Tag: marith

Instead of watching TV, Marith and I went to the mall where Jus volunteers at the cat cafe to have dinner with her family at the traditional greasy buffet, and then back to Monkeycat Towers for cake and presents and dragons and happiness. We got lost a lot, but will not discuss that further. Jus’s presents were mostly creepy dolls, which seems on-brand, but she also got an excellent dragon.

Read (novel): Keepers of the Flesh (Glynn Stewart): Sequel to Seekers in the Void, our questionably heroic officer of the interstellar monopoly has to deal with a more human-derived problem this time, or rather several of them, since there are about three separate arcs in one book. Also, various crimes against humanity and nature.

Written (anything): FAIL. I spent my evening being social and/or lost instead.

Mwah!

Watched (live-action TV): Spider-Noir 1.7: Setup for the final confrontation. “Get me Ben Reilly.”

Read (manga): The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor vol 7 (Anko Yuzu, Sarasa Nagase, Mitsuya Fuji): A bunch of stuff has wrapped up, but a cunning enemy is still out there working against the main character and her now-husband. Gods rarely make any situation better.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 178.

It was tempting to stay in bed forever, but in fact I stayed in bed about the usual amount and then got up to shop and stuff. I even had enough time to catch up this journal through today. It will inevitably fall behind, but at least it’s no longer falling further behind. Yet.

Ayse granted me the boon of leftover pozole. I will eat it for lunch tomorrow.

Watched (anime): Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 1.28: That turned out better for the others than I would have expected. But now, the end of the mage test arc, and of the season. Will we go straight into S2? Maybe, or maybe we’ll watch something. Only Future Us knows.

Watched (anime): Daemons of the Shadow Realm 1.12-13: Oh right, that guy is really nasty. Also between the mass murders and the escapes, the village is going to be completely depopulated by the end of the season.

Read (novel): Lillith of Endings (Dreamer’s Riot): A militant anarchist is isekai’d into the body of a small girl in a fantasy world with classism and sexism sliders set to max, and combines her advanced Earth physics knowledge with magic to become OP and start dealing with the ruling serial-killer class and their monopoly on magic. Because it is Misogyny World, she is threatened with rape at every turn, but is actually only beaten up a lot.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 163.

I did not have to get up earlier than usual this morning, but somehow it didn’t help that much.

Ash from alternate Friday gaming is in town and staying with Ayse and Ken, so I dragged Marith over to watch us eat pozole. Brooks showed up too, but Kelsey had no time and no geography. We talked about many geeky things, and a good time was had by all (except Jus who is still sick). Ash seems pretty swell, but I suppose we have to let her go back to New England eventually.

Reread (short): “A Tall Tail” (Charles Stross): This is one of the things we talked about.

Read (webnovel): Revenge of the Black Princess (DD Webb): The scorned and antisocial teenaged princess of the new empire has to solve problems and make friends with her family and save the day anyway, ugh. Possibly appealing to readers of the “Mage Errant” books.

Read (novel): Wizard with a Greatsword vol 2 (Amelia Crawford): Now the protagonist and her tentacle monster and her friends are pirates! Also there are machinations of the higher-leveled, but whatever. Not enough new worldbuilding.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 157.

I did not do a good job of getting out of bed, but did manage to shop and stuff in time for anime.

Watched (anime): Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 1.27: Third phase of the test, completely anticlimactic. But now they have at least one first-class mage for the trip into the northern doomlands. One episode left in the season!

Watched (anime): Daemons of the Shadow Realm 1.10-11: That poor kid, dropped into the middle of these lunatics. He’s not even crazy enough to fit like Yuru was.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 114, but I had to count it by hand, because my bugfix wasn’t actually a fix.

Did not accomplish very much in the way of work today, although there was definitely work I should have done. Ugh.

Watched (live-action TV): Spider-Noir 1.5: Finally we get some information about what happened in the war and why Reilly isn’t in that picture and what is going on with the supervillains. Also some people make extremely poor decisions. There were supposed to be further seasons, so this one can’t end in maximum tragedy, but I think some tragedy is very likely at this point.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 114.

Too hot. I do not approve.

Watched (live-action TV): Spider Noir 1.4: I guess all it takes is one dame to make the PI be a dumbass. He doesn’t deserve Janet.

Read (manga): Rainbows After Storms vol 6-7 (Luka Kobachi): School trip! First fight! Hot-springs episode! Gay panic! The other woman!

I reread way too much Questionable Content and will probably die.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 137, but also I fixed a bug in my word-counting script, so I get all the words it didn’t count before. No idea how many that is, though. We’ll say it makes up for all the deletions that I feel guilty about counting.

Only slept in a moderate amount, managed to go shopping and read Maidens of the Fall before lapsing into uselessness again.

Watched (anime): Daemons of the Shadow Realm 1.9: Apparently we’re done with the cute daemons for now; it’s time for mythological horrors.

Watched (anime): Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 1.25-26: Conclusion of the second test, with cunning plans and terrifying magic. Also Denken was right, they should all have listened to him.

Read (novel): Your Boyfriend Needs an Exorcist (Justine Pucella Winans): A girl who has become a terrible squirrel-eating ghost accidentally possesses the boy her crush is dating, and everything goes downhill from there. Way, way downhill. With murders.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 246.

Also, some money, or at least canned food.

Watched (live-action TV): Spider Noir 1.3: Well, that was a whirlwind of betrayal and murder! And we still have five episodes to go!

Read (manga): Common-Sense Monster vol 3 (Warugi Wanai, Shinobu Shinotsuki): More murders, including of major characters. The end!

Read (manga): Breasts Are My Favorite Things In The World! vol 1 (Wakame Konbu): Apparently I already read this, but it was five years ago so it’s not that surprising I don’t remember. Contains no socially redeeming value whatsoever.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 275.

Did not visit any skyscrapers today. Did get my apartment cleaned.

Watched (live-action TV): Spider Noir 1.2: I realize it was a different, more freewheeling time, but that’s never been superhero best practices, my dude.

Read (manga): Tearmoon Empire vol 3 (Mizu Morino, Nozomu Mochitsuki, Gilse): Timeloop heroine continues failing her way into undeserved success, and new friends, despite some events from the original continuity trying to happen. I liked the first volume, but I’m not sure this is keeping my interest.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 135.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 was on call today, which did not stop me from going back to bed after logging on. I did eventually get up to try my new shaver (loud!) and go shopping, but then the customers delayed me, and I had to stop shopping and sit on the computer with some other customers for a couple of hours, and it was all somewhat annoying but that’s what I get paid the medium-sized bucks for. And despite everything, I did make it back in time to go to anime.

Watched (anime): Daemons of the Shadow Realm 1.1-2: Mysterious old-timey village! Sudden anachronistic attack! Flee! Flee!

Watched (anime): Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 1.19: Fortunately, Frieren has a cunning plan for this phase of the First-Class Mage Licensing Exam. Unfortunately (for some), it’s kind of like “all those guys kill each other off and we pick up the pieces”.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 207.

Sysadmins can be both gnarly and rad.

Watched (movie): Wake Up, Dead Man: Third Benoit Blanc movie, this time it’s the heretical head priest of a small Catholic church who is murdered, and the new underpriest is the prime suspect. Makes me glad I wasn’t raised Catholic, but a good murder.

Read (graphic novel): The Last Delivery (Evan Dahm): A hapless delivery lizard(?) enters a surreal palace of depravity and confusion in an attempt to complete their mission, meeting many strange creatures and phenomena and much travail. It’s hard being a delivery lizard.

Read (novel): Slouch (Christina Wyman): A seventh-grader has suddenly grown to be a million feet tall and now everyone from family friends to subway creepers feels entitled to comment on her body. Also her parents are so busy supporting her brother’s high-school basketball career that they can’t even bother to make sure she has clothes that fit, let alone take her interest in debate team seriously, and her best friend has a brilliant plan that cannot fail.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 215.

Which I guess is mostly manga, since real art books are usually hardback.

Watched (live-action TV): The Librarians 2.4: The team finds another STEM girl tied up in the monster of the week, but they do not recruit her and she’s not even going to date Cassandra. Boo.

Read (manga): The Ancient Magus’ Bride vol 22 (Kore Yamazaki): I’m not sure what’s going on with the dragon sanctuary plotline, but Chise gets to visit the gorgon village and get involved in a whole bunch more ancient draconic magic, so that’s good.

Read (novel): Band of Others (MH Foster): The retired demon overlord now has two of his old minions working for him, as well as the kids he has accidentally taught to be paladins of neutrality or something, which is probably good because the village is embroiled in a war (that he trigger back in like the second chapter of book 1) and now he’s going to have another supernatural entity hanging around because he cannot catch a break. Probably karma from all those kingdoms he laid waste over several hundred reincarnations.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 210.

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.

Also Perfect Sour Candy Day.

As always, I slept in too much and went shopping, but did not go to anime because Dave is sick.

Watched (live-action TV): The Librarians 2.2: The new villain invades the Library in search of a magical upgrade, but Flynn is still master of the Library. Also Baird made some kind of deal with the minion, because there is exploitable tension there, but we’re not sure exactly what it was.

Read (short): The Price of Meat (KJ Charles): In the middle of alt-C19 London, there is a region where the law does not apply, and the worst of the worst take refuge to plot their criminal plots. Our Heroine has to infiltrate it to repay the coppers for saving her girlfriend from an oubliette for the insane, and it is about as bad as you expect from the title.

Read (graphic novel): The New Girl vol 2 (Cassandra Calin): Now that she has a friend group and is getting better at French, our main character can experience more advanced forms of middle-school suffering, like mean girls and romantic ambiguity and medical misogyny. But she does make it to the end of the school year mostly intact and still cute!

Read (manga): Mii-chan Wants to be Kept vol 1 (Waka Takase): Hapless male MC rescues a cat, who turns out to be a specific kind of werecat and won’t go away even though her being gorgeous and immodest is very upsetting. Unnecessarily heterosexual on multiple levels.

Read (manga): Common-Sense Monster vol 1 (Warugi Wanai, Shinobu Shinotsuki): A social maladjusted highschool girl discovers that her popular classmate is actually an anthropophagous horror in a girl suit and asks her to teach her how to fake being a functional member of society. This doesn’t go quite as badly as it could, since the human girl is cunning and the monster is pretty risk-averse.

Read (game): Picaro! (Wythe Marschall): Allegedly from an unsigned manuscript found tucked into a used RPG book from the 70s, rewritten to the finder’s preferred system because game design in the 70s was… not advanced. I have read too many books from the 70s and earlier that started “dunno how this manuscript made it from Mars to my PO box, but here you go” to believe that, but I guess it’s not actually impossible. Anyway, you play cunning rogues sticking it to the Man on behalf of the people. There is one stat that is both how much the people like you, rolled by the players to get help/equipment for their heists, and how much the authorities hate you, rolled by the GM to add more opposition to their heists. Also, many feats/supernatural powers/spells, that all use a single pool of points that decreases throughout the adventure. I am not sure what I think of games that use that mechanic.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 142. Is this scene really accomplishing any goals, though?

That sounds bad, but really snek is frond.

I accomplished more work than yesterday, possibly because the meeting was cancelled. However, Sunday’s gaming is also cancelled.

Watched (live-action TV): The Librarians 2.1: Introducing the new season villain and his henchman right up front!

Read (graphic novel): The New Girl vol 1 (Cassandra Calin): A Romanian girl moves to Quebec, where she has to attend learning-to-français middle-school and has no friends and her horrible periods have just started and her little brother is learning French faster and also is a git and everything is terrible, at least to start.

Read (from the shelf): FAIL. I read half of a very thick thing, but did not complete anything.

Written (Geometry for Mutants): 235. Something that had been going to happen later fit now, so I put it in. That means I have to come up with something even worse for later, right?

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.