, and Requiem gave me a “seriously, don’t even try” message. It doesn’t help that I’d completely forgotten how the lockpicking mechanic in vanilla Skyrim worked (it’s very different than ESO’s). I tried it anyway on one of my many go-throughs, and found the novice locks even harder than master locks in the vanilla game.

– I experimented with taking a different selection of character-appropriate skills, like Evasion (what Light Armor has become), Sneak, Marksmanship, etc. And… they were equally rubbish for helping me escape. Pretty much Heavy Armor/Block/One-Handed was the only combo that worked, and even that took a reasonable amount of effort/care.

I ended my session in Riverwood, and I suspect I may have to spend some time here, doing the Skyrim equivalent of killing level 1 goblins. Even Bleak Falls Barrow, the game documentation tells me, is no starter dungeon.

Overall? I’m not sure how to feel about Requiem. This is a very exciting world to explore, and I appreciate the element of danger and the importance of tactics. It might even be more “realistic” that a fighter character can bull their way through Stormcloaks.

But that was not the sort of character I wanted to play, and there doesn’t seem to be a way through Helgen as the diplomat/spy I intended.

I’ll probably give it a little longer, as the whole point of a de-leveled world is that it gets much easier as you go along. I’m not playing the character I originally intended, but it’s possible that character was too hard-mode for a new player — like trying to ascend a tourist in Nethack on your first playthrough.

Have you played around with this mod at all? Any impressions?

ESO Thieves Guild DLC — week one

The Thieves Guild expansion for the Elder Scrolls Online came out last Monday for PC. As an ESO Plus subscriber, I immediately had access to it.

So here are some impressions, a week in! There will be minor spoilers throughout, though I don’t think I’m far enough in to reveal any big spoilers.

So far? I really like the new Thieves Guild questline. It helps that the first quest is super-fun and that the first questgiver (Quen, an Altmer novice thief) is likeable. Most importantly, it introduces the gameplay elements that characterize this DLC.

They really disadvantaged the “kill everything that stands in your way” playstyle, and I appreciate it. There’s lots of sneaking, as well as guards with lanterns who can sniff you out of stealth (which has been used elsewhere in the game, but sparingly). To this they’ve added hiding spots where you can stay safe for a few minutes. I also like the use of choke points — and water full of slaughterfish to keep you from swimming across said choke points. There are also distraction mechanics, puzzles, and even a few — ugh — jumping puzzles.

And yes, even parts where you can just kill stuff, too.

The basic plot behind the new content is that a fanatic group, the Iron Wheel, is cracking down on the Thieves Guild after a failed heist pissed off certain Taneth nobles. You meet Quen, the aforementioned novice thief, in your local Outlaw’s Den, where she’s looking for a partner for a heist. From there, she brings you into the Thieves Guild and you learn about their struggles to bounce back from recent misfortunes.

I already mentioned my love for Quen. I like how her naive idealism is paired with her stone-cold badassery. She’s definitely not cut from the same cloth as many Altmer; I didn’t enough know she was one until she started talking about her family.

I like everyone else in the Thieves Guild so far, too! I like Walks-Softly, the Argonian who shows up to save you from a failed heist (“oh, look, a crypt. Nothing bad ever happened in a crypt”). I like Zeira, the Redguard guildmaster, unsure of her new role. I like Nord banker/bookie Kari (“I. Never. Miscount”), and her twin sister and disguise artist Hola (“have you ever seen us in the same place at the same?” “Uh, she’s sitting right over there”). I like grumpy Velsa.

In addition to the main quest, Kari offers quests from a tip board, usually of the type “go to this zone and pickpocket certain types of stuff” (that’s another new thing: oodles of new items to steal, and items are categorized into classes — Personal Effects, Cosmetics, Dry Goods, etc). I was a little worried they would turn out to be as tedious and annoying as the repeating “go to a city and steal X” quests you have to do in the Skyrim Thieves Guild, but blessedly, they are not. There’s a mechanic whereby you can turn the quest in after the first step for a small reward, or go on to further steps for a greater reward, which is kind of neat.

If you’re more into the shivving things and getting out with the treasure, Spencer Rye’s “acquisition” missions will send you to delves and world bosses around Hew’s Bane to collect various items. (Warning: the world bosses are in the style of the Orsinium DLC, i.e. you’ll need a group to defeat them).

One thing worth noting: much of this content will be really challenging for non-thief characters. Br’ihnassi, my thief, has invested a fair number of points in Legerdemain, and is a nightblade, to boot, with all the extra sneaky-sneaky abilities that confers. She still gets caught a fair bit. In Abah’s Landing, it seems like every pickpocketing mark is a Hard mark, and even with two points in the Light Fingers skill, that’s still only a 60% chance of success at best.

Thankfully, the DLC adds a lot of stuff to mitigate the dangers of getting caught stealing. There’s the Clemency skill in the new Thieves Guild skill line, which allows you to weasel out of being cornered by a guard once per day. Even before you unlock that, there’s a skill to make Bounty and Heat decay faster. Plus, doing quests from Kari’s tip board will get you one-use items that erase Bounty and Heat.

I haven’t said anything about the new zone of Hew’s Bane, have I? For one thing, it’s small — maybe half or a third the size of Wrothgar. Like the Orsinium DLC, the content scales to your level — which is why I’m doing it with my V8 nightblade instead of my main. Most of the zone is taken up by the sprawling coastal city of Abah’s Landing, home of the titular Thieves Guild. In general, the architecture and landscape of Hew’s Bane hearkens back to zones like Alik’r and Craglorn — which makes sense, it being in Hammerfell and all.

When I first arrived in Abah’s Landing, I found myself in a picturesque seaport, bigger and more atmospheric than others I’ve seen in the game. This initial impression really formed my opinion of the city as a beautiful and complex place. With more exploration, I discovered lots of winding passages with cubbies to hide in, perfect for thievery. Abah’s Landing also takes advantage of all three dimensions, with a lot of stuff happening above street level, where the buildings are connected by boards and platforms. A large chunk of the city, the Warehouse District, is off limits, and you can only get in by secret passages, jumping puzzles, or by just plain sneaking.

I also favor the BRIGHT BLUE DOME of the building that shelters the Thieves’ Guild, which is easily spotted when you are desperately trying to get there with your ill-gotten gains.

Another thing this DLC adds — more relevant to non-thieves among you –is thieves’ troves. These are caches found throughout the world, full of stolen goods, lockpicks, set items, etc. Anyone can open them, although the contents may require laundering at your local Outlaw’s Den in order to use. It was in fact one of these troves that led me to the Mournhold Outlaw’s Den where I met Quen.

That pretty much covers the new stuff… but lots of changes were made to existing content and gameplay, some big, and some small.

Some… really small.

Ones of particular notice to me:

Cross-faction grouping for dungeons and trials. No more playing everyone’s least favorite mini-game, Abusing the LFG Tool. It was kind of uncanny to be able to just… invite guildies from AD and DC to do pledges with us.

The UESP guild took advantage of this on the first weekend it was available to run two of the Craglorn trials, Hel Ra Citadel and Aetherian Archive. We actually managed to get through fast enough to get the timed trial achievement on both — admittedly, not that big a deal when all the enemies are V12 and you’ve got twelve V16s. (Sadly, the gear that drops is all still V12, too).

Templar changes. The big one is that Breath of Life now hits two targets instead of three. This caused quite the kerfuffle when it was announced, with many templar players believing they’d been nerfed out of healer competition. But I’ve run several dungeons since the DLC came out, and I haven’t noticed it making a big difference. If three out of four members of your party need a big, fast heal at once, something’s very wrong — possibly so wrong that hitting a second BoL a second later won’t help.

Supposedly they also fixed the bug whereby using Toppling Charge would lock you out of your abilities. I’m not holding my breath. (It’s also not a core part of my build).

Champion point changes. They changed how several Champion point trees worked. Notably for me, the Magic damage increase was taken out of Thaumaturge in the Ritual tree, and put under Elemental Expert in the Apprentice tree. Thaumaturge now only affects DoTs (which I use relatively few of).

I don’t know if it’s due to this change — I ended up moving a bunch of points from Thaumaturge into Elemental Expert as a result — or due to Templar changes in general, my gear improving (I’m now rocking two gold Torug’s Pact swords on my DPS bar), or FTC just being crazy, but I am pulling some serious DPS as a result. I used to struggle just to hit 10k; now I’m regularly hitting 20-22k. This while healing, mind.

New pets. You get the echalette pet for having the Orsinium DLC installed, and a jackal pet after completing the first Thieves Guild quest. The echalette is cute in the way only a baby spider-bison could be, but OMG THE SOUNDS IT MAKES ARE AWFUL. Especially when you have ten of them chilling in the bank.

There is still no chub loon pet, though, which is clearly an oversight on ZOS’ part.

64-bit client. There’s a 64-bit client available as of this last update. It’s not hooked up to the launcher, so you have to go digging for it, but it exists. It’s still very beta, and seems to have memory leaks like whoa.

And then there are the places where they just forgot the textures.

This has led to some really uncanny bugs, like shirtless vendors. Lest you think this is awesome, consider that underneath their clothing, most NPCs are featured like Barbie dolls.

This was pretty hilarious, though.

Either way, the 64-bit client is mostly a curiosity at this point.

Change to DirectX11. As of this patch, you can only play the game with video cards that support DirectX11. I’m not sure why it requires this, and Matt and I are unaffected, but it means there are some guildies we won’t be seeing until they get a new graphics card.

I’m not sure if this change is to blame, but I’ve seen a decent amount of glitchiness since TG came out — crashing to desktop, low FPS in certain places, etc. (Although a big FPS drop Matt was seeing turned out to be the result of the uespLog addon, which Reorx/Daveh quickly fixed).

Stealth changes to veteran Imperial City Prison. Vet ICP is notoriously hard, mostly due to its second boss, Ibomez the Flesh Sculptor. Previous to this week, I’d only been there on normal mode, but I know about the mechanic whereby you throw bombs at the zombies and atronachs to keep them from enraging. (My guild refers to the bombs as watermelons, because they’re green and why the hell not). I also knew that most groups had better luck ignoring that and just DPSing him down.

Well, I finally went to vet ICP this week. Our group make-up was suboptimal (three DKs!), and I expected to be stopped cold at the Flesh Sculptor.

I was surprised to get him on the second try.

Later, checking the official forums I learned they’ve apparently lowered Ibomez’s health, made him invulnerable when he’s standing by the pool waving his arms, and capped the number of waves of zombies. This basically means you can’t just ignore the mechanic and DPS him, but it also means it’s possible to get past him with less than excellent DPS.

I’m okay with that change — anything to make the game less about gear and more about skill.

(I’m less okay with the necrotic hoarvors and their poison spit, or how much pain Lord Warden Dusk inflicted on us before we finally gave up, but I blame that entirely on our sub-optimal party/DPS).

Those are the major points from me.

All in all: Thieves Guild good! Get it if Elder Scrolls and fantasy larceny is your thang.

Links and Accomplishments, February 2016

Links

Our Gothic Future. In which Madeleine Ashby talks about Crimson Peak and why it’s so relevant today in ways that make me sad I don’t have an English degree.

(As a reminder, I wrote my own analysis of Crimson Peak — in particular the costume design, and how it conveys a sense of the Sharpes being stuck in the past).

Nerd Role Models: Captain America and Non-Toxic Masculinity. I’m actually not much of a fan of superheroes, in general, but this article was brilliantly written, and kind of made me regret not having seen any of these movies.

The first scene of Mary Robinette Kowal’s next novel, Ghost Talkers. Even loving SFF as I do, it’s rare that I read a first scene that makes me want to rush out and buy the book quite so much as this one did. Regrettably, I have to wait until July to read the whole book.

Accomplishments

Writing
– Wrote 3,801 words on Lioness
– Attended writing group
– Attended a Saturday afternoon write-in
– Submitted “Remember to Die” to Fantastic Stories
– Submitted “Powder of Sympathy” to Apex
– Wrote some blog posts:

Reading
– Read The Girl in the Garden by Kamala Nair
– Read Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
– Read Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear
– Read/listened to Tremontaine episode 7 (aaaand I seem to have skipped #5 and #6 without realizing it. It’s kind of amazing how coherent it still was).

Other Media
– Played Creative Clash with coworkers
– Played Codenames with a whole bunch of cool people
– Listened to Writing Excuses 10.44 – 10.52, 11.01 – 11.08
– Listened to Happier with Gretchen Rubin, episode 46-48
– Finished Coursera course “Learning How to Learn”
– Finished the Assassin (timed) achievements for vet Crypt of Hearts and vet Banished Cells in ESO (with Falanu)
– Watched the Film Crew of The Giant of Marathon
– Watched the Film Crew of The Wild Women of Wongo
– Watched the Film Crew of Hollywood After Dark

(This was “Film Crew February” at RiffTrax, where they re-released a bunch of riffs they’d done as part of The Film Crew, a similar project circa 2006).

LARP
– Attended Intercon P
– Went to several panels/workshops at Intercon P — Costuming Tricks for Lazy People, Renaissance Dancing, Interactive Props, Social Contract of Larp
– Played in Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
– Played in 1493
– Played in Congress of Vienna

Social
– Had dinner with Django and Casey at Boskone
– Had dinner/book club with Jess at Minerva
– Had lunch with Alison at Minado
– Visited with my mom at the Dance Flurry in Saratoga Springs, NY
– Visited EB

Crafts
– Put together costume for Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
– Put together costume for 1493
– Put together costume for Congress of Vienna

Health
– Did 11am/3pm office exercises x 1
– Did three sets of contradance
– Did Hacker’s Diet Introductory Fitness Ladder rung 1 x 1
– Took three lunchtime (30-40m) walks
– Had two chiropractor appointments
– Had a massage

Return to the Sceptered Isles, part two: Consequences

Yes, I was in England in November. Yes, this has been a long time coming.

On the second part of my transatlantic trip, I flew to London and took the train to Christchurch, Dorset, in order to attend Imaginary Consequences, a larp convention.

This is my third year attending Consequences, but it’s never been exactly the same trip twice. This year, taking the train was the new part. I did not account for the fact that I would not have a place to stash my ginormous suitcase on Southwest Rail trains, nor the fact that I’d have to change at Clapham Junction, one of the busiest exchanges on the line, nor that I’d have to drag said suitcase up two flights of stairs at said station because there wasn’t an escalator or elevator.

Ah well. The best I can say is that we managed, and arrived at Naish Holiday Village, where most everything was more familiar to us. We shared a lodge with Tony and Elyssia, as well as two of their friends who I hadn’t met before — Steve and David.

I found the latter utterly fascinating to talk to about history, especially legal history, as he’s been a lawyer for many years. From him I learned why judges in the UK wear black (apparently they’re still in mourning. For Queen Anne), and what the difference between a barrister and a solicitor was (which made the relationship between Eugene and Mortimer in Our Mutual Friend make a lot more sense). David also runs a vaguely 17th-century, 7th Sea-inspired tabletop campaign where the characters just went through the Siege of La Rochelle, so we spent some time discussing that era in history, too.

My schedule was light at Consequences — I only played in three games, and one of them was an off-schedule private run of a game after the con ended. This is due to having more trouble than usual signing up this year; I think more people than ever were in attendance. (The 4pm Eastern signup time wasn’t great, either, but it’s probably the best option available).

As a result, I spent a lot of time in the board gaming room. (Where I played new-to-me games Kingdom Builders, Mysterium, and Among Nobles).

Anyway! To the larps!

My first game was Músþéof, a 2-hour game by Dave Collis. I signed up for this game largely for the “Mouseguard/ Anglosaxon/ Amber setting,” which intrigued me, because cutthroat politics with fuzzy animals sounds like fun. I’ve played in Dave (and his co-conspirator Ben’s) Amber games before and found them entertaining, so I figured this would be much the same.

The characters are the members of three mús (mouse) guard patrols returning from harrowing missions, reporting on and dealing with what they’ve found. The world around them is crumbling in various dramatic ways; on top of that, there’s a schism between believers of the Old and New Gods (the new being the princes of Amber), and some old family rivalries, which are tearing the mouse community apart from the inside.

As Asmindr Whitecloak, the de facto leader of a patrol gone horribly wrong, I spent the first half of this game locked in a room with the rest of the patrol, trying to decide what we were going to tell the others about what happened on our patrol. The rest of the game… was a lot of yelling. (This happened in the straight-up Amber game I played, too). We tried to agree on what threat we were going to deal with first and who was going to lead us, but came to no conclusions. Accusations were made of murder plotted in the past. More yelling, and fighting.

I think I ended the game by scurrying off with a group of other mús to a supposed promised land?

I’m not sure what to make of this game. It was too short to ever be boring, but I felt sort of adrift, uncertain how I felt about the terrible things I’d just seen, and uncertain what to do about it, or where my loyalties lay. I knew I was a follower of the old gods, but other than that I had no strong feelings about what happened to my character.

While the world-building is a real strength of this game, I feel it could use more structure in terms of what happens when you return from patrols and how decisions are made among the mús. There didn’t seem to be any mechanic to resolve any of our various conflicts, which is what contributed to the resolution-by-loudness, I think.

There was cheese served, and I got to wear fleece pajamas to game, though, so no complaints 🙂

My Saturday evening game was The Dying of the Light, a Peaky game by Nickey Barnard, Tym Norris, Ray Hodson, Richard Evans, Mike Snowden, and Alli Mawhinney. This game takes place on a near-future Earth on the edge of ecological disaster. You play a leader of a world government or organization at the Omega Conference, which everyone agrees is probably the last resort to keep the world from ending entirely.

My character was Rachel Stahley of the Neo-Luddites (a faction I continually referred to as Space Amish, even though space was not involved in any way). The Neo-Luddites were shepherding what remained of the world’s agriculture, and were eager to keep it that way. While being very traditional-minded, Rachel was up to some very non-traditional activities. (My costuming, incidentally, was my ever-versatile black layered dress and a white lace shawl). She was also, in many interesting ways, a character I probably wouldn’t normally play — but I’m glad I had the chance to, mostly due to a lot of casting issues.

I think I did pretty well in terms of my personal plot in this game (to say more would be spoilery), though the NeoLs definitely did not get what they wanted (which was a reduction in technology and a return to the “old ways”). We averted a few terrible disasters, but I think at the end of game we were all about to die of the avian death flu… so. Don’t know how successful the conference as a whole was, then!

I didn’t interact at all with the hacking mechanic (no surprise there), but from the outside it looked interesting, and fairly streamlined. (Apparently in the first run they had tried to use Netrunner as the hacking mechanic which… did not work so well).

What this game taught me, most importantly, was that a group of Bill Clinton clones is properly referred to as an “orgy.”

Finally, I played in a private run of Burning Orchid (Ben Allen, Nickey Barnard, Martin Jones, Heidi Kaye and Alison Rider Hill) on Sunday afternoon, after the con was officially over. This was probably my favorite game of the con.

The game is set in 1932 at the wrap party of a movie, Burning Orchid — “detailing the passionate heart of a claustrophobic forbidden love story set in the jungle villages of Guatemala against a background of a country riven by political turmoil. And that’s not just the movie!”

I played Judy Gardner, a supporting actress in the titular film, just getting her footing in the movie business.

… aaaand I pretty much spent my entire game sitting in a corner, blubbing at Graham A, who played my co-star.

This is not usually the sort of game you would think of me liking — it’s plot-light, character-heavy and emotionally intense — but I did, and in spades. I would love to see it run at Intercon some year, as I think there’s a lot for that crowd to love. Heck, I’d love to do a private run of it myself.

And that was my con! I didn’t even stick around through Monday, as I did last year, since I had an early-morning flight to catch.

Observations on The Three Musketeers (1948)

I had seen almost every film version of The Three Musketeers.

I have seen much of the oevre of Vincent Price.

But until recently I had not seen The Three Musketeers (1948), in which he plays Cardinal Richelieu.

In that regard, I was not disappointed. Every time Price was on screen was brilliant. He was born to play that role.

… sadly, not for more than maybe ten minutes of the whole film.

(Learning that Price was probably bi has colored my interpretations of his roles. I feel vaguely bad for wanting his seducing D’artagnan over to his side to be an actual seduction — but only a little).

I lurve these villains so much.

Other thoughts:
– Gene Kelly (as D’Artagnan) really wanted to dance in this movie, and it seems like NO ONE HAD THE POWER TO STOP HIM. The sword fights — of course there are a lot — feel like dance routines where people are just kind of waving around weapons.

– The story is fairly accurate, except when it’s not. Like, Constance is D’Artagnan’s landlord’s niece, not his wife. (This is a common change — if not always in this permutation). There’s also the fact that they decided to smoosh Milady’s imprisonment/Buckingham’s assassination/Constance’s poisoning into one subplot in one location. Sure, I guess so? It makes the plot go faster…

– WTF is Lana Turner (as Milady de Winter) wearing? There’s perfectly serviceable 17th-century garb all around her, and she’s wearing some strangely architectural 1940s evening gowns. And some truly ridiculous hats.

What the hell?

Sadly, there’s otherwise nothing notable about her performance as my favorite character 🙁

– This is a version with a Duke of Buckingham! The script writer even went to the trouble to learn the given name of the historical first Duke of Buckingham (George Villiers). But then no one bothered to pronounce it right.

– Surprising no one, I get all teary-eyed at Milady’s execution at the end of the story. She’s a terrible person! I know that! But still. It’s no wonder I decided to write an entire novel as her vindication.

You can’t Intercon P enough (con report)

Intercon Pirates! — I feel the exclamation point is necessary — was this past weekend. Despite some preliminary anxiety, this was probably one of my low-key and unstressful Intercons ever.

This was our first year at a new hotel, as our beloved Chelmsford Radisson told us it was washing its hair every weekend for the rest of forever. Instead we found ourselves at the Doubletree in Westborough, MA, and on a weekend two weeks before our usual date. This meant that the biggest LARP event of the year for me conflicted with Boskone, which I had dearly wanted to attend. (I did end up sneaking off to visit with friends at Boskone on Saturday).

I arrived at the con late on Thursday afternoon. I was still easing into extroversion after a rough winter, so I admit I spent a good chunk of that evening hiding out in my room (or a friend’s) playing Crusader Kings II instead of going to panels or socializing. However, I did attend parts of…

Pre-con

I made it to the Renaissance Dance workshop led by larper and SCA dancemaster Justin, which was a lot of fun. We spanned several centuries, learning bransles, allemanes, and even some English country dance. It’s always funny to me how many similarities I can find with contra dance — which I do a lot of — and yet how blasted bad I can still be at it. I have a left/right problem, which doesn’t help.

The other pre-con event that stands out for me was The Social Contract of LARPing panel on Friday afternoon, which was near and dear to my heart after a post I wrote years ago on just that topic. I already knew, going in, about the many unspoken assumptions of the larp community (and the Intercon community in particular); but this brought to light many I hadn’t thought about in depth. It made me think of Alyssa Wong’s recent words on convention culture: “If that’s the pervasive culture of your convention, that’s not intentional malice; that’s people moving naturally within a toxic milieu.” I doubt anything Intercon is doing is quite that bad, but that doesn’t mean our milieu isn’t unwelcoming, or that we don’t occasionally brush off concerns about being unfriendly as outsiders not knowing the culture.

(Relatedly, very glad to see that this year Intercon has a code of conduct and a dedicated security staff keeping it safe).

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Between… was my first game, billed as “a swashbuckling occult four hour one-shot boffer game using the Accelerant rules told over a number of scenarios,” written by Dave Kapell, Alex Bradley, and Larisa Allen. From the moment I saw this game on the schedule I knew I had to play, if only because it listed Tim Powers’ On Stranger Tides as one of its influences. It was very much in demand, and closed in the first signup slot — but not before I got in.

Caroline Skive

I played Caroline Skive, the first mate of the Red Lady, with my mother (played by Jen B) as captain, and my sister (Hannah R) as the captain of the rival ship the Shatterjack. My goals revolved around reuniting my family and seeing what sort of terrible trouble — foretold by the tarot card readings I’d done — awaited us.

To be honest, most of that personal plot felt unimportant for a big chunk of the game. The scenarios that made up the game were largely about crew goals, like acquiring a new ship, raiding the governor’s mansion, and finding our way to a certain cave of wonders. This is fine — I wasn’t bored, but I would have liked to feel more personal connection to the character. It was clear that family was important to Caroline, but I had a hard time living that in game. Maybe I was just having trouble easing into character given that I hadn’t larped in a while… or maybe it’s due to another problem I experienced in this game — my level of immersion.

My immersion/ability to stay IC was rather low, which is unfortunate, considering this is usually a strength of “what you see is what you get” systems like Accelerant. I think part of it was that there were a number of players who were inexperienced with the system, and some coaching was necessary. That sort of meta discussion often drives me out of character. (This isn’t a complaint — I’m glad that new people are trying Accelerant, and overall they did really well — but it’s just an aspect of the situation).

Also there were some confusing rules arbitration moments — at one point I acquired a ritual that I misunderstood the usage of, in part due to some calls that were written incorrectly. Of course I didn’t realize this until AFTER I’d already used it wrongly. Dave pulled me aside and explained how it was supposed to work, which meant I had to retcon what I had already done. That never works out well, and in a WYSYWYG system, it’s even harder to swallow.

On the plus side for immersion, the claustrophobia engendered by the “ships” — tables arranged into a boat-like shape, with a limited number of places to sit — was very real. The lighting and sound design was also really good. I wish there had been the sort of neat interactive props Dave is known for, but perhaps this wasn’t a game that called for that.

Also, as my character sheet indicated I put a lot of stock in fortune-telling, I brought a tarot deck, and enjoyed doing impromptu tarot readings — which turned out to be surprisingly apt at times. Why yes, the seven of pentacles does accurately describe what’s going to happen when we raid the governor’s mansion!

Overall, I found this game enjoyable, but a little rough around the edges still. It’s nothing that can’t be refined, however, and I would definitely recommend future runs to others.

Costuming: Since Fair Escape will almost certainly want to hear details on this. This was pulled together entirely out of my costuming closet. The shirt was a white linen shirt from Matt’s costume collection, the pants and boots were street clothes, the belt and pouch were the ones I use for Ianthe in 5G, and the earrings were ones I used NPCing as the Queen of Jerusalem in 12th century Shadows of Amun. Everything else — sash, jewelry, coin pouch — was all just random tat I had lying around. I had actually found a coat at Savers that I wanted to use as a pirate coat, but when I tried it on with the full costume, it just didn’t work.

1493

On Saturday morning I played in 1493, by Betsy Isaacson and Elisabeth Cohen. As I understand it, this game was written for sixth graders to teach the age of exploration in Western history. Given that, it is basically historical in scope (with some small adjustments to make female characters have more agency), with no weird supernatural stuff going on.

The writing of the game materials, on the whole, was simple — as befits something aimed at 6th graders — but not dumbed-down; it tackled some complex political and religious concepts.

Cardinal Cesare Borgia. “You look ready to kill some musketeers,” someone told me.

This was the first of two games where I was cross-cast this weekend — this time as Cardinal Cesare Borgia. I joked that my character sheet was basically, “My dad’s the Pope! I do what I want!” but I mean no slight by that. The character’s goals evolve quite naturally from that, and they kept me busy the whole game. Having great co-conspirators (Kelly D. as Alessandro Farnese and Katie G. as Ludovico Sforza) was also a ton of fun. (I had serious beard envy of Sforza. I know Katie plays a dude in 5G Wrathborn, so she knows her way around a facial toupee).

As Cesare, I succeeded in getting the Papacy declared a hereditary peerage (ruled by the Borgias, natch), gave the Pope’s blessing to Princess Margaret’s unborn child, and married the Duchess of Brittany (Quinn D), who became a queen again when I freed her from French tyranny by annulling her marriage to the King of France.

I feel this is a strong game, and would definitely recommend it. If I have complaints, they were more about the length of the game — at two hours, it felt too short for the amount of plot I had. On the other hand, other characters looked a bit lost, such as the folks playing the natives of the New World. I also know Matt (playing Prince John of Asturias) was annoyed to discover that even preventing a succession crisis in Spain didn’t keep France from taking over; he felt he was pretty much doomed to failure, with no way to stop that.

Costuming: I purchased a plain black trench coat and turned the collar under to use as a cassock. The red capelet and cardinal hat (not really shown in the picture) were borrowed from Alison, who had a whole bunch of them made for her game Venezia. The beard was drawn on with black and brown eyeliner.

Congress of Vienna

Congress of Vienna, by Ben Philip and Kristen Patten, is very much your standard secrets-and-powers larp, taking place in 1815 at the titular conference. Historically, the Congress of Vienna pieced Europe back together post-Napoleon. In-game, well… things were a little different.

This game does say in its description that it is a political game “with some weirdness,” so I went in expecting a certain amount of magic and/or supernatural elements. But what I really liked about this game is that it wasn’t about those elements, and while I could look on and watch crazy shit happen like Louis XVI coming back from the dead and King George III becoming magically sane again, it didn’t actually affect what I was there to do — the political sausage-making of creating a treaty.

I played Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, representing Great Britain’s delegation at the Congress. Castlereagh is a real historical figure, apparently so hated by Lord Byron that the poet wrote a eulogy inviting people to piss on his grave. As far as I can tell Castlereagh was one of the major players in the actual Congress; he is largely responsible for how Europe got divided up, which kept the peace until WWI.

It’s a spoiler — but only a minor one — to say that Castlereagh is one of the most mundane characters in that game. And his normalness is his fucking superpower.

This is illustrated by ability usage — a lot of the diplomats had a “tell me what you really think” ability to look at other player’s goals. So, people would use this ability on Castlereagh, and get things like, “make sure a treaty is signed,” “protect your family,” or “make sure the King is safe.” I’d use the same ability on them, and get things like, “figure out who is trying to steal your body.”

I pretty much got what I wanted in this game. Great Britain doesn’t have all that much of a horse in the division-of-Europe race, so mostly Castlereagh wanted to balance power on the Continent. The one issue where I couldn’t get traction was the annexation of Saxony by Prussia, but it was clear to me that I wouldn’t hold up the treaty just for that. I also got both Austria and Prussia into the German Confederacy, and made sure that if Russia wanted the Grand Duchy of Poland, they had to at least constitute it from their own land. I still think Austria is over-powerful, but maybe we’ll prevent WWI for a few extra years in this timeline.

I had a few moments of concern when King George suddenly became sane again, and indicated he wanted to take my place at the treaty table. However, after getting briefed on the state of the treaty, he told me, “you know what you’re doing, you know what I want, I’ll leave it in your capable hands,” and ran off to do mystical stuff involving the spiritual leader of Europe. I’m not sure if that was the player realizing he would basically end my game if he did that, or if the character just had other stuff to do.

Overall, I thought it was brilliant –and rare — that despite being Captain Normal in a game with a lot of weirdness, I got to the end and didn’t feel like I’d been playing the wrong game. Other stuff was clearly happening, but what I accomplished still felt real.

Also, I am really sad that I didn’t have more of an IC reason to interact with Lafayette (Alex P), or to give the King of Saxony (Aaron N) what he wanted. The players clearly knew their history, and it was interesting just to talk to them on that level — even if only after the game.

Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh

Costuming: this was probably my most involved costume — but it was still almost entirely thrifted! Following instructions in Instant Period Costumes, one of my favorite thrift-costume books, I turned a men’s suit — $15 at Savers — into a Regency-era tailcoat. I added slim-leg white pants from Target, my riding boots, a white Victorian-ish shirt recycled from a Hellsing cosplay, and a cravat I threw together in 30 minutes with leftover eyelet lace and hot glue. Oh, and Mel loaned me a hat. I brought along a men’s waistcoat to wear underneath the tailcoat, but it ended up too long for the high-cut coat, so I didn’t end up using it.

And Now, For Something Completely Different…

Those were basically my games — which meant that functionally, my con ended at 6pm on Saturday. Given that, I decided to take a trip into Boston and visit with folks at Boskone. In particular, I wanted to see my dear friend Django and his girlfriend Casey. Living across the country, I hadn’t seen him since… 2007? 2008? and I didn’t want to miss the opportunity when he was actually in my neck of the woods. I also had never met Casey before, and wanted an introduction.

It turned out to be a strange “six degrees of separation” experience. I knew going in that Casey was a Viable Paradise grad, the same year as my larp pal and VP16 grad Kevin/Kellan — I, of course, am VP17. I figured we’d have something to talk about in that regard.

What I didn’t know beforehand was that Casey was also a Vassar grad — class of 2010 to my class of 2003. Moreover, she’d been involved in the NSO, the geek club I was an officer of. She was interested to learn that I had been part of the team that founded Noncon, Vassar’s annual SFF convention. We talked about the craziness of the English department at Vassar, the disorganization of the NSO library, what dorms were considered party dorms when she attended, etc.

(Even weirder degress of connectedness: Congress of Vienna, the game I was coming from, is written by Ben Philip, not-so-secretly known as Benjamin C. Kinney, VP19 grad, and Vassar class of 2002. Also an NSO officer and co-founder of Noncon).

I felt a little guilty because I think I spent more time reminiscing with Casey about Vassar than I did talking to Django! I do love it when I meet someone’s S.O. and they turn out to be even more awesome than I had hoped. In my defense, we did also talk our respective writing projects, Django’s books, anime, and various SFF fannishness.

Eventually we headed to the bar to play board games with other writerly folks — Fran Wilde (or, as we were all calling her that night, “Nebula award-nominated Fran Wilde”), and another VP16er, Lauren Roy, and their husbands. We played Code Names, a party game by Vlaada Chvatil, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Max Gladstone joined us for the final round, and helped turn his team’s loss into a victory — surprising no one, it is a game he is really good at.

Alas, I had to leave shortly thereafter — I didn’t know when the T stopped running, and I was depending on it to get back to my car.

The Rest of Intercon

The rest of the con was mostly pretty uneventful! I didn’t go to closing ceremonies, which is rare for me. I did find out that Cafe Casablanca is running in October in Chicago, which I have already signed up for — I’ve been wanting to play for a while. I ended up going to lunch with Mel, Will, Kevin R., and a bunch of RPI grads, which was as much of a dead-dog party as I got.

Overall, it was a pleasant weekend, and it makes me want to start writing larps again. A dangerous pastime, that…

Links and Accomplishments, January 2016

Links

Rejected Princesses — shared by my pal Chrisco, this features stories of “women too awesome, awful, or offbeat for kids’ movies.” I was especially moved by the story of Isabel Godin des Odonais.

The “Star Wars” kids arenâ€™t alright: meditations on how episode VII represents the eternal nature of struggle, and how we eventually oppose our peers, not the previous generation.

23 Ways to Treat Yo’ Self Without Buying or Eating Anything: shared originally by my pal Diana. I loved most of these suggestions.

Writing
– Wrote 1855 words on Lioness
– Wrote “A Study in Ebony,” an ESO fanfic
– Attended writing group
– Attended a Sunday afternoon write-in
– Wrote some blogs posts:

Other Media
– Watched The Three Musketeers (1948)
– Watched the RiffTrax of Icebreaker (1993)
– Reached V16 (max level) with my first ESO character
– Played Convert
– Played Creative Clash
– Played Mysterium
– Played multiple games of Cards Against Humanity

LARP
– NPCed one day of Cottington Woods 4.0
– PCed the Fifth Gate crossover dinner event

Social
– Attended Becky’s New Year’s brunch
– Attended Mel’s birthday/board games party

Health
– Took a 20m walk
– Did 11am/3pm office exercises x 6
– Did Hacker’s Diet Introductory Fitness Ladder rung 1 x 5
– Did Hacker’s Diet Introductory Fitness Ladder rung 2 x 2
– Had a chiropractor appointment
– Had a cardiologist appointment
– Had two massages
– Purchased and started using a sun lamp

Crimson Peak — fashion and fantasy

This post has been sitting around, half-formed, in my Blog Posts folder since I saw this movie in November. I still don’t feel like it says much, but here, have it anyway… maybe it’ll help if you’re choosing what to watch on video?

Guys, I need to write about Crimson Peak.

This movie blew me away. I was transfixed throughout the whole thing, hand-to-mouth with shock in some parts. It was everything I had hoped for and more.

It was…

Visually stunning. That’s Guillermo del Toro for you. The red clay that dyed everything in Allerdale Hall bloody red was… improbable, but beautiful and thematically satisfying.

The attention to detail is pretty much what you’d expect from del Toro. As somewhat of a connoisseur of Victorian fashion, I can say that even the clothing tells a story.

For example…

Edith Cushing, our protagonist (Mia Wasikowska)’s dresses are all the height of 1890s fashion, her colors bright against dull, especially when she’s at Allerdale Hall:

Puffed sleeves! Intricate hats!

Lucille Sharpe (Jessica Chastain)’s by contrast, are the heavily-swagged gowns of the late 1870s/early 1880s in deep, saturated colors; also notably, she wears a high-necked day dress in the ballroom/waltz scene while everyone else is wearing sleeveless evening dresses.

Like so.

As for Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), Edith remarks that his clothing is ten years out of date. Indeed, his velveteen frock coat and satin waistcoats and cravats strike me as more 1880s than 1890s.

Especially contrasted with Alan (Charlie Hunnam), who wears a more modern cut (shorter, squarer) and is more drab.

I would turn neither gentleman out of bed for eating crackers.

What does this costume design tell us? It paints a picture of the Sharpes’ morbid fascination with the past and contrasts it deftly with the breath of modernity that Edith and her companions represent.

Also, apropos nothing, I kind of want to be Thomas’ blue velveteen coat for Halloween some year. Not him — just the coat.

Alsoalso, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy staring at Tom Hiddleston for two hours. He is a shapely man who fills out a frock coat well. He plays the same sort of doomed, beautiful, broken man he plays in every movie, it seems.

Enough about fashion! This movie is also…

Satisfyingly gothic, with modern sensibilities. There’s a great video out there of Tom Hiddleston explaining what gothic romance is. He pretty much gives the textbook definition, too. It’s delightful.

The joke about the gothic novel is that it’s “girl meets house,” and this is true here — Allerdale Hall is as much as character as any of the humans, with its water running red, its clay pits, the snow falling through the gaping maw of the roof, the sounds of its breathing. Its inhabitants are corrupt and doomed, with a sense of dark noblesse oblige that ties them to the house. Thomas, in particular, is the classic brooding gothic hero, with redemption perpetually out of his reach.

But our heroine is so much more useful than most gothic heroines. I love that she’s a writer, and that the story is framed around the manuscript she’s writing; I love how she deflects jibes about “lady authors” (“Our own Jane Austen… but she died a spinster, didn’t she?” “I’d prefer to be Mary Shelley, who died a widow”). And oh, she makes good use of the fountain pen her father gives her…

The ghosts, and the violence that births them, are much more real and unabashed than in a gothic novel, though. There’s a scene early in the film that ambushes you with its violence and brutality, in a way that a 19th century novelist would shy away from. It’s still beautiful even in its horror, in classic del Toro fashion.

A horror movie, maybe? I hear it’s gotten panned for “not being scary.” I guess? There aren’t a lot of jumpscares, but there is a lot of creeping dread. It evokes fear less than it does unease.

Executive summary: It is beautiful. It is wildly unbelievable. See it.

Links and Accomplishments, December 2015

Much belated! So belated you don’t even get any links. Womp womp.

Accomplishments

Writing
– Wrote 351 words on Lioness
– Wrote 2 blogs posts: Meditations on ESO — Cyrodiil, Imperial City, and Pledges and Lise watches a star war, and talks about it

Reading
– Started and abandoned Peter V. Brett’s The Warded Man

Other Media
– Saw Spectre with coworkers
– Saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens
– Listened to Happier with Gretchen Rubin, episodes 37-43

LARP
– PCed Fifth Gate Crossroads game 1
– Wrote PEL for 5G Crossroads

Social
– Saw RiffTrax Live of Santa Claus and the Ice Cream Bunny with Adina and Brian
– Attended one of Chad and Amanda’s board game nights
– Get together/book club meeting with Jess
– Attended Becky’s cookie exchange party

Health
– Did 11am/3pm office exercises x 3
– 40m walk x 2

A much-belated 2016 resolutions post

Said I to myself, at the end of December/beginning of January: “Who needs goals and resolutions? I just want to have fun in 2016! ANARCHY WOOOO.”

And thus commenced some of the worst depression in my life.

Perhaps this attitude is not terribly helpful for my well-being. Perhaps I am not good at undirected fun-having.

Look. I’m having significant issues with self-esteem, internal validation, poor body image, etc. I see how I am constantly looking for external validation, even though I know it’s not going to make me happy. Even as I realize that my self-worth is an empty pit into which compliments and reassurances fall with a thud.

I have to fill that pit myself.

I… have no idea how.

How do you shovel shit into a hole?

It seems like some people do this* by setting realistic goals and achieving them. A sense of mastery, it turns out, contributes to a sense of self-esteem.

Sidebar: Is that it? Setting goals and meeting them? I don’t think so. At the end of the day it’s dangerous to tie our well-being entirely to abilities we may lose. To use a trite phrasing, we are human beings, not human doings. But it’s a start. Suggestions on other ways to fill the pit of self-worth are certainly appreciated.

So I did a tarot reading around the theme of–

–I know that sounds ridiculous, but bear with me. I could write a whole post on my attitude towards “fortune-telling” devices like tarot. Executive summary: I don’t believe they’re supernatural, or have any real oracular ability. But I do believe in the divine trickery of stories, i.e. the message I send to myself in interpreting the cards.

ANYWAY. I asked what will help me in my search for self-esteem, and the response I got was the Ace of Pentacles, which has to do with things like NEW BEGINNINGS and MANIFESTATION OF GOALS.

Isn’t this a happy-looking card?

Message received. Set some fucking resolutions, lady.

The towering inferno of last year’s plans

First, let’s talk about last year’s goals: to write 50% of the days and read 50 books.

I did neither of these things exactly. I wrote about 34% of the days, and I read 32 books (counting one I abandoned because it deeply displeased me).

I love writing, but the demoralizing hell of submitting my work and having it continually rejected took a toll on me this year, and I don’t feel I’ve had traction in this area for a couple of months. (This doesn’t seem reflected in the number of submissions I put out there, but my brain is really good at concocting catastrophes).

Reading-wise, I feel like I’ve tackled a goodly number of “tough” but rewarding books this year (like Our Mutual Friend), so the actual number concerns me less.

Overall, these are non-zero numbers, and I’m happy with what I did. Hell, I wrote 51,000 words this year on Lioness, which is nothing to sniff at.

Other cool stuff wot I did in 2015

Wrote a couple of new short stories, “Remember to Die” and “Handedness.” The latter I probably won’t do anything with, but I’ve been shopping the former around (see below).
Wrote a few new poems
Wrote a terribad piece of smut for a local burlesque group
Wrote some Fifth Gate fanfic – “Unending Circle” and “The Eyrie Goes to the Beach”
Submitted “Powder of Sympathy” to seven places — notably, this was my first time ever submitting to a short fiction market.
Submitted “Remember to Die” to a few places
Queried three different agents with Gods and Fathers. I think I’m trunking it/backburnering it at this point in time.
Started PCing my first boffer larp (Fifth Gate – Silverfire)
Made costuming for said boffer larp (an invocation circle, underdress, and overdress)
Tried two foods off the Omnivore’s 100 that I hadn’t tried before — curried goat and snail
Completed a 21-day habit streak for writing
Relaunched this site (as a slightly-more-professional bit of branding. Except for the part where I still swear like a sailor).
Attended my first (and so far only) SCA event
Played in seven new-to-me theater-style larps
Visited Ireland and England
PAID OFF THE SECOND MORTGAGE WOOHOO
Got a significant raise and promotion at work (to Senior Front-end Developer)
Raised my 401k contribution to $80/pay period

The past is boring! What am I doing this year?

Well, first up: I want to finish Lioness (it’s at 91k words), edit it, and begin querying agents. Everything after that is out of my control, and is the sort of external validation I need to stop thinking so hard about.

In the interest of not continuing to go through life like a brain in a jar, I need to get more in touch with my squishy meat body. This, I think, will help with my body image issues. I think my exercise-related goals in my 101 goals list are pretty good, starting with a 21-day habit streak and the introductory fitness ladder.

Oh, an entirely fun and trivial thing — I want to get a tattoo. I’ve had several ideas rolling around in my brain for YEARS (a post about that maybe forthcoming?), and I’d like to finally see ink put to flesh. In particular, I’ll probably opt for the Nerevarine Moon-and-Star from TES III: Morrowind first, which is perfect in its “this is exceptionally geeky but looks mainstream to anyone who doesn’t know better”-ness.

And that should be enough to keep me busy — and, hopefully, happy.

Final note

I have a TON of posts I have been neglecting while the energy-sucking flu has been particularly bad. You may see a greater volume from me in the next few days. Given how infrequently I’ve been posting, I doubt this will be an issue.