Hurray VOIDS!
Did the usual shopping, then instead of thinking “I wonder if that movie is any good”, actually saw Deadpool & Wolverine, which was thoroughly ridiculous and not suitable for those of refined sensibilities. Pootled around in Minecraft, landscaping and adding stairs and the like.
Written: 367.
I presume that’s for the US, and every day in Germany is Bratwurst Tag, but maybe they don’t eat bratwursts anymore and it’s a weird historical holdover for Americans. Anyway, I ate all the bratwursts I had a while ago and haven’t bought any more, but they sound really good right now.
Watched: Dead Boy Detectives 1.6-7: I guess when an escape from literal Hell is placed on the mantelpiece in the first episode…
Read: Cosmoknights vol 1 (Hannah Templer): Powered-armor knights “joust” (it’s a melee) to win the hands of space princesses for their sponsors, because patriarchy and classism. A young mechanic who lost her princess years ago runs into some queer ladies who recognize this system as bullshit and adventure ensues. If only they all had the same idea of what to do about the problem…
Read: Fight Me (Austin Grossman): Not directly related to Soon I Will Be Invincible, but a similar superhero universe. A superhero team is assembled from teenagers who got powers and did crimes, drama happens, many years after they have fallen apart and separately retired/gone into hiding/moved to another continent and changed their names, events pull them back together and further drama ensues. It is very much about how being a superhero doesn’t help you get your life together, entirely the opposite.
Read: I Can’t Say No to the Lonely Girl vol 1 (Kashikaze): A good student is extorted into getting an absentee student to come to school, the absentee student agrees to attend and study in exchange for kisses and possibly other wishes to be granted later, good student doesn’t know what to make of this. It is not a ground-breaking concept even in the smaller world of yuri manga, I’m sure, but I like it anyway.
Written: 205.
I’d say it me, but actually when I went to the doctor on the way to the office to get physicalled annually, she seemed to think I was doing very well. Ichor not too sweet, nerves transmitting impulses, etc. I should reflect some sound waves so they can count my organs, but that’s just a regular thing.
Arrived in plenty of time to go to the Big Boss Meeting (he did not assume a final form, there wasn’t even a different soundtrack, 5/10 at most) and eat a veggie burrito and maybe even do a little work.
Read: FLCL omnibus (Gainax, Hajime Ueda): The art style is sketchy, which is good for an air of surreality, but not so good for figuring out what’s going on in any given panel. Seems to mostly follow the anime, but I’m not sure about the end. Very confusing, so apparently it does have FLCL nature.
Read: Front Desk (Kelly Yang): A 10-year-old girl immigrates from China with her parents in 1990 and ends up helping them manage a hotel. MC is 10, so she makes the best of it, but white Americans of every age are horrifyingly racist to everybody, immigrants who made it are horrible to immigrants who are still poor, etc. Distressingly autobiographical.
Written: 243.
HURRAY MARITH!
I did not see any lizards on my way to the office, alas. But my burger was made of synthetic meat and not lizards, so that’s good, right?
Read: Delicious in Dungeon vol 2 (Ryoko Kui): Oh, right, now I remember these guys and what they were doing. I guess it’s a dungeon, mass murder is not that remarkable. Whatever the amazing twist that makes the whole series a big deal is, I guess we’re not there yet.
Read: Azarinth Healer vol 3 (Rhaegar): OP isekai fight junky gets roped into friends’ family revenge plotlines (yes, multiple), and decides she’s sick of fighting people so goes to the great abandoned North to kick a lot of monster ass, befriend weirdos, develop all the resistance skills, and level up a lot. I guess it’s 100 levels per volume?
Read: Daemons of the Shadow Realm vol 5 (Hiromu Arakawa): A bunch of plot! And murders!
Written: 215.
Nope, not me. Ayse, though.
No gaming, but we hung out and chatted about Kelsey’s awesome Renfaire experience for a while, which fulfilled the socialization requirements.
Written: 236.
Elephants are good. Possibly they have names.
Written: 311 of noodling on my P&P adventure. I cut the map way down, but added consequences for spending too long exploring.
We can’t all have our checkup today, especially since it’s Sunday and non-ER doctors are off. But it’s scheduled for Thursday, so close enough.
I woke up and fed the cats, but then I returned to my bed to work on daily phone games, and Sage came to sit on my feet so I couldn’t go anywhere. After hugging me with her teeth for a while, she fell asleep, still on my feet, and then it was noon.
Once I was free to move about the planet, I did some more errands, brewed some potions, messed up some other potions due to misunderstanding the system for enhancing them, and built a tunnel for easy access to water so I could harvest pufferfish for potions of waterbreathing. Going to the Nether to hunt magma slimes for magma cream is probably more useful, though.
Read: Teens on Pacts (Diego Barreto): An extremely minimalist cross between Apocalypse Keys and Monsterhearts. Possibly too minimalist to be played without the creator.
Written: 129.
Time to lie on the savannah for three days!
Did the usual grocery shopping and sandwich eating, then returned home to play Minecraft. I got some more blaze rods, patched up the stairway to Ayse’s nether fortress after stray blazes set it on fire, and crafted a brewing stand.
No anime, Marith wasn’t up to it.
Written: 161. Also I deleted about 11809 dead words, but I can’t count that, it would be ridiculous.
But do ebooks count? Iconoclasm and heresy!
Marith got us Chinese food.
Watched: Dead Boy Detectives 1.5: Poor Jenny. Poor Niko. Poor Charles. No new boy for Edwin, but a cliffhanger about boys.
Read: The Mercy of Gods (James SA Corey): A human colony so lost they don’t even really know they’re a colony is conquered and octomated by surprise aliens and their best and brightest carried off to slavery among alien creatures and alien worldviews. The aliens are pretty alien, as well as extremely inhumane, but the second-rate academic who is the main viewpoint character is starting to figure them out by the end of the first book. Presumably the second book will turn everything upside down, although I’m pretty sure the great enemy will turn out to be [SPOILER].
Read: The Dead Cat Tail Assassins (P Djeli Clark): Deranged cult assassins, missing memories, mysterious girls, undead monstrosities, serial killers, a city-wide party, and [SPOILER]. And snark.
Written: 134.
Hurray for cats! I should have given them extra treats, though.
Didn’t go to the office, did go to the endocrinologist. She was very happy with my numbers, which did match (at least on average) what my arm weasels have been reporting. Yay me.
Read: Bloody Sweet vol 3 (NaRae Lee): Finally, Fetechou’s dark past is coming back to haunt him and Naerim!
Read: Chainsaw Man vol 3-4 (Tatsuki Fujimoto): There is no such thing as a bit of the old ultraviolence in this series, which means a lot of attrition in allied characters. Also, hard-core training montage for people who can be resurrected, and still no makeouts for the main character.
Read: Peach Boy Riverside vol 1 (coolkyousinnjya): After his story, Momotaro goes on to look for more ogres to defeat, and meets a princess who wants to see the world even though the world is full of monsters. Surprising revelation!
Read: Demon’s Ascent (Erios909): LitRPG, one plot thread following the OP isekai demoness, another following a local girl who is also kind of OP, eventually they meet cutely and work on solving each other’s problems.
Written: 184.
Hm, maybe my adventure needs more sea serpents.
Got up early so I could stop by the phlebotomy center on the way into the office. Despite a longish line, it all worked out okay. Also I was the only one in the Support room so I didn’t have to mask much. Ate a chow mein, did some work.
Read: Gogogogo-Go-Ghost vol 1 (Miyako Miruzuka): Due to poor life decisions in the capitalist dystopia of modern Japan, an office worker nearly dies and ends up with a guardian spirit who is a creep but is happy to turn her grudges into actual curses and harm on people she doesn’t like. It seems like everybody is terrible and I find the art style weird.
Read: Heretical Fishing vol 2 (Haylock Jobson): Further conspiracy, further animal companions, further OP cultivation powers, further fishing exploits.
Read: Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories (qntm): Short stories about things like the horrors of uploaded personalities under capitalism, extra-dimensional waste dumping, the destruction of Earth, and the like. I liked them, but they are the opposite of cheerful.
Written: 167.
It’s summer, I should be making diet floats! But I would have to remember to get sugar-free root beer and ice cream.
No gaming, Kelsey is still busy.
Read: A Sorceress Comes to Call (T Kingfisher): I don’t recall the fairy tail The Goose Girl, but it’s definitely not needed to appreciate the vast amounts of darkness and murder and evil magic. Has both a teenaged girl in over her head and a cantankerous middle-aged woman as viewpoint characters, thus making it the ultimate in T Kingfisher books. Also did I mention the murders?
Read: The Skull Dragon’s Precious Daughter vol 4 (Ichi Yukishiro): Elves and their forest and their snobbery and some dragon sadness.
Read: Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc vol 2 (Sekka Iwata, Yu Aoki): Rival companies and CEOs are getting involved in the story now. Also, the karaoke episode.
Written: 153.
I did wear underwear today, so I guess that’s all right.
Got trained on our new procedure for replacing the automatic case assignment popup with manual assignment, just like I did twenty or thirty years ago. Proof that software doesn’t have to be AI to be awful.
Cleaners helpfully swept up my almost-entirely-empty balcony, and then I found the trash dumpster had been emptied this morning so I was able to throw away the last two boxes. I have more boxes that should get dumped, but they are not blocking maintenance so I can do that later.
Read: Navigational Entanglements (Aliette de Bodard): A different space-Vietnamese empire, where hyperspace navigation overlaps with supernatural martial arts. Four navigators who are neurodivergent or suck up too much or not enough or otherwise are unpopular get sent to hunt a monster. Politics and lesbian crushes ensue.
Written: 297.
I think I celebrated this yesterday when I was talking with Ayse about Minecraft Youtubers and fanfic and all kinds of things, but every day should be Friendship Day. Or maybe Capybara Day.
No gaming because Jeremy is still full of Covids, and it was probably just as well because apparently I have to have my balcony cleaned off for painting by Tuesday. Lugged a lot of stuff downstairs to put on the curb where I am assured the city will take it away for disposal, did some errands, lugged some more stuff. Only one of the things was heavier than I should have carried, and I don’t think I actually injured myself. The cats were very distraught by all the weird stuff coming through their living room, though!
Managed to find the correct blaze spawner and murder some blazes for their rods without dying excessively. Also bred some bees and oxidized some copper.
The doctor appointment I have this week is not the one I thought it was, so I have to figure out how to get to the place for a blood draw before Thursday. I guess Wednesday morning on my way in to the office. Ugh.
Read: Noss & Zakuro vol 1 (Rariatto): Comedy about a mother-daughter pair of vampires who live in Spookytown and have monster friends and drink blood from juice boxes. Cute but not super-interesting.
Read: The Lost Souls of Benzaiten (Kelly Murashige): A Japanese-American girl who is so traumatized she no longer speaks after a horrible betrayal prays to the goddess Benzaiten to be turned into a Roomba. That does not happen, but quite a few other things happen, because the goddess has Opinions, and also problems of her own.
Written: 141.
Hi Jus!
Still testing negative, although I actually started too early so I should test a couple more times before declaring victory.
Successfully did some shopping, played some Minecraft (blazes suck), visited people for anime and conversation and hugs.
Watched: Bungou Stray Dogs 1.7-9: That’s a very strange condition for a power. How did they even find out about it?
Written: 101.
Dinosaurs are the best. Even ones I am not currently eating.
Read: Let’s Do It Already! vol 1 (Aki Kusaka): Not nearly as raunchy as it sounds. She’s a normal modern girl who wants to smooch her boyfriend, he’s the scion of an extremely old-fashioned and rule-bound political family and possibly on the spectrum, their story is not that interesting.
Read: Exes & Foes (Amanda Woody): They used to be best friends until they had a falling-out, they both have terrible parent problems (although hers are definitely worse), now they’re in high school and have both fallen for the new girl. Drama ensues. So much drama. Their friends are very long-suffering.
Watched: Dead Boy Detectives 4: Even-numbered episode, no new boys for Edwin. And sadly, although killing a psychopomp may be gratifying in the moment, it’s not likely to stick.
Written: Exactly 100 of poking at individual sentences, but I think I need to throw all this away and go off in a different direction.
Women are just as capable of spotting Azathoth as men!
Still testing negative.
Still no office, lots of customer, blah. Kubernetes may be the mandatory new buzzword, but as a product, it’s still pretty bad.
Read: Deep Black (Miles Cameron): The second half of the story begun in Artifact Space. After flying out to the far edge of human space and getting mixed up in alien problems, our heroine helps resolve some more alien problems and flies back to civilization to use her newfound wealth to become more than a junior spaceship officer. There’s a lot more alien problems that could be resolved in future books, though.
Written: 159.
Sorry, Marith!
Did not go to the office today, did do some work,
Read: Heretical Fishing vol 1 (Haylock Jobson): After an unhappy early life, our Australian hero who just wants to fish and avoid paparazzi gets isekaied to a litRPG world with a broken system where fishing is in fact heretical, but so what? The fish are still biting. His strange Australian pro-fishing behavior causes people to think he’s up to something and conspire against (or for, or just around) him very entertainingly. Also, an ever-growing number of adorable(?) animal companions.
Written: 154.
I presume they mean dessert rather than art, here in the neo-Puritan future of 2024.
Tested negative two days after exposure. It’s a start.
No gaming, Kelsey is dead from too much to do.
Read: Demon World Boba Shop vol 1 (RC Joshua): Isekai litRPG, the hero ends up in a world where for historical reasons everybody considers it a sacred duty to treat each other well, and becomes a bubble tea vendor. There is a surprising amount of drama for such a peaceable setting, though.
Read: The Sweet Escape (Destiny Howell): Actual Perils & Princesses adventure, written by an Ennie-winner. Wrinkle tables, good. Ticking clock, good. Do I need more railroading for a con game? I can make the area smaller, that might be good. It probably doesn’t need that many hexes. Why am I so bad at this? (Because I’m dumb, obviously.)
Written: 325.
Raar!
Did some work or something, found out there was Covid at the party. Hopefully I am still resistant from having my own Covids just a few weeks ago, but sounds like Jeremy was not so lucky. Guess I have an excuse for not going into the office this week.
Written: 262.
Instead of going to a waterpark, though, I went to a birthday party. HAPPY HAPPY RACHEL-DAY (observed)!! There were some people I hadn’t seen for a week, some people I hadn’t seen for a year, and then some people on top of that. Also foods and conversation. I was definitely the lamest person at the party.
Written: 153, all terrible.
I don’t seem to like chicken fingers (strips, tenders, whatever) anymore. It is very sad.
Did several shops today, so the cats can continue to feast upon gooshyfoods. Also did some more landscaping and copper-oxidizing and whatnot in Minecraft.
Read: United Fleet (Sean Fenian): More improbably-successful wish-fulfillment with alien shipyard and asking people to be reasonable.
Written: 149.
Not sure there are still sysadmins, though. It’s all site rel or devops or whatever.
Read: The Moon on a Rainy Night vol 5 (Kuzushiro): Oh no, feelings!
Read: Library System Reset: Overdue (KT Hanna): LitRPG isekai, the heroine is sucked into the interdimensional(?) library of all magic and has to revive it, at least partly by retrieving overdue books despite hazards and outright enemies. Who doesn’t like libraries?!
Read: Bearing Gifts (Sean Fenian): Sheer wish fulfillment. The aliens bestow their gift (poisoned thought it may be) on a neurodivergent old techie guy of exactly the same demographic as the author, in thousands of years of technological civilization the aliens never invented hacking so getting around the limitations is trivial, all the biotech works fine on humans, and least plausible of all, when Our Hero explains logically to world leaders why none of them should have this power, they all stop trying to get hold of it.
Written: 126. Not sure if this scene is going so poorly because a) it’s no longer the scene that belongs here, b) I already wrote it once and writing it again, even slightly different, is just ugh, or c) any writing is beyond me.
Wow, it’s been a long time. It’s also National Intern Day, so obviously I need an intern to make me a hot fudge sundae!
Did go into the office today, ate a spicy burger, did hardly any work, did remain masked around humans and their virus-filled faceholes.
Watched: Dead Boy Detectives 3: Edwin’s closet full of milkshakes brings approximately 2/3 of a boy to the yard per episode.
Read: Kaina of the Great Snow Sea vol 1 (Tsutomu Nihei, Itoe Takemoto): Tsutomo Nihei far-future megastructures, this time an atmosphere canopy anchored by giant tentacle-trees. Young man in the last village atop the canopy is surprised to discover there are people on the surface, etc. Not sure what the snow sea is made of that doesn’t automatically solve a water shortage, but I’m sure all will be revealed in due course.
Read: No Man Left Behind (WR Gingell): The actual conclusion, in which many surprising events occur. Some of them are perhaps more surprising to the characters than the reader, being heartwarming when Athelas has given up on his heart.
Read: The Moon on a Rainy Night vol 4 (Kuzushiro): This volume is more about deafness than romance, but they are still adorable.
Read: “The Year Without Sunshine” (Naomi Kritzer): Ordinary working-class people coming together during a near-future climate disaster. It’s the wealthy professionals that go all Mad Max.
Read: “One Man’s Treasure” (Sarah Pinsker): Even when there’s actual magic, rich people abuse it and leave huge messes for poor people to clean up.
Written: 305, some fiction and some adventure notes. After reading an actual Perils & Princesses adventure, I realized I need a doom counter and some wrinkle tables.
What do you mean tell an old joke? I am an old joke!
No office today, I had dentistry in the afternoon. The hygienist was very approving of my tooth care, so go me.
Read: Food School (Jade Armstrong): Slice of life comic about being in a treatment program for eating disorders.
Read: Behind the Curtain (WR Gingell): Athelas and YeoWoo and Camellia and Harrow are all kind of getting along, and It looks like everything has been resolved and the mysteries uncovered, but that is obviously not the case, since there is a whole fifth book to come!
Written: 212.
I’m a boring old white guy, I’m allowed to like vanilla.
No gaming today, Brooks is out with family stuff and when we only have three players, any absence is enough to cancel.
Read: Wet Behind The Ears (WR Gingell): Well, that’s a cliffhanger ending for the middle book of a pentology!
Read: Otherside Picnic vol 10 (Iori Miyazawa, Eita Mizuno, Shirakaba): More problems leaking over from the Otherside, more gay girls in need of rescue, possible growing recognition of feelings between the two heroines.
Read: How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying (Django Wexler): After going through the time loop hundreds of times, always dying horribly and never saving humanity from the Dark Lord, the isekai heroine decides fuck that, she’s going to become the Dark Lord and be destined to win. This may involve a lot of murders, but does that even matter in a time-loop setting? Also, hot orc girls. Naturally, everything goes awry and disturbing revelations are revealed, but a thousand years of experience goes a long way.
Written: 169.
One for Ayse.
Read: The Ancient Magus’ Bride: Wizard’s Blue vol 7-8 (Makoto Sanda, Isuo Tsukumo): Go Ao! And Giselle, but Ao is the one being extremely brave here.
Written: 226.
Definitely a good day for ice cream, at least in the Northern hemisphere!
Played: Librarians Errant. After missing two sessions because I was first full of Covid and then full of hubris, we are back to Jeremy’s game. Tracking down books, fights with summoned cow monsters, kobold crime lords, the usual. Thaïs got uglified which was extremely mortifying, but not beyond the power of remove curse to fix, fortunately. Now the team has a case that looks like possession to stick their noses into, so they have to take presents to a lich who was involved in magic jar research and find out who might be responsible. Surely this will be a simple and safe trip with no complications.
Read: I Ran Away To Evil vol 1 (Mystic Neptune): A heroic princess (raised by quite abusive parents) goes to die trying to defeat the Dark Lord but she never gets around to fighting him because they’re too busy getting very wholesome crushes on each other and also administering his socialist paradise. Since they have heard of the birds and bees but never seen any, they are pretty awkward but adorable. Also there’s some plot stuff with her former kingdom trying to invade the Dark Enchanted Forest and recapture her. LitRPG, but the genre has reached the point where they don’t have to explain much, and blushing has no level requirements.
Written: 145. That’s not how to write either.
On the one hand, I feel like this should be a global holiday, and on the other hand, what impact has it had? Humans still suck.
Managed to get up and go shopping not too late, so I could do the other shopping I failed at last weekend and still be at home to sit in front of a fan and go blblblblblblbl. Played a little Minecraft, but the lag was awful so I logged out again.
Watched: Bungo Stray Dogs 4-6: Murder! More murder! Weirdos! More weirdos! Occasional bits of serious plot in between the comedy!
Written: 170. How does writing work? Not like this, apparently.
I am so bad at this. Have I ever made a friend in my life? How?
Watched: Dead Boy Detectives 1-2: The dead boys are very dumb, but at least their living sidekick is a little better. Also the exposition is clunky, but whatever. It’s a cute show.
Read: The Ancient Magus’ Bride: Wizard’s Blue vol 5-6 (Makoto Sanda, Isuo Tsukumo): The war is kicking off, excellent time for a multi-chapter flashback to Ao’s past, which I don’t think we were previously very aware was mysterious. But it is!
Written: 256.