Day in the Life of an Idiot

 ...and now back to the subjects no one cares about (but me.)

I've spent the last couple of days preparing for my D&D group. One of our players has to have gallbadder surgery the day before our planned game and since his character is critical to that plot (we're rescuing his sister, who he also plays,) I'm running a micro-campaign, something to be one and done in three hours. The basic set-up is that in some time between adventures (we skipped a level between our first campaign and our second, so it's probably going to take place in those years? months?) Because many of my players read this blog, I won't tell you anything about it other than to say that I'd (long ago) bought a module with this adventure in it, so whole plot has been laid out for me, along with treasures and stats and such. This has not stopped me from spending an inordinate amount of time creating my own twists and flavors to things as well as inventing a reason for my players to have all gathered in this town--and a whole-ass town (not to mention designing a whole new part of my world, complete with mythology.) 

Meanwhile, I have stopped prepping for my Tuesday night Thirsty Sword Lesbians game.

Other than keeping track of the story so far (and having all of the locales and NPCs in my large, sprawling document--much of which I randomly work on when I'm feeling in a cyberpunk mood,) I just show up and start playing pretend with my players. I think in the last session, we maybe rolled the dice four times, tops. That group is just generally great fun. I off-handedly had them run into a pair of stoner boys in a stairwell the session before last and these two dudes invited the lesbians to "Bob's Party." An event I literally pulled out of my brain. Sure enough, my players remembered Bob's party and now we have a whole subplot involving Bob and the things we learned at that party.

And it's all just rolling out of my head in real-time.

Tons of fun.

But so is the game I prepare DAYS in ADVANCE. I think the reason RPGs are so popular is because they're almost always a surprise. Players and GMs can try to plan ahead, but dice rolls and improv are what ultimately shape the game. I just find it kind of funny that I'm both kinds of GMs. I over prepare and I'm also 100% winging it. I mean, that's probably true for a lot of GMs?

 I was feeling pretty smart that I remembered that today was "What are you reading Wednesday," but then I popped on here only to discover that the LAST time I posted was LAST Wednesday. Well, given that, I think I will forgo the list of reading material and tell you, instead, about my life. 

Last Saturday was Imbolc (also known as Saint Brigit's Day) and Sunday was Groundhog's Day, so, of course, Shawn and I decided to have a Sunday High Tea. As some of you may remember, last year, for her birthday, I gave Shawn a trip to the Saint Paul Hotel's fancy dress high tea. We had also been hoping to attend a tea ceremony at the Como Conservatory's Japanese garden, but, I had neglected to remember that Shawn's knees were failing, so we ended up canceling that. As part of her "year of tea" last year, I bought Shawn a subscription to a very genteel magazine called Tea Time, which literally is just recipes for fancy tea cakes and sandwiches and pretty images of people's tea sets. So, we decided to make a ham salad recipe from one of her Tea Time issues which we spread on bagette slices...



Image: mostly these kind of look like mayonaise-covered dog food? But they were insanely deliciously and curry-flavored.

For me, the real star of the show, however, were the raspberry filled tartlets. In comparison to a lot of the very picky and time-consuming recipes I have made for our various teas over the years, the tarlets (and the ham salad, honestly,) were shockingly easy. Like, the the biggest thing to making the tarlets look good? Owning a tartlet pan. Which, OF COURSE, we do. 



Image: Raspberry tartlets on top, lemon poppy seed pound cake on the bottom tray.

I just ate the very last leftover of the tartlets this morning. They're such an oddly enchanting "mouth feel" because the bottom is philo and the top is more like a soft muffin. In-between is a generous spoonful of raspberry jam. So they're kind of "springy" and chewy on your teeth? It's odd, but, as I can personally attest, weirdly addictive.

Surprisingly easy to make given how fancy they look, too.

Yeah, so, this is how we're surviving the state capture of the United States by a criminally dangerous South African immigrant that I would sincerely like to see rounded up and deported. If we could just send him to Guantanamo instead, I dunno, innocent children that would be fantastic. Weird how no one has thought to send ICE agents into the Treasury Office. That would have been my first phone call.

My next would be to a nice, young Italian man....

But, I digress. 

In other news, I been running some absoluely soul-rejuvinating TTRPGs. Last night, my Thirsty Sword Lesbians solved an interdimensional-dimensional rift and a yakuza turf war with a bit of flirting and some donuts. Ah... I mean, my shoulders just dropped two notches TYPING that. Last night, I was just grinning happily for a couple of hours post-game.

Last Saturday, my Dungeon & Dragons party rescued a dozen Dwarven miners from an as of yet unmet Infernal foe. A little less universally satisfying, but on its way, and to be fair, we had a thrilling marketplace heist pulled of by none-other-than our party's PALADIN. I am still laughing about that. Good times.

 So, we take it all one day at a time.

How are you doing?

 But the good news is that Shawn's recovery is proceeding apace. 

On Wednesday, she had her two week check-in with Dr. Herseth, the knee surgeon. Just even GETTING to these appointments is kind of its own challenge. Shawn officially graduated to a cane on Monday (according to her physical therapist), so that made some of our manuevering a LITTLE easier. But, there's just a lot of rigamarole to do to get her, her cane, and the walker (which we took in case she felt unsteady) into the car and then to get her, her cane, etc., deposited at the front door of the clinic. I still have to park, get the ticket, etc., and get to her.... and I swear to god that I walk ten steps to her one. 

Regardless, we had a good appointment. We were first seen by Dr. Herseth's assistant, Ryan. Ryan removed the bandage that Shawn's been wearing since the surgery (impregnated with SILVER to repell werewolves!) This was the first time we got a good look at her scar. We both remarked at how neat the stitches were. Ryan perked up and said, "Oh, be sure to tell Dr. Herseth that." I asked, "Why? Does he not get a lot of compliments?" Ryan smirked and said, "No. He doesn't do the closing. I do!"

Ryan checked Shawn ability to straighten her leg (she was close to 1 or 2 degrees, with 0 being perfectly straight). This was up even from Monday, when the physical therapist officially measured her at 4. Then he checked her ability to bend her knee. She was at 128 degrees.  Later, when the doctor redid these tests he, being very Minnesotan, raised his eyebrows, paused, and then drawled, "Well. I was going to tell you that you should be working to make that 90 degrees, but I guess you're ready for more advanced goals." <--for my out-of-state readers: THIS is a Minnesotan doctor losing his ABSOLUTE SH*T over how good Shawn is doing, just to be clear.

On Monday, the physical therapist apparently said to Shawn, "I wouldn't go posting your flex of 128 degrees on social media... unless you want your car keyed."

Dr. Herseth said her knee looked like it was more like it was in week three or even four, not two. 

This would be cause for celebration, but Shawn is having really intense nerve pain. Dr. Herseth's only response was, "Yep. That's going to happen. It will get better." He also agreed that the only real solution for it at the moment was continued (if judicious) use of oxycodone. Shawn very much would like to get off the oxy, but, on the other hand, because of all of her other medications, she really can't take very many other drugs for pain.  She is keeping very careful track of when and how much she takes, however. I don't think she's a big risk for addiction. 

For myself, I've been very slowly getting back to normal. Mason came home on Monday. He's technically in the middle of finals week, but he only has papers due (no tests), so he decided to come home early for the holidays to help out.

With Mason around, I felt comfortable leaving Shawn last night to go to Wyrdsmiths. We are trying to meet in-person again (with limited success.) Even though a number of people insisted that in-person meetings were THE BEST and they absolutely hated how isolated they continued to feel on Zoom... we're lucky to get half the group to even show up when we host in-person. I feel pretty f*cking vindicated that I insisted that we keep our second meeting of the month on Zoom because sometimes that's the only one everyone shows up to. I mean, I get it? I am very aware that it is a pain in the butt to leave the comfort of your own home, in the dark, on a Thursday night, in the middle of winter, drive the car halfway across town, sit around for several hours and then have drive home, in the dark, in the winter. THIS WAS WHY I DIDN'T WANT TO CHANGE IN THE FIRST PLACE. I knew we'd have attrition! Yet, even though I was fully against returning in-person, I have dragged my sorry a$$ to each and every one of these in-person meetings. I find it deeply ironic that the people who insisted it was so f-ing necessary for their mental health that we do this, can't seem to show up to a single one. 

/rant

Moving on.

Tomorrow, I have not one, but two gaming sessions planned. Saturday morning, I'm gathering the Reprised Drunk Girls* for my attempt at a manor house mystery D&D session. We'll see how that goes. As noted often, I'm a novice GM and a murder mystery can be kind of complex. Though really, if my plans fail and the party quickly sees through what I think are oh-so-clever clues, the whole thing just becomes whack-a-mole and we roll for initiative, as it were. Currently, I am MOSTLY prepared. The manor house and all its clues are set (that part has been done for months), but there are still a couple of out-building maps that don't yet have potential monsters. And with this crew? I need to be prepared in case they just decide to leave the main building and wander the grounds.

Plus, I had to add an oubliette once they decided to capture the Green Knight instead of killing him. I'd complain, but honestly that's the part of GMing that I like the best. 

Then, at 7pm on Saturday, I will be a player in our ongoing Star Trek campaign. My flighty former-Chief Science Officer has accepted a promotion to XO and, frankly, I am uncertain if he is actually up to the shift to command staff. I mean, technically as Chief Science Officer he was always part of the senior staff, but XO is a whole new ballgame for Ro. I, personally, have been prepping for this by watching WWII submarine movies and practicing shouting things like "all hands on deck!" "man overboard!" and "what's the scuttlebutt?!" I'm pretty sure that's also about as much as my character knows about how to lead a starship crew, so WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

Several weeks ago, naomikritzer tagged me on Bluesky so that I would be sure to see that someone was promoting their new Dungeons & Dragons 5e module: Solidarity: Drunk Girls* in the Bathroom. The concept: the adventure starts because your characters stumble across a drunk girl sobbing in the bathroom. Your quest? To undo the wrong what was done to her!

The whole thing is very…


Image: The "You have my sword" meme.

The concept sounded AMAZING.

I bought it immediately.

( Cut for length )

I managed to forget my friend haddayr's wedding on Sunday. At least I had never RSVP'd and I had only been invited to the post-ceremony Open House. Shawn and I were supposed to be away this last week in Saint Louis, MO, for the CoSA (Council of State Archivists) meeting. As previously discussed, Shawn is being extra paranoid about infections and decided that travel was ill-advised and so the trip was cancelled. I had the invite sitting on our piano as a reminder, but I never did get around to RSVPing, so I suppose it's fine. It was such a lovely day yesterday, though. I would have liked to have given the two of them my best.  Alas!

However, it turned into a weirdly busy day, even without the missed wedding.

Shawn is gathering all the things she's going to need post-surgery. We have gotten a bath transfer bench from someone off buy nothing, but a couple of friends of ours  happened to have a daughter (I know, too young!) who had to have knee surgery who offered us a toilet set frame. So Jason and Carrie (two horror movies, as they like to remind people) came over with that and of course it wasn't just in and out. We had to stand around on the porch and chat. 

Mason, who has been incommunicado because he caught COVID immediately upon returning to campus, was feeling well enough to chat so I skipped my usual Zoom with my folks and caught up on the life of our nearly college grad. Mason is a senior this year, if you can believe it! Then, he and Shawn stayed on the line a little longer and booked him is flight back for Thanksgiving weekend. 

Then. our friend Lana came over to return a bread pan that I'd loaned her. I have two of those double-loaf French loaf pans and I went over to make bread with her one Sunday several months ago and had to leave before the bread was out of the oven. Since I have an extra pan, I told her to return it at her leisure. Lana is a regular performer in our local A Klingon Christmas Carol troupe. This year, she'll be playing The General in I'll Be Home for Kahless: The Hallmark Parody of the Season (at the Phoenix Theater in Minneapolis.) I'm thinking that this might have to be the year I finally see one of these things. 

Shawn ended up giving Lana a tour of the house. Like you do.

Oh, and in there somewhere around noon, Shawn and I also got our seasonal flu shots. So, we are now fully upgraded for the season, having gotten the newest COVID vaccine two-weeks prior. 

On top of all this, Shawn and I spent hours working on our Health Care Directives. You can not say Shawn is unprepared for this surgery. Not only do we have all this stuff, but we literally have updated our wills and Health Care Directives. 




That was all just Sunday

Saturday, Shawn and I got her rollaway bed put together for the downstairs (again, for post-surgery.) We don't have a couch, so it seemed like a good thing to own so that Shawn can rest as needed without trying to do our stairs--particularly that first week or two. Then, I think the only other things I did were RPG-related.

I spent a huge amount of time working on a possible dungeon crawl for the folks who I've gathered to play Solidarity: Drunk Girls* in the Bathroom , on the off chance they go that way.

Then, I turned around and tried to catch up on the changes in the Second Edition of the Star Trek: Adventures Role-Playing Game for the monthly game I play in. We had a shorter than usual playing session as bcholmes led us through the character conversion process. That went decently well for most of us, except that one of our players, lcohen , completely lost her species and abilities in the upgrade. So, that was no fun for her.  But, the game itself was action-packed. We said goodbye, in-game, to one of our long time members, jiawen , who will be very much missed -- as we immediately blew up one of our long time NPCs, due to a lack of caution. (Okay, actually, that was just the way I played him and it turns out our Chief Medical Officer has a new superpower that allowed us to make a miracle rescue.)  Due to the power vacuum created in jiawen's absence, my character has gotten a promotion that he is highly uncertain about. I'm looking forward his growing pains as he figures out how to command. This problem--feeling your way into command--feels very much like some of the stuff I loved about Saru from Star Trek: Discovery, if you watched any of that.

So, that was my weekend. How was yours. Forget any weddings???

Last night I reprised my elf barbarian, Idyril. We are always allowed to switch out our characters, but I'm pretty sure I bent the "house rules" by playing both characters at the same time. This is something we do quite often in my regular Star Trek game, but, so far as I know, is not the done thing with this D&D group. I have not yet talked to Jeff about this, but I'm sure it's not that huge of a transgression since we're in a kind of not-really-combat set of competitions. Our party is currently been recruited to compete in a city-wide Olympic games (or bread and circuses, depending,) kind of arena style battle of strength, fortitude, wit, and valor. I have been complaining that 5e has shortchanged the monks. They're just not all that much fun to play, honestly? So, I brought back my barbarian, despite the fact that he is not terribly stable in terms of "what if, raging?" and the party might have to tackle him if it seems like he is going for the jugular.

But, because it's me, I can't not play a little role-play as Idyril being Ave's very protective OLDER brother. And, then, because it just sort of happened, I started defending my friends to myself (as it were) as Ave... and yeah, last night I played two people at the same time, kind of by accident. Luckily, their personalities are night and day so it wasn't difficult to know who I was embodying at any given time. If there is happy chatter = Ave; if sullen, dark staring = Idyril.

Anyway, here is Idyril's letter home about this (mis)adventure. He is writing to his business and romantic partner, the Witch of the West Marsh, owner of the Sloshing Boot (under the cut, of course, because gods forbid.)

( Read more... )

Avelynnea didn't end up coming out as an adult at last night's session as we were mostly busy killing more owlbears, but perhaps there will be a moment in the next session when we confront the mushroom queen/forest hag.

The GM let slip that we're going to probably be leveling up again soon, so that means I ALSO get to level up all my other characters in the tree (which includes my barbarian, who will be taking a level in wizard, I think. I've been imagining that he might not use a spell book, but have his spells tattooed on his forearms because: barbarian first and foremost.) I've also entertaining giving Avelynnea a level in ranger or rogue.

( dumb little D&D adventure continues behind the veil )

 I posted my fic and then wandered away, I guess?

Sorry about that.

On Tuesday, I went by myself to the fan screening of the movie Psycho-Pass: Providence at the Roseville AMC. As I said to a friend, Crunchyroll placed a surgically striking ad in a pop-up when I logged in to see if there was any anime I was interested in watching. I've been a fan of Psycho-Pass forever, but it's a weird little cyberpunk where, n some distant future, Japan has instituted something they call the Sybil System that monitors people's "crime-coefficient" (a thing that measures how likely you are to commit crimes.) You can be executed and/or imprisoned just for being "a criminal type." It's sort of like Minority Report, except in this the law enforcement agents actually employs some of these not-quite-criminal, but criminally-minded sorts to aid Investigators as "Enforcers." So, there's (for me, anyway,) this fascinating underclass of people who do the dirty work of enforcing the very system that oppresses them. I kind of love everything about it? But, for whatever reason, I can't talk a lot of my fan friends into it? So, even though I immediately bought TWO tickets to this show, I couldn't even convince my son to go with me. 

Worse, when I got there, I discovered that that particular screening was dubbed.

I try very hard not to be a snob about dubbed versus subbed. This is one of those fan wars I try to stay out of, but I definitely prefer subbed when I can get it. But, if someone tells me that they watch something dubbed that I watch subbed, I say, "Yay, we're in the same fandom!" And that's the end of it for me.

But, as I was telling another friend, this one was tough to appreciate because for whatever reason the dubbed director cast two English-speaking actors to play opposite each other who had the same vocal range, the same accent, the same clipped speaking style, and the same delivery. The scenes they were in where they were exchanging quips during a battle... I had no idea who was saying what. Yes, in English. It was a real problem for me. You're probably thinking, but Lyda, the one talking is the one moving his mouth, how hard is this for you? Well, not all scenes were "shot" where you could always see their mouths. Sometimes people were walking through dark tunnels. Sometimes there was just a lot of action. So, now you're saying, "But then how would this have been better if you had to read subtitles at the same time?" I will tell you. The Japanese voice actors for these two characters have totally different vocal ranges, speak differently (in terms of emotions), and are distinct! So, even though the subtitles don't tell you who is talking, it's actually far easier to tell speakers apart when, say, one guy is a tenor and the other an alto. 

I have had to complain to everyone I know about this because I was alone. It always kind of sucks to go to movie theaters alone. I was also masked, although given that there were four other people in the entire theater with me, I probably didn't have to be.

On Monday and Friday night I played taxi to my wife. She's on the board of The Friends of the Ramsey County Library and they had a meeting in Shoreview on Monday and then some tech training at, of all places, The Good Earth restaurant in Roseville. This used to be a relatively popular cafe/restaurant chain. The tea still remains, but the only two places left to get the vegetarian menu exist in Minnesota. But, in both cases, I was not invited to the actual meeting, not being the board member, so I spent Monday trying to find any good manga I hadn't read yet on the shelves at Shoreview, and on Friday I spent the time in a nearby Starbucks people watching and writing some snail mail letters to friends.

Wednesday night I had D&D, but I managed to fail to make cookies for them... and then subsequently failed to write up my usual letter home. As I was telling Mason later, I'm having a bit of trouble with this character? I have literally never played a woman in an RPG before and... I can't say I like it.  Beyond my very personal reasons for never having done this before, I also made some mistakes in designing this character because I forgot to factor in real life sexism? Like, I forgot that if you want to play a fun-loving, sexually adventurous, chatty (ditzy?) woman, not only will the other player's characters dismiss you as a silly little thing, but also the tenor of whole game shifts?  Suddenly a lot of the around the table jokes get more pointed about who your character might choose to sleep with and what EXACTLY they might be doing with them, etc., etc. There's always some of that stuff and so it's not necessarily even a dealbreaker for me? Still. I mean, I'm still having fun with this character and this group, but I find that I'm engaging slightly less in character moments when they come up (to be fair, my Wednesday night group is much more a "kill things and take your stuff" bunch of players, anyway?) 

I think that's my whole week? I did some writing, but not on the right things. 

We have had the third session now of nothing but role-play. I am in heaven, but I worry about my fellow players.

Because the actual session was a little disjointed and thus hard to distill into a singular narrative, this letter also goes off on a tangent about how weird the world would be if we really lived by the rules of 5e. Because of a Cleric character I have waiting in the wings, I've been thinking a lot about death in a world where revivify (and other raise the dead) spells exist. Like, revivify is pretty common, so long as you have a diamond (or diamond dust) worth 300 gold or something like that. This made me think that it would be fully possible for a bunch of aristocrats, like Ave's social class, to make dying and revivifying into a party trick/social fad. Which helps explain why she was so shocked to discover murder was a crime!

If you're curious about how Ave might have participated in that, read under the cut!

==============
( elf murder party shenanigans )

The group of people that I'm playing D&D with has a tradition of mini-arcs in a campaign where they switch to alternate characters, presumably so no one gets bored playing a particular race or class or personality type for too long. As someone who is both, generally, a novelist rather than short story writer and who is in it for the roleplay and not the mechanics, I was initially very dubious about this approach. Like, haven't we all just finally learned each other's character names and are starting to form relationships? But, after playing a session (I missed the first one being on the road,) I kind of get why people enjoy this. With a whole new cast of characters, the entire vibe of the party shifted.

We went from fairly somber and serious to giggly and frivolous.

And I'm honestly here for it.

I'm now playing Ave, Idyril's younger sister. Like him she is a high elf, but unlike him, she's not a racist. She has no preconceptions that elves are any better than humans or tieflings or what have you. She also has zero sense of chivalry or honor. She is, in fact, attempting to live a life FULLY bereft of responsibilities. Ave's dream job is no job at all. She is a wild child, in every sense of the word.

Because, I based her character entirely on a throwaway line in the description of elves in the 5e Player's Handbook. It said in the handbook that elves declare, for themselves when they are adults. Their names when they are children are shorter, cuter, like Ave, and when they are adults their names sound more like elven names with too many 'y's and consonants, like, say, Idyril. Ave has decided that one way to live her dream is simply to never agree to growing up. Just full stop. No adulting. It's not for her. She's 125 year old and has said no to adulthood FOREVER. Her adult name would be something akin to Averylia but she's Ave and will, if she has a say in the matter (and, as it happens, she does), always will be Ave. (Just as a sidenote, I decided Idyril's childhood name was Rei. Despite how I spell it, I pronounce Idyril's name: ID-ray-el, so this make more sense when you're dyslexic, trust me. I could figure out how to better spell his name, but I have decided that Elvish is like Welsh or Irish, it's spelled Idyril and is simply said ID-ray-el.)

So, that's her in a nutshell. Also, if by chance, you have been following along you also know from the one mini adventure I played as her previously, that her backstory is simple. When Idyril was disgraced, the pressure was on to turn the spare into the heir. (Harry has to become William and no one likes it, particularly not the spare!) Ave continued to resist the whole grown-up responsibly thing and so Mother Dearest sent her off to a monastery to learn discipline, and, hopefully, in the Travorian family matriarchal tradition, adopt the Way of the Shadow and become an assassin. Ave hated every minute of it, and if she learned any lessons at all from the ninja goon squad it was when she attempted to escape and was hauled back, over and over again. One time, however, she finally made it over the wall without the ninjas noticing. She then ran straight into the arms of a Drunken Master, whose ability to evade the ninja squads while also partying like a boss aligned perfectly with Ave's lifestyle. She considers this woman to be her true teacher. And now is actually actively learning to be a monk.

That's far more than you need to know to appreciate what comes next. I will note that I'm NOT trying to make these letters self-contained, so if this is your first one, you might just want to skip, anyway. There's probably too much backstory to ever hope to make sense of it. It's cool. I'm posting these for fun, anyway.

----
( Cut because fic is so very boring, I wouldn't want to offend your eyes for even a millisecond )