Tag: marith

Musk is doing his best to make it suck, but his shitshow is transient.

Once again slept until 1030, then got up and did some shopping.

Ken gave us delicious chicken adobo (probably not cockatrice), and we talked to Ayse about kitchen history because Dave was surprised at the lack of kitchens in Ptolus apartments. It was a nice visit.

Watched (anime): Delicious in Dungeon 8-9: The undine, and the gnomes and Nomari. So far this seems to be following the manga pretty closely.

Read (manga): Asumi-chan is Interested in Lesbian Brothels! vol 2 (Kuro Ituski): A near-miss with meeting the girl she’s looking for, so she has to have a threesome and cosplay instead. Still completely lacking in redeeming social value.

Written (catgirl): 437 more of worldbuilding notes, but mostly lists of names.

I have some of those! Victory!

Watched (live-action TV): Leverage 4.9-10: The one where they have to save the day with only an airport as resources and the one where Sterling talks them into stealing a technobabble from a chess tournament.

Read (manga): Leviathan vol 1 (Shiro Kuroi): Scavengers investigate a derelict spaceship while reading the journal of one of the schoolkids who descended right into savagery when the ship was damaged.

Written (catgirl): 234 of worldbuilding notes.

If only! We could use a nice alien conquest about now.

Slept in as usual but instead of grocery shopping, I went to the rally downtown because seriously, fuck all those motherfuckers. The crowd was pretty old overall, but there were a few youngsters, so perhaps there is hope for the future. I tried leaving my phone behind, not because I expected trouble today, but to see if it worked, and yeah, it was fine. I think I was the only one who did, though.

Ayse is back from her expedition to Nashville, with bonus tornadoes. Er, stories of tornadoes, she did not bring any actual tornadoes.

Watched (anime): Delicious in Dungeon 6-7: The one where they eat a mimic, and the one where they eat a kraken.

Read (manga): After God vol 2 (Sumi Eno): Less bizarre than the volume that introduced the weird elements, as is inevitable, but more gods and people getting massacred unexpectedly and even more gods and creepy powers and creepy people.

Written (catgirl): 157.

Went to the office, ate a Mediterranean-salmon burrito thing, did some work.

Watched (live-action TV): Leverage 4.8: Conning the Mako.

Read (manga): Go With the Clouds North-by-Northwest vol 1 (Aki Irie): A Japanese teenager in Iceland, using his secret psychometry powers to do detective work while his grandpa picks up on the ladies. Lots of Icelandic scenery, people who make the MC’s life difficult, family trouble. By the same mangaka as Ran and the Gray World.

Read (novel): The City That Would Eat the World (John Bierce): In a world where everything runs on the very specific blessings of myriad gods, a god appeared who slowed aging for members of the city watch as long as they were on the walls. A few centuries later, everyone is officially part of the guard and the entire city is walls (except the interstices where the underclass labor and age, but that’s not important) and doing its best to cover the whole world. A disillusioned citizen and an outsider whose home was destroyed by the city’s extractive industries and general capitalist shittiness get stuck taking a god to the West Pole through this bizarre world full of corrupt societies, and doing their best to not suck along the way. There’s a lot of exposition because it’s a very different world, and the main characters are unfortunately straight, but people resisting capitalism is always good.

Written (catgirl): 122.

I wrote a little about mermaids before I even knew what day it was.

The busses are back since a court ordered the union to stop striking, so I was lazy about shopping.

Went to watch anime and get Ayse hugs but she was not there! She is in Nashville with her friend.

Watched (anime): Delicious in Dungeon 4-5: The one where orcs murder everybody, but they like Senshi.

Read (manga): The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor vol 3 (Anko Yuzu, Sarasa Nagase, Mitsuya Fuji): FIXME The conclusion of the skulduggery at the port, we find out more about the divine conflict, Jill kicks ass.

Written (catgirl): 212.

Didn’t go to the office today, because Marith and I had to go see Jus in Footloose! I knew many of the songs, but had no idea they were from this show or anything about the plot. Yay Jus!

Read (manga): Sasaki and Peeps vol 1 (Buncololi, Pureji Osho, Kantoku): A salaryman decides to get a pet, but the bird he picks out at the pet store is actually a wizard from fantasy world. So far, mostly about interdimensional commerce, but apparently a bunch of female characters are going to show up. Not sure if it’s going to be a harem manga or what.

Written (game design): 170. My ideas for melee combat don’t quite work for sniping or spellcasting, ugh.

D’oh, I completely forgot!

Randomly took the day off work, since I was owed a day from working on President Day. Meant to get up and listen in on Friday morning training anyway, but completely failed and ended up sleeping in until I felt bad about not feeding the cats. Then I was moving so I fed myself with Pakistani-Indian Fusion Cuisine, spicy chicken qorma and less-spicy samosas and butter garlic sesame-seed naan. It might have been sufficiently celebratory.

I could possibly have done something useful, but mostly I cleaned up browser tabs, quite a few of which were short stories I had been meaning to read. Watched some TV with Marith, who is sick as well as having no computer. Probably I didn’t catch her cold. I hope my computer didn’t catch anything either.

Watched (live-action TV): Leverage 4.7: The one with shady funeral home family, where Parker has an honest-to-something feeling.

Read (manga): In/Spectre vol 19 (Kyo Shirodaira, Chashiba Katase): A bunch of one-chapter stories. Kuro tried to star in one, Rikka played a horrible prank, assorted yōkai caused trouble.

Read (short): “Victory Citrus is Sweet” (Thoraiya Dyer): A spacer who is actually kind of a jerk gets himself and his apprentice in trouble by cutting corners to show somebody up.

Read (short): “Welcome to the Medical Clinic at the Interplanetary Relay Station | Hours Since the Last Patient Death: 0” (Caroline M Yoachim): A future in which the current American medical system is still in place. Story in the form of a choose-your-own-adventure.

Read (short): “When the Yogurt Took Over: A Short Story” (John Scalzi): Definitely a different spin on the “enough computers together form a mind” trope.

Read (short): “Transcript of Interaction Between Astronaut Mike Scudderman and the OnStar Hands-Free A.I. Crash Advisor” (Grady Hendrix): Did you want your AI to be useful? Sorry, your timeline stems from the Trump-Musk presidency, you only get a chatbot.

Read (short): “Wikihistory” (Desmond Warzel): Everybody who gets access to time travel does it, then some long-suffering admin has to revert their changes.

Read (short): “In the Forests of Memory” (E Lily Yu): A sad story about an old lady in a cemetery of holographic grave markers, living off the offerings.

Read (short): “Presence” (Ken Liu): A sad story about an emigrant visiting his dying mother in the old country via telepresence.

Read (short): “The Thief of Memory” (Sunyi Dean): What is identity but memory? Also not a happy story, although you can’t blame a desparate teenager for making a rookie mistake.

Read (short): “The Dark House” (AC Wise): A haunted house, a haunted photographer, haunted photographs.

Written (game design): 136.

Does maniacal cackling count?

Went to the office, had the room to myself, ate a Mediterranean chicken burrito, did a little work. Probably didn’t hydrate enough.

Watched (live-action): Leverage 4.6: Elliot saves a small girl from a carnival.

Read (novel): Stars, Hide Your Fires (Jessica Best): A small-time crook from a crapsack world infiltrates an upper-crust ball to pick pockets, but although she meets a cute girl, the upper crust has problems of its own. Very Star Wars setting: blasters and spaceships, but social structures including security procedures are stuck in Three Musketeers era at best.

Read (manga): In/Spectre vol 17 (Kyo Shirodaira, Chashiba Katase): A different yuki-onna mystery, with extra historical sword school shenanigans.

Written (game design): 104.

Also Buzzard Day (hi jill).

Busses still not running (just give the workers a fair contract already, management!) so I had to walk to shopping. It was okay, but on the way back, carrying bags in my hands was a pain. I don’t have a large backpack and wouldn’t want to carry refrigerated food for an hour without the insulated bag, so I guess I’ll try the miracle of the wheel next week.

My favorite web serial Katalepsis is back, so I was able to read the new chapter over sandwich as had become my habit. Go [NEW CHARACTER]!

Watched (anime): Delicious in Dungeon 2-3: Ah, the living armor. And it’s getting past the picking-on-Marcille-all-the-time phase, which is good.

Read (novel): The Tomb of Dragons (Katherine Addison): Third (and final?) book about the sad gay necromancer detective in the world of The Goblin Emperor. Perhaps he is less sad, now!

Read (manga): Creepy Cat vol 4 (Cotton Valent): Final volume! We find out where Creepy Cat and the Creepy Cats are from and what is up with all that. The end!

Written (catgirl): 128.

Or Pie Day, depending who you ask.

Had another multi-hour customer call, but my suggestion in hour 1 turned out to be the solution as soon as I stepped into the other room during hour 5.

Watched (animated TV): The Dragon Prince 3.8-9: The final battle! Not very well-commanded on either side, but that’s it for the season, and a hook for next season.

Read (novel): Installment Immortality (Seanan McGuire): Another one from the perspective of the babysitter ghost, still fighting the Covenant with all her new restrictions now that she serves a proper god and not the Crossroads. Finally she gets to interact with normal ghosts, which come in a great variety, because this series is all about taxonomy.

Read (manga): Pandora Seven vol 1 (Yuta Kayashima): The only human on a remote island is thrust into adventure when other humans show up to get the power hidden there and it activates and attaches to the heroine. Flying ships, mechanical forests, unethical biotech witches, and human dominance over the other sapient species by means of prophecy should be cool, but it’s not quite there.

Written (catgirl): 184

 

I ward off the Tooth Fairy with floss and fluoride!

Watched (animation): The Dragon Prince 3.5-7: Humans are the worst, and yet Viren is taking that as a challenge.

Read (novel): Momo Arashima Steals the Sword of the Wind (Misa Sugiura): A bullied Japanese-American middle-schooler discovers that she is actually special and goes on an adventure through Japanese mythology. It’s legitimately hard being Momo, some minor anger issues are perfectly understandable.

Read (manga): I read enough that I’m keeping up with my inches-per-week, but it’s part of a huge thick omnibus so I haven’t finished and logged the title yet.

Written (catgirl): 153.

Go hippos! Eat the humans!

Coworker A who normally covers weekend days is out, so I had to be on call this PM. Only one case, which is a problem for Future Me (or maybe even Future Somebody Else) anyway.

Apparently Jus has dumped her girlfriend and gotten a boyfriend (who sounds very nice). I had to tease her about not being a very good lesbian.

Watched (anime): Bungo Stray Dogs 3.10-11 (35-36): Of course the solution they settle on is to go somewhere and murder each other. Good thing their subordinates are smarter, even if only slightly.

Read (manga): The Evil Secret Society of Cats vol 1 (Pandania): Four-panel comics about sentai supervillain cats plotting to distract and/or charm humans.

Written (game design): 268 somehow.

Also Abolition of Slavery Day, ahahahahaha.

Did my usual shopping, and also went to the hardware store because I had clever idea after the GM approved reskinning cloudkill to do cold damage.

Read (manga): Yakuza Reincarnation vol 8 (Hiroki Miyashita, Takeshi Natsuhara): Another corrupt enterprise unraveled by punching the people who deserve it, and also OP isekai magic.

Watched (anime): Bungo Stray Dogs 3.8-9: Another cunning plan to pit the Port Mafia and Armed Detective Agency against each other, but they have a cunning plan to thwart it! Maybe.

Written (game design): 186, still not making any actual progress. Maybe I should swap back to one of the other projects.

Another one that’s probably illegal now.

I got up and went shopping slightly earlier than usual, but did not accomplish anything with the extra time. Went to watch anime with peeps, and ended up watching more than usual because Ayse was too busy being an Internet Star to receive hugs.

Watched (anime): Bungo Stray Dogs 3.5-7: What, did you think the Guild was done for just because their giant flying whale crashed?

Read (manga): Dra-Q vol 1 (Chiyo): A vampire girl tries to go to human high school, and immediately falls in love with a total delinquent, breaks every rule of being in human society in the first chapter, runs into rampaging werewolves, etc. Gory and weird, but so far they seem to have a somewhat healthy romance?

Written (game design): 182

Thesauruses are great! Splendid! Glorious! Fantastic!

Monday is a holiday, so that’s when I should do my shopping for the week, but I was not able to break free from habit and ended up going and eating a cheesesteak and buying all the first new volumes of the year in a bunch of series I’m following.

Watched: Bungo Stray Dogs 3.3-4: Finished the flashback to how Dazai and Chuuya became partners, and resumed the aftermath of the Guild plotline, with a terrifying new opponent for the Port Mafia and the Armed Detective Agency.

Read (manga): Spy x Family vol 13 (Tatsuya Endo): Aftermath of last volume’s big fight, and then a bunch of stuff in people’s secret identities.

Written: 275.

Ew, who wants to hug boys? They have boy germs!

Watched: Bungo Stray Dogs 3.1-2: How Dazai and Chuuya originally teamed up. (Pretty sure it’s because Dazai’s boss ships them.) Also, shantytown in giant crater caused by superpower disaster, sure, whatever, but what is that thing next to it? They’ve mentioned foreigners, but is that a mistranslation?

Read: Katalepsis vol 1 (Hazel Young): This almost certainly deserved many many entries, since it’s allegedly 2.5 megawords, but I was not smart enough to record it earlier, and now it’s done. With this plot arc, anyway. Our heroine did the thing! It wasn’t easy! But it was amazing and non-Euclidian! The thing itself was not gay, but basically everything along the way was.

Read: Peach Boy Riverside vol 10 (coolkyousinnjya, Johanne): Surely there is no way this can turn out poorly.

Written: 123.

To celebrate, I ordered two hats. One is more outdoorsy, one is more fashiony.

Went for a stupid walk for my stupid mental and physical health, thought dumb things about D&D.

New Year’s fondue was very nice. We didn’t have Vivian, but we did have Earl and Cat, and Marith for a while. We ate cheese fondue, more cheese fondue, and chocolate fondue, searched for the lost art of conversation, and at midnight went out to admire the fireworks. Then we dispersed to our various beds. Friends are nice.

Read: Gamma Draconis (Benoist Simmat, Eldo Yoshimizu): Occult conspiracies across France and Japan, reaching to the highest levels of corporate power. Proper occult, too: it starts with stealing the shewstone of John Dee, so the hermetic secret society can contact intelligences from higher dimensions, etc.

Written: 185.

 

And Hanukkah and some other celebrations, I guess.

Went over to Monkeycat Towers for a delightful Christmas dinner and general friendshipness.It was delightful.

Read: Sirius (Ana C Sánchez): She’s a burned-out tennis star, she’s a rich girl who likes astronomy, together they commit crimes on each other. Well, not exactly, but they meet when Astronomy Girl mugs Tennis Girl. Lots of teen drama, etc.

Written: 212.

Celebrated by Ceil B DeMonkey and Akimori the Ninja Monkey, as well as many others!

Regular Saturday stuff. I didn’t go back to Shake Shack but maybe I should have.

Watched: Deca-Dence 11-12: Climactic kaiju fight! Which is important, but not really what saves the day. The end!

Read: Rainbows After Storms vol 1 (Luka Kobachi): Two high-school girls are dating, but they’re allegedly keeping it a secret. So far none of the other characters have called them on it, but it seems very unlikely no one has noticed them being extremely twitterpated and awkward. Very low-stakes slice-of-life.

Written: 146. I finished the vignette Marith made me write, now I have to write something else.

Seems a little late in the season for pears.

Instead of Togo’s, I went to Shake Shack for lunch on my shopping expedition, because it’s new and people from back East talk about it a lot. It was fine, although they had no Impossible Burgers.

Read: The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor vol 2 (Anko Yuzu, Sarasa Nagase, Mitsuya Fuji): Why yes, all the skill in combat magic and military operations that she gained during her career as a child soldier did come back with her memories, even though her body is only ten. Also something is going on with the gods that she and the Dragon Emperor represent.

Watched: Deca-Dence 8-10:  A brilliant revolutionary plan! An inevitable betrayal! More than one, if you count Pipe. Have they successfully turned the world upside down? Two episodes left to find out!

Written: 176.

I have some suggestions for time travel…

Did all the usual sleeping in, shopping, being super-useless, etc. Only read one manga today despite it being a weekend. Also didn’t do great during commute, so perhaps I should just say it’s one every day, and more if I can manage it. I don’t want reading to be a chore!

Watched: Deca-Dence 5-7: It is so weird seeing the cartoon robot guys doing hard time. It’s still not even clear to me that they have physical form, they might just be chrooted.

Read: I’m In Love With The Villainess vol 7 (Aonoshimo, Inori, Hanagata): Now someone is in love with the main character, possibly due to revolutionary sympathies, which is not what she wanted, but the villainess might be jealous, so that’s progress. Also, our main character stands up to homophobia, so good for her!

Read: Song of the Forever Rains (EJ Mellow): She has scary magic powers and a secret identity, he has an abusive uncle and a dutiful streak, together they have a complicated relationship to crime. I’m not sure if it’s a high-magic world overall, but her childhood mentor has a small cottage on the bridge between the worlds of living and dead, there are remnants of the vanished gods all over, etc. I didn’t mind that it was a het romantasy.

Written: 158

I ate a different (yet still monstrously unhealthy) sandwich at Togo’s, I think that counts.

Also International Games Day and Have a Party With Your Bear Day. Maybe I need to get a bear to help me with game design. “Roll for Salmon.”

Did some shoppings, got some hairs cut, let the cats out to sniff the balcony for a while. Maybe I should get them a tent.

Went over for anime, but did not get to tease Jus about her multiple wives and concubines as she was only there for a moment between social engagements.

Watched: Deca-Dence 2-4: Male lead backstory, training montage, automail upgrade, world game events, etc.

Read: A Sinner of the Deep Sea vol 1 (Akihito Tomi): A punk mermaid’s best friend gets arrested for consorting with a human, political uproar, a quest to enable true love etc.

Read: Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc vol 4 (Sekka Iwata, Yu Aoki): It’s the modern age, so you don’t get richer by expanding your own business, you get richer by licensing your technology and training new characters in it.

Written: 291. Is mean of me to thwart my character’s attempt at playing Mata Hari? (No, she’s 13, she’s lucky she can meet somebody for coffeee without dying.)

Not that we need x-rays any more, American health insurance is megadoses of ivermectin for everything!

Did not go to the office, did a little work, snuggled some cats.

Watched: The Dragon Prince 3.2-4: Intrigue, betrayal, smooching, body horror, doom.

Read: Girl Squad Volta (Maya Lin Wang): A teenaged girl of mysterious background is sure that her taller, more athletic, more driven friend is the one being hunted by interdimensional magical girls. Action ensues, and at the end, one of them is going to interdimensional magical girl school.

Written: 215.

Also World Numbat Day and Practice Being Psychic Day. I, for one, welcome our psychic numbat overlords, especially if they bribe me with deviled eggs.

Sage kept me pinned under the blankets until forever, but finally I managed to wiggle out and feed her and go shopping and stuff. When I got home, I finished journaling the con, so hopefully I can stay more caught up. But mostly, I accomplish nothing.

Watched: Bungo Stray Dogs 25: This was actually an OAV after the end of season 2, which is why it didn’t connect to anything. But now we’re out of BSD.

Watched: Deca-Dence 1: Okay, that’s ridiculous, but no more than many– wait, what?

Read: Wandering Crows (John Lynch): I played this at the con, but of course we didn’t have a chance to read the whole book. 8 1/2 minutes of exposition and then it was time to make characters. That was in fact most of what we needed to know as players, so that was fine, but my uncertainty about Inventory was never really settled, and now I know that it’s very fuzzy. It looks like what’s in your inventory can be used as an excuse to use a different suit than normal for a challenge, but mostly seem to be flavor, which I don’t like. I understand that everything is flavor and only the suits really affect challenges, but meh. I would be happier with narrative permission or something.

Written: 204.

How depressing. Also Dress Like A Dork Day, which is also ouch.

I had an unsatisfactory cheeseburger the other day that was cold from being DoorDashed, so I got a fresh one from the same place while I was shopping, but it was also not that satisfactory (thought much warmer). I dunno, man, it seems like cheeseburgers should always be good. Maybe I’m experiencing them wrong.

Also unsatisfactory, although in a different way: continued my habit of buying more manga than I read in a week, leading to shelf shortages at home.

When we went over to watch anime, Jus and her friend A(?) were all dressed up because they were going to Homecoming together, like real high-schoolers who are old enough to wear cleavage dresses. What is up with that?

Watched: Bungo Stray Dogs 22-24: End of the Guild arc! Tiger and Rashoumon are now frenemies instead of just plain enemies. There’s one more episode in the season, and then apparently next season there’s even bigger doom.

Written: 223.

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.

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.

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.

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.