missizzy

Yesterday Varvara's main arc concluded with her fighting the wizard responsible for her tragic backstory one on one-the DM deliberately removed us from the battle with her minions-and finally taking her down while standing at only 4 hit points. Although I actually was disappointed she didn't drop to zero, since that would've been a hell of a way for her to finally find out about her ability once per long rest to go back to full health. Still, she got to tell the wizard "This is for Withfield," and it even got to be the first time I've revealed the name of her lost hometown to the other players, and break down afterwards. And when she went back to her wolf companion, told him she'd avenged her town and his pack, I was left mildly surprised with how easy it was, to have her comment on their future, and acknowledge that their recent adventures had changed them; she'll never again be who she was when I first brought her to the table.
Other highlights of that session included our druid awakening the purple worm known as Sir Wormington III to unleash on the minions, only for him to decide he wanted to reform some of them, our rogue trying to loot the dead wizard and getting infected with the disease she'd been using to kill everyone(fortunately he'd literally just stolen the antidote), and us finding out the celestial spider we'd run into earlier was in fact a powerful emperor from very long ago, who now wants us to adventure with him. So we've come to a good pause point for a two-week hiatus. I feel like I've freed Varvara up, honestly, and I'm looking forward to seeing where the story next takes her.

Like most Critical Role fans this weekend, I've read my way through Aimee Carrero's thread on her experience playing Opal. And all I could think was, of course she approached this as an actor. Really, it's kind of strange so many of this show's viewers objected to that. I haven't been playing long either, but I've seen enough in my current group (and I even tweeted this at her) to know not only our characters but how we approach creating and playing them are heavily influenced by who we are and how we do things generally.
This past weeks especially, I've often thought of watching Patrick Rothfuss play Kerrek, and how he differed from the other players, because he approached it as a writer rather than an actor. I created Varvara very much as a writer. The former's current spells ended up being determined mostly be her backstory-I debated it with myself a bit, but in the end it made too much sense for them not to be, and when we hit level four, I eschewed a potentially more useful skill increase for the mounted combatant feat, because I could not see her not taking it.
It's sometimes made me feel like a drag at a table, I must admit, especially with the weaknesses of the Beastmaster Ranger lurking in the background. But it can click brilliantly. Late in our session Wednesday, when I was getting tired and outright freezing up, the story suddenly provided a moment for her to reach out and speak to the hostile group we were trying to negotiate with, say she understood why they were fighting the fight they were, though it was a fight she herself had felt the need to walk away from in her own past. By then I was hesitant about doing such a moment, but I went forward. Fate helped me there, too; I rolled a natural twenty on the persuasion check, and it suddenly their attitude towards us changed completely. A single moment, and I now know what I'm playing this game for, and that it can be of use to the party as well.
Schist, meanwhile, I created as a fan as well as a writer. That was a the sort of game where I chose eldritch blast as one of my cantrips purely because after seeing Fjord continually use it, I wanted to-and everyone else was delighted when I first broke it out. Schist's background and characterization ended up directing her actions during our short-lived campaign's climax, and I think that, too, was for the better in the end.
You do hesitate, sometimes. In fact, ( We saw Aimee do so... )

We finished out the prepared adventure in our D&D session last night, but it didn't take much discussion before we all agreed to go on, at least for now. I feel like I've barely scratched the surface with Schist and her story, and I'm pretty sure my fellow players felt the same way, especially because there's got to be an interesting explanation for how at least two of them ended up in Xhorhas in the first place, and the third described his backstory as "ridiculous" which naturally left us all very intrigued. The DM is taking a couple of weeks to plan and survey us, and then I suppose I'll have at least one game to continue to play.

Got another call from the tax preparer yesterday. This year's taxes and last year's amendment have all been done; all that remains is for me to sign. Although we have to wait for my mother's taxes to be done first, and I'm not making any guesses as to how long those are going to take. I ended up owing twenty-five bucks for the year; it seems whatever damage Trump did by tampering with federal workers' paychecks last fall has already been made up for out of our more recent ones.
Much of last night's D&D session went a little better for me, especially with the opening fight. I'd had doubts about choosing Eldritch Blast as one of my cantrips, but the other players seemed pretty happy when I broke it out. It felt a little more difficult near the end, when I was getting tired and the stakes were going up, but we're once again starting with a fight next weekend.

I'm not entirely happy with how the scan of it especially turned out, but I've put up the drawing of Schist Lorun, my drow warlock.
I've taken leave for next week to watch Worlds, if only because I don't have much else to take it for right now. But lately it seems every piece of figure skating news that comes out is making me less and less enthused. After over a decade of obsession, I may be falling away from it. And when my sister is still expecting us to go to next year's Worlds in Southern France. Which is a place I want to go to for its own sake; we even talked about going together back in 2017, though that plan ended up falling through. Maybe I'll only buy for some of the events, the way I did for last year's cancelled Worlds?
At least there's one potential piece of good news. Those of us who agreed to let the Pentagon vaccinate us got requested this week for an update as to whether we'd been able to get it elsewhere or not. That makes me think they're moving to the more vulnerable general employees under 75.

The tumblr version of my post about Harry and Meghan from when they first broke off from the royal family has been making the rounds again in recent days. I suspect a lot of people reading it think it more recent, since the dates on tumblr posts often go unseen, and it definitely still feels relevant. Except that I was too nice, merely calling his family manipulative.
Last night was session zero for our online D&D group, where we had some discussion and set up our characters in Roll20. Having the website's aid was a very good thing for my first experience officially creating a character, though I don't yet know what I'm going to do for her avatar image. The DM has noted she likes to make use of backstory, which makes me feel better about how many details it ended up getting. Would've liked to have rolled higher for her stats, but I suppose I'll see what I can do with her as she is next week.