I did things today, but it feels like I didn’t accomplish anything. Bah.
Played: Zoomwarts, but I’m a terrible GM so meh. I should have had trolls bust in to Bella’s birthday party. Also I forgot how I was going to present the present.
Words: Check.
Tag: gaming
Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Why is the space station made of meat allergic to us now? We didn’t do anything!
Read: ReDawn (Brandon Sanderson, Janci Patterson): second of the three novellas between the second and third books of the main trilogy. These are not at all side stories, major alien butt is being kicked plot developments are occurring! Despite how the other characters talk up the MC, they have no problem doing the thing or the other thing.
Words: FAIL.
Burger.
Played: Eclipse Phase 2. The PCs more or less accomplished their sub-quest goals and returned to Meathab with suitable amounts of SAN loss on everyone’s part, rescuee included.
Read: Cradle and Grave (Anya Ow): I was turned on to this by a James Nicoll column about books in which changing the laws of physics definitely is a good plan and cannot have any unforeseen side effects, but it’s mostly post-apocalyptic for obvious reasons. Horrible mutations, road trip, cannibal weirdos, monsters, betrayal, totally sus patrons, additional mutation in real time.
Words: FAIL.
I only did one thing today, and the travel was much easier than in times past, but apparently that still used up my entire brain. I got hard-boiled eggs from Marith, though.
Played: Lancer. Leveling up worked a lot better with the other players. Apparently I’m support and spotter for the sniper, but also leader, and getting licenses for the SSC Swallowtail. New mission, which requires us to get out of our mechs (clutch pearls). No combat so far, but next session should be exciting.
Read: The Falling In Love Montage (Ciara Smyth): High school senior (equivalent) lesbians, genetic doom, “it’s just a summer fling”, family drama, surprisingly awesome stepparentage, rom-coms are a highly dubious guide to life.
Read: The Case Study of Vanitas vol 2 (Jun Mochizuki): Noé’s tragic history flashback and Vanitas’s tryst in the middle of the Masked Ball Attack.
Words: Check.
The cleaners were at 10 instead of at 8, which threw my whole morning off, but I managed to go shopping and eat a lunch and stuff. Not prepare for gaming tomorrow, though. Also I was on call all afternoon, but nothing happened. Good work, customers!
Played: Zoomwarts. That was a pretty good session. Bella and co saved the missing rats and only Bella got double-grounded (for cheating in a duel against her romantic rival at lunch).
Read: “The Tomato Thief” (Ursula Vernon): A scary old lady and the monster that’s stealing her perfect tomatoes.
Read: Amissio ch 1-5 (Paroro): Lost humans in a mysterious realm of lost things and tentacle monsters and other weirdness. Creepy cute.
Words: Surprisingly, check.
Got up early for medical stabbing again, but actually the stabbing has been referred to a more specialized specialist. I did get explained to, however, and apparently even if the special stabbing determines the worst, it’s totally treatable. Probably. Mostly.
More customer calls. No end of customer calls. Only doom.
Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Lots of investigation, most of it virtual. If I were converting Eclipse Phase to a better system, I probably wouldn’t make infosec a niche. It’s too useful all of the time, it needs to be divided up so everybody can do different parts of it. Maybe like the domains in Spire?
Read: Inhibitor Phase (Alastair Reynolds): Feels like the conclusion to the “Revelation Space” series, even though it’s not the last story chronologically, maybe because it’s after almost everything is wrecked, or maybe because it has some tour-of-the-setting feel, or maybe because even more is wrecked after the PCs visit it. Also lots about identity to go with the alien mysteries.
Read: Tell Me How You Really Feel (Aminah Mae Safi): High school senior lesbians, cheerleader vs film student at fancy private school, mortal-enemies-to-mandatory-group-project, feminist film-making, LA landmarks, the burden of ancestral expectations.
Words: FAIL.
Played: Lancer. Since we missed last session, we had to have twice the usual amount of non-gaming socialization, including complaining about Kids These Days, but there was time for some skill challenges and a fight against an overwhelming opponent. Kappa lasted slightly longer against them than the other two, and with a couple of better rolls could have forced the opponent to make a roll that could have taken them out if they rolled badly enough, so I claim a moral victory. The PCs had already won by that point, though, so defeating the final boss was just for style points. Now we get to level up and pick mecha to work toward while Dave tries to come up with another adventure.
Read: Hitomi-chan is Shy With Strangers vol 1 (Chorisuke Natsumi): The scary-faced-looming-guy-who’s-secretly-nice trope, but this time it’s a busty high-school girl, and the friend who understands her niceness is her head-shorter sempai.
Words: Check.
I think it’s LIRALEN-DAY!!
For some reason, Jus continues to be twelve. Weird.
I have now been sleeping on my new bed for a whole week. It is definitely fulfilling its role, inasmuch as I wish I were in it whenever I’m not, rather than vice versa, but it has not revolutionized my life. I think this is more likely to be a deficiency in my life, rather than in the bed.
Played: Zoomwarts. As someone who had a boyfriend for five whole days, Bella was eagerly sought after for romantic advice by the Hufflepuff first-years during her stakeout. Next session: party!
Read: The Lamb Will Slaughter The Lion and The Barrow Will Send What It May (Margaret Killjoy): Anarchists and serious punks vs really quite creepy magic and those who get mixed up in it. There are always consequences. Sadly there don’t seem to be any more in this series.
Words: Check.
Work meetings, some regularly scheduled and some with customers. At least the customers don’t demand to gaze upon my grotesque visage.
Played: Eclipse Phase 2. There is some fear that Kelsey and Vivian may want completely disjoint things from games, but Ken hasn’t interviewed Kelsey yet, so we just don’t know. The remaining PCs got sent to deal with another thing that turns out to in fact be another tentacle of the same thing, but now those forks have an actual goal.
Words: FAIL.
I bought a new mattress! It will be delivered tomorrow. Hopefully I will not regret spending $800 instead of $4000 (or instead of $0).
Played: Zoomwarts. Apparently I have forgotten how to GM.
Read: Not Even Bones (Rebecca Shaeffer): Another recommendation from Iron Widow, but this one is even darker. The main character has spent most of her life dissecting dead supernatural creatures her mom brings home into parts for sale on the black market, but then her mom brings home a live one and everything goes to hell. Cannibalism, torture, murder, slavery, difficult moral decisions, monsters both human and otherwise. Not recommended for anyone prone to nightmares.
Read: Mage-Commander (Glynn Stewart): 11(?)th of the missiles-in-space-but-with-magic series. Not a lot of interesting new material, and the major threat is still completely offscreen and unknown to most of the characters while they deal with threats on their own level.
Words: Check.
Played: Eclipse Phase 2. We ran out of pictionary, so finally it was time for Meathab and the cultists and the second-order cultists and a lot of whiskey and also hall lizards. The other instance of my character seems to be handling the memetic virus responsibly, but is there actually any way to be responsible with such a thing? A question for next session. Kelsey has abandoned us, though, because Eclipse Phase isn’t doing it for her. Which is sad, but it is kind of niche, at least the way we play it. I’m sure other tables have spaceship chases and laser fights every session.
Words: FAIL.
Cleaner showed up early, so I was able to go grocery shopping in the morning instead of halfway through the day, but it was still just grocery shopping. I did, however, while getting Thai lunch, snag the last three packs of Diet Snapple at Bevmo!
We didn’t even try to go over to Ayse and Ken’s place. I don’t even know, man. Between Marith being exploited and abused by her job and Delta everywhere and everything, does life even happen any more?
Played: Zoomwarts. More canon contents, with dementors, but the PCs turned their prisoner over to Dumbledore and got grounded. Also Bella got dumped?! That can’t be right! Why is Heron acting so weird? Is everybody doomed?
Words: Check.
Played: Eclipse Phase 2. We found the confusing NPC and played terrible Pictionary for the fate of the solar system.
Read: Pumpkin (Julie Murphy): Set in the same small Texas town as Dumplin’ a couple of years later (the previous main character appears in a secondary role), a fat, very gay boy is nominated for prom queen and uses the power of drag. Among other life events.
Read: Puddin’ (Julie Murphy): This actually goes in between the other two books, but whatever. Two extremely different girls in the same Texas town somehow become friends despite a lot of everything.
Words: FAIL.
So apparently this is supposed to be called “Patriot Day”, because DHS and TSA and Gauntanamo Bay Torture Facility are all things to celebrate. Do Not Want. Republicans Fuck Right Off.
Despite a general hatred for Americans, I managed to go grocery shopping and stuff, so it’s like a successful Saturday. Still no visiting at Ayse & Ken’s because Nonny didn’t sleep and so everyone is frazzled.
Played: Zoomwarts. I tried to implement some of the doom I made notes on from the movies, but I think people were too unfocused to do anything with it. Maybe next time. Also Bella has apparently dumped her new love interest already.
Words: I found a continuity error dating from a year ago in the kitten words, which destroyed my motivation. I later found out that it didn’t come up until just a couple of months ago, but by then it was too late.
I did not want a three-hour customer meeting on top of the regular Thursday meetings.
Played: Eclipse Phase 2. After a lot of looking up images for Meathab, we actually played the PCs going to the Titanian outback in search of a fleeting network connection and now they are taking to the sea Kraken Mare in a rental boat piloted by someone named Wriggly Sven in search of someone who may be harboring a dangerous memetic virus.
Words: FAIL.
Played: Lancer. This time we had two combats, one against opponents with special powers that went about how it did in Dave’s simulation runs, and then one against a bunch of mooks that went really quickly because a) we all used our daily power, b) they couldn’t roll for beans, and c) we almost never missed. It was still pretty rough, I think the PCs took an average of at least 1 structure damage each, but now they are in control of the printer and can get a full repair. Apparently we are having enough fun that we will force Dave to come up with a second adventure.
Read: Devil’s Candy archives (Rem, Bikkuri): Up through the beginning of chapter 14. I really like this comic, it has a very TFOS vibe.
Words: Check, I guess, kinda.
Urgh. Blagh. Why is morning? And afternoon, for that matter? But I did put grocery shopping, showering, and getting lunch in the right order, even if that was the only success I scored all day.
Played: Zoomwarts. I think I need to set Bella on fire again or something else exciting.
Words: Check. I did more than half a Nanowrimo day!
Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Ken was not ready to run Meathab, so instead the PCs investigated more on Titan even though Kelsey wasn’t around to play Svafa. Then they egocast to Mars (Chi got a swarmanoid morph for Gimel, because no one that cool should have to be humanoid if they don’t want to) and sent Njal poking around the hab next to the hab that went dark, which has apparently become a military problem for the Planetary Consortium. Surely this will all be fine.
Read: You Have Been Judged (Craig Martelle, Michael Anderle): A young prosecutor, having snapped and murdered a scumbag who got acquitted even though she knew through inadmissable telepathic means that he was guilty, is sentenced to get cybered up and fly around the galaxy being judge, jury, and executioner, and otherwise enforce Imperial law without oversight. Neither the empire nor its laws are particularly just, so the whole thing is quite unsympathetic.
Words: FAIL, but at least I made some notes about what to write later.
Wait, September!? What?!
Also, what’s going on with the weather in NY/NJ? That’s ridiculous!
Marith said, “Space pirate school? Isn’t that just Moretsu Pirates?” But I don’t think so, because that was at most Secret Space Pirate After-School Club. I think Space Pirate School would be the less-prestigious rival to the school where scions of Well-Connected Galactic Families go. Also, aliens would be mandatory. So maybe it’s just TFOS? No, Hogwarts in space is different, boarding school instead of suburban American school.
Read: Between Family (WR Gingell): Nine books in, we finally find out some of Pet’s name, a bit about her family, more of her powers (to the brief regret of the boss villain), and then everything goes straight to hell, again. (It looks like Gingell only writes het romance, which is too bad, I was hoping for Morgana x Pet.)
Words: Check.
I slept very incompetently, and then by the time I got up it was about 4000000 degrees out and not even really sunny, hazy and humid and terrible air. I guess I did the two things I really had to get done today (grocery shopping and Zoomwarts), but the day feels like it was completely wasted. I didn’t even manage to create a test user in WordPress, since it wants a unique email address for every user.
Played: Zoomwarts. Finally Bella and Baby Lizard paid off their debt to the mermaid by rescuing her from pirates and possibly murdering the pirates. Also Rosamund’s plan to get a national treasure to push back against the Ministry’s reframing of history went off swimmingly. Umbrellas for all!
Read (browsed?): Barbarous up to the beginning of chapter 6 (Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota): A surly magic school dropout gets a job offer she can’t refuse from a very mysterious landlady and ends up cleaning out haunted apartments, exterminating infestations of ghostly mushrooms, and bonding with her troubled coworker. Then things get weird.
Words: Check, although it seems like so little for an otherwise entirely wasted day.
Played: Eclipse Phase 2. The PCs made it to Titan (not that far) and went drinking with grad students and postdocs, thus learning about the public parts of the project that went bad. Conlangs for the… weirdness.
Read: Fire in the Blood and The First Chill of Autumn (WR Gingell): Dragon x princess vs annoying prince, and then finally the shards of the sword promised in the subtitles are gathered, lives are forged into magic, tragedy ensues but more for the annoying faeries, and even after tragedy, there can be love. Even if it’s all het (I don’t think Gingell writes anything else?)
Words: FAIL.
Played: Lancer. This time we actually played! Skill rolls were made, dissent among the less-enlightened polity was exploited, and mechs slugged it out in the gravityless, low-pressure tunnels of a military base that should have been abandoned. Interrogating the prisoners from that got us information that fulfills our basic mission goal, but there’s a lot more slugging that needs to be done. Like every version of D&D, Lancer invents new terminology for the same concepts and randomly changes things around, but it’s still turn-based tactical combat on a grid. I didn’t find it as annoying as Gloomhaven, at least?
Words: Check.
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.
Coworker k is out sick, but fortunately the customers have calmed down after the past couple of day, so nobody died. Much.
Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Wrapup and XP and Sanity Rez and Lucidity, and now a new problem, this one coming from a distant branch of the glorious constellation that is Chi. But how much trouble can the study of philosophy and linguistics cause?
Read: I’ll Be The One (Lyla Lee): A Korean-American teenagers enters a K-pop reality show competition because fatphobes can DIAF. Sadly, this will take a lot of kindling even though she is very good at singing and dancing and has somewhat supportive friends. There is a ridiculously cute boy and delicious tacos, and also a horrible mother.
Words: FAIL.
On call all day, but the customers did not attack. Since I could not go grocery shopping, I was completely useless all day.
Stayed up too late reading: Shards of Earth (Adrian Tchaikovsky): The elements are not new: immense alien forces that destroy planets, FTL travel that has bad effects on human minds, humans modified to deal with hyperspace, untranslatable aliens, ruins of lost civilizations, etc. But they are well done, and hang together, and the humans are stupid in exactly the ways humans are stupid, and the aliens aren’t random, they obviously have something that works for them, and the various plot elements are connected, and probably will turn out to be even more unified in later books. I stayed up until 3:00 reading it, anyway.
Played: Zoomwarts, still with zoom. Bella and Rosamund both have dates to the holiday party, although Bella might get murdered by Slytherins first.
Words: check.
More customer calls, also my apartment is too sweaty. But at least I don’t have to commute to get here!
Played: Eclipse Phase 2. We successfully retrieved the Maltese Ansible from Goopy the Nope, at the loss of only fork of Njall, and it was a pretty metal way to die. Next session, denouement, and then we have to figure out what to do next.
Read: Between Cases and Between Decisions (WR Gingell): I’m sure everyone except me saw all of that coming, but at least now Pet knows where she stands with regards to a bunch of people, including Past Pet. The next book isn’t out for weeks, though!
Read: My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom vol 4 (Satoru Yamaguchi, Nami Hidaka): The end of the game, but apparently not the end of the manga!
Words: FAIL.
Played: Lancer. Or at least we made characters and mechs, which I think is more complicated than it needs to be. Also we needed either more or less caffeine. Anyway, next fortnight, we can try doing something and then I can hate the system a lot. Binary outcomes, boo.
Words: check.
I was on call all day, so I couldn’t do things like ride the bus to go shopping or visit Ayse and Ken (I mean, technically I could, I have a phone, but it would be superannoying to get called while on the bus). I guess it builds character? That would explain why I managed to make a Lancer character. I couldn’t find a good picture on Pinterest, though. My ability to find things on the Internets is not very great.
Played: Zoomwarts, with actual Zoom. There was lots of drama, but Bella still doesn’t have a date for the party, because she missed her chance! Well, maybe she can convince a boy who already has a date to dump her in favor of Bella.
Words: Check.
Meeting with the new boss3 where I got to give my opinions, meaningless as they are in the face of capitalism. (I mean, she seems perfectly nice, but her job title is three letters beginning with C, so as good labor, I must be skeptical.)
Played: Eclipse Phase 2. Even more body horror plus nanoplagues and unrecoverable victims. The inorganic members of the party have gone back in to try to accomplish the remaining mission objectives, but everything is doomed.
Read: The Witch and the Beast vol 5-6 (Kousuke Satake): A flashback to when Ashaf and Gideau first met (yes, Gideau was worse, impossible as that may be to believe), and then back in the main plotline, they take the elevator to Vampiretown. Sexualized as these vampires may be, Gideau is not impressed.
Read: The Archived (Victoria Schwab): A girl who has spent most of her life training to live a secret life as a ghost hunter in an afterlife of extremely unclear origin, purpose, and functioning discovers that this may not be the best way to live her actual life or solve the mystery or get any of the cute boys to like her.
Words: FAIL.
Jeremy and Rachel have a new small curly dog, who was initially very mistrustful but I won him over by a combination of not eating him and also giving him scritches. Doge victory!
Played: Grand finale of Edie’s D&D game before she and Hazel go off to college and find newer, better gamers instead of ones that tell the same jokes. We defeated the big enemy, did not set the entire world on fire (sorry Tobinel!), and ended on what I’m told is an Agents of SHIELD reference. Maybe we’ll pick back up next summer, but apparently now Dave is going to run Lancer.
Read: Crush (Svetlana Chmakova): Sequel to Awkward and Brave, following the tribulations of yet another 8th-grader seen in previous volumes. This is the one about crushes and romance and dating, but also mostly about friends and jerks and bullying and internet security and not knowing what to do about life.
Words: Check.