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.
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.
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.
Did I do anything today? I put on this hat and then everything is a blur…
Watched (anime): Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 1.17-18: Jeez, are Fern and Stark ever going to get together? Maybe not, if they need a counselor to keep them on speaking terms.
Read (novel): The Mortons (Justine Larbalestier, Scott Westerfeld): The Morton family doesn’t rule the world, they just ensure the people who do, rule it the way they want, by taking care of those little problems for them. But what happens when one of their enforcers wants to stop making the world worse? Content warning for all the murders and violence and manipulation and sociopathy and harm to animals and insufficient harm to the rich.
Read (novel): Calculated Whisk (Lindsay Buroker): Fantasy romance between a retired mercenary and a dragon chef who were on opposite sides during the war. Book 1/N, so they are barely on speaking terms by the end. D&Dish in that the alleged medieval fantasy is actually very modern socially, and also unnecessarily heterosexual.
Read (from the shelf): FAIL.
Written (Geometry for Mutants): 137.
For no sensible reason, I am on call both days this weekend, so I just have to take my computer everywhere during the day and cross my fingers that I don’t need it. I completely failed that by going back to sleep for about four hours after taking handover and feeding the cats, and then as I was starting to move toward going out, the customers attacked. It wasn’t terrible, but it did use up the entire afternoon. I guess I’ll have to try again tomorrow.
Watched (anime): Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 1.14-16: Side quests, old friends, Stark and Fern’s relationship progressing , Stark and Fern suffer while Frieren eats donuts.
Read (from the shelf): FAIL.
Written (Geometry for Mutants): 171. No good plan yet, although some bad plans dismissed for being unethical or impractical.
But not me, don’t marry me.
The cats helped me stay in bed, but eventually I did manage to get up and do an errand and read a Maidens of the Fall and go to an anime.
Watched (anime): Witch Hat Atelier 1.12-13: Into the snake cave of the ancient chrysomorphs! Accommodations for trauma brought on by bad pedagogy! Plummeting and doom!
Read (from the shelf): FAIL.
Written (Geometry for Mutants): 179.
Also Father’s Day, so good news for druid dads, I guess?
Played (Hero 6E): Kaiju Academy. Labyrinth shenanigans result in the cohort ending up on an English airship headed for a commando strike to steal the new French dreadnought, the Emperor Napoleon. There’s some initial nervousness about the giant spider and women on an airship, but soon the girls are all in on assaulting the dastardly and inflammatory French in exchange for a lift back to the flying mist-form labyrinth. Surely nothing bad can come of May feeding an anti-air Frenchman through the port engine, right?
Watched (anime): Kill la Kill 15-16: Finally, the dreadful secret behind the Life Fiber!
Read (manga): Dandadan vol 19 (Yukinobu Tatsu): That thing where parts of the world just disappear is getting kind of serious. I wonder if this means we’re getting near the end. Will Denji die some more? Will he achieve ultimate power? Will these be distinguishable?
Written (Geometry for Mutants): 306, although both today’s and yesterday’s numbers are bogus because I accidentally deleted something and had to restore it. Also, even though it’s Tall Girl Appreciation Day, I was mean to my MC. (It’s some time in November for her anyway.)
I think the bourbon means it has to be National (US).
Slept in a lot, did one shopping expedition, that’s about it for today. Did not manage to rally against fascism.
Watched (anime): Kill la Kill 12-14: I’d say that’s it for the school fighting drama arc, but really the national conquest arc is pretty similar.
Read (from the shelf): FAIL.
Written (Geometry for Mutants): 282.
Usual shopping and Maidens of the Fall (back from hiatus!) despite the 90° heat, returned home with a pile of comics. A pocket frond live-slacked an extremely alarming yet eventually okay saga that she dealt with much better than I would have in the same circumstance, I’m sure. Ken gave me sausage bean cabbage when we went over for anime, which was quite nice.
Watched (anime): Witch Hat Atelier 1.11: Start of the escort quest test, whether Richeh likes it or not! Also, introduction of the world’s shittiest teacher.
Watched (anime): Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 1.12-13: The hero’s sword stuck in the rock is introduced. Will that be important later? Who can say? But finally Frieren’s party has a cleric, and is up to four members which is the standard for heroic adventures. Double mages instead of double warriors like her last party, though.
Read (manga): Sanda vol 2 (Paru Itagaki): This world is even weirder about youth than it originally seemed, probably because it’s not just cracktastic, it’s also social commentary.
Written (Geometry for Mutants): 109.
That’s giving the ice cream to the children, not trading away your offspring for tasty tasty frozen desserts.
No gaming, only Zuul.
Watched (anime): Mistress Kanan is Devilishly Easy 4-5: Still no redeeming social value
Read (comic collection): Unnatural vol 3 (Mirka Andolfo): Okay, they did get the line about some animals being more equal than others in there. More creepy fascist conspiracy, past life possession, final confrontation, The End.
Written (Geometry for Mutants): 162.
It’s always sad when being on call means getting called. I couldn’t even draw a black bear to eat the customers, because I can’t draw worth beans. Fortunately I eventually stopped being on call and could go over to watch anime. Ayse is Abroad, for Tourism, so we did not get distracted, and also Marith’s laundry took a long time, so we had plenty of anime.
Watched (anime): Witch Hat Atelier 1.10: Turns out that able-bodied people being ableist doesn’t make disabled people any less competent.
Watched (anime): Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 1.9-11: The issue with the demon diplomats is resolved, thanks to Frieren’s special technique, which is presented in such a way as to be legitimately kind of terrifying. Turns out you can get really good at something if you practice it constantly for a thousand years.
Read (novel): Ladies in Hating (Alexandra Vasti): Rival gothic novelists in C19 England, sapphic longing, a mysterious and decrepit manor in the countryside, some light haunting, more sapphic longing. Apparently part of a larger series but the other books seem to be about men or something, so whatever.
Read (from the shelf): FAIL.
Written (Geometry for Mutants): Finally wrote an email about astronomy resources.
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.
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
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.
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.
Watched (anime): Kill la Kill 5-6: Another member of the anti-magic-clothes organization Nudist Beach appears to cause trouble, and Ryuko faces the guy who sees things.
Read (manga): There’s No Freaking Way I’ll Be Your Lover! Unless… vol 8 (Musshu, Teren Mikami, Eku Takeshima): Another actual declaration of love! If only Renako would go to therapy and maybe read up on polyamory.
Read (novel): Friendly Fyre (Kia Leep): Cross-isekai litRPG, the main character gets cast in the role of an historic leader, with an underground refugee community that’s more than a bit of a fixer-upper. Apparently part of a larger series,
Written (second rewrite of new project): 244.
Fascists take double effect from psychic attacks today.
I planned to get up at a reasonable hour to practice for the work week, get myself some lunch, then do some shopping and get my cranial filaments shortened, but instead slept in forever and had no lunch. I did manage to run most of the errands.
Watched (anime): Dorohedoro 2.4: More of Nikaido’s backstory, which explains why certain actions were taken in recent episodes. Also, Caiman’s not looking too hot.
Watched (anime): Kill la Kill 3-4: Ryuko discovers the secret to unlocking the power of the magic uniform is a complete lack of modesty. Also, she was totally hitting on Broken-Arm Girl, wasn’t she?
Read (from the shelf): FAIL.
Written (second rewrite of new project): 339.
Did my usual sleeping too much and shopping and reading Maidens of the Fall.
Watched (anime): Witch Hat Atelier 1.4-5: The dragon maze sequence, with extra fluffiness.
Read (from the shelf): FAIL.
Written (second rewrite of new project): 281.
An entire subgenre of superheroes with time cards and OSHA posters in the break room definitely exists, I have read some of it, but it is not entirely my thing.
Went back to work today, although the office is occupied with the Big Yearly Sales Meeting so I didn’t have to try commuting. I was somewhat functional, but sleepy. The all-hands was about how to extract the maximum money from the AI economy, and I really don’t think there is any. It’s just Nvidia fronting data-center fraudsters money to pay Nvidia for products that make no money. I wish I had spent the past thirty years being neurotypical enough to save and save and save, because I’m not convinced I’m not going to have to retire next year when everything collapses.
Managed to do some cleaning and other household chores, which is good.
Read an essay from famous game designer Jay Dragon reminding me that no amount of blathering about a game by myself is worth anything; games have to be played. Pity I don’t have any gamers.
Watched (anime): Dorohedoro 2.1-3: Still adding to the plot, and the murders, and the horrible bugs, and Caiman’s head exploding with backstory.
Read (manga): Kirio Fan Club vol 1 (Chikyu no Osakana Ponchan): Two high schools who both like the same (ew) boy. There is no sign of them coming to their senses. I bought this because a long time ago I thought the two girls in This Ugly Yet Beautiful World were interesting, but nah.
Written (new project): 226. I finished the first chapter, so I need to figure out what the rest of the story is, and also a title or at least a tag to distinguish it from other projects.
Still too lethargic to get up and log in to work in the morning, but being sick is really boring. Less coughing, so maybe tomorrow I will do the thing. Any thing.
Watched (anime): Dorohedoro 1.10-12 + OAVs: All the plot lines are colliding. The OAVs don’t have any plot, just backstory.
Read (short): The Somewhat Wicked Witch of Brigandale (CM Waggoner): An entry in the “discuss fantasy/fairytale tropes in the commentary on a fairytale story” subgenre. It’s fine, everybody loves witches and their gay adopted sons, but I’m not sure anyone will ever beat Diana Wynne Jones.
Written (new project): 206.
No gaming, since Dave is also sick, so I slept way way in, took a shower with steam to try to clear out my respiratory system, did a little shopping, was mostly useless. Do I have less coughing, though? That would be nice.
Watched (anime): Dorohedoro 1.7-9: All the plotlines are colliding, plus a neighborhood baseball game in the Hole. It is as gruesome as you might expect. Other than that, things seem to be moving to the sorcerers’ world.
Read (novel): Broken Prince (Glynn Stewart): Nth in the Adamant series, switching to the brother of the previous viewpoint character. Plenty of missiles in space. Also pirates.
Read (from the shelf): SICK.
Written (new project): 175. No alien centaurs, not even any sex.
After feeling bleah for a while, I finally felt bad enough to not do work at all. Instead I slept uselessly and maybe also cuddled some cats.
Watched (anime): Dorohedoro 1.4-6: Zombie night, sorcerer intrigue, etc. Still ultra-violent.
Read (from the shelf): SICK.
Written (new project): 109.
I got up to take work handover at the usual work time, fed some cats, and then went back to bed and didn’t wake up for like four hours. So on the one hand, I wasted almost the entire day, but on the other, sleep.
Read (manga): The Invisible Man & His Soon-to-Be Wife vol 6 (Iwatobineko): They are finally living together! Also other people are having lives and babies and stuff.
Watched (anime): Tawawa on Monday 1.1-3: You know how it’s possible to make anime about something other than jiggling? These guys neither. The episodes are only half-length, so it didn’t take as long as it seems to give up.
Watched (anime): Dorohedoro 1.1-3: Messed-up people in a messed-up world with other messed-up people and evil magic and copious murders. The aesthetic is post-apocalyptic, but it seems to be more interdimensional. Not that we have much in the way of backstory, except that magic builds up as the environmental pollutant it looks like, and also sorcerers are dicks.
Written (new project): 258.
Several of the audience survive every performance!
I slept in incompetently, but eventually went shopping and stuff.
Watched (anime): Witch Hat Atelier 1.3: And away Coco goes, to certain death in the trial she’s not at all qualified for.
Watched (anime): Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 1.1: The first episode is all backstory and establishing vibes, so following the manga pretty close so far.
Read (manga): The Invisible Man & His Soon-to-Be Wife vol 5 (Iwatobineko): They’re getting mushier and introducing each other to their parents and even moving in together, but not having sex or anything like that.
Written (new project): 219.
On call today, so I slept in next to the phone after taking handover and only eventually went shopping. Because last weekend was weird, I had bonus Maidens of the Fall, which is always nice. Also a support cast, which was less nice, but not a big deal.
Watched (anime): Witch Hat Atelier 1-2: Pretty much the same as the start of the manga, but now in color with swooping!
Read (manga): A Bride’s Story vol 5 (Kaoru Mori): Wedding day for the twins Smith met in the last volume. Their husbands are already long-suffering. Then back to Amir and Karluk for a sad falconry story and a terrifying granny interlude.
Written (game design): 217:
I have dozens of notes for other points that have to be considered, but
possibly none of them matter at all if we can’t establish mechanics for
how characters affect each other, because that’s the core of superheroic
conflict. Or, really, any conflict, and thus most RPGs except Golden Sky
Stories (which is a great game, but not what we’re going for here).
Obviously I’m making some kind of mistake here, but what is it? Should I
not be worrying about making all results come from written rules, even
though some (most? all? few?) players don’t like GM judgment calls?
Should I not be worrying about how to make things seem fair because they
never are? Just let the table decide who should get fewer dice because
they’re too clever with the ones they have? (Self-serving, because I’m
always the least clever.)
(As previously established, the fundamental flaw is almost certainly
thinking that I can do better than real game designers at anything. I’m
not standing on the shoulders of giants, I’m barely even stepping on
their toes. But that’s too bad, because what else am I going to do? Just
play one of the thousands of games I’ve bought? Pfft.)
Did nothing today because I was on call, but after waking up to take handover, I was able to go back to bed and be useless for much of the day while Nightvale trained his Weight of a Thousand Dead Suns napping technique.
Watched (anime): Kowloon Generic Romance 12-13: We did learn at least some who and why and when, but how was only hinted at. Still, that was a completely unexpected level of doom in the end.
Read (comic collection): Deep Beyond vol 1 (Mirka Andolfo, David Goy, Andrea Broccardo, Barbara Nosenzo): Everything broke on Y2k and also horrible mutant plagues started, now it’s generations later and the survivors are engaging in conspiracy and rebellion about the mysteries behind it. It has very impractical sci-fi aesthetics.
Written (game design): 162. Still haven’t managed to switch to another project.
I keep wanting to slide into a very abstract system, which on the one
hand is flexible for accomodating all the weird shit players come up
with, but on the other is less grounded. At the very least, we have to
have people establish the special effect ahead of time, and being able
to put everything into a bucket with specific mechanics (physical
object, break by doing Body), even a large bucket, would be better.
If I sucked even more than I actually do, I’d say we should use an LLM
to invent rules for a special effect when the player invents it, but
a) I don’t think that would actually work well, and b) ew no. Someone
else can explore this frontier of game design. (Or, given the pride with
which people put NOAI banners on their games, no one can explore it,
and that’s fine by me. Fuck LLMs and their capitalist wielders.)
Back to splitting up the removal condition, that doesn’t work since
how much Body you have to do is both what it takes and how long it
takes. Or maybe what it takes is more like how much Def? Having to
make a skill roll is similar to 1 Body 0 Def, unless it takes a
long time. (Should we have skill rolls generate effect against some
kind of defense, unifying them with attacks? Probably not.) So maybe
the two factors are how long it takes to wait the condition out
(possibly forever, although that would be kind of expensive), and
what it takes to clear it before then (possibly nothing except an
equally strong power, which would also be expensive).
Leaving this to stew for a while, earlier I was on my usual bullshit
of wanting experience to come from suffering, so maybe taking a
condition lets you mark XP? Or it’s a limitation you can apply to
your maneuver/technique to offset getting more or not getting less?
Should the GM be tracking XP for NPCs? It’s more work, but maybe adds
flavor.
If conditions still have levels, then maybe any condition at the top
level should give XP, but I’m not sure they do, just the points of
effect left over after the defense is subtracted from the roll.
Although not everything needs to be that granular, and sometimes
there’s not an obvious use for it that’s distinct from the removal
condition. Once you’re blind, you generally can’t get any blinder; at
most the blindness could last longer, or take more healing to remove.
At the lower end you could just have poor vision for a while, so
blindess isn’t entirely binary, but for playability I don’t think it
can have very many gradations.
Only available at certain addresses, of course.
Played (Hero 6E): Kaiju Academy. The fight that was starting as the credits rolled last time is just as horrible as expected. Bug goo everywhere, and not in the good way. Mal gets knocked out and misses the climactic bug-clobbering finale, but doesn’t die or anything. Teleportation is really handy, though. She needs to figure out more of her Labyrinth affinity.
Watched (anime): Sentenced to Be a Hero 12: Season finale! We finally get an explanation for the penal heroes and mindless rampaging guy. Also, apparently not all penal heroes were railroaded by a corrupt court system, some are legitimately fucked up.
Watched (anime): Roll Over and Die 12: Season finale! Several of the cute girls are saved, but the evil plot is by no means thwarted. Flum is going to need some more cursed gear.
Watched (anime): Journal With Witch 13: The end! Orphan Girl is moving ahead with her life, which is really all that one could expect from this series.
Read (manga): A Bride’s Story vol 7 (Kaoru Mori): Wait, where did 5 and 6 go? I thought I had them, but then I realized this volume was 7 so the gnomes must have eaten them. I’ll have to make them come back by ordering new copies. Anyway, this is the first volume I haven’t read before. It’s more of Smith’s journey, although it’s mostly about the lady of the house where he’s staying, and her loneliness and the local custom of married women forming special friendships and the manga-ka getting to draw many scenes at the women’s bath.
Written (anything): FAIL. How does thinking even work?
Also Respect Your Cat’s Drug Stash Day, but that’s every day, right?
Ended up going to a small local rally on a street corner instead of the big one downtown because the timing was better for going shopping. It was somewhere in the couple of hundred to few hundred range, we waved signs and people honked, I scritched a nice dog. Most of the people there were my age or older, with only a few parents and kids, so I’m surprised it wasn’t more bloodthirsty.
Watched (anime): Kowloon Generic Romance 10-11: Now we know who, and can speculate on why, but how is still up in the air, as are certain aspects of when. Is this really going to all get wrapped up in one more episode?
Read (manga): A Bride’s Story vol 4 (Kaoru Mori): Further stories about the people Smith meets in passing on his way to Ankara. This time the marriage-crazed girls aren’t trying to marry him, though. They have their own lives to mess up.
Written (game design): Finally updated my character sheet for Kaiju Academy, which either counts as writing or doesn’t.