Author: Trip the Space Parasite

Thus implying all Hufflepuffs are atheists, which as we know from Yes, Prime Minister is completely consistent with a career in the Anglican clergy.

Went to the office, ate a chicken pot pie, helped some customers.

Read: The Splendid Work of a Monster Maid vol 1 (Yugata Tanabe): A beloved cat learns to assume human form, but alas her human has died, so she goes to the Monster World to find work and falls in with spy-maids working for the deposed demon king. Wacky hijinks ensue, with remarkably little fan service for a manga about three monster girls in maid outfits.

Read: The Queer Girl is Going to Be Okay (Dale Walls): Three queer girls in Texas, trying to survive their senior year of high school despite Texas and families, one of them is making the eponymous documentary as her only chance at getting enough scholarship to not be stuck caring for her disabled father forever.

Read: Quality Assurance in Another World vol 1 (Masamichi Sato): VR game, can’t log out, except the protagonist is not a player but a playtester, and the only one still doing his job instead of using debug mode to enslave the locals. The extremely primitive programming paradigm they’re testing isn’t consistent with full-immersion VR and at least semi-sapient AI, which makes it hard to take any of it seriously.

Written: 118 of default timeline for the Big Bad Con adventure.

Also World Storytelling Day. Combine the two and you get magic!

More work.

Kit returned from being GoH at a conference in Florida, which sounds like it was amazing.

Played: Nothing, Vivian was out and Ken never showed (possibly because he saw Vivian was out).

Written: 156, still plotting, not actually getting to a resolution. Might be bogging down in detail, although it’s not like the detail doesn’t have to be put in at some point.

A very good day, should come around more often.

I feel like I should say more about work, but… it’s just work. Whatever.

Read: Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou omnibus 3 (Hitoshi Ashinano): Alpha goes for a walk around Japan, because what’s a year when civilization is fading away and you’re an immortal(?) robot? The leftovers of the past seem a little inconsistent, but then that’s what you might expect from a handful of random leftovers.

Read: Sheep Princess in Wolf’s Clothing vol 1 (Mito): Wolf-lady butler discovers that the beautiful sheep-girl princess she serves is smitten with her. Gay hijinks ensue.

Watched: The Ancient Magus’ Bride 2.1-4: Chise goes to magic school, and Elias signs on as a teacher so she won’t be unguarded. So far pretty much the same as the College arc in the manga, but I’m having a slightly easier time keeping track of the new characters. Bug-nurse is even more disturbing in color.

Written: 140 of planning. This seems like a final confrontation, but I don’t see how it can be resolved in a satisfying way. Maybe it’s only the confrontation where it becomes clear that things cannot be resolved peaceably.

A good holiday to ignore, really. I don’t need beer, green or otherwise.

Played: Librarians Errant. The team had a brilliant plan to heist the manuscript full of old secrets that their boss wanted, but were thwarted when the people they wanted to offer their book-cataloging services to were out of town for the season. Fortunately(?), the house was in the process of being robbed by bullywugs and other such undesirables, so the team was able to look good by saving the surviving the guards, defeating a recurring bullywug villain, and then rushing down to prevent a hag and her lizardman flunkies from rifling the vault. The lizardman shamans had obnoxious spells like heat metal and roomful of crocodiles, but Thaïs managed to do 65 points of damage with a second-level spell slot (not even a second-level spell, it was upcast!) and also realized the hag had not actually phased through the wall but was lurking invisibly. It was painful and messy, but victory in combat and a victory in refraining from stealing anything except the one object thney were there to steal (unless somebody passed the GM a note and I didn’t notice). The manuscript told the team many salacious and useful things, so now they are packing for a trip to Yartar by way of the Kryptgarden Forest, in search of further volumes of The Magical Education. Level UP!

I tried to get ice cream on the way home, but I had actually eaten so much gaming food that I didn’t want any.

Written: 114

It seems weird for nations where pandas are not native to have a national panda day, but on the other hand, pandas!

I tried to get up at a sensible hour to do the thing, but the cats trapped me in bed until I fell back asleep. Alas.

After doing the thing, and then not doing any things for the whole afternoon, I went with Marith to see Jus in her school production of Annie Jr (ie, abridged). Singing! Dancing! Villainous plots! Propaganda for the morbidly wealthy! A happy ending! It was the last show, so Jus was full of feelings, but that’s okay. I hear it often happens to actors.

Read: Daisy Chainsaw (Charlotte Laskowski): Brutal tactical magical-girl combat. Choose your weapons from among such things as baseball bats, rollerblades, guns, microphones, and of course chainsaws, and try to survive high school until the villains attack and you have a transformation sequence and it’s time to fight. Still in a fairly primitive state, but it has a pixel-art aesthetic and magic rollerblades and dismemberment rules.

Written: 220, although some of it was adventure design that I did earlier but hadn’t logged.

If I had gone to the office, I could have had delicious pie, but instead I went to the dentist and got my teeth cleaned and drilled and filled. Hopefully this will extend my ability to eat pie into the future, even if it was much less delicious in the short term.

Written: 123. I think even when I’m planning ahead I get too bogged down in not resolving the plot, but at least this way there’s less to unwrite.

Are you Kenough?

Getting up early to commute in to the office was only a little worse than usual, because I already hate it. Did some work, finally ate goat curry with basmati rice (third time lucky!). Turns out I don’t like goat that much, at least not bone-in, but it’s good to eat different things.

Read: The Illustrated Guide to Monster Girls vol 1 (Suzu Akeko): Unlike basically every other manga about monster girls, it’s not all fan service. In fact, it’s not any of that kind of fan service, but it’s a lot of violence (against characters who regenerate, and are terrible people anyway, so whatever) and evil school hijinks.

Read: Alpi the Soul Sender vol 2 (Rona): Alpi meets another Soul Sender, who is older, better trained, and prettier, and also taunts her with information about her parents that she’s searching for. Surely they will become friends eventually.

Written: 129 again. There aren’t that many numbers that are between 100 and bedtime, I guess.

Why yes, it is made with real Girl Scouts!

My early morning meeting is still scheduled on UK time, so until they start BST in a couple weeks, it’s not early!

Read: Aftermarket Afterlife (Seanan McGuire): After like a dozen books of using their genetic luck powers, overwhelming telepathy, and assorted other OPness to fuck around, the extended Price family (every member of which is on screen) gets to find out.  The ghost babysitter is the viewpoint character, possibly so that she can angst about not protecting her family. Her solution to the larger-scale problem is one that I often consider, though, so I approve.

Played: Nothing, everybody was a little floppy so there was no one to energize us into playing Lancer.

Written: 129.

Yes, it’s the day after Daylight Savings Day, and I wanted to nap, but did not manage to do so. Or maybe I napped very lightly for the whole day.

Watched: Hilda and the Mountain King: Movie between the second and third seasons, following directly from the cliffhanger at the end of the second season which I had completely forgotten until now. Like so much Hilda, appears scary but is wholesome. Kind of.

Written: 114. What am I even doing with this?

This year it’s also International Day of Awesomeness, which is just wrong. So wrong.

Did my pastrami and shopping and stuff, then was super-useless.

Read: Bioshifter (Thundamoo): I really liked this, but all the content warnings for every kind of horror and trauma and philosophy. It starts off with a teenaged girl who dreams of being a spider-monster gnawing her way up through endless wood, all night every night, until finally in the first chapter she breaks through. Link is to the free version, which isn’t caught up to the Patreon yet but will be. Also available on Amazon.

Read: Nightblade (Scott Malthouse): Kind of like D&D4e, but with all the lists taken out so it fits in four pages.

Read: The Abandoned Heiress Gets Rich With Alchemy and Scores an Enemy General! (Miyako Tsukuhara, Satsuki Sheena): Alchemist with tragic past buys the enslaved general of an enemy nation to help her harvest components from monsters, but her heart isn’t in oppressing him.

Written: 148. Wait, if I diverge from the first draft, that means I have to have new plot!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! There, how was that?

Had to be on call in the afternoon, and there were annoying customers, but I escaped to Monkeycat Towers for anime night anyway.

Watched: Princess Tutu 5-6: Uh oh, Fakir is getting suspicious! Although he was pretty sus to begin with.

Watched: Sacrificial Princess & The King of Beasts 8: Hah, called it!

Written: 177. Got to a point in planning where I diverge from the first graph, so that’s probably something.

Another one that should be every day.

Did some kind of work thing, I guess. Didn’t have to stay late because it’s an off week, but did nothing useful with the extra time except order a pizza.

Watched: Nothing, no Marith.

Read: Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou omnibus 2 (Hitoshi Ashinano): More of hardly anything happening. We meet like one new character, but mostly it’s the same half a dozen people on a stretch of barely-inhabited now-coastline. Still no idea what happened to humanity, but no one seems to care much. Things are just how they are.

Written: 168 of notes on the thing that has to be completely rewritten (no, the other one that needs a complete rewrite). I know more about what was going on outside the MC’s awareness, though.

I probably did some kind of math today!

Also went to the office and ate a burrito.

Read: Witch Hat Atelier Kitchen vol 2 (Hiromi Sato, Kamome Shirahama): More recipes and fanfic vignettes.

Read: The Scapegracers (HA Clarke): A sullen teenaged lesbian witch is surprised to find that her people are the popular girls at school, but they really are, even in the face of creepy patriarchal witch hunters and hot lesbian betrayal and really visceral magic. Made me realize I don’t know how to write characters who have either feelings or bodies, never mind both at the same time.

Written: 119, somehow.

Another day I have failed to celebrate!

Went to the office, ate a Mediterranean hamburger wrap thing, did a work.

Read: Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou omnibus 1 (Hitoshi Ashinano): This is one of Dave’s favorites from ages back, which I never managed to read in scanlation, but now it is available at bookstores in English! It is some days in the life of a robot girl running a cafe during the last days of humanity. Written in the 90s, the fading civilization is not very futuristic, despite bits like human-level robots and perpetual streetlights, but the quietness and the fading are the important parts. I quite like it, but it is the opposite of exciting.

Read: The Invisible Man & His Soon-to-Be Wife vol 3 (Iwatobineko): More mushiness, still no steaminess. Probably at least another three volumes before they can manage more than a kiss, even though they have the good example of other couples to inspire them.

Written: 121, mostly copying stuff from a first draft into a notes for a second draft.

But in Canada, every day is poutine day. I hear.

Early meeting was cancelled, but I didn’t find out until I was already up, so bah.

Played: Lancer. We finished shooting down killsats with giant robot pistols and made it to the creepy abandoned space station, which naturally is full of rabid Second-Comm repair mechs. At least I can punch these ones.

Written: 166, mostly spent rewriting yesterday’s words. I think I might be reaching the point where there are so many notes about things to fix that I should just start over.

I like to think I’d still be okay, because my cats are sweetie pies, but probably it’s mostly because if they were able to open cans they would be too round to attack me.

Played: Librarians Errant. This session was pretty much one huge set-piece battle, with the players getting to also control their allies. The githyanki I played was clearly the best, but she did lose a few hit points to friendly fire (from my primary PC) and so did not make it through entirely unscathed. A lot of people got pretty beat up, but you’d think the area would be running pretty low on goblinoids by now.

Read: “On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi!” (William Tenn): Future Jewish argument. I am not the target reader, but I hope those who are liked it.

Written: 150.

Yay, I finally get a day!

Did a grocery shop, was useless and dumb. Fed the cats, though.

Watched: Princess Tutu 4: More feelings for Mytho, but Fakir is becoming suspicious. (He was always pretty sus, to be honest.)

Watched: The Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts 7: Well, okay, I guess.

Written: 122.

Excellent day for Gilbert & Sullivan heroes to be born!

Went into the office, was dumb, ate a cold Impossible burger, did a work.

Read: The Moon on a Rainy Night vol 3 (Kuzushiro): Protagonist has finally realized her feelings. Surely this will bring her only happiness with her beautiful girlfriend.

Written: 225 words of gaming notes, since I finally had ideas for the Perils & Princesses adventure for next Big Bad Con, or maybe it’s better to say the ideas I had started to fit together.

The weather was so nice today, I did actually buy tortilla chips and guac and salsa. Also ate my pastrami sandwich outside.

The traffic was not so nice when an accident forced us to double back and wander lost in the maze of brightly-lit car dealerships, but if I were not so dumb, we would have been fine.

Watched: Princess Tutu 2-3: Anteaterina! Also some plot stuff about why Ahiru’s necklace glows or something. Jus concurs that Drosselmeyer is not a good substitute for a cute animal companion, though.

Read: Wear Wolf (Murphy Lawless, Zoe Chant): The most recent Virtue Shifters book. When the blurb said the FL also had a secret, that is not what I was expecting!

Read: “It Answered” (Anastasia Kirchoff): Maybe we shouldn’t have asked… But hey, how can you complain about utopia?

Written: 121. Could possibly have been more if I hadn’t had to finish reading somebody‘s book about a fashion designer and a schoolteacher with a secret.

I actually did eat banana bread today, since I still had some left over from the gaming feast on Sunday.

Fortunately the presentation that got cancelled yesterday was repeated today for the other side of the globe and I only had to skip the team meeting to attend. It was even a little useful, although more sales-oriented than I wished.

Watched: Hilda 3.4-6: A new friend! An old acquaintance! An extremely scary monster, possibly from another genre!

Written: 243.

Another day that should be every day.

I did go into the office today, and ate Korean bento or something close to it. Then came home and tried to attend a late meeting about the new product I’m supposed to support, but apparently it was cancelled with no notice. Bah.

Read: Alpi the Soul Sender vol 1 (Rona): Nature spirits don’t die often, but when they do, their bodies are cursed until they’re given proper funerary rites, so the main character travels around doing that and dealing with other spirit-related problems, along with her butler(?). Humans make a lot of spirit-related problems.

Written: 128.