Author: Trip the Space Parasite

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.

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.

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.

Where are my lemon drops?!

Went to the office, everybody was there so I had to mask, ate part of a huge pile of chicken bits and sweet potato fries, did some work or something, train failed so I had to ride the bus home and got back late.

Read: The Ancient Magus’ Bride: Wizard’s Blue vol 2-4 (Makoto Sanda, Isuo Tsukumo): This is as far as I have read before, so everything after this will be new. Sadly, it looks like the faction that likes to dress Giselle up in gorgeous Chinese clothes is being set up as the worst of a bad lot, so probably normal outfits from here on out.

Read: [Psychokinetic] Eyeball Pulling (FreeiD): LitRPG, the MC’s anomalous class is obviously going to lead her to deep revelations about where the System comes from and what it’s for and all, but I don’t care that much.

Written: 147.

🙂 🙂 😀 🙁 T_T (old school)

Went to the office, Coworker T was there for some reason so I had to mask, but whatever. Ate some short ribs between two toasted rice things, which apparently is a Korean hamburger-equivalent, did some work, might not have looked like a complete idiot in front of my boss.

Read: The Ancient Magus’ Bride: Wizard’s Blue vol 1 (Makoto Sanda, Isuo Tsukumo): Rereading so I can read all the volumes (that I have). French alchemists are kind of ridiculous, Ao is adorable, Giselle is pretty adorable too.

Read: Behind Closed Doors (WR Gingell): Further exploits of Athelas and his new gumiho buddy as they get manipulated into doing good deeds (sometimes) in the course of accomplishing their own selfish ends. So far it’s going okay, but not great, which is what we expect of book 2/5.

Written: 324

Hello, Snek Friends!

Played: Perils and Princesses. Kelsey does not have enough brains left after work and Renfaire prep and 2024 life to run D&D just now, so people took me up on my offer to test my BBC adventure on them. It did not go that well, since Ken hates my GMing and also adding a giant spider attack to show how painful combat is was the wrong move in every way, and also we only had about half of the necessary four hours, but I guess we’ll see what happens next week.

Read: Komi Can’t Communicate vol 30 (Tomohito Oda): I guess somebody wanting to marry both you and your boyfriend counts as a friend…? Also Manbagi and her new boy are doing well and may even be able to hold a serious conversation someday.

Written: 179.

Ran one errand today, did not involve putting people who inherited their wealth and power into guillotines. Failed at another errand and will have to do it some evening this week. Was otherwise completely useless all day.

Read: Koalafied for Love (Zoe Chant): The latest of Kit’s “Virtue Shifters”. I didn’t like this one quite as much, although the Inner Koala was definitely quite a character. The characters weren’t as interesting to me as some of the others, and also no antlers were involved at any point. Still fun, though!

Written: 162.

Technically I was on call today, but only as backup in case the weekend shift (we have that now!) ran into something they couldn’t handle, but they didn’t, so I guess I’m fairly gruntled. I was much less gruntled with my whole endealment yesterday and the day before.

I felt a little queasy so instead of getting a big wad of pastrami and sauerkraut, I had a normal roast beef sandwich while doing my shopping and it worked very well. Good job, me.

I did a little landscaping in Minecraft. A diamond shovel with Efficiency 5 just tears through hills, but it also tears through bees that wander into the line of fire, so I had to take a break to go recruit some bees from another hive and breed them up and stuff. Still haven’t managed to set up a flat place for aging copper.

Shoulders still sore, weather still hotter than I would prefer, but embodied existence not much more unpleasant than usual today.

Holy crap, what happened to Republicans thinking “gun control means being able to hit your target”?

Watched: Bungo Stray Dogs 1-3. I have seen some episodes of this, but did not remember the way [SPOILER] walks in and goes “nice comedy show you got here, let me BLOODILY DISMEMBER it”.

Read: No Man’s Land (Elliott Kay): My reading list says I read all previous books in this series, but I don’t remember any of the new alien threat events that this book follows on from. I was able to figure out what was going on well enough that I didn’t feel a need to immediately go back and reread, although I may at some point. Also, I hadn’t remembered that main character’s original job in his local armed forces was specifically preventing war crimes, but there need to be more people on that duty. Also also, extremely worrying details about aliens. I feel like the humans are not scared enough of the Krokinthians, never mind some of the new guys.

Read: Buck the Halls (Zoe Chant): I thought I had read all of Kit’s “Virtue Shifters” novellas except the latest, but no! I had somehow not read this one! I really liked it, because Inner Stag! Tragic Antlers Incident! Additional, Possibly Even More Tragic Antlers Incident! Also no sex and I didn’t miss it, so I must be old now. (Narrator: What does he mean “now”?)

Written: 368, somehow. I guess it’s easy to write a 13-year-old being dramatically depressed?

I need to get some paper bags to put books into for taking to the used book store. Maybe Marith can steal some for me.

Lying with my head on a pillow kind of worked for sleeping, but not very well. I had to take the morning off to recuperate, but my upper torso is feeling a lot better, so I was able to actually do so, and then work in the afternoon. Also, none of us have to stay late on Fridays any more under the new system.

Watched: The Ancient Magus’ Bride 2.24: A little bit of climax, mostly denouement (spellcheck thinks I got that word right on the first try, go me). This is where the latest English volume of the manga ends, so we’re completely in sync and left waiting for more to be translated.

Read: The Witches’ Marriage vol 3 (Studio Headline): Surprisingly, the end! The challenges Melissa and Tanya face in this volume are the Final Trials, and to nobody’s surprise they manage to open the gates by acknowledging their true feelings and enter paradise.

Written: 134.

I don’t know about this one, it sounds like waiting for the harvest to begin.

I had to get up early to make sure nothing was on fire, but did not have to go into the office, so I’ll count that as a win. More customer meetings, but finally the smart person got involved and everything got sorted.

Today it feels like whatever is wrong has moved into muscle or connective tissue or something, which makes previously trivial tasks like “bending over to deal with floor-level cats” and “lying down with my head on a pillow” annoyingly painful. I know people can throw out their backs; have I thrown out my front?

Read: A Whisker Behind (WR Gingell): A spinoff from the “Between” books, following Athelas on his own. I don’t know what the rest of the series will be like, but in this one he is in Korea dealing with gumiho murders and being twisty.

Written: 182.