Author: Trip the Space Parasite

Lucky Fourteen assures me orange cats are the best.

Thought about going to the office, but I’m doing handover this week, so nah.

Read (graphic novel): Wrong Friend (Charise Mericle Harper, Rory Lucey): A sixth-grader is friend-dumped by her slightly older and now infinitely cooler best friend, and tries to figure out how to get a new best friend, what the ideal qualities of a best friend are, etc, in a slightly stream-of-consciousness way.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 147.

We think it’s best to address the entire whale shark, not just the individual symptoms.

Played (Hero 6E): Kaiju Academy. Once again, a labyrinth hijacks the cohort ,and this time spits them out in the Hollow Earth, where they quickly befriend the Dinosaur Kingdom, who are already predisposed to like mammals due to the Fuzzy immigration. However, most of the Fuzzies have fallen into the hands of the Primate Kingdom, who are horrible and have a giant ape-monster and practice sophont sacrifice, so there is going to have to be Action Taken.

Teo is back from university for a while, so will be joining the game once he decides what kind of character he wants.

Read (manga): Tearmoon Empire vol 2 (Mizu Morino, Nozomu Mochitsuki, Gilse): Time-looped heroine trying to save herself from the guillotine that her past self probably deserved, fails into success and making a good impression at noble school despite being only vaguely well-intentioned and not very clever at all. Fortunately her maid is on the same page.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 126. I should be adding, not editing, but that paragraph was not okay.

I was on call today, but the customers did not call. Good customers. I only slept in a little, and did the usual shopping.

Watched (anime): Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 1.24: Fern is convinced she could kill Frieren. Is she right?

Watched (anime): Daemons of the Shadow Realm 1.7-8: Big fight is over, time for the recrimination phase! Also cleanup, because these are not the superpowers that avoid collateral damage.

Read (novel): Cattywumpus (Ash Van Otterloo): In a small North Carolina town where witchcraft is frowned upon, two girls who are hereditary rivals are having trouble with their magic for completely different reasons, which means when they interact, they can cause enormous problems, but can’t cooperate enough to fix them.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 130.

Played (Lancer): Session 0 for Ash’s Lancer game that she will run for the next few months while Ken is too busy being a member of society. We picked the Sad Space Mooks defending a station in the middle of nowhere’s middle of nowhere. It will be doomed and great. I think my character is cursed to pilot this Lich.

Read (novel): The Astral Library (Kate Quinn): An extremely down-on-her-luck booklover is shooped into the Astral Library where she can pick out a book to live in for as long as she wants, but then everything goes wrong and she has to save the day. Which she does, despite not really knowing what’s going on! Yay books, yay libraries!

Read (light novel): The Goddess Beat the Final Boss in the Tutorial so Now I’m Free to Do Whatever vol 2 (Onikage Supana, Ixy): The main character continues to disrupt the world with her OP magic and need to feed the supreme goddess’s fetishes. She does unmercifully bully and forcefem an undeserving elf boy, but does save the city (kinda) and not destroy it, so uh?

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 125. Do I need to stop writing this scene?

Stayed home, did some work, had a meeting with a customer.

Watched (live-action TV): Spider Noir 1: Okay, this is hard-boiled! It’s got a PI, it’s got goons, it’s got corruption, it’s got bootleggers, it’s got superpowers, what more can you ask for? Dames, I guess, since the protagonist, major antagonist, and most secondary characters are men. The secretary and the moll are good, though. Better than these dumbass men.

Read (novel): Daggerbound (T Kingfisher): We know from Swordheart that there were at least three swords with people stuck in them, and here’s another one getting pulled out by someone unexpectedly suitable for a romantic plot. In fact it’s a character from the Clocktaur books, but everything you need to know about him is explained. Also gnoles, cultists, giant bugs, the temple of the White Rat, and assorted trauma flashbacks.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 284.

Tried to go to the office but was too lethargic. I hope someone enjoyed my Popeye’s fried chicken parts.

Read (novel): Roll for Initiative (Jaime Formato): A sixth-grader is at a loss when her older brother, who has been extensively parenting her while their single mom works and works, goes off to college, but in fact she is perfect capable of riding the bus and making friends and running D&D (5E, but still!). In fact, she is better at living her life, and especially at running D&D, than her bother was, which does not make him happen when he comes back.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 161.

Went to the office, attended some meetings, ate some Mexican food, did some work.

Can I do it again, though?

Read (manga): Dandadan vol 20 (Yukinobu Tatsu): Momo being two inches tall does not exempt her from going to school, which is unexpectedly full of weirdos and monsters.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 111. This main character may count as a thrift store cutie.

I did not eat any angels, but I did do the usual weekend sleeping and shopping. I did not manage to do any reading.

Watched (anime): Daemons of the Shadow Realm 1.6: Big daemon fight with the sister-stealers!

Watched (anime): Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 1.22-23: Downtime between the test rounds (Stark knows what he did wrong), and then on to the second round.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 120.

If you make it right, you can leave out the mosquito entirely.

Did not go to the office, did do a work.

Watched (live-action TV): The Librarians 2.9: A cunning illusionary life trap, but Flynn is not taken in. Cliffhanger!

Read (graphic novel): The Squad (Christina Soontornvat, Joanna Cacao): Sequel to The Tryout, she gets to try again in 8th grade and finally makes it onto the cheerleading squad. Also, family drama and friendship drama and bicultural drama and general life.

Read (manga): Every Adventure Needs a Weapon! vol 1 (Mado Guchimoto): An apprentice blacksmith in a dungeon-support town makes strange weapons even though she’s supposed to be making household goods. They kind of work.

Read (short): Battle of the Round House (Tananarive Due): Texas in the bad old days, a hidden ranch of Black people have to defend themselves from white fuckheads, possibly with the help of the new kid’s psychic powers.

Read (short): The Cairndale Orphan (JM Miro): Spinoff from a series I haven’t read, creepy orphans in Victorian London recruit an off-duty copper(?) to help them against a supernatural mistake.

Read (light novel): Abducted Princess Running Rampant: Wielding Forbidden Magic in the Demon King’s Castle vol 1 (Hiroshi Nagamatsu, Tsubame Nozomi): The demon king kidnaps the human princess with the divine power to see people’s character sheets and unlock upgrades, but she also has the power to learn even the highest-level spells instantly, so when she gets bored and heads back home through the wilderness, nobody can stop her. An assortment of cute young girls can join her, though.

Read (manga): Wicked Spot vol 1 (Sal Jiang): A witch living in the mountains encounters human social media and is immediately drawn into the life of a cuteness influencer, but runs afoul of a strange young woman who hates the word “witch”, and then things get even crazier.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 115.

Surprisingly, I did go to the office and eat my yesterday burrito. I was also there in person for the company all-hands, but meh. The new CEO is a pretty generic white guy, he said generic business things.

Read (graphic novel): Constantine: Distorted Illusions (Kami Garcia, Isaac Goodhart): John Constantine as a teenaged bisexual punk visiting America, insulting every mage over 30 he can find, and conducting deeply unwise rituals because what could go wrong?

Read (short): The Wednesday Witches Book Club (Sarah Beth Durst): The new book witch in town has joined the reading group, but everyone keeps getting turned into cats!

Read (short): The Lion’s Tusk (Robert Jackson Bennett): An Ana and Din story, entirely in the form of Ana bending Din’s ear about historic biology crimes.

Read (short): A Labyrinth of Honeybees (Heather Fawcett): Divine honeybees, in fact, tended by a priestess and threatened by the invading empire’s law enforcement.

Read (short): The Wizard Who Kept Himself Suspicious (Scott Lynch): Murder mystery at the meeting of the seven most powerful wizards in the world, and only the one who never(?) uses magic can solve it.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 227.

I just found it!

I thought about going to the office today, but was slightly too stupid. However, I did not cancel my lunch order, so tomorrow I will have to go in and eat it, or it will go to waste. Also there’s a new CEO tomorrow.

Read (novel): Good Luck, Babe! (Erin Baldwin): Two girls who are not on speaking terms have to pretend to be a couple for an extremely important stint on the reality TV show they love. Feelings ensue.

Read (light novel): Knock Yourself Out: The Goddess Beat the Final Boss in the Tutorial so Now I’m Free to Do Whatever vol 1 (Onikage Supana, Ixy): “Whatever” mostly seems to consist of terrifying people with OP divine magic, and getting so drunk she doesn’t remember what happened with the hot babes. Many men plot or threaten horrible fates for the MC, but see above about divine magic.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 307, somehow.

Even if they are kind of pointy.

Read (manga): Tower Dungeon vol 1 (Tsutomu Nihei): As always, it’s adventure through a megastructure, but this time it’s more of a kilostructure, a hovering tower that descends to cause trouble, and in which the princess is imprisoned by a dragon. Seems to be actual fantasy so far, but pretty cryptic.

Read (manga): Tamamori’s Fantasies Never Stop! vol 1 (TATSUWAIPU): Every time the brilliant, beautiful, buxom Tamamori-san is alone with one of the people she thinks is into her, her main generates even lewder images than the fan-service slapstick that’s already happening.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 235

As foretold, there was no gaming. I did some minor shopping but that was about it.

Watched (anime): Kill la Kill 17-18: Plot twist! Reversal! Another plot twist!

Read (novel): The Dungeon Book (Gareth Hanrahan): A baby princess is kidnapped by a dragon, but it takes a whole dungeon to raise a child. It’s a very D&D dungeon, with all kinds of random monsters, talking skulls, wizard overlords, etc. Also the scourge of adventurers, but fortunately the monsters have a human of their own.

Read (novel): Maggie the Dread (Austin Gilkeson): A hapless middle-school boy accidentally releases a goddess of destruction just in time for the solar eclipse when she will destroy the universe. But in the meantime, she has to go to middle school too. Probably the least unlike Daniel Pinkwater of anything I’ve read recently.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 117.

Today was the last day of Doug, the bookstore guy who has been selling books at (various branches of) the bookstore I go to since before I moved to California. I hope he has a good retirement.

Gaming for tomorrow is definitely cancelled. Freed of worrying about how to spend points, I should have been useful today, but I wasn’t.

Watched (anime): Daemons of the Shadow Realm 1.4-5: Yuru has no time for the “learn about the modern world” subplot, he has supernatural sidekicks and a conspiracy to unravel!

Watched (anime): Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 1.21: And thus concludes phase one of the mage test. There was not as much murdering as it sounded like going in.

Read (short): Miss Gentle and the Case of the Very Flat Monk (Travis Baldree): That is definitely one of the more unusual detectives I’ve seen, even in fantasy mystery.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 116.

Not starting Lancer yet, because no one is organized.

Watched (live-action TV): The Librarians 2.8: The one where Ezekiel gets to be actually awesome and no one sees it.

Read (manga): Tokyo Interstellar Immigration vol 3 (Mado Guchimoto): A really obnoxious alien, and a bunch of short bits.

Read (novel): Ion Curtain (Anya Ow): A Russian-descended future space fascist empire gets hosed by their unwise technological experimentation, a scrappy band of space pirates, and gay spy sex. Okay, it’s mostly the spy stuff and the technology.

Read (art book): Villainess (ed Dames Prod, Nova and Mali): Every page by a different artist, using only greyscale and one color. All of them were fine, but none of them really grabbed me. I’m generally bad at art appreciation, though.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 133.

Ken won’t be able to game until like November, so Ash is going to run Lancer.

Watched (live-action TV): The Librarians 2.7: Hah, I called it! I’m not 100% sure about the solution, but close enough.

Read (novel): The Immortality Thief (Taran Hunt): A small-time criminal with a talent for linguistics get extorted into going on a secret mission which turns out to be a space dungeon crawl for the hidden horrors of humanity’s history.

Read (anthology): Under Twin Suns (ed James Chambers): Stories about Carcosa, the King in Yellow, eldritch fascist regimes, etc. Sometimes the characters go to Carcosa, sometimes it comes to them, there are almost always death chambers, and frequently art of some kind. Almost no one comes to a happy end.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 204.

Is that calligraphy performed by elephants, or elegantly-written poems about elephants? Why not both!

I meant to get up and attend the meeting on troubleshooting with Claude but failed because my energy doesn’t work any more. Do I need to eat more or something? Surely I’m not eating that little no matter what my stabby dosage is. Maybe the very thought of AI destroys my will to live.

Read (graphic novel): Barda (Ngozi Ukazu): The origin story of Big Barda on Apokalyps. It was fine, but I don’t think I’m enough of a DC fanboy to really care.

Read (manga): Tokyo Interstellar Immigration vol 2 (Mado Guchimoto): We get a little backstory, although I’m still not sure what the other girl’s deal is, and a tragic episode about a retired hitbeing.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 276.

Tried to go to the office, but could not muster up enough energy.

Read (manga): The Moon on a Rainy Night vol 8 (Kuzushiro): Deaf Girl is finally having a hormone about the cutie who is always holding her hand! They could still have quite a long ways to go, though.

Read (manga): Tokyo Interstellar Immigration vol 1 (Mado Guchimoto): It’s kind of like Men in Black but two girls in Tokyo and the aliens are more alien and there are higher geometries and levels of reality. Also I think one of them might be a werewolf or a robot, and the other has extraneous arms appearing out of her back.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 287. Is this better than the previous scene? It’s different, at least.

Slept in, accomplished nothing. Did not even get a haircut because my hairdresser is out.

Read (novel): Marauder (Gary Gibson): Sequel to the previous trilogy, set a couple of hundred years later when humans are dealing with the consequences, but it’s basically the same story. Same characters, even.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 125, which isn’t much for a weekend. I gave up on the stuck scene and skipped ahead to the next distraction.

An extremely blessed day, even if Daleks are trying to steal it with a fiendish plan involving zucchini custard.

I only slept in a couple of hours, but still spent the day being useless.

Watched (anime): Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 1.20: Lots of fighting, Fern being kind of intimidating even to psychopaths like Übel and Wirbel, Denken’s buddy overpowering Frieren’s teammates, but Denken is the most doomed because he’s facing off with Frieren and she has a plan.

Watched (anime): Daemons of the Shadow Realm 1.3: Yuru doesn’t understand the modern world, but he’s not letting that stop him!

Read (novel): Empire of Light (Gary Gibson): After following the alien breadcrumbs to the alien maguffin, the problem is resolved, mostly by crashing civilization in this arm of the galaxy. A few of the people who died deserved it, though.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 145. Still kind of stuck.

Or Sea Serpents and Cream.

Watched (live-action TV): The Librarians 2.6: The traditional way to deal with a diabolical contract!

Read (novel): Nova War (Gary Gibson): Sequel to Stealing Light, where a lot of things go extremely wrong, due to aliens of varying levels of technology and mysteriousness.

Read (manga): Otherside Picnic vol 14 (Iori Miyazawa, Eita Mizuno, Shirakaba): Staying overnight in the Otherside is more than slightly insane. On the other hand, if they get eaten, Sorawo doesn’t have to think about the hot springs episode any more.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 162.

Or maybe it’s Root Beer Float Away to Heaven Day.

Work and cleaners and I finally changed my bedding, which I don’t do often enough.

Watched (live-action TV): The Librarians 2.5: Hey, look, they fixed a problem with the library! But the season villain is still powering up.

Read (light novel): Sword Saint Adel’s Second Chance vol 2 (Hayaken): Still unnecessarily heterosexual and monarchical, alas, despite showing that giving humans power is bad.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 240.

I think that means “do it in the way that most appalls nearby humans”.

Didn’t go to the office today because there was a meeting scheduled right in the middle of commute time. That meant I didn’t have to get up as early, but somehow I was more wrecked. Skill issue, I guess.

Read (novel): Imogen, Obviously (Becky Albertalli): The straightest high-school girl ever who just wants to be a good ally to all her queer friends and family goes on a roadtrip to the college where some of them are planning to go and meets a girl who is just the bee’s knees but she’s assured that thinking it’s romance would be appropriating queer desire. Many of these girls go on to be secondary characters in Amelia, If Only.

Read (manga): Monster-Colored Island vol 2 (Mitsuru Hattori): Well, that’s a creepy cave! But really the whole island is kind of creepy and what is Local Blonde doing with Visiting Blonde while Local Brunette is MIA? Is that flirting, or skullduggery?

Read (novel): A Trade of Blood (Robert Jackson Bennett): The third Ana and Din mystery, which is less something than the previous one, but still full of murder and dubiously-ethical biology and Din sleeping around and the horrors of the past and Ana being kind of terrifying. Also the horrors of the beef industry, which is only slightly a commentary on the present.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 121. MC needs a plan, or else to have the bus she’s sitting on blown up.

So, we’re doing better than that, probably?

Went to the office, had some meetings and attempted meetings, ate some Mayan pork and rice and plantains, did some work, learned a little of a specific corner of Kubernetes.

Read (comic collection): The Many Deaths of Laila Starr (Ram V, Filipe Andrade): The human who will invent immortality is born, so the Goddess of Death is rightsized and cast down to live as a human in future(?) India. Life and death and life and death ensue.

Read (short): “There Will Come Soft Rains” (Ray Bradbury): I guess one advantage(?) of our actual 2026 is that all our robot servants depend on constant Internet connectivity, so it will take only about three days of sysadmins not showing up for work before they all grind to a halt.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 200 exactly. At least the MC is back to plotting instead of just listening to the radio girl, although she’s not getting very far.

Maybe I should get a job as a watermelon duster. I would probably be more productive.

Read (novel): Amelia, If Only (Becky Albertalli): A high-school girl goes on a roadtrip to see her parasocial influencer crush speak, but everything is complicated and her best friend is unfairly cute and romance and stuff. Not a lot in the way of shenanigans, mostly confused feelings. Apparently the sequel to an earlier book involving a roadtrip to the same college in a previous year.

Read (manga): Did I Seriously Just Get Reincarnated as My Gag Character?! vol 1 (Kanade Otonashi, Kamuragi Amane, azutaro): Yes, yes he did, so now he’s a cute girl with max-level magic, which he is okay with because it does not interfere with her collecting other cute girls and also being OP.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 163.