Author: Trip the Space Parasite

Or National Feral Cat Day, and Sage and Nightvale are rescues, so they count! But they are sweeties now.

Went to the office which was excessively full of people, ate some tacos, did a customer call and some other work.

Marith has made some samples of laminated handouts for the con games, which look like they will do nicely. If I were actually competent, I would do graphics stuff to fit them on fewer pages and stuff, but I’m not.

Read: Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End vol 9 (Kanehito Yamada, Tsukasa Abe): Characters from the mage test are already recurring, as are enemies from Frieren’s past. And doom.

Read: Delicious in Dungeon vol 3 (Ryoko Kui): Deeper into the dungeon means more monsters to eat and more fellow adventurers to regard with caution and drama.

Written: 213. I didn’t finish any books like Kit and other pocket fronds, but I did make my MC suffer.

Appropriate to what I’m writing. Also National Grouch Day, appropriate to my life.

My boss and his boss are both in town this week, so there’s a team dinner like the one I got Covid at. I skipped using my regular Tuesday night thing as an excuse, even though it was cancelled this week, because I didn’t like being sick.

Read: A Small Town in Southern Illvaria (Acaswell): Isekai litRPG about a STEM-oriented high-schooler who becomes determined to get to the bottom of this “system” and “magic” nonsense in her new world. Not very well-written, but I kind of want to know what she’s going to find out (with the understanding that the author might be completely out to lunch).

Written: 205.

Because Columbus is deservedly in the Bad Place.

Read: Komi Can’t Communicate vol 31 (Tomohito Oda): Some romance with a date that went poorly, not as much goofy stuff, Komi wants to study Making Friends at college.

Watched: The Dragon Prince 2.9-3.1: Rewatch, because we didn’t remember what was going on. Not sure if we’ll keep going from here to skip ahead until we get to new stuff.

Written: 303.

To commemorate how, since there is no gaming but there are cats, I stayed in bed forever and missed the final signups opening. Both of the games I wanted to sign up for were full by the time I got my act together, but I signed up for Follow in one slot, and can do Games on Demand in the other. There is no shortage of gaming. Maybe next year I’ll try to run in Games on Demand, which requires less prep, but for two potential games.

Today, however, I am clearly a loser who can accomplish nothing.

Read: Gokurakugai vol 2 (Yuto Sano): More monsters, more anti-monster conspiracy. Meh.

Written: 199.

Also International African Penguin Awareness Day, International Day Against DRM, and National Curves Day.

Got up at a reasonable hour, went shopping, came home and spent the entire day catching up here because I was like two weeks behind. Being dumb makes everything hard.

Read: Magical Boy vol 1 (The Kao): The latest daughter of the ancient divine magical girl lineage is actually a trans boy, who is already trying to deal with transitioning and an unsupportive mother when he learns about his powers and the forces of darkness that need defeating and everything. Both the art and the storyline seem a little simple, but things like binders are mentioned, so not sure if this is MG or YA. YA covers a wide range, though.

Written: 279 again.

Also World Egg Day, and I actually did eat some egg today, since I had the other purple rice pork thing from yesterday for lunch. I have not taken Sage and Nightvale to the vet yet.

Read: A War in the Depths (Erios909): Sequel to Demon’s Ascent, the OP isekai protagonist is trying to settle into the moderately-dystopic underground city with her crush but the city is too busy disintegrating from factional conflict, religious assholery, homophobia, etc. Doom, violence, excessive magic, unexpected results of eating people, technology transfer, but also smooches.

Written: 279.

I told the pocket friends, so there could be a lizard gif party.

Went to the office, which was full of people including coworker A who is visiting from the UK, ate purple rice wrapped around pork and egg and veggies, went home early so I could do the evening work while Boss K is on vacation.

Read: Pandora Unchained vol 1 (Patrick Laplante): Extremely Westernized cultivation fantasy: mana instead of qi, D&D classes, dungeons are lost temples to the dead Greek gods, etc. Main character is a physician dying from having his cultivation destroyed in an intra-clan spat when he prays to what they have instead of gods now and gets an OP poison-based cultivation path. Intrigue and resource-gathering and assholes and a dungeon labyrinth ensue.

Read: Me and My Beast Boss vol 2 (Shiroinu): Giant terrifying lion boss, human subordinate, corporate intrigue, feelings.

Read: Gokurakugai vol 1 (Yuto Sano): She’s a stoic chain-smoking gunslinger, he’s a young punk with superpowers, they fight anthropophagous undead in a seedy vaguely-Chinese city. The monsters are called “maga”, which pleases me.

Read: Livesuit (James SA Corey): The alien war from The Mercy of Gods seen from the perspective of the main(?) human civilization. Their method of interstellar travel is very unclear except for the time dilation, and in fact a lot of their technology is unclear, but it doesn’t seem like they’re doing a very sensible job of fighting the aliens, or of making supersoldiers. In fact, it seems kind of like their military strategy is to maximize bleakness and futility. Is there an in-world reason for what they’re doing? Shrug emoji.

Written: 183.

Most curious event: three people signed up for each of my sessions at Big Bad Con, so I guess we’re doing this.

Went to the office, ate a cold burger and cold fries because I never learn, did a work, made my escape early so that I could be at my real computer at 18:00 for the second wave of signups. Successfully signed up for Gubat Banwa (non-European fantasy!) and In the City of Glass (never heard of it before), so all was well.

Read: Tiger, Tiger vol 1 (Petra Erika Nordlund): Marith tried to get me to read this as a webcomic, but my ever-decreasing ability to read webcomics foiled her. I was able to read it on paper, though, and it’s pretty swell. A noble lady steals her brother’s identity and ship to set off looking for the theological implications of sea sponges. Hilarity, creation myths, monstrous stowaways, and gay longings ensue, and they’re barely past the first port.

Written: 287. Kit wrote EIGHT THOUSAND.

Hi, Jus!

Also World Octopus Day. No idea what’s up with lesbian octopodes, but that’s probably my next Eclipse Phase character.

No gaming, Kelsey was having a birthday party.

Read: Hell of a Witch (Rachel Aaron): Sequel to Hell for Hire, the characters are making some serious moves against Gilgamesh the King of Heaven and his goons. The ML and FL are also making moves on each other, although in an extremely wholesome way. Next book, everything will implode horribly, I’m sure.

Read: Get It At Sutler’s (Daniel Sell): A supplement for Troika characters, about working at a large and somewhat surreal department store for extra cash. Lots of random tables for what can happen while the PCs are working at the fish counter or whatever else they may be required to do, and what kinds of Troika weirdness may wander in to disrupt their shift. Saints, parasites, uppity nobles, union events, veterans of the war against the fish, the Night Manager, etc. You are definitely going to earn that munificent 90p/shift.

Written: 272 of rewriting my Big Bad Con adventure.

I made some PDFs for handouts for Big Bad Con, on the assumption that my games will happen even though I only have one signup for each session so far. (One is the creator of Princess World, which is kind of alarming but still only counts as one signup.) Marith says she can laminate them, which probably looks nice than just making a bunch of raw printouts.

Read: Lonely Castle in the Mirror vol 3 (Mizuki Tsujimura, Tomo Taketomi): They do the obvious thing after the big revelation at the end of last volume, but it somehow doesn’t work, which is quite a plot twist. They’re getting close to the deadline, too, so I don’t think there can be more than a couple more volumes to explain what’s going on. Unless it’s never explained, of course, which is always a possibility.

Written: 170.

Also National Badger Day. Not sure whether that includes honey badgers, but they don’t care.

Marith wanted to bowl, so I rushed to the gooshyfood store and back to make sure I would not repurposed as cat food later in the week, and made it back in plenty of time to win at bowling (I was the only one to break 100) and steal Nonny’s fries. Then we went back to Monkeycat Towers to eat Thai food (mostly pad thai, since after all it is National Noodle Day) and watch Everything Everywhere All At Once, which is pretty much Marith’s favorite movie ever and one she hopes everybody will appreciate as much as her. I’m not sure that’s humanly possible, but it was well-received and gave Jus many feels. After the movie, we played the old party game of Sardines, but it was too spooky with the lights out and too easy with the lights on so eventually we stopped. I never found anybody, because Sardines is not as easy as bowling.

Written: 202.

Cephalopod is aware of you!

Also World Teacher’s Day and World Storytelling Day.

Today was first signups for Big Bad Con events. The first two signups for everybody allegedly went live at noon, so I slept in instead of trying to rush to do shopping and get home. I was ready at noon, but as seems to happen every year, the database would not work for several hours, and I didn’t get to go shopping until late afternoon. I did eventually get signed up for a session of Ryuutama and a session of the Kill 6 Billion Demons RPG, and then made it to the store and back in time to go to anime. Barely. It was not my preferred way to spend an afternoon, even if I did get a bunch of crafting done in Shop Titans.

Watched: Bungo Stray Dogs 18-21: More three-sided conflict among Port Mafia, Obnoxious Americans, and the heroes.

Read: ShipCore 3.0 (Erios909): The protagonist and her best friend make it to civilization, not entirely in one piece, and it becomes a lot more apparent why people don’t like AIs to run around doing their own thing. Even the AIs that are part of the power structure are kind of awful, although possibly redeemable with the power of smooches.

Written: 217.

I have some of those!

Read: Monster Psalms (Matt Guss): 31 standard D&D monster types (goblin, dragon, skeleton, naga, sphinx, …) each with half a dozen tables for unique origins, appearances, motivations, powers, mutations, etc. No stat blocks, but when mechanics come up, it’s clearly generic OSR. Unedited prerelease version, but already has some good bits.

Written: 172.

If only!

I went into the office, but I was the only one in our closet, so I was able to eat my orange chicken and pot-stickers and do a bit of work in peace.

Read: Chasing Spica vol 1 (Chihiro Orihi): More high-school yuri, academic rivals-to-enemies-to-having-unexpectedly-hot-dreams. Slightly sexier than many examples of the genre, and neither of the leads seems to be an idiot or a monster or a lunatic.

Read: I Wanna Do Bad Things With You vol 1 (Yutaka): He’s a high-school villain (at the level of secretly draining the pool because he hates swim class), she’s a meek mousy girl with well-hidden strength and curves and a secret taste for evil, together they do crimes. Obviously there’s no point to male protagonists, but he’s kind of Miles-like in his shortness and health problems and cunning, so I guess that’s okay, and she’s super-hot when she stands up straight and ties her hair back, which always amuses me.

Read: ShipCore 2.0 (Erios909): The wider universe comes to impinge on our heroines’ little corner, showing how much of a backwater it really is and how being impressive to the hicks there is not that impressive. Also, von Neumann capabilities are a go, which cannot possibly lead to any problems.

Written: 160.

Soon she’ll be driving, but I can still remember when she couldn’t even walk!

We took her to sushi, then went to her place to meet one of her wives (apparently she has two, along with a mistress and maybe some concubines, because she is secretly the Empress of China) and feed her cake and watch her open presents. Marith and I were privileged to view Nonny’s collection of mysterious Roblox auras. A good time was had by all, especially the new Ms 15!

Read: The Invisible Man & His Soon-to-Be Wife vol 4 (Iwatobineko): Kissing?! KISSING?! After only four volumes?!

Written: 119.

Originally for teenage ninja turtles, but I’m sure anybody with a genome can get in on the action.

Since the bus I take to gaming is always late, I tried taking the one before that, which of course was right on time, but being early gave me a chance to get a sandwich before going to eat 95849 servings of gaming munchies.

Played: Librarians Errant. Reshelving Squad Upsilon goes to find Kars Hevel and ask him about Volume 3 (and maybe very cautiously allude to the possibility that he is a Masked Lord), but the kobold village has migrated to the depths, leaving only a few guards to pretend to build defenses. They’ll send word to the depths, but in the meantime, the squad decides to poke around the sewers like adventurers even though they have day jobs. They do find the lair of someone (probably a hobbit halfling based on the gourmet trail rations) who has obviously been keeping an eye on the kobolds, but he legitimately outwits them and escapes, so they continue on and find a soggy fungus-filled cave. Some of the fungi scream, some are infested with giant centipedes, the corridor has a trapper that falls on Grim, and the stagnant pool is full of froghemoth, so it’s an exciting few rounds, but although Thaïs can’t banish the froghemoth, she can electrocute the Flint out of it, and blast the trapper off of Lili before it crawls away to digest her, and then everyone can gather up a surprising amount of loot. Now they understand why people become adventurers! However, they still have a day job, so they go back up to finish tracking down Gladys’s Musketeers and offer them the deal of Volume 2 in exchange for a copy of Volume 1. This isn’t hard, as musketeers are known for frequenting pawnshops, of which there are a finite number, but before the Reshelving Squad can offer the deal, the Musketeers offer the real Volume 1 in exchange for a copy of Volume 2. Huh.

Written: I forgot to count up, but apparently today and tomorrow are 212 total, so call it 106.

Something that should definitely be observed more widely, hint hint.

I slept in a lot, but managed to accomplish one errand. Did not play any Minecraft because I’m too stupid, and didn’t watch any anime because Marith wasn’t feeling well.

Read: Lightning Strike and Shell Game (Terry Mixon, JN Chaney): At least they gave lip service to the idea that the highest-ranking officer should not be going off and doing things before sending the highest-ranking officer off to do things.

Read: Secrets of the Silent Witch vol 3 (Tobi Tana, Matsuri Isora, Nanna Fujimi): Wrapup of the embezzlement plotline, which had a dark turn completely foiled by the heroine being completely OP, and then some more intrigue. Still not sure whether she’s supposed to have a specific neurospiciness diagnosis.

Read: More Teeth (Jim Rossignol, Marsh Davies, Jamie Brittain): Expansion and adventures for Teeth, including one where you play as the hogmen trying to drive the humans out. Just as grotesque as the core book.

Written: 125.

Did we mention that white supremacists suck?

Today I did not go to the office, but I was very sleepy anyway.

Read: God Bless the Mistaken vol 2-3 (Nakatani Nio): Kon’s backstory! Probably there were hints in the first volume, but I was surprised. Also many weird bugs, including an apparent repeat. I really don’t see how our concept of science could develop in that world.

Read: Implacable Resolve and No Retreat (Terry Mixon, JN Chaney): That’s not going well.

Written: 178

Also Compliance Officer Day, which on some slacks immediately leads to the question, is a compliance officer a kind of dumpling?

Went to the office yet again, ate a brisket sandwich of Protein and Death, did more customer calls.

Read: Monthly in the Garden With My Landlord vol 3 (Yodokawa): The fallout from the confession at the end of vol 2! Friends are consulted! Things are said! Decisions are made!

Read: Bite (Bill Schutt): Nonfiction about teeth. The bits about animal teeth, the evolution of teeth and vertebrate superiority, etc are more interesting than the horrors of human dental history. Also, shrews are terrifying.

Read: Operation Liberty and Under Siege (Terry Mixon, JN Chaney): Now that some alien invasions are getting cleaned up, the human-on-human violence needs to be resolved. Surely that will not be difficult.

Written: 138.

Dreams, I has them. Rarely can they be used for writing, though.

Went to the office, did a long customer call, ate some plov (rice with raisins and chickpeas, reminds me of Afghan pillaw in name and composition, which apparently is not a coincidence because it’s from Uzbekistan), survived having a coworker in the office with me.

Read: The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society (CM Waggoner): So why does that small town have so many murders without everyone moving away, and why is it always the mild-mannered middle-aged librarian who solves them, anyway?

Read: Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou omnibus 5 (Hitoshi Ashinano): Time goes on, people we first saw as kids grow up and have kids of their own, but not enough to keep humanity from continuing to dwindle, the series ends, Alpha goes on.

Written: 111.

I checked, I am still registered! But I’m not in a state with a red government, so it wasn’t likely I would have been disenfranchised.

I thought I was being clever in getting two medical appointments on the same morning so that I would only have to take half a day off work, but then I biffed it. The second appointment needed me to not eat or drink anything for three hours previously, so I had early breakfast, but when I went to check in for the first appointment, I found out that I was supposed to have been fasting for that too. Had to reschedule for a month from now, on the first day of my Big Bad Con vacation. I did manage to get the infrasound(?) test taken successfully, and then since the clinic is right there in Mountain View, went to the office to eat Thai food and do a work. The office isn’t any different on Tuesdays than on Thursdays, it turns out.

Read: Galaxy: The Prettiest Star (Jadzia Axelrod, Jess Taylor): An alien princess in exile and her retainers are hiding out on Earth of the DC universe. The magic disguise avocado has turned her into a boy human, which is not what she wants at all, but her retainers insist on not breaking cover no matter how miserable she is. Then she meets a girl.

Played: Perils and Princesses: The end! The princesses successfully resolved the problem in a completely different way than the first group. After that, we talked about Ken’s proposed Changeling: the Lost game. I have no idea how to be a human in the East Bay in the 90s, or even a 90s human at all.

Written: 241.

 

It’s officially Autumn in this hemisphere. Other things happening today: World Rhino Day, Elephant Appreciation Day (why are they on the same day? Elephino!), World Car-Free Day, and National Ice Cream Cone Day. All excellent things!

I did four errands today and also had a bookstore accident, so I guess that was better than yesterday. The cats are provisioned for a while, anyway.

Read: Teeth (Jim Rossignol, Marsh Davies): It is 1780, and you are a gang of daring criminals who have come to the most grotesque, cursed, and monster-infested place in England to accomplish your secret mission while disguised as freelance monster harvesters. If you overstay your one-year permit, or worse, get any of it on you, you’ll be stuck forever. Forged in the Dark, with bonus rules for occult corruption, monster dissection, and cursed pies, and a lot of extremely questionable people, places, things, and… motile things. Definitely not for the squeamish.

Written: 200 exactly.

 

I never manage to go to museums myself, but I’m still glad they exist and happy to have my tax dollars go to supporting them.

Completely useless today. Do people even like the presents I bring them?

Watched: Bungo Stray Dogs 15-17: End of the extended flashback, where we find out what Dazai’s deal is, and then back to the present where the two newbs are screwing up their mission massively.

Written: 106.

Around here, every day is gibberish day in one form or another!

Watched: Murder Drones 6-8: The end! I still have very little idea what was going on, but we did get to see Uzi’s mom (kind of).

Read: Beyond the Reach of Earth (Ken MacLeod): Oh, that’s what the deal with the alien artifacts is. The third book should be exciting.

Written: 167

I observed it in my heart, since I didn’t actually talk to anyone today.

Hoped to go into the office and eat a Reuben, but no.

Read: The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things (Carolyn Mackler): A 15-year-old girl tries to deal with being the only overweight and normally chill one in her family of skinny, beautiful, kind of shitty overachievers and fatphobic society in general. From 2003, so it seems a little dated now, and also pretty heterocentric..

Read: Beyond the Hallowed Sky (Ken MacLeod): Near future, everybody’s dealing with lfe on Earth, exploring Venus, and suddenly some people discover that the major powers have had good FTL travel since the 20th century, WTF? Alien artifacts(?), insufficiently-alien biomes, intrigue!

Written: 154

That’s every day!

I did not go to the office today, because I had the gastrointestinals and did not want to be away from my bathroom for the length of a workday or even a commute. Sadly I still had to work.

Read: Alien Clay (Adrian Tchaikovsky): Academia under totalitarianism, extrasolar incarceration under totalitarianism, an alien biosphere that totalitarian thought can never comprehend.

Written: 212.

Am an IT professional? Probably not? Maybe?

Played: Perils and Princesses. We only had a short time to game, because Ken has a 5am class tomorrow, but the princesses dealt with the people and reached the thing and are ready to make their escape. Next week for sure!

Read: Long Live Evil (Sarah Rees Brennan): Our terminally ill MC is put into the body of the doomed temptress from the famous series of epic tragic over-the-top fantasy, the night before she is scheduled to die. If she can get the maguffin of infinite healing, she can live in the real world, and it’s not like anybody cares what happens to characters in a book, so she decides to be completely evil and suborn other characters and betray as needed to get what she wants. This almost immediately goes off the rails, she goes more over-the-top, people catch feelings, people ponder the nature of evil, people die horribly, the plot changes or was never what she thought it was, and there is so, so much doom. Unresolved doom, because of course if the MC is stuck in a trilogy, this must be a trilogy too.

Written: 187.