My last remaining grandparent died about an hour ago (non-COVID related).

I feel callous saying "about time", but she'd been wanting to die for years.

It still hurts, though.

— Chestburster (@ChestnutPlays) April 10, 2020

Things went a little sideways for me on Friday, and the mood carried into this week. It was a struggle to get the motivation to do much, but I’m finally back to some semblance of normalcy today.

I spent most of the weekend trying to distract myself. I finally put together a new bed frame I’d ordered, though it was a struggle to do it alone, especially since a piece or two got warped weirdly in transit to me. Not enough to warrant needing to get a new one, but enough to make things complicated, and make me cry in aggravation. I also spent a little bit of time futzing about, trying to konmari some more.

My apartment is in that odd state of, things are cleaner and tidier and less cluttered but everything is a mess. I figure it will stay that way for a little bit until I can get to a point where I can find somewhere to drop off all the donations of items that need to be removed from my apartment. The places I typically bring donations for the homeless are closed due to the current environment, and I’ve yet to find a drop location that isn’t Salvation Army.

Diablo-ing We Go

I haven’t written about Diablo at all yet because… *gestures at everything* But Manthing was very sweet this past weekend, and put aside some extra time to help distract me with some Diablo. We’ve started playing Diablo III on date nights, and I’m very much enjoying it. We’ve encountered the Developer level and the Pony level in random Rifts, which has been fun!

I don’t think I would play Diablo on my own (I will probably never play through the story, sorry), but I’ve very much been enjoying it as a game to play as a duo. Gaming with someone and just talking about everything and nothing is something I’ve sorely missed. I haven’t really had that since WildStar, so it’s been a few years. As of now, we’re almost level 70, and have completed most of the second and third tiers of Season 20.

Kree!

I'm proud of this tip-in I made. pic.twitter.com/okDQAMgpDi

— Chestburster (@ChestnutPlays) March 6, 2020

I also spent some time finishing out season nine of Stargate SG-1 this past weekend, and diving into Stargate Atlantis season two. To be fair, I’ve actually been following a chronology list I found on the Stargate reddit, so I finished a little more than just season nine of Stargate.

Watching the two-parter “The Fourth Horseman” was a bit odd with all that is currently going on in the world. The premise of the episode is that the big baddies of the season set a plague on Earth that is like a type of flu. It felt unrealistic to me. Not in the sense that it’s obviously fiction and it’s an alien-created illness. But in the ways that they described and showed the public’s reaction to the pandemic the illness caused. It was too smart compared to what we’re going through, and due to that, it felt completely off.

I didn’t think I was going to enjoy the introduction of the Ori, after eight seasons of the Goa’uld. But the plot is growing on me. Plus, I’m very excited that Vala has joined the cast full-time, and I’ve been told that Morena Baccarin shows up in season ten as well, which I am greatly looking forward to. I have assumptions on the character she plays, but I’ve been trying not to spoil myself.

This is post 7/31 for Blapril. You can find out more and sign up at Belghast’s original post. You can view those participating on Twitter via the Twitter list I put together. Nogamara of Battlestance has put together an RSS feed of all Blapril participants.

I haven’t updated my site in a very long time, and I’m feeling the itch to tweak it some. I’m considering picking up Yoast SEO (since I use it for my business blog/site), fiddling with my header, and changing up my color scheme a little bit. I’m fairly content with the layout itself, but just feel that it needs a bit of an update. I won’t be rebranding, even though my Twitter and Youtube differ a bit.

Rebranding is far too much work, and I’ve been Gamer Girl Confessions since I first started. It’s not the end of the world if my YouTube and Twitter don’t completely match my blog. I know some people would say it is, but this blogging and YouTube endeavor is not something that I’m doing expressly to make money. If that happens, cool. But both are an outlet for me to work my way through content I am interested in, but may not otherwise explore.

Date Nights

I typically only get to see Manthing once a week as we’re both busy, but since quarantine has essentially been enacted, the lack of weekly physical human content has been difficult. While we chat daily, we greatly enjoy each other’s company, and being close is something sorely missed by both of us.

We’re trying to cope as best we can by trying out virtual date nights. Last week we tried out watching stuff on Amazon and Netflix because it was the easiest thing for both of us in the moment. We ended up finishing up Watakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku on Amazon Prime, which was super cute. We both love the opening theme, and have enjoyed digging into an anime that deals with being an adult. I personally need more anime like this, rather than high school slice-of-life stuff. We also watched Mask of Zorro on Netflix, which he had surprisingly never seen before. It was fun laughing at the perfect mix of slapstick with smart humor.

Tonight, we’re going to try Season 20 of Diablo 3. It will honestly be my first real time playing D3 outside of putzing around a bit by myself once or twice after my metamour gifted me an expansion. I’m not sure what I’ll roll yet, or what he has rolled, but I’ll be sure to recount how well it goes at some point.

This is post 6/31 for Blapril. You can find out more and sign up at Belghast’s original post. You can view those participating on Twitter via the Twitter list I put together. Nogamara of Battlestance has put together an RSS feed of all Blapril participants.

October Recap

Well, November is already half over and I’m finally getting to writing this. Woops! October’s recap is a pretty quick one—due to life being super busy (vacation, assisting with SphinxCon, LARP, etc.), I didn’t really have a lot of time outside of raid nights in WoW, and work deadlines, to do much gaming. Of my list, I really only completed a few things.

I finally ended up getting my Pathfinder (Part 1) achievement. So that’s one less thing to worry about come whenever Blizz releases Part 2.

I got a fair bit done in my miscellaneous goals. I hopped into Diablo 3 for a bit, and finally got the first expansion (that Ainyan gifted me for my birthday) to redeem. So now I can finally play campaign mode! Manthing says he’ll help level me so we can do some Rifts for the season, but we’ll see if it happens with the holidays (and multiple birthdays) approaching.

I also played a bunch of games as a part of #HorrorGameOct—The Park (1/2), Layers of Fear (1/2/3), and I started Vampire: the Masquerade – Bloodlines (1/2/3), which I plan on continuing until I finish a full playthrough.

November Gaming Goals

I don’t have many goals for November, because (1) it’s part way over, and (2) I have a busy rest of the month ahead of me.

World of Warcraft

• Reach Exalted with one BfA reputation
• Zandalari Blacksmithing 150
• Zandalari Cooking 150
• Zandalari Fishing 150

Miscellaneous

• Finish a route (or two, or more…I’m so close to finishing the game!) in Sweet Fuse for #VNNovember
• Start Period:Cube for #VNNovember
• Create a new main in ESO
• Work through side missions I’ve not yet completed in Secret World Legends to catch up with main story

Like many other bloggers participating in Blaugust, I am one to set gaming goals. I won’t go into reasons why, at this particular moment, only because I was inspired by someone else who doesn’t do gaming goals to go into a deeper explanation on why I create them! This post is also a “get the post in for the day” type deal, as I’m having a low spoon day, and I had to do some apartment hunting on top of it.

For a bit of clarification (because it may seem like a lot of goals), when I set my goals, I don’t set them to necessarily be accomplished for the month. But more on that in the aforementioned post.

World of Warcraft

As I outlined in my Pre-BfA post:

• Level Chest-Dwarf to 60 (then boost to 110) for Double Agent achievement
• Level Macadamia to 110 (towards Quintessential Quintet achievement)
• Obtain flying in Draenor (so that I can level more alts for Quintessential Quintet)
  • Finish Nagrandeur achievement
  • Explore Shadowmoon Valley achievement
  • Explore Nagrand acheivement
  • Securing Draenor achievement
  • Revered with The Sabersatlkers
  • Revered with Order of the Awakened
  • Revered with Vol’in’s Headhunters
• Level Arraign (Femcow Death Knight) to 110
• Level ?? (probably Kaelari, the Femcow Paladin) to 110

Secret World Legends

• Finish out all leftover side missions up to Egypt

ARPG August

This is part of the community game-along run by Apricot Sushi at Chic-Pixel.

• Pick up Diablo 3 for the first time!*

*Well, kinda more the second time. I didn’t get far the first time, only two hours in.

Final Fantasy XIV

• ARC 30
• FSH 20
• LNC 15
• PGL 15

Cross-class skills are a thing, and I’d like to start picking them up in a reasonable fashion.