Tag: anime

No side effects, except a minor headache. I hope this means my immune system is quietly competent, and not slacking off. “New antigen? Throw it on the pile, we’ll get around to it. Probably.”

Omicron is not so prevalent (yet) that Marith and I cannot visit Monkeycat Towers, so we did.

Watched: Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions 1.1-2: Rewatching because now Jus is old enough to appreciate it.

Watched: Fruits Basket 2.1-2: Ayse and Ken have only seen season 1, so we are rewatching it with them, and then eventually we will all watch season 3 together.

Eaten: Delicious Thai food! Also like one seasonal ginger cookie. It was good!

Played: Zoomwarts. Since we changed the schedule to game when Marith is both tired and allergic, maybe it was best that all her characters were petrified? (No, it was not best.) But Bella continued to be heroic despite the IMMENSE DOOM closing in from every side and now she has an excuse to look for Harry.

Words: 208. I think I used all my brain socializing.

Monday after a long weekend and I really didn’t wanna, but I had to anyway, so I kinda did. I managed to claim some days during the holidays as vacation, although on other days I have to work or at least be on call.

Eaten: Sheet pan chicken with pancetta, garlic, and tomatoes.

Watched: My Hero Academia 110-113: Sometimes, when you have two problems, they don’t cancel each other out.

Watched: RWBY Fairy Tails 4-5: The one about the princess in the tower, and the one about the wise king.

Read: I Think I Love You (Auriane Desombre): More high school F/F romance, with Cunning Plans and Rival Movies and Conflicting Views Of Romance and Coming Out and also boys who suck.

NaNoWriMo Words: 26832 + 742 = 27574. It turns out socializing and writing don’t work together well. Also feelings are still stupid and hard.

Yay, we made it to Friday. I wish I had some brain left.

Watched: RWBY Fairy Tales 1: Don’t got into the forest, geez!

Watched: My Hero Academia 107-109: Some disturbing information about the Nomus, then back to the League of Villains, who haven’t been idle all this time!

Read: Apocalypse: Generic System and Apocalypse: Fairy System (Macronomicon): Isekai/litrpg with magic crafting and subterfuge, then getting screwed over and having to survive in the post-assimilation world, with some delving into the deeper mechanics underneath what is presented to mortals as classes and levels and stats. Also fairy bargains, mad science, and video games. I stayed up until forever o’clock reading, so I guess they’re engaging, at least at the level my brain can handle.

NaNoWriMo Words: 153 words, which is pretty much a FAIL. Marith thinks writing even a single word during the month of November qualifies for winning NaNoWriMo, but I’m a purist. Or maybe just grumpy. 3635 + 153 = 3788 total.

The customers attacked in great profusion, but only one of them demanded a call.

Eaten: Chinese food to celebrate Marith’s birthday!

Watched: My Hero Academia 103-106: One swimsuit episode, some intrigue plot, some Endeavor family plot, some work-study. Fuyumi got so many sparkles when she appeared, I was sure Deku or Bakugo was going to have a crush on her, but apparently not.

Read: Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating (Adiba Jaigirdar): Bengali-Irish high school lesbians, fake dating, horrible white girls, racist administrators, the freedom of completely disappointing one’s parents, almost no boys because who even needs them.

Read: The Case Study of Vanitas vol 5 (Jun Mochizuki): Any French supernatural murders must involve the Beast of Gévaudan! Also it looks like the Jeanne-Vanitas thing is really a thing, not throw-away.

Words: Check.

Today’s major lifestyle change: added a different kind of packaged protein to my packaged salad lunch. Not a better kind, at least not environmentally, just different.

Read: Sunreach (Brandon Sanderson, Janci Patterson): Novella between the second and (upcoming) third books of the “Skyward” space opera series, following other characters as they try to make progress on their problems while the main character is off doing the thing.

Watched: My Hero Academia 99-102: End of the class A vs class B competition, on to next round of internships!

Words: Check

Now it’s Friday again and I haven’t accomplished anything all week. I mean, I did some capitalisms, and sustained my pointless life, but whatever.

Read: Shatter the Sky (Rebecca Kim Wells): Recommended in the acknowledgments of Iron Widow. A girl from the mountain that dragons used to come from has her girlfriend stolen by the Bureau of Creepiness from the empire that stole all the dragons and makes a terrible plan to get her back. Dragons and ghosts and perfumery are also involved, but not much questioning of the social order. Much more standard YA than Iron Widow.

Watched: My Hero Academia 95-98: Mostly shōnen combat, but we did get some One for All plot. Also Bakugo was somehow not 100% awful

Words: FAIL. I have no excuse, I’m just very dumb.

Read: Kingdoms at War (Lindsay Buroker): Start of a fantasy series where mages rule everything and treat the non-magical about as well as Africans during the age of empires. Non-magical archaeologists uncover something that everybody wants, even before they find out what it really does and the dangers thereof. Intrigue and adventure ensue. Also like four romance subplots, but they all seem to pretty slow-burn.

Watched: My Hero Academia 90-94: We got one episode of Endeavor trying to redeem himself to his family and Hawks plotting, but then it was back to UA and class 1A vs class 1B in not-entirely-lethal combat so everybody can show off their new techniques.

Words: Continued FAIL. Apparently my brain has to be useless for a certain number of hours every day, even though those hours could be used for writing.

Apparently I forgot how to sleep again, but fortunately there was not a lot that needed to happen at work today.

Eaten: Creamy lemon dill chicken, zucchini, and snap peas.

Watched: My Hero Academia 87-89: Last two of S4 and then the first one of S5, a lot of which was recap anyway. Can Endeavor really be redeemed, though?

Read: Pahua and the Soul Stealer (Lori M Lee): Another from the “Rick Riordan Presents” line of middle-grade fantasy in non-white-people mythoi. This one is Hmong, about which I knew nothing going in, but was not surprised to find it similar to other E/SE Asian cultures.

Read: Amelia O’Donohue is So Not a Virgin (Helen Fitzgerald): Scottish all-girls boarding school drama. I saw the big plot twist ahead of time, although perhaps not at the very first clue.

Read: Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Diseases (Kristen O’Neal): It is in fact about both those things, and also Internet support groups and friendship and love and family and life goals.

Words: FAIL. I am not smart enough to write.

Read: The Night Raven (Sarah Painter): Outlying daughter of one of the four magical crime families of London comes back to wait out fallout from her non-magic-crime job in Scotland and gets sucked right back in with missing cousins and horrible uncles and ghosts and hit men and hot detectives.

Read: Days of Love at Seagull Villa vol 3 (Kodama Naoko): Sorry, [character], you had literally years to ask [other character] out, but all you did was neg her and pretend to be straight, so now you’re stuck with a dumb boy while [other character] gets all the girlsmooches. The end!

Watched: The Case Study of Vanitas 7-10: Lots of backstory, more eccentric characters, and a final, season-ending, terrible reveal. Also vampire bites, which seem to count somewhere between kissing and sex.

Words: FAIL.

Eaten: Balsamic salmon and broccoli, balsamic tomatoes and mozzarella.

Watched: The Case Study of Vanitas 4-6: Who this Domi person is, Noé’s tragic past, and the curse-bringers step up their offensive.

Read: Embers of War (Gareth L Powell): In the aftermath of an interstellar war, veterans (human, AI, and alien) in basically the French Foreign Search & Rescue have to deal with their pasts, the fallout of the past conflict, and the assholes who are happy to start new wars. The ending looks pretty good for all except the last category, but this is apparently the first of a trilogy, so I’m guessing it’s not as great as it looks.

Read: Darling (K Ancrum): A reimagining of Peter Pan, in the modern day and a completely different genre. I think it’s well done, but like all reimaginings, how you like it depends on how attached you are to the original, and I’m not very.

Words: FAIL, but I am getting a lot closer to being able to publish past words!

The cleaner was efficient this time, so I managed to go grocery shopping and only then implode into a useless lump. There is still plague of all flavors all over everywhere and especially at Ayse and Ken’s, so no visiting. I was on call for the afternoon, but nothing happened.

Played: Zoomwarts. We were not very focused; I blame Jus’s new phone or maybe my old brain. We got some drama, but Dumbledore retconned it. Surely this will not come back to haunt anyone at all.

Watched: Fena, Pirate Princess 1-2: You’d think a show called “Pirate Princess” would be more kid-friendly, but the first episode has a brothel and rape threats and numerous murders. After that, it seems to mellow out.

Read: Broken Blade (JC Daniels): After being kidnapped and tortured in the previous book, the main character puts herself back together, partially with the help of friends but mostly because there’s a really big problem that needs her special murderizing.

Words: Check.

Cleaners came extra-early today, but I still got to sleep in compared to yesterday, so whatever. It did mean I was up and about early enough to walk to grocery shopping and make Walkr happy.

Marith was dead from capitalism today, so I went to visit Ken and Ayse and Jus and Nonny by myself, with no Zoomwarts.

Played: Dominion (with Guilds), Super Mario Party River Survival Mode, Murder Mystery. Jus won at Dominion, which is probably Ken’s fault. I bet she’s genetic.

Eaten: Chicken, eggplant, shishito peppers, balsamic-drizzled tomatoes.

Watched: Yona of the Dawn 21-22: The big pirate battle!

Watched: Kaleido Star 6: The Jonathan episode!

Read: Dark Calling (Darren Shan): Now we know what’s going on, cosmically speaking, and why 8×8, but it’s not going to help any of the main characters. In fact, several of them have already not been helped.

Words: FAIL.

I really do mean to walk to grocery shopping, but maybe not until fall.

Played: Zoomwarts! This time it was NPCs dueling over Harry and Bella got to be mature. But she still owes the mermaid two arms or a huge pile of jewels, and the new potions professor is still up to something, and the Holiday Party is still impending!

Watched: Yona of the Dawn 19-20: Yona’s primary stat is definitely Bravery, or maybe Loyalty.

Eaten: Thai food! Ken is not here to cook, he is off hiking somewhere, so we ordered in.

Played: Super Mario Party, or at least like six of the zillion minigames. I was terrible at them, which is only to be expected from an old person who rarely plays video games, but it was fun.

Read: Over the Woodward Wall (A Deborah Baker): It’s a little like Oz, only more Seanan McGuire and philosophical and faerie bargains, and also it pretty much ends halfway through the story and the next book won’t be out until this fall!

Words: FAIL.

I successfully went shopping, although I did not walk there, so that was like an accomplishment but not really? Also I ate a lunch that was not horrifying.

Played: Zoomwarts. A new love interest for Bella! A new reason to skulk about the secret passages of Hogwarts! Catalog shopping! Lizard drama!

Watched: Yona of the Dawn 17-18: You know, he has a point. And his boss is awesome.

Watched (by somebody, not me): Kaleido Star 5. I had to play Bloons TD 6 with Nonny and his parents.

Read: Dear Noman vol 2 (Neji): The end! It was fundamentally a ghost story, so the ending was always going to be sad, but it was hopeful too.

Words: Check, ish.

The cleaners came and cleaned Marith’s old room. Now I could use it for something, if I were competent and energetic. But I’m not, so I went grocery shopping and ate some lunch and gave Marith her swamp cooler, and eventually went to Ken and Ayse’s. I had not realized it before, but Truffle has sporadic white hairs in her black coat to go with the white spot on her tummy, so she is a Night Sky Kitten!

Played: Zoomwarts. I should probably have sent in a Death Eater with a wand to focus things, but Bella was sufficiently oppressed, I think. The lizards got some leads on how to get arms for the mermaid, at least.

Watched: Yona of the Dawn 15-16: Uh oh, the new king is surprisingly competent!

Played: Squirt gun battle! Nonny finished me off by emptying the magazine of one of the large squirt guns over me, so I was pretty much the soggiest. I had to borrow a towel to sit on before Marith would let me ride in her car again.

Not watched by me: Kaleido Star 4. Jus and Marith and maybe Dave watched it, though, so that’s fine.

Words: check, somehow.

It looks like I might be able to import my old journal entries if I can convert them to XML of the right format, but right now that seems like a lot of work, so I’ll just start from today (okay, yesterday as I type this) with new entries.

Marith moved out yesterday (mostly) so I was only shopping for my own groceries, which was both less than usual and not as much less as I expected. I should probably still get food for her when everything is not confused, so that she does not die before getting a better job. Or maybe I should stay under my rock forever and never speak to her again. Difficult to tell which is the most diplomatic option.

We went over to Monkeycat Mountain to see friends because we are living in the future when such things are possible again! Instead of starting season 2 of Zoomwarts, though, we showed Jus Labyrinth. Being a child of her generation, her first question on seeing obvious male romantic lead was “…how old is he?” Good job being age-gap aware! She seemed to like the movie, though, and it gives me an extra week to figure out the doom of Zoomwarts.

Ken fed us vaguely Moroccan tomato fish, bacon cabbage, scallops, and rocket salad, which was all very good, and also did not make the robot spy on my arm unhappy, and we watched Yona of the Dawn 9-10. Yay, new party member! Marith had to leave after that, so she can get abused by capitalism before dawn tomorrow, so the rest of us played the Temple of Elemental Evil board game and successfully escaped despite Ken having accidentally shuffled the big scary monsters into the deck. Then I rode the bus home and was almost completely useless the rest of the evening.

Words: check.