Author: Trip the Space Parasite

All must be powered by legs, of course.

Did not go to the office because someone scheduled a meeting during commute time. Getting up at a weird time made me very sleepy, so after work I took a small nap and it made me even more sleepier. I think I’m napping wrong.

Read (novel): Wizard with a Greatsword vol 1 (Amelia Crawford): Non-isekai litRPG, a young girl who wishes she was an adventurer trips over a magic power and ends up on the other side of the world, making friends and killing monsters and leveling up. She does get a big honkin’ sword, because she’s not actually a wizard in any traditional sense. She has one power, and it’s movement with a little chrome, not offense or defense. It’s a cool power, though.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 130. I found an astronomy resource that’s the opposite of what I want. Fortunately I don’t actually need what I want yet.

Okay, I probably shouldn’t make jokes about International Sex Workers Day. National Leave the Office Early Day is fair game, though.

Went to the office, did some work, ate some chicken nuggets, learned to do some Helm to a Kubernetes, left slightly early, dropped off my ballot. Seriously, Democrats, this is the best you come up with for top two in a jungle primary?

Read (comic collection): Hawkgirl: Once Upon a Galaxy (Jadzia Axelrod, Amancay Nahuelpan, Adriano Lucas): Yes, the same Galaxy as in The Prettiest Star, although not on her like that. Apparently I don’t know anything about Hawkgirl. I thought she was an alien, but in this continuity, at least, she seems to be some kind of interdimensional reincarnator. She has a creepy nemesis.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 250 exactly. But soon, I am going to have to pick a date and then try to do astronomy.

We have not yet begun to roar!

The laundry machines have finally been upgraded. On the one hand, they aren’t thirty years old, and may actually work, but on the other, they are smartphone-app-only and like 50% more expensive. Sucks to be someone with an old phone, weak English, or no online payment.

Spent approximately one million hours reading tumblr instead of doing anything useful.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 111.

 

Safer and tastier than Tesla cybertaxis, anyway.

Read (graphic novel): The Night Eaters vol 2 (Marjorie Liu, Sana Takeda): Oh look, the creepy dolls aren’t done with the twins yet. In fact, nobody is done with anything, the supernatural conspiracy is just spinning up faster and faster and their parents still aren’t telling them anything useful. Trying to investigate things on their own is only partially successful, although lying to people works more often than you’d think, as does telling them the truth. It doesn’t work at keeping random bystanders from being cursed, though.

Read (novel): The Aching God (Mike Shel): Not litRPG but basically D&D: fake medieval Europe but polytheist, healing clerics, creepy magic-users, ruins and dungeons of the depraved long-lost elder people all over the uninhabited wasteland, an organization of warrior archaeologists/tomb-raiders with royal charter, intrigue, SAN loss, ghosts, etc. Not 5e, though, one of the earlier editions where minor mistakes in the dungeon could be fatal.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 313.

Also National Creativity Day. I am doing better at one of those than the other.

Didn’t sleep in quite as much as most Saturdays, so I guess that’s good. Did some shopping.

Watched (anime): Witch Hat Atelier 1.9: Just because you’re 11 doesn’t mean you can stay up forever, Coco! Also, Tartah, don’t ask those questions, it won’t make anybody happy if you get answers.

Watched (anime): Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 1.7-8: And now we find out what demons really are and why they are that way, and how some humans still fall for it.

Read (manga): Love Bullet vol 1 (inee): Cute girls saved by the goddess of love from actual death become cupids but it’s the 21st century so they have guns with heart-shaped muzzles, and also they’re kind of fighty, probably because they can’t fall in love even with each other.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 210. Rewrote what I wrote yesterday to make it more consistent, which arguably is not something I should be doing now, but it was All Wrong.

Did some work, was vermiciously lazed upon by Sage, did some other work.

Read (novel): Fyre Fly (Kia Leep): Sequel to Friendly Fyre, our trans harpy lady and the community of outcasts she rescued emerges into the wider world and she has to become a leader, which is much against her natural inclinations, although at least she has a spider-lady co-ruler to remind her not to be so soft-hearted. The metaplot of the larger series is coming to cause them trouble, and I’m not sure I care that much about it, though.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 231.

Went to the office, did a fair bit of work, ate some falafel and hummus and rice, finally succeeded at the kubernetes thing. When they said, “we’re going to do X” I thought they meant, like, on that first page of the test. But no, they only wanted the very first steps done on the first page. Instructions and prep scripts for all the rest of what I was trying to do were on the later pages.

Read (comic collection): Supergirl: Being Super (Mariko Tamaki, Joëlle Jones): An origin story for Supergirl, in the small-town Midwest. I have no idea how it fits with any other canon, since it’s modern (smartphones) but Superman appears to be also pretty recent. Whatever, a foolish continuity is the Green Goblin of small minds, as they say. At least acknowledges the existence of the question of where Kryptonians get all that energy.

Read (novel): The Calamity Queen Saga vol 1 (Calder Finnix): An extremely OP MC headbutts her way out of the Abyss and is promptly declared a world boss by the System of the comparatively fragile world she finds herself in. Overwritten angst, friend adoption, supervillainy, database crashes, and widespread destruction ensue.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 156.

Read (novel): Death Has Joined the Party (Rachel Aaron, Travis Bach): Most LitRPG is a fake MMORPG based on a real MMORPG based on an ancient Japanese console game designed by people who had heard of AD&D, but this is straight-up D&D 5E, barely houseruled. Homebrew setting, and of course with only one PC you don’t have to worry about balancing a party. Reality-TV dungeon crawls, elf-eating mimics, asshole undead, cyborg dragonborn, late-stage capitalism, divine meddling, it’s absolutely D&D. There is a somewhat obvious romantic pairing, but I can’t believe anything even vaguely licensed would go there.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 206.

Played (Hero 6E): Kaiju Academy. The cohort is quickly separated from the rest of the group by the Labyrinth, which seems to be communicating with Mallipattra in a completely deniable and completely unhelpful way. Possibly aided by her secret Labyrinth affinity, they wander around for a bit, fight a bunch of lizard-guys who might have been trying to stab them or might have been trying to invite them to a party but don’t kill any despite one being unnecessarily allergic to mycelium, fight a flamethrower ooze that is definitely trying to barbecue them, and get as much treasure as they can carry which isn’t all that much. Mal has interdimensional jewelry with alien fungus now.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 147.

None of these modern factory-pond turtles that have been bred for nothing but size and transportability!

I was backup on call, so all my usual sleeping in and shopping and whatnot involved a computer sitting nearby, but as it turned out, no one needed me. Story of my life.

When we went over for anime, Ayse offered me some spare hot pot, but I butter-fingered it all over the floor and had to apologize for disrespecting the hot pot, which is like mother and father. This was hilarious to anyone who has seen one specific Chow Yun-Fat movie from the previous century, and incomprehensible to everyone else, as the best in-jokes are. I’m sorry I didn’t get to eat the hot pot, though, because it looked really good.

Watched (anime): Witch Hat Atelier 1.8: And now we know why nobody likes the Knights Moralis, not that Qifrey can complain!

Watched (anime): Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 1.6: Why yes, despite his personality defects, Stark was trained by one of the legendary heroes. The dragon, apparently, was not.

Read (novel): Spirit Blade (Glynn Steward): An ex-Vatican monster hunter washes up as a bartender in a small city in Canada, where he finds out that monsters are still everywhere around him and also trying to eat his new girlfriend and her magic cat.

Read (novel): That Which Devours: Survive (Jer Patch): Instead of dying, or getting sucked through a portal, the main character arrives in the purview of the System by crashlanding on a new colony planet. It is full of Unexpected Dinosaurs, and also a lot of the colonists don’t seem to have been selected for mental stability, but our MC gets the special S-tier class Eat Their Heart And Gain Their Power. Om nom nom.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 183.

Played (Changeling the Lost): Berkeley 94. The motley (minus Everett, who has work) go to a revel at the court of King Mark, where there is food and frisbee golf and new Changelings and known Changelings and more food which is explicitly pork not anything humanoid and intrigue and additional food. There is not a fight over Siddy’s honor, although it’s close until the multiple meanings and inflections of the word “brownies” can be disentangled. No one new is kidnapped or sacrificed, although a Changeling named RELOADING! is missing and his friends are Concerned, so Berkeley may not be entirely kidnapping-free.

Read (novel): Middlegame (Seanan McGuire): Alchemists try to embody the fundamental forces of the universe in human form, without telling them, and letting them make their way in the world. This goes pretty poorly for everyone involved. I am always glad to see alchemy that isn’t just vaguely fantastic chemistry. (Yet another thing D&D has to answer for.) If you aren’t at least making life out of lifenessness, how can you even call yourself an alchemist?

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 104.

And write about it in your notebook.

Ugh, power outage for much of the afternoon. WFH is not as compatible with PG&E as one might hope.

Read (novel): Yes, Your Serpentine Excellency (Kate Stradling): Fake C19 London with magic spells and magic powers and shapeshifters and dragons and a conspiracy of teleporters and general intrigue. Cute, but unnecessarily heterosexual.

Read (graphic novel): The Night Eaters vol 1 (Marjorie Liu, Sana Takeda): 20-something Chinese-American twins in modern New York find out a lot of extremely disturbing things about their parents and their genetics and the creepy house next door full of creepy dolls and especially about their terrifying mom, none of which helps them with running their restaurant or in fact living normal human lives at all.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 175.

Went to the office, ate the lunch I successfully ordered, watched some training videos, flailed pathetically at kubernetes again. I think I need to learn to take notes.

Read (graphic novel): Galaxy: As the World Falls Down (Jadzia Axelrod, Rye Hickman): The same purple alien transbian Galaxy as in The Prettiest Star, now in Metropolis with the intent of going to college, but there’s this world that needs saving, and Superman can’t do it, so… (But he can give superheroing advice.)

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 136.

With triple-entry bookkeeping, of course.

Went to the office, calculated that it’s only 120 steps to the seventh floor which is nothing and yet I still can’t do it in one go, attended an all-hands and heard news that is probably very important to investors and other people who think they can control the future, forgot to finish submitting my lunch order and had to eat leftover breakfast burrito, did the mandatory anti-harassment training that should be obvious to anyone and yet, and doinked around with some Kubernetes. That sounds like a lot, but most of it was sitting down.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (second rewrite of Geometry for Mutants): 325, which pretty much eliminates the first draft. There are a couple of lines left as notes for later, but that’s all.

Have you seen the traveling exhibit of Etruscan congealed mac and cheese?

Apparently there was a (not) secret pre-work meeting that was just scheduled yesterday afternoon. Surprisingly, it was not to find and fire everyone who isn’t checking work mail on Sunday.

Read (graphic novel): The Flip Side (Jason Walz): The main character’s best friend dies, and he is cast into a horrible red-lit world where everything is upside-down and almost everyone has fallen into space while a monster that sometimes wears his friend’s face hunts him. Fortunately(?) he meets someone who can show him the ropes, but it’s pretty terrible, almost like a metaphor for grief or something. None of my friends better die, because if I got cast into upside-down world, I would just expire of acrophobia within five minutes.

Written (second rewrite of Geometry for Mutants): 390, and I have finished chapter 1 again.

Although sadly I am not playing a gay little fungus goblin today because it is an off week. However, fungi can have up to tens of thousands of sexes, so they’re still against queerphobia. (No word on whether fungi have gender, though.)

Slept in only two hours today, did three successful shopping expeditions, and took no naps.

Watched (anime): Kill La Kill 9-11: The fight against the Elite Four continues, but then suddenly, forget all that! New enemy! Extremely high Taunt rating!

Read (novel): A Parade of Horribles (Matt Dinniman): I no longer remember who any of these characters were, and impressed that either Carl or the author does. Maybe they asked Princess Donut to keep track. Anyway, aside from the mandatory PvP, there is also some backstory about an important character. The foot thing remains a mystery.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL. You know, maybe this means I should be taking everything off the shelf and disposing of it, since I’m apparently not motivated to read it.

Written (second rewrite of Geometry for Mutants): 204.

Have you even seen a pickle salute?

I not only slept in before shopping, I took a nap after shopping. Then we went to see anime and I made Marith stay in the cat-infested house until she expired of sneezings.

Watched (anime): Witch Hat Atelier 1.7: The carriage disaster.

Watched (anime): Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 1.4-5: And now they have Stark, although he doesn’t realize it yet.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (second rewrite of Geometry for Mutants): 381. I need to keep a list of everything my MC makes a mental note of, though, because

If the dinosaur is not large enough to carry you comfortably, riding a tandem bike with them is also acceptable.

Watched (live-action TV): The Librarians 1.3: That was actually better, without the chief librarian to solve everything and tell everyone what to do. I also liked the way the thing was written, very much like a Fallen London status that modifies all your cards until you get rid of it somehow.

Read (novel): Splinter Angel vol 1 (AvaritiaBona): Isekai litRPG, a bodyguard is pulled into fantasyland where she gets an OP bodyguarding class and starts leveling up while trying to find out what is going on with having been sucked into another universe. The gimmick of this one is that the MC is, if not a sociopath, personality disorder of some kind. She’s not mean, but she’s extremely unfussed about violence and also not great at peopling.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (second rewrite of Geometry for Mutants): 302.

The Man don’t want us doing the Chicken Dance.

Got Thai food, but I got the very mildest for Marith, and it turned out bland and nobody was happy.

Watched (live-action TV): Good Omens 3.1: Meh. I guess I see why the producers had to wrap it all up in one episode and wash their hands of it, but it could have been a better one episode.

Read (light novel): This Alluring Dark Elf Has the Heart of a Middle-Aged Man vol 1 (Yuhi Shimano, NAJI Yanagida): Pretty much what it says on the tin. A modern-day salaryman is reincarnated as a beautiful young dark elf woman with huge tracts of… magical power, but still thinks of himself as an old guy while making his new adventuring life with impossibly young teammates.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (second rewrite of new project which is now Geometry for Mutants): 461, but the way I wrote the edit counter, I get a lot of credit for moving chunks around. I’m not sure how to fix that without a lot of work.

Slept quite poorly due to vasovagal affliction. I think last time this happened, I had also recently eaten Indian food. I hope I’m not developing a sensitivity to something, because I like Indian food and would be sad without it. Didn’t go to the office, but was somewhat productive from home. Still getting used to the new system, but still liking it.

Read (graphic novel): Unnatural vol 2 (Mirka Andolfo): Our pig-girl MC is now on the run from agents of conspiracy that is the government, and more haunted than ever. Also, as usually happens in this situation, everyone she knows has been murdered.

Written (second rewrite of new project): 595.

There’s one right behind you!

Went to the office, experienced the new ticketing system which in a surprise reversal of standard corporate practice really is better than the old one, ate a deconstructed chicken samosa, tried to learn some Kubernetes.

Read (graphic novel): Colossal vol 1 (Rutile, Diane Truc): Originally a French(?) Webtoon. A young noblewoman in a modern-ish setting, who really needs to marry well for the sake of her family, has no interest in being femme or meeting vapid boys when there’s lifting to be done and sick gains to be had. Probably heteronormative, although I hold out hope for the rival noblewoman.

Written (second rewrite of new project): 158.

Or get eaten by it. Or, a secret third option in a horrible twist ending.

Read (novel): This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me (Ilona Andrews): Isekai, not litRPG, our main character uses her liberal arts education, her not-at-all-obsessive knowledge of the uncompleted fantasy series she’s been eaten by, and the one superpower she got, to try to avert the doom that is coming. It is a lot grottier and less mythic, but it gives strong Long Live Evil vibes.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (second rewrite of new project): 237.

Played (Hero 6E): Kaiju Academy. The little fuzzies and the tappy spiders both want to find better worlds, and the ones accessible through Skyhold so it’s time for a field trip to a Labyrinth. Also for dragon attacks, bonus dragons, VHF death rays, and a general atmosphere of terror.

Read (graphic novel): Unnatural vol 1 (Mirka Andolfo): Our main character may be a pig-girl, but she is definitely not more equal than others in life under a fascist, compulsorily cis-het-same-species, society or its onerous beauty standards. Also she’s possessed or something, so that definitely makes her life easier.

Written (second rewrite of new project): 276.

 

I was on call today, so I didn’t do anything. Some of the doing nothing was sleeping, but some was just doing nothing. Despite that, I was late to hand over to the next person, because I am dumb. I did manage a little shopping after handover.

Watched (anime): Witch Hat Atelier 1.6:We finally meet Olruggio and Coco gives him the rant about her love of magic. Then Agott gets to head out to help with the carriage disaster.

Watched (anime): Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 1.2-3: Fern joins the party (over the course of like eight years). Frieren really does not understand any people, which is a problem because she is herself a person. She does love magic, though.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (second rewrite of new project): 301.

 

Also Give a Donkey a Coconut Cream Pie Day.

Tried to do work, was very sleepy, did not do very much. No cats were traumatized, though.

Played (Changeling the Lost): Berkeley 95. We spent XP and our characters made a plan for the stupid vampire who bit their neighbor. Theo got a new contract, so it was even a +5 Magic Plan. But Ken is feeling poorly, so the plan has not been executed.

Read (manga): The Ancient Magus’ Bride: Wizard’s Blue vol 10 (Makoto Sanda, Isuo Tsukumo, Kore Yamazaki): Hallucinatory underscape! So many colors! The end! It is the end the whole series has been leading up to, so that’s okay.

Read (novel): Death of the Author (Nnedi Okorafor):A disabled Nigerian-American unexpectedly writes a best-selling SF novel about robots in the humanless future, which is interleaved with her story, gets a mechanical assist for her disability, has toxic internet fans, meets people and goes places, and none of that makes her family understand or accept her any better. Hugo nominee for this year, which I am trying to read many of.

Written (second rewrite of new project): 146.

I did not have a good work ethic today. However, I am still doing better than Nightvale, who got his head stuck in the handle of a paper bag and had to run up and down the apartment in blind panic until he went through a narrow space and it tore off. This only took about fifteen seconds, but he made several laps during that time. Poor baby!

Watched (animated movie): Across the Spiderverse: Okay, more verse in the spider, wacky villain, almost coming out to his parents, fight on a beanstalk, horrifying multiversal revelations… CLIFFHANGER?! How very dare! Fortunately the next movie hasn’t actually been canceled yet, so maybe someday we’ll find out what happens.

Read (manga): The Ancient Magus’ Bride: Wizard’s Blue vol 9 (Makoto Sanda, Isuo Tsukumo, Kore Yamazaki): Reread so I can remember what’s going on for the tenth and final volume, which is finally out. (What’s going on is villainous plans.)

Written (second rewrite of new project): 171.

Actually, everyone is pretty grumpy at America. Can’t blame them.

For possibly the only time this year, I went to bed early not late!

Read (novel): Slayers of Old (Jim C Hines): A retired monster slayer, succubus detective, and wizard, have to save the world yet again even though they have better things to do, and also knees. Did we mention that young people are the worst?

Read (novel): Nine Goblins (T Kingfisher): This feels like a reread, but maybe that is because it is so very much early Kingfisher. Extremely practical and long-suffering goblin sergeant and equally practical elf have to deal with everyone else’s wars and magic and injured supernatural beasts and general bullshit. Not lacking in horror elements.

Written (second rewrite of new project): 176.

Watched (anime): Kill la Kill 7-8 Having defeated someone important, Ryuko is suddenly elevated in the town’s hierarchy, which means sudden wealth for her host family. But then, the Main Villainess plays the Total Reset card!

Read (novel): Platform Decay (Martha Wells): Obviously Murderbot’s life wasn’t hard enough before, so now it has to deal with children and also emotion checks. At least these Preservationists aren’t as recklessly self-defeating as the usual ones. The half-deserted planetary torus is a good spooky setting, but although fans can explain literally anything, it doesn’t seem like it quite fits with the scale of the rest of the setting.

Written (second rewrite of new project): 203. I’ll get there eventually! And then I’ll have to figure out what comes next.