There's light somewhere

The Icebreaker Challenge: Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it.

This is totally an excuse for me to make a new sticky

Hello, my name is Stars or Glittering or Lune!

My goals for this challenge are to use it as a way to make more friends on Dreamwidth, write more structured posts (I do a lot of silly rambling on whatever has taken my fancy), and hopefully use it as an excuse to share more of my hobbies (writing, sewing, crocheting, ttrpgs).

Current obsessions include Dragon Age. My enjoyment of Baldur's Gate 3 (and friendly peer pressure--thanks, L!!) caused me to pick up Dragon Age: Inquisition for cheap from a local game store. About one hundred hours in, I decided it would be cool to play the earlier games, so I dusted off my digital copy of Dragon Age: Origins I got from a steam sale forever ago, but never got around to playing. Now, over a month later, I've sunk another hundred hours into both Origins, Awakening, and the rest of the DLCs, and bought both DA2 and Veilguard. I'm deep into Act 2 of the second game, and I'm having a blast despite it being the black sheep of the family. I made an initial first impressions post, and it definitely deserves a follow-up now that I've gotten pretty far. The TLDR; I really love the characters and role playing my Hawke has been really funny.
 
I'm currently working on a play through of A Thousand Year Old Vampire, which has been a blast. It's backstory for one of my background antagonists for a story I've been toying with for a while. She's horrible, and I love her.

Current crochet projects include a kitsune I've been working on for ages for a friend of mine. The pattern is from this book. I've also finished a dinosaur for a family member using leftover yarn and scraps from my sewing project. It was incredibly serendipitous I had the exact colors she liked, and she absolutely loved it.

Writing-wise, I'm working on a...lot of things. My muse likes to be an asshole sometimes. IIRC, Ray Bradbury had a cute little essay waxing poetic on how muses are a fickle and skittish thing. Ten years after reading that, I'm still confident in my response that that idea is bullshit. Mine is fickle, but aggressive as hell. Think overcaffinated fairy with one of those squeaky toy hammers.  

My attention has gone to absolute shit this afternoon. I got through the writing pieces for my writing group tomorrow, but it took me an embarrassingly long time to do it. They weren't long--a total of eight pages, but I just can't really think of anything constructive to say beyond some vague things. I like providing macro stuff, but I got fucking nothing to offer.

I have no attention span to try and write, though I may be able to get myself to read.

Heavily debating on trying The Artist's Way (again) during the new year, though I absolutely dread needing to deal with the undercurrent of Jesus-by-volume in it.

In other news, I'm started a new crocheting project: it's a dino amigurumi for a family member. It's accidentally turned into a stash buster because the colors the family member requested were in colors I already had and were the right size for the pattern. It's also busting my sewing scraps stash for want of filling.

This game trailer also popped into my recommendations, and it looks so freaking cool. Mexican gothic horror Metroidvania. I haven't played a lot of the genre, but Mariachi Legends just tickles my fancy. The pixel art and animations are so colorful, and the music is so atmospheric. I'm looking forward to the release.

I've decided that in order to organize my life a little more and keep on top of things, it may be a good idea for me to start leaning on a strange combination of planners/organizer. On-and-off during work, I've been looking up modular notebooks specific for those who do a lot of traveling. I've come across several DIY tutorials to make a Midori-style traveler's notebook, but most of those use leather. As I'm a seamster and have excess fabric, I'll be using that instead.

I'll be using this blog tutorial. I kinda want to go two-steps up and try some decorative embroidery, but we'll see how I'm feeling lol

I've started playing the black sheep of the Dragon Age family (until Veilguard), and I've gotten in about 7-ish hours. 

Things I like, in no particular order:

• The companions (so far): I've gotten Aveline, Carver, Anders, Varric, and Merrill recruited, and I've started on the Isabela quest. There isn't a lot I can say so far, but I do like the glimpses of their dynamics from the banter. Special shout out to Carver's storyline. Initial impressions, I really adore Merrill (she's trying her best) and Isabela's redesign from her DAO version is yes.
• Redesigns! During Flammeth's introduction in DA2, I was fucking blindsided. Her redesign does really sell her as a powerful and dangerous witch, but DAO's design as "generic old woman" really sold the initial doubt of how dangerous she was and the new design solidifies how much of a "do not fuck with her" this character is. On a narrative level, I do like the idea of "is Varric being liberal with his description or does Flammeth have the old biddy disguise?" I'm interested in seeing how her story arc will go.
• The framing narrative is actually really cool and can add a certain level of role playing to Hawke. Also, coming from initially playing DAI, Cassandra and Varric are treats in-and-of themselves.
• SANDAL'S BACK. I cannot express how much I loved this guy in DAO.
• The combat: I like how snappy it is in comparison to DAO. 
• The artistic splash pages in the loading screens. I love the style they went with and just how it evolves in DAI.
• DOG COMPANION IS BACK! And it's a summonable rather than a whole ass companion.
• The slow build-up of the story. I'm not too sure how others feel about it, but I'm definitely enjoying the slow drip. I generally know how things go since I've played a lot of DAI, but it's still interesting seeing it unfold.

This I'm not so fond of:

• Some of the graphics. It's definitely a step up from some DAO choices, but yeah, it's definitely a PS3-era game with it's emphasis on browns.
• UI flair. This is a nitpick, but some of the UI was a step down from DAO. It's functional, but it doesn't have much personality. A great showcase of this is the character select screen. Both follow a similar set up of selecting the models you want on the team before confirming what you want. In DAO, the characters are standing in a vaguely defined area and verbally respond when being selected or deselected (some variation of "Ready!" when chosen and "Goddamnit" when kicked). The character portraits have gold detailing around your team comp. In DA2, the characters stand in a blank void, only respond with a visual cue if they've been selected or not, and the portraits of your team are just boxes. Like I said, functional in the same way as a placeholder was. There might be some reason why it was like that (designed with PS3 considerations first? shorter development window than DAO or DAI?), but it still makes me sad. Maybe the DLC versions will get something a bit juicier.
• Some aspects of combat are iffy. You can tell DA2 is an transition between DAO and DAI's combat systems, and there are growing pains. The UI is a minor complaint (see above), but my main issue is how limited the camera is. DAO offers the best version of the "top-down" camera. DA2 hugs too close to the controlled character's back. I understand why it's like that (the map-to-character ratio is much smaller than its predecessor), and I know I'll get use to it, but it's a gripe all the same.
• Being limited to only playing as a human. :( Based on the story, it makes sense. Your character already has a predefined story background that ties heavily into your starting companions and the larger storylines of the Hawke family. It would be hard to justify why a dwarf or elf family had such a high level of respect in a former Tevinter landholdings.

I will probably restart my file since I did jump the gun and didn't finish Awakening or the other DLC. I had forgotten Anders was a companion in both, so I better figure out his and Justice's deal before delving deeper. lol

I had too much fun changing up my theme and making wallpapers hehe

I also made my first pie yesterday, so I'm feeling quite proud of myself