beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth journal

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 17:52:04 GMT

Played Wrath of the Righteous again today. Started the 5th Crusade and did all the fights in the first area except the level 7 army (mine is a 5 and I already got butt kicked on a 4 vs 4 fight so I feel bad about actually losing soldiers this time) and checking the goblins etc (there are dialogue options that I believe unlock if you already took Drezen. And also it would kick my arse quite a lot.)

So I got as far as the start of the Smile and... stopped due to being bored.

Played this many days in a row I am reminded I would rather be playing another adventure path that is only like this one. But Kingmaker is crashy and none others are made on the computer yet so.

I did do one thing differently from playing on Last Azlanti mode. I decided not to risk it on a mobility check I have literally never failed. Because it was fall damage that erased the save last time so I am just going to... not do that. It is annoying.

I suppose I could go back later when I can't fail at it. Except having said that I am unsure what the result of rolling a 1 is so. Maybe not.

Why I set myself this challenge... just the little achievement thing really.

Ah well. Onwards.

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asleep dreams are not always very interesting

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 07:58:49 GMT

Today's nightmare was
grabbing a first aid kit
to run towards the danger
but none of them actually had
first aid kit
in them.

I woke up feeling the need to tell the dream to knock it off and the internet to only use marked first aid bags for medical supplies, and not, for instance, epic quantities of pasta, or used gym kit complete with a damp towel.

... this and the one where the fire alarm goes off and nobody listens are of a genre. certainly nightmare but not useable plots...

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Fri, 12 Jun 2026 20:52:20 GMT

Game progress: Gray Garrison retaken, eventually, after a lot of do overs. My main character build needs work. Also to remember not to run right up to the enemy to get stabbed. I have hexes to use but keep stabbing before I get around to them. Beginning to realise why this archetype gets no love.

I also did the chatty bits at the start of the next chapter, paid for and recruited the army, hired General Shy, and started kicking demon butt.

I understand why the game doesn't give you a chance to say No to the major setup of the rest of the game, but if Galfrey actually does spring command on you as a surprise in character too, I wouldn't half give her a piece of my mind. What is she even thinking? Oh hi mysterious person, have my entire crusade, that'll work grand? She is not smart.

So much running around camp finding other people's weapons to sell. Again, makes sense as a game mechanic and an encouragement to learn the layout before the next set piece, but how does that even work? Keep hold of your spear or your Knight Commander will sell it back to the Quartermaster???

Still, game played, thought successfully avoided for another day.

ETA 1500 move goals achieved today.
My watch gave a cool spinny shiny picture about it.
They're really tiny goals but I do them.

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Thu, 11 Jun 2026 21:44:50 GMT

Today I had a useful conversation and rewarded myself with an afternoon of Pathfinder on the xbox.
I caught up with the progress I had when I discovered the delete your save issue, and have now exceeded it. Done the defence of the pub, and kicked the nabasu's butt, eventually, after many attempts.

... I used so many scrolls on that one fight. so so many. like almost all the scrolls, as I kept trying again with more scrolls on it. I don't see how to run that fight better, so I just keep trying until we actually stomp it. Probably there is a better way. If it was for reals I just wouldn't have that fight.

Frustratingly I have killed everything before the Grey Garrison except possibly some random encounters, yet I am 100xp short of the next level. I shall have a level up pretty much as soon as I get in the next battle, but shall not have time to rest and take advantage of the spells. I feel punished for not getting in more random encounters.

I think this play through isn't working out because I am spending all the money on cure potions and scrolls and I am nearly out of them. At some point we need to get good at not getting hit. This probably requires equipment I cannot afford because of all the scrolls and potions. Also I tried a Kineticist build for Wenduag and I absolutely do not understand it one bit. She kills what she hits and hits most of the time but there are buttons and I do not know what they do. Waste of buttons.

This game is more fun when I am good at it.

Still, pretty okay day.

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Wilderness years again for the TV show

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 08:13:55 GMT

I read about Doctor Who being out until they find new people to make it.

I suggest they use the Piper reveal to be the Bad Wolf turning up to rewrite time a bit and take a new angle on the same TARDIS team.

Annoy everyone.

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Wed, 10 Jun 2026 20:17:43 GMT

Today I made progress in Wrath of the Righteous, getting back to the point I discovered the whole Deletes Your Saves If Losing problem.
... still grumpy about that, it should definitely say that in the definitions when you pick difficulty...

I did things in a different order though so I had different people with me in the Tower of Estrod and the Library. I knew Greybor had some nice dialogue with Ember but today I brought Camellia and Wenduag, and the three of them had a mutual admiration about hunting demons with proper timing, whereas Woljif compared it to cheating at cards by stealing the stakes. Then I had Ember with me at the library and she and Wenduag had an exchange about hiding from the pain by lying to yourself, either by pretending that targets aren't people or pretending you don't care. Wenduag has a lot of story going on and that is interesting, but it is disconcerting that the options for bringing her with you do not include for instance saying you do not want a cannibal army and possibly she should stop aspiring to poison her peers.

The Tower of Estrod was more difficult than it had ever been and I realised that you need Athletics to get the pillars thing to work and with today's party the only one with significant plus numbers is the horse, who for some reason cannot push the pillars. He should be able to push pillars but no. Discover that in the middle of the fight and the proceed to find out why everyone warned you not to try that fight. Nasty one. Still, won it, eventually.

Games are good because there's always another small achievable goal, but that's also awkward if you were planning on doing anything else with your day.

... I am probably going to play again tomorrow though.

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Last Azlanti mode is not kidding around

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 18:06:25 GMT

Today I got the Tasks done, watched an episode of Legends of Tomorrow, and played Wrath of the Righteous on Last Azlanti mode.

Did You Know that on Last Azlanti mode it deletes your save if your entire party dies?
I did not know! It does not say this when you are selecting difficulty levels, it just says there is only one save and the computer is the boss of when it is saving.
And Did You Know that your entire party can die from a failed mobility skill check? I did not know! It has never happened to me before, after years of playing Owlcat Pathfinder games. Not even once.
So it was Not A Nice Surprise when I thought hmmm, I may as well go across this log, we can usually make those numbers, and then WHOOSH, all dead, would you like to load your last save except oh oops it is Another Character Entirely.

I did not like that.

Multiple days it takes to play these things even that far, and boom, TPK and out.

I suppose on one level the game did warn us, since the most famous thing about the Last Azlanti is his unexpected permadeath.

Flipping annoying.

I haven't even had the entire party die at once before! But today, whoosh, start again.

So of course I made as far as I can remember the same character with ii after her name and started over again.

I picked a different build for everyone else because if this is the range of possibilities even on Core then I am looking up Unfair builds and hoping somebody knew how to do the maths right.

Sure I could just not play on Last Azlanti. I won't even know if the achievements are working until so late in the game it'll be almost won. But it is the principle of the thing.

... the difficulty level that makes the most sense won't get me any achievements but would I believe be a lot more fun. I should make a character falled Morfun and go back to that...

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Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:29:06 GMT

I finished listening to the Further Adventuress.
I've only given it three and a half stars but I'm fairly sure that's unfair and I'm just having a distracted bad listening experience.
Also the CD isn't in my catalog and I haven't found it on the shelves so I've just logged it as a downloaded audiobook.

but

I checked the CD drawers today because I thought I was out of space and would need to decide which things to keep
and I discovered a whole drawer of empty
next to a drawer of 4th Doctor audios I haven't listened to yet
and
they weren't in the catalog.

Logically I need to recheck all the CDs
but the catalog says that is
about 750
which is so so many.

so many.

So I suspect my catalog will just continue to be mysteriously dubious.

On the plus side I have more 4th Doctor audios than I thought.

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Anthony Head dies at 72

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 16:49:36 GMT

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd0p0rz4n0mo
Buffy and Ted Lasso star Anthony Head dies at 72

awful news

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Thu, 04 Jun 2026 15:11:09 GMT

Today: two more loads of laundry, and a couple of discs of Legends of Tomorrow.

I have caught up to the season with John Constantine. He was fun in the season with Mallus but now he's setting up the next season problem he is way more of a bastard. Goes all spiky when he's scared and self loathing, and guess how much of the time that is. He is so fascinating to watch. ... which, given how much of the time so far he was being tortured shirtless, is a very specific statement...

But I have seen Beebo save the world, so today is a very good day.

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Wed, 03 Jun 2026 13:35:50 GMT

Today is Cleaner Day and I am doing so good at making things Cleaner.
I have got things ready for the cleaner and she made it cleaner as per my list.
... also I ran the dishwasher once and the laundry twice, and currently it is drying.

Some of it is drying hanging on the door because I forgot that particular layer was in the bottom of the laundry basket for reasons of awkward, but in the recent weather that'll work out okays.

I was washing things I won't need for a while because I am trying out new laundry capsules. The ones I have been using are New and Improved into making so much stinky I had to ask mum to get them out of my house for me, because you can't leave laundry capsules lying around and they aren't meant to go in the bin anyway. She took them and donated them. But now I have to try new makes until I find one that doesn't make me ill or annoyed. Ecover may be okays, but I have tried it on winter clothes first because I'll have a long time to fix them if it don't work out.

There are shapes you only try to be when you are changing the fitted sheets on a bed up against a wall, and my back is reminding me of this in Several places. I had to take a break in the middle of remaking the bed to just lie on my front for a bit. It was fine.

My days are not especially fascinating lately so I keep not telling the internet about them.

I did rewatch an episode of Legends of Tomorrow just now, and I have listened to 3/4 of the Big Finish Charley and 8 'Further Adventuress'
... I keep stopping and getting distracted. I think I have had enough of Charley by the end of her story arc and effectively popping back to the beginning to fill in some more adventure isn't working for me.
I also played some more Wrath of the Righteous but it is getting harder instead of easier because I have used up more resources and time than I am used to. I am getting Daeran next and hopefully he can keep us alive a bit longer.

I guess if I actually finish a thing or talk about individual episodes as I go along I get more interesting things to say.

My Legends rewatch just saw Nora and Ray trying to get cold fusion. It's interesting how they make Damien Dark get that one tiny glimmer of a second thought and he's suddenly much more fun to watch. A guy who wants to end the world is boring, a guy who wants to giftwrap a perfect world for his daughter and is just absolutely terrible at figuring out how badly that is going is interesting.

Think I shall watch a second episode while I wait for the laundry.

... I have so much laundry needs done but I saw in passing an old journal entry that said the difference between drowning in laundry argh argh and huh this is achievable laundry is like four loads. I can do four loads. I did weird bits and a blue wash, that leaves black and grey and white and the fiddly rainbows stuff I never know what to do with. That's finite laundry. Onwards...

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Sun, 31 May 2026 16:34:27 GMT

Today I listened some Torchwood while playing Wrath of the Righteous.
I made a gnome to be a Trickster, and I chose Wenduag because I never have before due to 'hi I will recruit so many cannibals' being a not great plan.
... I have told myself my character listened to this and realised what she would do if we left her at home. I still feel bad about Lann though. I mean, he did nothing wrong, the game just forces a choice, and doesn't let you correct Wenduag when she lies about it.

I am playing on Core with Last Azlanti Mode saves.
I am failing more skill checks than usual but trying locks again with another character is actually working this time instead of Stuck Forever so that is manageable.

The thing I am learning about letting it control the saves is that just when you think 'oh heck I didn't heal before this fight this is going to go so badly' and therefore decide to redo however many minutes as penance for the screw up
it turns out it saved twenty seconds ago
and you are so screwed.

... I survived the fight but I think it took a dozen tries so random numbers did the heavy lifting.

I don't know if my character builds are any good, I tried a Sylvan Trickster for MC because I wanted a sleep hex, but I forgot to have an ongoing plan so it is anyone's guess what this character will be next.

I am once again unsure if this game is actually fun any more or if the difficulty level eats the fun or if I just need another story.

... I pretty much need another story. The only achievements left to do are difficulty ones, and the secret ending one that didn't acknowledge me.

I have also been trying to think of writing, like plot bunnies and characters to throw at them that are not just lightly reskinned fic characters or really ooc fic characters, either way in mega xover mode. Instead I keep starting a plot and ending up explaining the background to the characters over and over. Not quite the way.

But the Sunday tasks were achieved, dishwasher actually ran when I realised I'd used up all the things, and the only foods to not arrive can be picked up from another shop, so, pretty okays.

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It is the annual Expensive Big Finish Announcement day

Fri, 29 May 2026 11:44:03 GMT

https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/early-bird-savings-on-2027-s-classic-doctor-who-adventures

all the Doctor Who adventures listed and bundled for 2027 😊

... that is such a spendy hobby...

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Strixhaven fiction book

Fri, 29 May 2026 09:02:43 GMT

I finished reading Strixhaven Omens of Chaos by Seanan McGuire.
I didn't enjoy it much, unfortunately, because I am not familiar with Magic any more. ( Read more... )

It was a pretty good adventure, I just didn't have enough context or relevant expectations to get much out of it.

Also I am cranky and tired and Britain is Too Warm this week and my schedule went unexpected and this new computer keeps on doing the thing where this on screen keyboard turns into the search box unexpectedly and I cannot narrow down why at all AND it has decided Bluetooth doesn't work and at this rate next week it will be going back to the computer guy to fix and it is meant to be the nice new working one that is already fixed. So. Cranky and not in the mood for... anything.

It seems fair to note this as part of my assessment of the text because the heat alone can probably knock a star off my ratings, which isn't going to be fair.

I think the book is probably fun when you know what it is talking about.

I think this on screen keyboard is approaching intolerable.

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And that is all the Torchwood

Wed, 27 May 2026 13:24:15 GMT

https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/fare-well-from-torchwood

Torchwood Farewell is really good
the appropriate amount of scary
and weirdly hopeful for something we know the canon ending of.

But now I have listened to All The Torchwood
all 100 audios
the end.

I shall have to hope the Legacy thing they already announced is something nice.

... I do not like reaching the end of the story. But it was a good one...

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Wed, 27 May 2026 04:51:14 GMT

Today I reread Daughter of Smoke and Bone.
I didn't remember first reading it, I didn't guess the story, and it actually gave me the creeps most of the time.
It might be that I was Far Too Warm yestrrday, but I think it is more that the story wants us to see some sort of grand soulmates romance, but I only see ( Read more... )

Also I really don't get it when some story wants us to distinguish between lust at first sight and some sort of fated love. They know nothing about each other. How is that love?

Even when they get together I was just thinking he knows nothing about her, but then I reakised he knows as much as the readers do, only with more senses. Still seems more like a 'ask on a first date' situation rather than all that grand plot stuff.

I do kind of want to know what happens next but fear the story mostly cares about this romance, which is creepy.

I think I shall look the rest of the trilogy up.

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Tue, 26 May 2026 13:39:36 GMT

The weather is Not Pleasing.

... that's about all I have to say today but I am very sure of it.

33C is too many, esprcially with how fast the weather went from 3C to 33C this May.

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Mon, 25 May 2026 04:38:08 GMT

I have relistened all the Charlotte Pollard from the main range.
That includes the three with Mila at the end. Paper Cuts was a very good one.
But the range did a weird thing where they'd written Charley into a corner where she'd never let the Doctor go and then it budged her out of the way and made a new exaggerated copy of her ( Read more... )

I don't know, something about how they wrapped that up felt like they'd written themselves into a corner and then put a mirror up and walked out through it.

... which would be fine in genre anyway and is basically what physically happened in Time of the Daleks so it is difficult to come up with a comparison.

They set up a question and answered a different question and it felt a bit unsatisfying.

Having listened to all the Charley up to this point I am not encouraged to listen to her some more.
But there is more, Further Adventuress and more recent ones.
So that is up next.

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Sat, 23 May 2026 11:17:46 GMT

I have relistened to Charley Pollard up through Brotherhood of the Daleks.
I haven't relistened that one for ages because it was on the big computer not the app in my pocket.
My cunning plan to improve my computer with a little card and put More Doctor Who on it has more or less worked. ... it stopped working twice and started working again when I restarted the computer, but the third adventure went off without a hitch. Current theory: do not move files around while playing things off that drive, it only almost works. Shall see if that holds or if it will get stuck again later.

Brotherhood of the Daleks is nuts. Like, What If ( Read more... ). I read a few reviews and they seem balanced between being impressed at the audacity and pointing out that to understand what is going on properly you need to have watched TV episodes and listened a large handful of Big Finish, and even then it's going to try and trick you many. Getting lost in the twists seems to be the desired outcome. Also it does the thing where it goes to the credits and then continues the story, which is likely to lose you when you're trying to listen on a tiny pocket mp3 player on the bus and can't see the track length. Today I had the whole screen to see the extra minutes so that worked okay.

Charley is getting more annoying to me, as she continues to be the very attached romantic she always has been, but with ever so much more knowledge of how bad she could break the web of time. She should know better, but for all the same reasons, she's not the person who can let go.

... not a deliberate Scherzo reference but...

I did like the scene where she explained her emotions to the Doctor but the ways the story jumps out of the way of him having to react are getting annoying too.

As originally told there were years in between these episodes. Such a weird pacing issue to deal with. It's more or less working listened all in a row.

But this is not my favourite companion.

I also started to listen to a new to me story, 'The Further Adventuress', but I felt like the first episodes were just call backs and references to remind us who Charley even was, and since I just relistened I do recall. Also the bit with the gorilla was just odd, as well as being part of a stack of literary references set in Paris. The story just felt like it was Being Clever so I wandered off back to the monthly range.

... I will finish listening the monthly range eventually, but that day is not yet this one...

Long day of listening, more listening available, pretty cool.

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Torchwood: Curtain

Fri, 22 May 2026 22:17:17 GMT

Four actors, one audio, about a play that summoned the devil, and Bilis Manger.
I wanted to like this but it fell a bit flat for me. I didn't feel like it had any twists. The characters mainly stayed who they initially presented themselves to be. I think it might land better with someone who has been nearer a theatre than listening to the chatty bits on audios.

I think I liked the idea ( Read more... ). I just didn't feel like it managed the tense creepy of the other stories.

But I feel bad for critising it, especially when I slightly mean 'it did all the things I expected it to'. It just didn't quite give me the creeps as it did it.

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Thu, 21 May 2026 08:02:28 GMT

It is funny listening to the Big Finish chatty bits where an actor says they're surprised the stories have gone on so long already
and it is a recording from about twenty years ago
and their next episode is out next month.

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8 Charley C'rizz

Thu, 21 May 2026 04:47:16 GMT

I have been relistening to the 8th Doctor adventures from the beginning, and C'Rizz gets more interesting this way than I remember. He has an arc going on, stuff about being Eutermesan and also being strange for a Eutermesan. Stuff about being a chameleon who picks up personality from those around him. It's interesting in theory, but I don't know how well the practice is going, since it mostly seems to result in him being grumpy and inconsistent.

Also absolutely terrible things keep happening to him, including being tortured, caged, put on display, and treated like he's subhuman whereever he goes. And that seems like it should be an interesting angsty storyline. But. It also seems like Charley and the Doctor don't notice? And to be fair the Doctor is getting tortured at least as much as C'Rizz, and also having one of those stretches of story where he doesn't go long without losing his memory again, so it seems relatively reasonable for him to be distracted. But it means C'rizz is having a terrible time as almost a seperate track of story, and dealing with it alone.

I was comparing this in my head to how Hex gets treated, and Big Finish really do put the guys through it, but Hex is with people who both notice and care.

The story is not treating C'rizz equally or dealing well with stories that keep landing on racial discrimination but not calling it that.

It's also a story arc about mental illness but aside from one character of the episode calling him a schizo (not a kind reference or a sympathetic character) the story isn't exactly foregrounding it. Dealing with it *well* seems like a lot to hope for.

Next episode up is Absolution, and C'rizz will be all done until this set of Sontar stories now coming out, as far as I can tell.

I do not remember Absolution.

Shall see how that goes.

ETA: Absolution did not work for me at all. It was actually boring. ( Read more... )

Either I was sleepier than I thought and slept through the bits that made it a good story or that was a rubbish ending.
/ETA

... in other news this on screen keyboard is driving me spare, I absolutely cannot figure out why it keeps bringing the start menu up. it seems to statistically correlate with trying to type words beginning with o but typing around the o on purpose does nothing. Invisible function for the lose???

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Mon, 18 May 2026 23:01:03 GMT

Today I had a nice walk to the library and back
where the tiny child rhyme group were singing
zoom zoom zoom we're going to the moon.

... my brain is still singing it many hours and a sleep later...

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Mon, 18 May 2026 02:58:56 GMT

My sleep watch keeps thinking I am doing okay at sleep, but the individual sleeps are only up to four hours, so I disagree.

I am at anxiety level
if I find the perfectly perfect thing to buy it will Fix Everything
but luckily I can recognise this and just end up collecting So Many Pictures.

... there are some *gorgeous* walking sticks on etsy, including ones with Dragons, but they start at £100 and I very rarely need a stick.

There are also A Lot of things listed as walking sticks that will in the details tell you they are Decorative. This is because the handles are made of rubbish and putting your weight on them is No. But buying from the walking stick places that give you a weight listing for the stick means the only fancy bits are patterns and colors, not carvings. Minimal dragonlike features.

I am reasonably certain that buying a wizard staff will solve precisely none of my problems, and yet.

In other news tumblr changed the layout slightly and I was confronted with the number of posts in my Drafts, which I seem to have been treating as write only storage. So now there are considerably fewer Drafts but my queue hovers nearly full.
... which is a lot of queue.

Turns out I had three or four copies of my favourite Ethan posts scheduled at various times, because whenever it comes up I put it forwards three months and post it again, but that got a bit cluttered. So I put them all in October and sorted it down to one copy of each. Which is still quite a lot. It'll be longer than usual before they come back round but it'll be a well curated month.

Tumblr calendar takes up so much queue space.

I need sleep. The sort that happens all in a row and leaves you actually rested. *sigh*

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Thu, 14 May 2026 02:23:53 GMT

👋
This week I have finally got sorted out a computer task I was not managing to do for literal years. There's a few fiddly details to fix but basically I have the new computers set up and running, which was getting a bit urgent with the odd behaviour of the older computer.
Unfortunately that means I'm now on windows 11 instead of 10. All the emojis look Bad, including the one I sign my name with sometimes, which is annoying. The keyboards are slightly different including the on screen keyboard. I can't figure out how to stop it suggesting things. It keeps popping up a menu when I'm trying to type and I haven't figured out why yet. It is more than usually pants.
And it keeps trying to search things that are not my computer, thus making it less useful than any previous computer.

But it works, so, yaay ish?

... I can't fit all my files in this littler computer even though they all fit on the older version that said it was the same size. The audio shall have to go on another device. I guess Windows is just eating all the space.

So, typos will be more, typing is more annoying, I keep finding new settings to turn off, and I have nothing interesting to say Anyway.

I have been relistening to 8 and Charley and C'rizz audios. I have little memory of these, it has been a long time since I first listened, and I suspect I mostly listened on the bus on the way to or from college which is a less detailed focused listening experience. They are quite good and Charley is less annoying than I remember. The arc stories keep ending just when I am about done with them. I'd probably like them even better if I didn't listen while I had a headache but headache days are boring.

The last Torchwood monthly adventure is due out soon. I am appropriately apprehensive after the publicity they've been doing. As is everyone on the tag on tumblr. I think I shall have to listen close to when it comes out or read all about it anyway. I hope they do the good horror and not the annoying wreckage. Tricky balance.

... this keyboard is most annoying. It keeps telling me what to type and I cannot figure out why it keeps going back down or giving me the menu from the little window button in the corner underneath it. blah.

🖖🌞
see that doesn't look like llap sunshine on this version of windows at all it is all blobby.

... gifs? I have a keyboard that offers me gifs???
well that is just wrong.

okay, I shall go do something else. probably involving more Doctor Who.

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