Category: Life of a Space Parasite

And yet, Rachel had a nose shoggoth and no kids this weekend.

No gaming due to the aforementioned nose shoggoth, so I stayed in bed until noon and took an hour-long shower, but then I felt like I should do something so I took a stupid little walk for my stupid mental and physical health, and that made my brain shut down completely. I could barely get noodles and watch anime.

Watched (anime): Somali and the Forest Spirit 5-7: We had to stop watching this with BB Jus because of the cannibalism backstory, but in fact it turned out okay(ish) and Somali did not get eaten and did continue her journey with her dad in search of knowledge.

Read (novels): “The Dread Void” omnibus 1-3: Into the Dread Void; Amid the Sinking Dark; Beyond the Phantom Glow (Abe Moss): A teenage orphan with an extremely minor psychic power gets a new foster family just in time for monsters from beyond to kill everybody, a cursed monster hunter to show up, there’s a psychic and the heroine’s best friend from the group home and a horrifying new monster for each book. These monsters remind me a lot of the predators from the “Twenty Palaces” books, but sadly the writing quality does not.

Written (catgirl): 132. I had hopes for being able to make a streak of 250+ days, but no.

Yep, there it is! Still not a velociraptor.

I used the Miracle of the Wheel to take four whole bags of books to the used book store this time, and also set out at a more auspicious hour, so I was able to get everything sorted and go shopping and get lunch without dying despite the busses being all messed up due to some kind of running cult observance.

Watched (anime): Delicious in Dungeon 15-16: More monsters, more oppression for Marcille, but also the return of Falin’s admirer and his ninja ladies, and a glimpse of the new, improved Falin.

Read (short): “Lady Antheia’s Guide to Horticultural Warfare” (Seanan McGuire): Looked this up to tell someone who had read Overgrowth, ended up rereading it. Changing the setting to modern for the longer, more serious, version was probably the right choice, but that means no ray guns.

Written (catgirl): 298. Hey, that’s more than 250!

Because fuck Nazis, that’s why.

Went to the office, only Coworker T was there, ate a Thai(?) ground pork and rice thing, did some work.

Watched (live-action TV): Leverage 4.13: Everyone attempts to have a night off, but Parker, Sophie, and Tara find a leverage job. As always, nobody can get anything done without Hardison, but the other boys are pretty useless.

Read (graphic novel): Fangirl vol 3 (Rainbow Rowell, Gabi Nam): Boy trouble, writing trouble, sister trouble, parent trouble.

Written (catgirl): 169.

Another part of society relegated to the dustbin of history.

Went to the office, had the room to myself, ate Vietnamese rolled beef on noodles, did some work.

Read (novel): Two Necromancers, a Fortress and a Titan (LG Estrella): The OP necromancer Timmy and his OP friends (including some new ones) go to new places, foil new plots of their country’s enemy, and wreak untold devastation.

Read (graphic novel): Fangirl vol 2 (Sam Maggs, Rainbow Rowell, Gabi Nam): Boys are the worst, why would any sane girl date them? But the, why would any sane girl drink that much? Anyway, still follows what I remember of the book very closely.

Read (short): “Traveling Salesman” (Zoe Kaplan): Very short, almost entirely twist.

Read (novel): Overgrowth (Mira Grant): She tells everyone that she’s the vanguard of an alien plant invasion, but is almost as surprised as anybody else when it turns out to be true. This is obviously an expansion of “Lady Antheia’s Guide to Horticultural Warfare” even though pretty much every detail is different, so I really wanted to like it, but it was only okay. Also needed an editor to catch the plot holes.

Written (catgirl): 158.

Also Astronomy Day, probably equally illegal now.

Despite Marith not executing the farmer’s market plan and the the busses being messed up for some kind of event, I managed to take two bags of books to the used book store and return with zero bags of books. That set lunch back quite a ways, but I didn’t starve, and did shop. Marith also did not execute the anime plan, because she has to travel with her horrible mother in like a month, but Jus invited me over so I went to entertain her and Dave. Then the busses were messed up in the normal way for that late at night, so I didn’t get home until a million o’clock at night, but that’s fine.

Watched (anime movie): Puella Magi Madoka Magica Rebellion: The third movie, which takes place after the TV series instead of retelling the same story. It is hallucinatory and doomed, for reasons that make sense in the end. No, more doomed than that. Possibly more hallucinatory than that, too.

Written (catgirl): 132.

Apparently this is distinct from Superhero Day, probably because he has no superpowers.

Went to the office, Coworker R was back to distract us, ate chicken tamales, did some work.

Read (graphic novel): Thieves (Lucie Bryon): A cute girl, her adorable crush, a house party with too much booze, some objects that aren’t where they are supposed to be, a long-suffering friend, copious smooches, a brilliant plan. Originally in French, apparently, which explains the smoking.

Read (novella): And Put Away Childish Things (Adrian Tchaikovsky): A mostly-failed actor, the descendant of a famous portal-fantasy author from the post-War period (not the famous one), has some strange encounters and it just goes downhill from there. In early 2020 Britain, so even the real world is surreal and horrifying.

Written (catgirl): 150.

Rescue kitties for the win!

Went to the office, ate a turkey and pastrami sandwich, did some work, got my Windows laptop taken away because after IT upgraded it, it didn’t work any more. Fortunately I almost never use it.

Finally got the leaky toilet fixed. Good thing I didn’t have to do it myself, the apartment would probably have burned down.

Read (comic): Everything is Fine vol 1 (Mike Birchall): Spoiler: Not everything is fine. Everybody has giant cat masks. They must forget. Actually, nothing is fine.

Written (catgirl): 144.

A marvelous invention, to be sure!

Played (Changeling the Lost): Berkeley 94: Thessaly decides she needs to talk to Tom-Tom, so Longfingers uses her new Hedge-navigating power to get everyone to the Gilman Project, where indeed Tom-Tom is vibing in the middle of the mosh pit. After some moshing difficulty, they get Tom-Tom outside and Thessaly grills him about the four seasonal monarchs, of which he was one before Mark (now King of the Eternal Summer) betrayed the others and broke Tom-Tom’s heart. Thessaly also seems to believe that the grotto where she and Theophania almost had a moment belonged to the Queen of Winter. So that was pretty heavy, and also Theophania has many questions!

Read (nothing): Nothing.

Written (catgirl): 124.

Are there even any superhero games I could even play without dying any more? My memories of Champions are fond, but I don’t know whether my current brain could handle adding up a dozen d6s and doing double-digit mental arithmetic and counting phases.

Read (novel): The Battle for Medicine Rocks (Rachel Aaron): Finally we get some things explained about the magic crystal caves! Also a little about the necromancy, and various family reunions. Everybody hopes the battle will resolve things in their favor, but they are either disappointed, or will be in the next book.

Written (catgirl): 102. Pathetic, and yet not quite a failure.

Also Hug a Friend Day, National Pretzel Day, National Veterinary Day, and of course Independent Bookstore Day. Sadly, there was nothing I wanted at the bookstore this week, but there has been before and will be again.

Watched (anime): Delicious in Dungeon 12-14: Quest complete! Story’s finished, right? …oh. Also, flashback to Kabru and his followers.

Read (nothing): Nothing, but I have made a huge dent in my physical TBR pile and didn’t buy anything new today, so I’m probably fine.

Written (catgirl): 171, some of it even story and not just notes.

All hail Emperor Maximilian XXIX of the Northern Shores!

But no parades for my digestive tract, which apparently was working up to being really gross and causing me to sit on the toilet in the middle of the night so I could faint onto the floor and break the litter box and scrape up my face and bang my tooth, and also sleep poorly. I stayed in bed until later in the morning, but eventually it seemed like I was enough of a hollow husk of a body to get up and log in to work. I accomplished several tasks, even.

Marith claimed the mysterious shoes, so that’s good.

Watched (live-action TV): Leverage 4.12: That was a very silly episode. Maybe Nate should put more work into not being a jerk and less into speaking Football.

Read (anthology): Duties (Moe Lane): Another four-story collection, with a robot who won’t shut up about how gross meatbags are, a dryad, the secret base where the US government sends everything that you might naively assumed would go to the warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and a frog.

Read (manga): Avant-Garde Yumeko (Shuzo Oshimi): Yumeko doesn’t want to sleep with anybody, she just wants to know what dicks look like. Then it gets weird. Contains actual pictures of dicks, which I was really not expecting. So many dicks.

Written (catgirl): 119, still notes. I should probably stop futzing around and write something for real.

If you’re better-dressed than me (which you are), spin around!

Went to the office, ate masaman meatball curry, did some work.

Read (manga): Manhole vol 1 (Tetsuya Tsutsui): Parasite horror, nonconsensual utopian plots, more parasite horror. Points off for the female cop being lame, bonus points for the villain having the courage of their convictions. So many CWs.

Read (anthology): Anagnorisis (Moe Lane): Four more horror or horror-adjacent stories about vampires, haunted houses, demonic possession, and evil books, some with twists.

Read (anthology): Decisions (Moe Lane): Also four stories, about werewolves, the Emperor of California, C19 derring-do, and dating apps.

Written (catgirl): 153.

(It’s a Dr Who reference.) Also the International Day of the Book, International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, St George’s Day/Slay a Dragon Day, and English Language Day.

Went to the office, ate a fig prosciutto brie sandwich, did some work.

Read (manga): PTSD Radio omnibus 1-2 (Masaaki Nakayama): Many small vignettes of unsettling or actively horrifying things that each show a facet of what’s going on. So far, I’m not sure, but it involves hair, an extremely cursed-looking stone outcropping, and a variety of terrifying apparitions.

Written (catgirl): 124. Still not sure about cell phones.

It’s where I keep all my stuff!

Played (Changeling the Lost): Berkeley 94:Despite Vivian’s hardware betraying her, the group eventually manages to get to Longfingers’s scheduled meeting at the coffee shop with Simple John, Mary, and Beth. (Theophania notices that Mary is excessively hot, which Thessaly doesn’t approve of, so maybe Longfingers will learn entirely the wrong lessons about how to be a grown-up sapphic.) They learn some more about being changelings, and take a trip into the hedge to learn how to make Contracts. Hurray for magic powers! Even if Thessaly is being all secretive about hers.

Read (game): Land of Cicadas: A sandbox setting for Cloud Empress. Some hexes are farmland, some are wasteland, some are perilous forest, some contain giant bugs, some contain the sky-city expedition in search of their missing Cloud Empress, several contain killer robots, etc. There is plenty of scope for hapless wandering PCs to get into trouble, and possibly even cause a tremendous uproar. Or get eaten by giant bugs, of course.

Written (catgirl): 159 of notes.

Hey, where’s my creativity and innovation?

Had to get up early again for the cleaners and then still do work. Bah. Also discovered Mysterious Shoes. The cleaners disclaim them, and Marith says she doesn’t recognize them, but nobody else is ever in my apartment because I’m a failure at people.

Read (manga): Mysterious Disappearances vol 5 (Nujima): All their messing around with mysteries has attracted the attention of the Queen of Cats and her truck-sized minions. Nobody is mean to a cat on-screen, but there is nevertheless cat-related sadness of a familiar kind.

Read (anthology): Covenants: Four Tales of Agreements (Moe Lane):Four stories that are not horror, but are in horror settings. A couple are in C19 Europe ravaged by undead of various kinds, there’s one in the same setting as Ghosts on a Alien Wind, and one in a Mythos far future. Okay, maybe they are horror after all.

Written (catgirl): 160 of notes. Maybe they shouldn’t use cell phones at all? But so convenient, even if they aren’t smartphones!

Er, I mean Easter.

Coworker N is still on vacation, so I had to work 7-13:00. Bah, early! But there wasn’t too much work to do, and the next person logged in punctually, so I was able to trundle down to Monkeycat Towers have Easter dinner with friends and search for the lost art of conversation. It was also very nice, although I feel bad for not being cool or doing things.

Read (manga): Dandadan vol 12 (Yukinobu Tatsu): Alien invasion! Astral travel! It’s pretty much the next part of what was going on in vol 11.

Read (anthology): Revisionary: Four Tales of the Mythos (Moe Lane):More or less the Cthulhu Mythos, anyway. Four stories of terrible things that happen to those who mess with things beyond human ken (cursed books, death-world monsters, interdimensional visitors, New England, etc).

Written (catgirl): 143 more of worldbuilding notes.

Also Garlic Bicycle Day.

Slept in too much, but made the bus to shopping with about one minute to spare. Also gave a little old lady directions.

In the afternoon, I was functional enough to go over to Monkeycat Towers to help dye eggs and clean out leftover adobo. It was very nice, because friends are good.

Watched (anime): Delicious in Dungeon 10-11: Finally, the red dragon!

Read (manga): Reincarnated as a Sword vol 1 (Yuu Tanaka, Tomowo Maruyama, Llo): A random schmoe isekai’d into a magic sword and an orphaned 12-year-old catgirl team up to be highly OP in a generic litRPG world.

Read (novel): Castaways (Craig Schaefer): Teenagers in magic school, in the same setting as the Daniel Faust etc books. Kids who don’t have any better options get sucked into another dimension and enrolled in a magic school that even they can tell is not a shining example of the genre. Bullying, dangerous magic, hardass teacher, reformed serial killer teacher, dangerous wildlife, going off-campus once a year to shop, all the standard tropes. Also interdimensional zwilniks and girl-smooches.

Written (catgirl): 107. This trend is in the wrong direction.

It is very important to be aware of velociraptors!

Watched (live-action TV): Leverage 4.11: Parker seems a little too into that role, although Hardison’s not complaining. Also, I’m not sure that’s a fight Nate should have picked for them, but on the other hand, fuck all those guys.

Read (manga): Nightfall Travellers vol 2 (Tomohi): More exploration of hills and shrines and other spooky places. Maybe it’s actually the other girl who will turn out to be a ghost?

Written (catgirl): 109 of notes.

Celebrate by emitting ultrasonic chirps!

Went to the office again, all the usual coworkers were there, ate okra curry and naan, did some work.

Read (novel): The House Witch (Delemhach): Light novel about a witch who has home powers instead of the normal elemental powers, hiding out as head chef in a castle but beset with problems on every side including his own feelings. Het romance, but there’s a gay side character. Very light novel.

Read (manga): Go With the Clouds North-by-Northwest vol 3 (Aki Irie): After the scenic interlude, we’re back to detective work and also the little brother. Now we know what’s going on with him, and it’s not good.

Read (game): Cloud Empress (watt): Heavily inspired by Nausicaa, but the system is based on Mothership because violence is not good for people. The old was swept away, the new world is mostly uninhabitable but there are people in the few habitable areas and also in poorly-maintained flying cities, sometimes giant bugs swarm everywhere and eat the bones of the dead, their shells can be scraped for the substance that fuels magic, ghosts everywhere, etc. Lots of random tables of different things, in the Mothership tradition. It’s a very sandbox game; there’s no overarching plot, everything is in the worldbuilding.

Written (catgirl): 126 of notes.

I, for one, welcome our mycelial etc etc. Also School Librarian day. We still have those, right?

Went to the office, Coworker D was there, ate beef and gouda dumplings with pickled veggies, did a little work.

Read (manga): Go With the Clouds North-by-Northwest vol 2 (Aki Irie): MC’s best friend from Japan comes to visit, so this is the Iceland Tourism Bureau episode. I do kind of want to go to Iceland now!

Written (catgirl): 134 of notes.

I have not watched any anime today, but I think in general I’m good on this one.

Played (Changeling): Ken’s 90s Berkeley game. Thessaly and Theophania escape from the grotto before the awkwardness grows too intense, at the cost of only one more level of damage for Theo (Thessaly is too cool to bleed everywhere, of course). On his way home from work, Everett is almost run over by somebody in Siddy’s parent’s old pickup who looks exactly like Siddy’s human seeming, but she drives away very quickly, so what’s up with that? Everyone meets back up at the Hello Kitty Warehouse to catch up on their various days, discuss fetches and moral vs faerie seemings and whether Siddy can reach high shelves now, and help Thessaly name the new security ravens.

Read (manga): Nightfall Travellers vol 1 (Tomohi): A middle-school newspapergirl and a new transfer student explore an extremely hilly and somewhat mysterious city to find the perfectly normal explanations for supernatural manifestations that people gossip about. The art is kind of smudgy and watercolory, although greyscale for most pages, which makes the city 37% more mysterious. I am not convinced that neither of the girls is a real ghost, though.

Written (game design): 232. Instead of having to roll damage, or always using the attack that does the most damage, what if any hit takes out the target, but they have resources they can expend to negate a hit. This is like the 1-hp dragon, or looked at another way, turns hit points from a boring single counter into a collection of distinct resources each with their own mechanical significance. (You want to block that arrow? Sure, spend a use of Shining Steel Plate Armor. A lightning bolt, though?)

But humans never look up!

Read (manga): Mizuno and Chayama (Yuhta Nishio): Two high school seniors forced to be on opposite sides of horrible small-town factionalism by family ties have a purely physical lesbian affair in the abandoned classrooms, but of course nothing is ever that easy. Complete in one large volume.

Written (game design): 198. This is probably not what I actually want here, but if I’m trying to simplify, can I get a character’s combat round down to one roll? I think rolling for initiative and having fixed damage is better than the other way around, but maybe I can combine them somehow. Having both fixed damage and fixed defense seems like it might be less interesting.

Congratulations on your children not getting eaten by angels to all to celebrate, I guess?

Gaming was cancelled due to Passover, so I did some extra work instead. It was not onerous, but it was not nearly as fun.

Read (manga): Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! vol 6 (Sumito Oowara): The (unwilling) advent of Voice Girl!

Read (short): “Loneliness Universe” (Eugenia Triantafyllou): A young woman finds that her relationships have changed in an upsetting way, but it’s actually much worse than that.

Read (short): “Signs of Life” (Sarah Pinsker): Estranged sisters reconnect, but one of them has had a much less explicable life than the other.

Read (short): “Marginalia” (Mary Robinette Kowal): What if some of those weird creatures from medieval margin drawings were crawling around your countryside?

Read (short): “We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read” (Caroline M Yoachim): Aliens (faeries? robots?) with very fast and extremely multi-threaded cognition attempt to communicate with humans.

Read (short): “Another Girl Under the Iron Bell” (Angela Liu): Even if you’re a famous monk, enslaving demons is risky.

Read (short): “A Stranger Knocks” (Tananarive Due): A young Black couple in Jim Crow times get an offer that is way too good to be true.

Written (catgirl): 237 of notes, mostly questions and blanks to fill in.