Tag: eclipse phase

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. We ran out of pictionary, so finally it was time for Meathab and the cultists and the second-order cultists and a lot of whiskey and also hall lizards. The other instance of my character seems to be handling the memetic virus responsibly, but is there actually any way to be responsible with such a thing? A question for next session. Kelsey has abandoned us, though, because Eclipse Phase isn’t doing it for her. Which is sad, but it is kind of niche, at least the way we play it. I’m sure other tables have spaceship chases and laser fights every session.

Words: FAIL.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. We found the confusing NPC and played terrible Pictionary for the fate of the solar system.

Read: Pumpkin (Julie Murphy): Set in the same small Texas town as Dumplin’ a couple of years later (the previous main character appears in a secondary role), a fat, very gay boy is nominated for prom queen and uses the power of drag. Among other life events.

Read: Puddin’ (Julie Murphy): This actually goes in between the other two books, but whatever. Two extremely different girls in the same Texas town somehow become friends despite a lot of everything.

Words: FAIL.

I did not want a three-hour customer meeting on top of the regular Thursday meetings.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. After a lot of looking up images for Meathab, we actually played the PCs going to the Titanian outback in search of a fleeting network connection and now they are taking to the sea Kraken Mare in a rental boat piloted by someone named Wriggly Sven in search of someone who may be harboring a dangerous memetic virus.

Words: FAIL.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Ken was not ready to run Meathab, so instead the PCs investigated more on Titan even though Kelsey wasn’t around to play Svafa. Then they egocast to Mars (Chi got a swarmanoid morph for Gimel, because no one that cool should have to be humanoid if they don’t want to) and sent Njal poking around the hab next to the hab that went dark, which has apparently become a military problem for the Planetary Consortium. Surely this will all be fine.

Read: You Have Been Judged (Craig Martelle, Michael Anderle): A young prosecutor, having snapped and murdered a scumbag who got acquitted even though she knew through inadmissable telepathic means that he was guilty, is sentenced to get cybered up and fly around the galaxy being judge, jury, and executioner, and otherwise enforce Imperial law without oversight. Neither the empire nor its laws are particularly just, so the whole thing is quite unsympathetic.

Words: FAIL, but at least I made some notes about what to write later.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. The PCs made it to Titan (not that far) and went drinking with grad students and postdocs, thus learning about the public parts of the project that went bad. Conlangs for the… weirdness.

Read: Fire in the Blood and The First Chill of Autumn (WR Gingell): Dragon x princess vs annoying prince, and then finally the shards of the sword promised in the subtitles are gathered, lives are forged into magic, tragedy ensues but more for the annoying faeries, and even after tragedy, there can be love. Even if it’s all het (I don’t think Gingell writes anything else?)

Words: FAIL.

Coworker k is out sick, but fortunately the customers have calmed down after the past couple of day, so nobody died. Much.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Wrapup and XP and Sanity Rez and Lucidity, and now a new problem, this one coming from a distant branch of the glorious constellation that is Chi. But how much trouble can the study of philosophy and linguistics cause?

Read: I’ll Be The One (Lyla Lee): A Korean-American teenagers enters a K-pop reality show competition because fatphobes can DIAF. Sadly, this will take a lot of kindling even though she is very good at singing and dancing and has somewhat supportive friends. There is a ridiculously cute boy and delicious tacos, and also a horrible mother.

Words: FAIL.

More customer calls, also my apartment is too sweaty. But at least I don’t have to commute to get here!

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. We successfully retrieved the Maltese Ansible from Goopy the Nope, at the loss of only fork of Njall, and it was a pretty metal way to die. Next session, denouement, and then we have to figure out what to do next.

Read: Between Cases and Between Decisions (WR Gingell): I’m sure everyone except me saw all of that coming, but at least now Pet knows where she stands with regards to a bunch of people, including Past Pet. The next book isn’t out for weeks, though!

Read: My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom vol 4 (Satoru Yamaguchi, Nami Hidaka): The end of the game, but apparently not the end of the manga!

Words: FAIL.

Meeting with the new boss³ where I got to give my opinions, meaningless as they are in the face of capitalism. (I mean, she seems perfectly nice, but her job title is three letters beginning with C, so as good labor, I must be skeptical.)

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Even more body horror plus nanoplagues and unrecoverable victims. The inorganic members of the party have gone back in to try to accomplish the remaining mission objectives, but everything is doomed.

Read: The Witch and the Beast vol 5-6 (Kousuke Satake): A flashback to when Ashaf and Gideau first met (yes, Gideau was worse, impossible as that may be to believe), and then back in the main plotline, they take the elevator to Vampiretown. Sexualized as these vampires may be, Gideau is not impressed.

Read: The Archived (Victoria Schwab): A girl who has spent most of her life training to live a secret life as a ghost hunter in an afterlife of extremely unclear origin, purpose, and functioning discovers that this may not be the best way to live her actual life or solve the mystery or get any of the cute boys to like her.

Words: FAIL.

I made it home in plenty of time to game because the bus was just late enough that I could catch it instead of sadly watching it pull away, but I would have been in time even without.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Well, at least we found out what happened to the crew? That’s something, right?

Read: Project Hail Mary (Andy Weir): It was very much what it was, which I guess it not a surprise to anyone who’s heard of The Martian, but I liked where it went with the fundamental idea.

Read: Devil’s Candy vol 1 (Rem, Bikkuri): Many magic high-school manga leave me meh, but I liked this one. Possibly because although the characters are mostly doofuses, they’re sincere doofuses, or because the world-building notes are pro-knowledge/anti-superstition, or because eldritch horrors are definitely the best judges for a fashion show. Apparently it’s a webcomic, so I can read more without waiting for paper to happen.

Words: FAIL.

Good thing I’m working from home again, because there was an even larger all-hands meeting early this morning. As usual, little information was conveyed. Then the customers attacked, but I cruelly abandoned my coworkers to go have cells sucked out of my neck. It was not particularly painful, except the part where I have to wait a week to find out if my thyroid is trying to kill me.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Yep, Iapetus is full of Nopes. One of them shot the Chi in the good body, but he survived. Njall and GML found some creepy stuff in the ship, and are going to poke it with a stick next time.

Read: The Maid I Hired Recently is Mysterious vol 1 (Wakame Konbu): The maid is hot and good at her job and works for only room and board, so the orphaned young master is certain she’s up to something. Embarrassment ensues. The maid probably is mysterious, since her eyes and a select few of her emoting effects are printed in reddish-purple instead of black and white.

Read: Bec and Blood Beast (Darren Shan): More backstory, then more modern consequences involving madness, body horror, violence, and death.

Words: FAIL

I can’t complain too much about work with a two-day work week, but I can be completely useless! Surprise: it’s new coworker S’s last day, she has to be a SAHM. Less surprise: boss A is on maternity leave after today, more or less.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. EP is really about 80% careful preparation by weight, but we managed to recover some of the casualties of the group the person we’re looking for was with, and got a little information out of them. Also, we avoided getting eaten by the horrible Exsurgent monster, so yay us.

Read: I Swear I Won’t Bother You Again! vol 1 (Reina Soratani, Haru Harukawa): Kind of like My Life as a Villainess but without isekai elements. While rotting in prison for the attempted murder of her illegitimate half-sister, a noblewoman wishes she had it all to do over again, and finds herself a year in the past. Her plan to help, rather than hinder, her half-sister and the prince getting together so she can retreat to a convent to do no more harm is definitely getting derailed by the fact that social interactions are a chaotic system.

Read: Gearbreakers (Zoe Hana Mikuta): Cyberpunk/post-apocalyptic mecha story of love, revenge, betrayal, murder, and other fun stuff. The technical bits are pretty ridiculous (because mecha) but it is very dramatic. If there were less torture, I might recommend it to Jus.

Words: FAIL.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Because this is a game that does not have mechanics for flashbacks (and because Kelsey had been drinking all day), we spent most of the session discussing preparations for Iapetus, but did get there and see what we’re going in to by the end.

Read: Tunnel of Bones (Victoria Schwab): Our main character and her ghost go to Paris, which is also extremely haunted, and find even more terrible ghosts there, but at least they have someone to phone for advice. Pity about the reception in the catacombs.

Read: Drugstore in Another World vol 2 (Kennoji, Eri Haruno): Unnecessary drama, some mod-cons. Probably not worth continuing.

Words: FAIL.

Felt reasonably productive at work, although probably it’s not true. And then in a feat of unrivaled dexterity, I yanked my arm robot right off, even though it had like four days left. Sigh.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Gaming is on Thursday now! We finished deciding what to do with the treasure monster from the current adventure, now that Kelsey is here, and immediately moved on to visiting the TITAN-haunted ruins of Iapetus to look for a missing coconspirator, because that is guaranteed to end well.

Words: FAIL.

The water to the building exploded in the middle of the night, so there was no washing of any kind until the end of the work day. I used this excuse to get lunch out, because why not? Apparently the water will also be out for part of tomorrow to install a more permanent fix, but at least we have warning this time.

I did not succeed in doing more than the most trivial amount of work, because my brain is too small.

Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Apparently we can argue forever about the most ethical and practical course of action, but in the interests of fun, we decided to foist the AI off on some other Firewall people. (Maybe we could have come up with a better solution if we had been able to make Research rolls, but Kelsey was busy being oppressed by hierarchical capitalism.) Next week: maybe something else!

Read: Lagoonfire (Francesca Forrest): The decomissioner from “The Inconvenient God” gets into another mess, and we see that her government is every bit as horrible as hinted at, and also she has a Backstory.

Words: FAIL.

I think I made a customer happy today, although I did not exactly fix their problem. I’ll call it a victory, anyway. Decided not to join From Written To Recommended because I no longer have any delusions that I could someday write something worth publishing. Ordered a new toaster oven so I can give the old one to Marith for her new apartment.

Read: Eniale & Dewiela vol 3 (Kamome Shirahama): More hijinks, Eniale defends her love of fashion, Dewiela almost gets away with something, they’re still friends (somehow), the end!

Played: Eclipse Phase 2: I think we’re about done here, as we have found a suitable disposition for the alarming artifact we discovered, which should protect transhumanity without infringing on any person’s rights. Next session: we go somewhere creepy! Gaming might be moving to Thursday nights. We talked about in-person, but we’re so spread-out and carless that it might not be feasible.

Words: FAIL.