Reading 1

Past: Five of swords
Present: Nine of swords, reversed
Future: Five of wands, reversed
Influences: Knight of coins, reversed
Potential: Six of cups

This relationship has never gone smoothly. Any victory achieved has been hollow (five of swords) and ultimately unsatisfying. The situation persists to present day, but now fraught with a certain degree of self-loathing (nine of swords, reversed). The situation will bring out the worst in everyone but is likely to just go out with a fizzle because everyone is sick of it (five of wands reversed). 

Influencing the sitch is a miasma of stagnation and dissatisfaction (knight of coins). I sure don't know how to address that in order to reconnect with old friends (six of cups). Except an incredibly powerful common enemy. 

Reading 2 
Past: page of wands, reversed
Present: nine of swords, for fuck's sake
Future: four of wands
Influences: ace of cups
Potential: judgement

I have a lot of ideas that I'm struggling to realize (page of wands, reversed). The story is full of dread, ticking timelines, and prophecy (nine of swords). Especially prophecy, because the nine of swords in this deck I'm using portrays the Oracle of Delphi telling Laius that his son is going to kill him. 

The future of this is... well, the four of wands is normally one of the happiest cards you can pull. Reversed... well, it usually symbolizes a private journey, but in this particular case I interpret it as the situation getting FUBAR'd. 

The situation is influenced by, like, spiritual rebirth, unconditional love, and stuff (ace of cups)? I mean the party is currently in the land of the dead, if they survive that could count as a rebirth. I was tempted to interpret this as a literal looming campaign reboot but this is the ace of cups, not Death or the Tower, dammit. 

The potential of the situation is represented by the card of judgement, which in my deck is portrayed by the Monkey King leaping between the Buddha's fingers. In this position of the spread I'm not sure how to interpret Judgement, except as an indicator that it's time to shit or get off the pot. 

Reading comics
Garth Ennis's Rover Red Charlie is one of the happiest things I've seen Garth Ennis write. I guess narrating a transcontinental journey from the perspective of three dogs will do that to you. However it is a postapocalyptic transcontinental journey, and still has got some brutal violence, rotting corpses, and radiation sickness. Dogs are not immune to the horrors of the end times, but on the plus side, the main trio of dogs do not die and they get a happy ending. Way happier than Pride of Baghdad, anyways. 3/5, recommended to anyone with a decent tolerance for comic book violence. 

Apollo: This, the rest of your life, Kara. Is this how you want to spend it? Who you want to spend it with?
Starbuck: You got someone in mind, Lee?
Apollo: Tell me you're not afraid that I'm not gonna come along and upset your neat little apple-cart.
Starbuck: Maybe I want it upset.

What I'd give to write something that good... 

Ya boy is back 

It was sort of a mini vacation. I wore smashing dresses, ate omakase sushi (my favourite was the sea urchin/tuna tartare, the monkfish liver, and the bonito), and got new earrings. 

I'm now on Ghost Story in the Dresden Files.

I've begun writing That Interquel (which will not exceed 20k words).



Tonight, I watched Lasting Impressions in Season 2 of the Orville. It's another episode where not much happens (much like the season opener Ja'loja, which I loved). I'm aware that it's real similar to several episodes of Star Trek. Still found it very touching, at least partially because I've felt similar infatuations. Not with holodeck ladies environmental simulations, but they honestly might as well have been.   

Also it had this scene: 

 I liked it, and there's value in sharing Gawain's uncertainty at what happens next with the audience by ways of leaving the ending ambiguous, BUT. I still wanted a greater sense of finality in the ending. The ambiguous ending was absolutely the correct choice, but I don't have to be happy about it. 4/5 

Also I forgot to tuck my shirt in when I was cycling to Palmerston last weekend (nice, easy 90km. Except for the headwind) and I sunburned my lower back, which hadn't seen sunlight in two years, so that got sunburned, and it sucks. This weekend looks like it'll be humid, so I'll probably stay in town and clean up some of the local caches on my map. 

Ah. And Brooklyn Nine-Nine came back when I wasn't looking, so that's nice. And my fish have had babies again! 

So the Lee/Kara post-canon fic is officially a go now. 

But also, what would be the best command to give to a Kuo-toa fish pope to prevent a TPK on Saturday? 

Blasphemize's a good, safe option. Autoexcommunicate gets the point across, but it's got too many syllables. Baptism would work for regular pope, but this one's a fish... And if it's too tricksy the DM probably won't bite. 

Okay so I had a dream about this girl I'm acquainted with. But it was exactly that kind of dream. We were working in this post-apocalyptic factory, made out on a grotty futon, and then she told me that she loved me, and I just totally froze up. Didn't know what to do. Just kissed her and skedaddled. 

After that I dreamed I was rampaging through a haunted gift shop in Skyrim. Shot some flaming arrows at a frost troll. Glitched through a wall (read: found the maintenance access) and then bought a small daisy-embroidered handkerchief and a square blue ornamental glass dish. 

AND THEN. Admiral Cain from Battlestar Galactica was organizing war games in what looked like a Megabuilding from Dredd, and we all know that Admiral Cain doesn't like to lose. Things got all intense until it wasn't a game anymore. Admiral Cain started sending teams of marines through the door and threatening us over the intercom. 

My squad - composed of Colonel Osama bin Tigh (who should be good at this small force vs bigger force stuff!) and Roomba (of all people!!!) began to mount a defense, but just when things were getting interesting, and we'd planted all the explosives and ransacked an armoury, I woke up. 

So just FML.

Yay! And, just a few weeks til my designation finishes processing... 

 I have some new creative pursuits on the horizon.

First of all, the BSG finale WRECKED ME BIGTIME. I started crying when the opera house dreams started aligning with the present, except that everyone was wearing TACTICAL VESTS and I couldn't handle the CONTRAST and the SOUNDTRACK and then ughhhh

AND THEN THEY FOUND EARTH, and a bunch of main characters died, another main character clearly hasn't got much time left! And then the characters I was rooting for this entire time got such a MESSY ending, and I guess toilet paper isn't even going to be invented for another hundred thousand years??

So I sobbed messily for half an hour after the end credits rolled while Krogoth ordered sushi. Which is EXACTLY the sort of reaction that four seasons of TV should wring out! So don't misread me here - I don't care that the last season veered from SPACE SURVIVALISTS to RELIGIOUS ROBOTS and then ROBOT MARITAL COUNSELLING, because when the finale hits like a frakking truck I WILL FORGIVE ALL THOSE SINS but also I will cry about it.

AND THEN, because I can't find that angsty post-canon Lee/Kara fic, I guess I'm gonna have to write it myself

Second order of business is to get my act together and really get the 5e space campaign rolling.

But, story first. Really. 

Why is it whenever I dream of public toilets, they're either out of service, dirty, or don't have working doors?? 

Must I live in terror that Gaius Baltar is going to jump out from behind the sink? Or that the opposing stall door will slowly swing open, revealing Starbuck as she peruses a magazine? 

Please, say it ain't so.  

I dreamed that I'd booked a hotel room in the midwest for a conference. My friend had joined me for the last night - they were passing through on a trip of their own, after their reservation fell through. Nothing untoward happened that night, because they're a chivalrous type. In the morning, I made hotel room coffee and we drank it on the balcony. Check out time came and went. And I couldn't stop thinking - why did I wait? Why didn't I do anything?

--

Lee Adama walked in a fatsuit so that Thor could run in a fatsuit.

--

(23:38:44) its like in 50 years
(23:38:52) THIS convo will still exist
(23:38:55) sigh

--

I planned a last-minute mental health vacay a week and a half from now but my plans are already fracturing cos my boss really wants me to call in for a 3-hour meeting on monday and wednesday afternoon.

I am become Atlas, holding the weight of this doomed-ass witness statement upon my shoulders.