This is a playlist for my d&d character.



1. Northwest Passage: And through the night, behind the wheel, the mileage clicking west. Tris came from a community of caravan merchants. 

2. Gimme Shelter: Ooh, see the fire is sweepin' our streets today... gimme shelter, or I'm gonna fade away. A mad lich, Raven, raided her caravan with fireballs. Her parents and her younger sister were slain, leaving her the sole survivor. 
 
3. Winterbreak: You're wondering how to leave it here, and I haven't seen you since last winter break. Tris took shelter with the Order of the Silver Dragon, a chivalric society devoted to justice. There, she fell in love with another squire, Ella. It didn't last. 

4. Keep the Car Running: If some night I don't come home Please don't think I've left you alone... keep the car running. Tris didn't quite fit in with the Order after that. After a string of anger management issues, she decided to leave to seek her glory elsewhere, promising to return and receive her knighthood. She soon met up with a group of adventurers called the Last Resort, including Carric, Audra, Xavril, and Resha. 

5. Hand of Sorrow: The child without a name grew up to be the hand, to watch you, to shield you or kill on demand. After a few years of adventuring, Tris found that her sister, Mariel, had survived under the tutelage of the lich responsible for the caravan attack. Unfortunately, this happened while Mariel was leading a gang of pirates to raid a settlement. During the attack, Audra's sister was kidnapped. 

6. Storyteller: And all along she asked why love wasn't worth a fight - was it worth her fight? Eventually, the party made their way to the Ravenspire to rescue Audra's sister, and Tris reunited with Mariel. Mariel had read Tris's published novel recounting her adventures in the meantime, and had grown cynical in her training. But when it came down to it, Mariel sided with the party against Raven. However, this mission was not without price, and Xavril was lost. 
 
7. Numbers: Be careful who you're thinking will save you in the end - maybe we're all just waiting for one beautiful friend. Party tensions increased as the party ventured into the desert of Farrell to deal with Resha's wayward mentor, and then to the jungles of Syland attend Carric's sister's wedding. Carmilla and Fendrell, a pair of twins sharing a single body, also joined the party.  

8. Delete Forever: Lying so awake, things I can't escape - lately I just turn 'em into demons. Flew into the sun, fucking heroin - lately I just turn 'em into reasons and excuses. Tris turned to taking drugs to deal with Xavril's death and intraparty stress 

9. Stray Italian Greyhound: Oh no not now, please not now, I just settled into the glass half empty. Tris began to develop feelings for Carmilla: feelings that she just could not figure out how to deal with. The two of them went on a few dates. Eventually, the party managed to acquire a second body for Carmilla, temporarily losing Resha in the process. 

10. The (Shipped) Gold Standard: I wanna scream "I love you" from the top of my lungs, but I'm afraid that someone else will hear me You can only blame your problems on the world for so long before it all becomes the same old song. Tris's racial insecurities, drug issues, shock of losing party members, and lingering lich threat caught up with her. She rejected Carmilla, ran away from the party, and regretted it almost immediately afterwards. 

11. Calling the Rain: Heed, it's like calling the rain, it's like bearing in pain, like embracing life and decaying in death. Tensions on the continent of Suzoa came to a boil as the wizard Lady Zolera tried to gain control of the Arcane Well. Tris couldn't leave her party members behind to deal with that threat alone. She put aside her issues and returned to the party. Facing the Arcane Well, she had a realization that she wanted to survive and wash away the evil and corruption in the world and herself, and live life fully. 

12. For Me, This is Heaven: When the time we have now ends, when the big hand goes round again, can you still feel the butterflies? Can you still hear the last goodnight... If I don't let myself be happy now, then when? Tris took up Lady Zolera's newly vacated seat on the council and used her good publicity as a published author to correct the direction of the empire. Years later, she regained enough confidence to ask Carmilla if maybe she wanted to give things another try. And Carmilla said yes. 

The game ended on Saturday, and I'd had enough time between the DM's initial announcement in February and now to deal with my feelings. I'm happy with how it ended. Big fucking shoes to fill though. And also a little embarrassed about how deeply I cared. Like, this was the game where I would get intrusive thoughts at 2AM and be unable to sleep.

It was also the one where, like, I could not figure out how to talk to girls, specifically one girl, and was just kicking myself for weeks afterwards for mucking up the in-game relationship. The two characters got together in the end, though, several decades in the future and offscreen, kind of like Laura and Cassandra at the end of Wicked + Divine. And I was just so... gratified when I realized that, yeah, that was the case, my knight got a happy ending. 

I'll post the final playlist with a breakdown later because it won't make sense later without it. 

I think I'm going to the concert in September. 

I was cleaning my desk today, but yesterday I did a quick reading. It didn't make sense to me until I moved the junk box back to the bedroom and came back to see a bunch of discord messages, re: the DM having not enough time and needed to tie up loose plot ends asap. So looking at this with the benefit of retrospect:

Past: 2 of cups reversed

Present: 8 of coins - skill development, getting gud
Future: moon, reversed - fear of the unknown
Influences: 10 of coins - mastery, achievement, stability, certainty, having it all and knowing it too
Outcome: the tower, lol


I don't even want to do a full analysis, but I'll leave the following notes for my future self:
- It's interesting that the Present/Future card is 8P and the moon, while Influences/Outcome is what could be considered a clearer, amped-up version of the first pair. Where the first pair merely precipitated a falling house of cards, the second reflects a collapsing castle, as if just to underline the meaning of the first three cards drawn.
- It wasn't a complete surprise when I drew the tower, even though I wasn't sure what I was reading for. Again, that might be the first three cards. What can be devastating is less so when you already knew it was coming months in advance (the moon)

I dreamed I broke out of a minimum security Swedish prison, became the doomslayer, and began murdering demons left and right. It was pretty sweet, until I stumbled into her and went to pieces. Then my peeps tried to sell me their backpacks, and my pants were made of polyester. I tried to take her to the theatre, but unfortunately it was showing Shrek the Musical, and I lost her in the crowd. 

--

Anyway, Justin's in Vancouver for a funeral, so I've got the entire apartment to myself! No more sounds of overearnest foodtubers and "ARE THESE SOCKS CLEAN OR DIRTY," hello starfishing on the entire bed. 

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Query: will I flame out spectacularly in the D&D game I am running? 

Past: High Priestess

Present: King of Wands, reversed

Future: Three of Wands

Influences: Page of Coins

Potential: Judgement, reversed

I started out with great ideas (High Priestess)! I might be having some difficulty executing these ideas because I tend towards rigidity (King of Wands, reversed). If I keep at it, success is assured (Three of Wands). 

Also influencing the situation is... idk, Shivani saying that maybe she should buy me Roll20 Plus for my birthday, so I can have more than 100MB storage? I'm still running all my maps and tokens thru tinypng in the hopes that Roll20 will up their storage before I have to upgrade. Currently I'm at about 77/100MB... so, chop chop. Maybe that's the Page of Coins. 

I don't see how that leads to the potential outcome symbolized by Judgement reversed, though. 

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. 

 Vienna Teng - Stray Italian Greyhound


"Stray Italian Greyhound" is an odd little metaphor for the odd little feeling of unexpected optimism when you feel you can't afford to be hopeful again. Vienna Teng wrote it after an Obama rally, during his first presidential bid. Both she and Obama seem mostly retired these days, but I could still use this sort of sentiment nowadays, but I'll settle for Mike Shreiner's re-election, nearly never going to the office, and my cat losing half a pound. 

In other news, I think my paladin is falling into a relationship and well sure didn't expect things to be moving so decisively or this song to suit so well

To my paladin PC: 

I apologize for never having learned how to flirt properly, and saddling your 16-charisma ass with sudden confidence issues.   

From, me.  

The last game of my Saltmarsh campaign will be on Monday. I am nervous, sad, and excited.

I will hopefully finish White Knight of the Dresden Files soon. 

I will also hopefully schedule all the meetups I'm supposed to do whilst on vacation soon.  

A player quit my Wednesday game. Not cos the game wasn't good or anything, but. Can't pretend I'm not a little sad. I haven't felt this particular brand of dejection since Mandy left the AP physics lab group. Mustn't grumble, tho. BJRC had it way worse when he lost two players and the DM (hisself). I'll just have to... do better than I was doing before, I guess. 

Also, if this doesn't work out, there's still the Tristan & Iseult/Good Omens crossover I've yet to write and the imperial century I've yet to ride.