Anghraine

I'm glad it's arrived after a very weird summer. I'm doing a bunch of things with my mother and my housemate Ash (it's my mother's birthday and she suggested a "girl's day out" with us), trying to keep up with academia, etc. I stuck a bunch of posts I wanted to either make or respond to in my Tumblr drafts (the drafts folder is now at 845 lol), and am hoping I'll find the time to better organize my tags over here, so I'm not constantly running into my 2000 tag maximum. And I need to do a lot of grading. And I want to actually play the final version of BG3, now that Patch 7 is out and I've got mods working the way I want. And I want to revise my novel ... someday I'll find the time!

In any case, happy birthday to Jimmy Carter as well! I'm really glad he made it to 100 and hope he manages to fulfill his plan to vote for Harris/Walz.

Digging up the links to so many DW tags got me wondering what tags I've actually used more than any others over here. It will probably look different after I'm done cross-posting, and maybe I'll check again then. But as of right now, the evening of 29 April 2024, this is every tag I've used over 100 times since my first post on 19 July 2009—

A. Tags used over 500 times:

1. #site: tumblr

This is far and away my most commonly used tag (used 1739 times), mainly because I've been cross-posting old Tumblr posts to Dreamwidth for years now, but also because I use it for every post referring to basically anything going on at Tumblr as well as the cross-posts.

2. #fandom: star wars

This feels like the "real" #1 tag, used 668 times and beating out all other fandoms (and indeed, everything). I suspect this is partly because I got into SW after making my DW account, but at a time when journal fandom was still quite active, so one of my most intense periods of SW fannishness was based here (or synced with lj, so the content is here as well). And then when you add in SW cross-posts and "overflow" material from Tumblr once Disney SW got kicking, especially after Rogue One, it's enough for the SW tag to jump ahead of every other tag but the Tumblr one.

3. #genre: meta

I periodically whine about feeling like I'm perceived more as a meta writer than a fic writer, even though I care more about fic and derive far more joy from it ... but I've tagged 667 posts with the meta tag and far less with any fic-related tag. In fairness, I originally conceived as "meta" as basically any post talking about a canon or fandom that wasn't fic, no matter how abrupt, so things I wouldn't really describe as "meta" these days fell under the tag until pretty recently. Even so, I've posted a lot more serious meta than fic!

4. #fandom: austen

The only surprise here is that this one wasn't even higher. I've tagged 640 posts with it over the years, and if you've followed me on Tumblr for awhile, you know there's only more coming. I'm pretty sure it'll beat out SW in the end for sheer quantity.

5. #fandom: middle-earth

While the previous three tags are clustered pretty closely together, there's a jump from the 640 Austen posts to a mere 505 Tolkien posts. This is partly because a bunch of my Tolkien stuff never made it onto Dreamwidth (that is, it happened on sites that are now dead or on lj before Dreamwidth was ever founded, or much later, was posted over at Tumblr and much of it hasn't made its way back over here). It's still one of my biggest fandoms, obviously; SW, Austen, and Tolkien will probably always be the Big Three for me.

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Hi, everyone!

I was busy yesterday for holiday reasons, but for 2024, in this era of social media chaos we live in, I wanted to do the Snowflake Challenge here at my online home (Viva Dreamwidth!). Today's challenge was to create or update your profile/profile post, which it looked like I had never once done (I've been here since 2009...). So I went through and changed the interests that needed changing, switched my location from Oregon to Washington (I moved years ago), and *gasp* added a mini-bio (I had never done this, either). For the click-averse, here it is:

I'm Elizabeth or Anghraine (no preference!). I've been in fandom since my late teens and I'm in my 30s. I'm especially here for Pride and Prejudice (the book, not the adaptations), Tolkien (the books; I'm overall not a fan of the LOTR films or their impact on fandom), and Star Wars (mainly the original trilogy and Rogue One the film). I also love games; I'm not actually good at them, but I'm very invested in the humans of the Guild Wars series and currently, like many others, in Baldur's Gate 3.

In the meanwhile, I'm wrapping up grad school hell, so I also talk quite a bit about that—and anything else that moves me, really. Dreamwidth holds the overflow of my brain as well as my material from less stable sites.

Identity stuff: grey-ace lesbian, somewhere between agender and cis female (she/her and they/them are both fine), autistic/bipolar/anxious, white US American.

(Posted 1/2/2024)

There was a massive BG3 patch this morning that says it fixed the bug that prevents "Investigate the Beach" from resolving, but it didn't fix it for me :(

Best part of the Gale-Lae'zel chatter thus far, though—

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In response to this post (on Tumblr), my friend venndaai said:

oh I love Larissa initially assuming she's being punished! and love your appreciation for Guiding Bolt <3 My Tav is all, if I was a REAL WIZARD I wouldn't be about to die here, and then they escape the pod and they cast a 1st level spell and it just happens? They don't have to struggle through a ritual, they just will it to happen?? and it doesn't take long to form a theory that the new lodger is the culprit...

and now they're terrified of being Found Out and losing it all, especially with Gale who has been treating them like a magical equal

they would have a veeery interesting dynamic with Larissa because they're pretty suspicious of the gods, even/especially Mystra (they tried praying. She never answered, and they'd given up long before the tadpole.) but also rather in awe of clerics and jealous of their faith. They've chosen to believe in themselves and their friends and believe that they can do Anything!!! but it's mostly bravado and desperation.

but also they could bond with Larissa over nerdy bookworm things :)

I replied:

Haha, thank you! There's nothing like playing three D&D clerics in a row and then a celestial warlock to appreciate Guiding Bolt, esp at low levels! And a critical hit with it ... whew. (I'm playing a wizard in a Pathfinder campaign right now, and she's fun, but I do miss that sweet divine power.)

Ohhh, your Tav's "if only I had true wizardly power this wouldn't be happening to me :(" is really fun, and definitely resonates with their drive to hang onto what power they obtain. I love it! Also a fun contrast with Larissa's "If only I'd been more faithful this wouldn't be happening to me :("

and now they're terrified of being Found Out and losing it all

I love it, especially combined with a Gale romance. It's totally fair to wonder if he'd think less of Tav if Gale knew they weren't a "real" prodigy like him.

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Speaking of the first nighttime conversation with Shadowheart, I love this shot of her at the end of it:



And now I see her hair ties are literal chains ... oh :'(

I love Gale's random anecdotes, and this one made me giggle:





If anyone would know about weird lovers' quarrels, Gale—

And after Lae'zel, Astarion wanted to chat with Larissa. Or "chat." Or perhaps actually chat. Hard to say, really.

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Oh, and Withers said something about the ( Read more... )