Tag: marith

Thesauruses are great! Splendid! Glorious! Fantastic!

Monday is a holiday, so that’s when I should do my shopping for the week, but I was not able to break free from habit and ended up going and eating a cheesesteak and buying all the first new volumes of the year in a bunch of series I’m following.

Watched: Bungo Stray Dogs 3.3-4: Finished the flashback to how Dazai and Chuuya became partners, and resumed the aftermath of the Guild plotline, with a terrifying new opponent for the Port Mafia and the Armed Detective Agency.

Read (manga): Spy x Family vol 13 (Tatsuya Endo): Aftermath of last volume’s big fight, and then a bunch of stuff in people’s secret identities.

Written: 275.

Ew, who wants to hug boys? They have boy germs!

Watched: Bungo Stray Dogs 3.1-2: How Dazai and Chuuya originally teamed up. (Pretty sure it’s because Dazai’s boss ships them.) Also, shantytown in giant crater caused by superpower disaster, sure, whatever, but what is that thing next to it? They’ve mentioned foreigners, but is that a mistranslation?

Read: Katalepsis vol 1 (Hazel Young): This almost certainly deserved many many entries, since it’s allegedly 2.5 megawords, but I was not smart enough to record it earlier, and now it’s done. With this plot arc, anyway. Our heroine did the thing! It wasn’t easy! But it was amazing and non-Euclidian! The thing itself was not gay, but basically everything along the way was.

Read: Peach Boy Riverside vol 10 (coolkyousinnjya, Johanne): Surely there is no way this can turn out poorly.

Written: 123.

To celebrate, I ordered two hats. One is more outdoorsy, one is more fashiony.

Went for a stupid walk for my stupid mental and physical health, thought dumb things about D&D.

New Year’s fondue was very nice. We didn’t have Vivian, but we did have Earl and Cat, and Marith for a while. We ate cheese fondue, more cheese fondue, and chocolate fondue, searched for the lost art of conversation, and at midnight went out to admire the fireworks. Then we dispersed to our various beds. Friends are nice.

Read: Gamma Draconis (Benoist Simmat, Eldo Yoshimizu): Occult conspiracies across France and Japan, reaching to the highest levels of corporate power. Proper occult, too: it starts with stealing the shewstone of John Dee, so the hermetic secret society can contact intelligences from higher dimensions, etc.

Written: 185.

 

And Hanukkah and some other celebrations, I guess.

Went over to Monkeycat Towers for a delightful Christmas dinner and general friendshipness.It was delightful.

Read: Sirius (Ana C Sánchez): She’s a burned-out tennis star, she’s a rich girl who likes astronomy, together they commit crimes on each other. Well, not exactly, but they meet when Astronomy Girl mugs Tennis Girl. Lots of teen drama, etc.

Written: 212.

Celebrated by Ceil B DeMonkey and Akimori the Ninja Monkey, as well as many others!

Regular Saturday stuff. I didn’t go back to Shake Shack but maybe I should have.

Watched: Deca-Dence 11-12: Climactic kaiju fight! Which is important, but not really what saves the day. The end!

Read: Rainbows After Storms vol 1 (Luka Kobachi): Two high-school girls are dating, but they’re allegedly keeping it a secret. So far none of the other characters have called them on it, but it seems very unlikely no one has noticed them being extremely twitterpated and awkward. Very low-stakes slice-of-life.

Written: 146. I finished the vignette Marith made me write, now I have to write something else.

Seems a little late in the season for pears.

Instead of Togo’s, I went to Shake Shack for lunch on my shopping expedition, because it’s new and people from back East talk about it a lot. It was fine, although they had no Impossible Burgers.

Read: The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor vol 2 (Anko Yuzu, Sarasa Nagase, Mitsuya Fuji): Why yes, all the skill in combat magic and military operations that she gained during her career as a child soldier did come back with her memories, even though her body is only ten. Also something is going on with the gods that she and the Dragon Emperor represent.

Watched: Deca-Dence 8-10:  A brilliant revolutionary plan! An inevitable betrayal! More than one, if you count Pipe. Have they successfully turned the world upside down? Two episodes left to find out!

Written: 176.

I have some suggestions for time travel…

Did all the usual sleeping in, shopping, being super-useless, etc. Only read one manga today despite it being a weekend. Also didn’t do great during commute, so perhaps I should just say it’s one every day, and more if I can manage it. I don’t want reading to be a chore!

Watched: Deca-Dence 5-7: It is so weird seeing the cartoon robot guys doing hard time. It’s still not even clear to me that they have physical form, they might just be chrooted.

Read: I’m In Love With The Villainess vol 7 (Aonoshimo, Inori, Hanagata): Now someone is in love with the main character, possibly due to revolutionary sympathies, which is not what she wanted, but the villainess might be jealous, so that’s progress. Also, our main character stands up to homophobia, so good for her!

Read: Song of the Forever Rains (EJ Mellow): She has scary magic powers and a secret identity, he has an abusive uncle and a dutiful streak, together they have a complicated relationship to crime. I’m not sure if it’s a high-magic world overall, but her childhood mentor has a small cottage on the bridge between the worlds of living and dead, there are remnants of the vanished gods all over, etc. I didn’t mind that it was a het romantasy.

Written: 158

I ate a different (yet still monstrously unhealthy) sandwich at Togo’s, I think that counts.

Also International Games Day and Have a Party With Your Bear Day. Maybe I need to get a bear to help me with game design. “Roll for Salmon.”

Did some shoppings, got some hairs cut, let the cats out to sniff the balcony for a while. Maybe I should get them a tent.

Went over for anime, but did not get to tease Jus about her multiple wives and concubines as she was only there for a moment between social engagements.

Watched: Deca-Dence 2-4: Male lead backstory, training montage, automail upgrade, world game events, etc.

Read: A Sinner of the Deep Sea vol 1 (Akihito Tomi): A punk mermaid’s best friend gets arrested for consorting with a human, political uproar, a quest to enable true love etc.

Read: Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc vol 4 (Sekka Iwata, Yu Aoki): It’s the modern age, so you don’t get richer by expanding your own business, you get richer by licensing your technology and training new characters in it.

Written: 291. Is mean of me to thwart my character’s attempt at playing Mata Hari? (No, she’s 13, she’s lucky she can meet somebody for coffeee without dying.)

Not that we need x-rays any more, American health insurance is megadoses of ivermectin for everything!

Did not go to the office, did a little work, snuggled some cats.

Watched: The Dragon Prince 3.2-4: Intrigue, betrayal, smooching, body horror, doom.

Read: Girl Squad Volta (Maya Lin Wang): A teenaged girl of mysterious background is sure that her taller, more athletic, more driven friend is the one being hunted by interdimensional magical girls. Action ensues, and at the end, one of them is going to interdimensional magical girl school.

Written: 215.

Also World Numbat Day and Practice Being Psychic Day. I, for one, welcome our psychic numbat overlords, especially if they bribe me with deviled eggs.

Sage kept me pinned under the blankets until forever, but finally I managed to wiggle out and feed her and go shopping and stuff. When I got home, I finished journaling the con, so hopefully I can stay more caught up. But mostly, I accomplish nothing.

Watched: Bungo Stray Dogs 25: This was actually an OAV after the end of season 2, which is why it didn’t connect to anything. But now we’re out of BSD.

Watched: Deca-Dence 1: Okay, that’s ridiculous, but no more than many– wait, what?

Read: Wandering Crows (John Lynch): I played this at the con, but of course we didn’t have a chance to read the whole book. 8 1/2 minutes of exposition and then it was time to make characters. That was in fact most of what we needed to know as players, so that was fine, but my uncertainty about Inventory was never really settled, and now I know that it’s very fuzzy. It looks like what’s in your inventory can be used as an excuse to use a different suit than normal for a challenge, but mostly seem to be flavor, which I don’t like. I understand that everything is flavor and only the suits really affect challenges, but meh. I would be happier with narrative permission or something.

Written: 204.

How depressing. Also Dress Like A Dork Day, which is also ouch.

I had an unsatisfactory cheeseburger the other day that was cold from being DoorDashed, so I got a fresh one from the same place while I was shopping, but it was also not that satisfactory (thought much warmer). I dunno, man, it seems like cheeseburgers should always be good. Maybe I’m experiencing them wrong.

Also unsatisfactory, although in a different way: continued my habit of buying more manga than I read in a week, leading to shelf shortages at home.

When we went over to watch anime, Jus and her friend A(?) were all dressed up because they were going to Homecoming together, like real high-schoolers who are old enough to wear cleavage dresses. What is up with that?

Watched: Bungo Stray Dogs 22-24: End of the Guild arc! Tiger and Rashoumon are now frenemies instead of just plain enemies. There’s one more episode in the season, and then apparently next season there’s even bigger doom.

Written: 223.

Or National Feral Cat Day, and Sage and Nightvale are rescues, so they count! But they are sweeties now.

Went to the office which was excessively full of people, ate some tacos, did a customer call and some other work.

Marith has made some samples of laminated handouts for the con games, which look like they will do nicely. If I were actually competent, I would do graphics stuff to fit them on fewer pages and stuff, but I’m not.

Read: Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End vol 9 (Kanehito Yamada, Tsukasa Abe): Characters from the mage test are already recurring, as are enemies from Frieren’s past. And doom.

Read: Delicious in Dungeon vol 3 (Ryoko Kui): Deeper into the dungeon means more monsters to eat and more fellow adventurers to regard with caution and drama.

Written: 213. I didn’t finish any books like Kit and other pocket fronds, but I did make my MC suffer.

Because Columbus is deservedly in the Bad Place.

Read: Komi Can’t Communicate vol 31 (Tomohito Oda): Some romance with a date that went poorly, not as much goofy stuff, Komi wants to study Making Friends at college.

Watched: The Dragon Prince 2.9-3.1: Rewatch, because we didn’t remember what was going on. Not sure if we’ll keep going from here to skip ahead until we get to new stuff.

Written: 303.

Also National Badger Day. Not sure whether that includes honey badgers, but they don’t care.

Marith wanted to bowl, so I rushed to the gooshyfood store and back to make sure I would not repurposed as cat food later in the week, and made it back in plenty of time to win at bowling (I was the only one to break 100) and steal Nonny’s fries. Then we went back to Monkeycat Towers to eat Thai food (mostly pad thai, since after all it is National Noodle Day) and watch Everything Everywhere All At Once, which is pretty much Marith’s favorite movie ever and one she hopes everybody will appreciate as much as her. I’m not sure that’s humanly possible, but it was well-received and gave Jus many feels. After the movie, we played the old party game of Sardines, but it was too spooky with the lights out and too easy with the lights on so eventually we stopped. I never found anybody, because Sardines is not as easy as bowling.

Written: 202.

Cephalopod is aware of you!

Also World Teacher’s Day and World Storytelling Day.

Today was first signups for Big Bad Con events. The first two signups for everybody allegedly went live at noon, so I slept in instead of trying to rush to do shopping and get home. I was ready at noon, but as seems to happen every year, the database would not work for several hours, and I didn’t get to go shopping until late afternoon. I did eventually get signed up for a session of Ryuutama and a session of the Kill 6 Billion Demons RPG, and then made it to the store and back in time to go to anime. Barely. It was not my preferred way to spend an afternoon, even if I did get a bunch of crafting done in Shop Titans.

Watched: Bungo Stray Dogs 18-21: More three-sided conflict among Port Mafia, Obnoxious Americans, and the heroes.

Read: ShipCore 3.0 (Erios909): The protagonist and her best friend make it to civilization, not entirely in one piece, and it becomes a lot more apparent why people don’t like AIs to run around doing their own thing. Even the AIs that are part of the power structure are kind of awful, although possibly redeemable with the power of smooches.

Written: 217.

Soon she’ll be driving, but I can still remember when she couldn’t even walk!

We took her to sushi, then went to her place to meet one of her wives (apparently she has two, along with a mistress and maybe some concubines, because she is secretly the Empress of China) and feed her cake and watch her open presents. Marith and I were privileged to view Nonny’s collection of mysterious Roblox auras. A good time was had by all, especially the new Ms 15!

Read: The Invisible Man & His Soon-to-Be Wife vol 4 (Iwatobineko): Kissing?! KISSING?! After only four volumes?!

Written: 119.

Around here, every day is gibberish day in one form or another!

Watched: Murder Drones 6-8: The end! I still have very little idea what was going on, but we did get to see Uzi’s mom (kind of).

Read: Beyond the Reach of Earth (Ken MacLeod): Oh, that’s what the deal with the alien artifacts is. The third book should be exciting.

Written: 167

Also National Eat a Hoagie Day, which I did.

Played a little Minecraft after failing to do anything for weeks, checked out Marith’s base which is a maze of lava and villagers and art and now fish, still not sure what if anything I want to do next. I could build another thing now that Dave has told me how to make copper bulbs light up. Marith offered to let me build it in her Cavern of Wonders, but it might actually belong on  top of the ridge of cherry trees. I could try the trial chamber that Ayse and Dave found, but I’m pretty sure that I would just die instantly with my basic enchanted diamond gear and no skillz.

Ayse has been doing lots of writing, because she is smart and talented and her brain has the basic functionality of doing things, which mine doesn’t. Good for her!

Watched: Bungo Stray Dogs 13-14: Extended flashback to when Dazai was a Port Mafia bigwig. Unsurprisingly, this looks like it’s going to end poorly.

Nightvale might have made a small miau? It would be noisy, yet adorable, if he learned that from Sage.

Written: 172, for all that’s worth (which is nothing).

 

Another day that should be every day.

Watched: Dead Boy Detectives 1.8: FInal showdown with the biggest villain! Or at least the most antagonistic, the Night Nurse might technically be bigger, and her supervisor definitely is, but they’re also more reasonable. The end! Everything is good for another season, but I guess Neil Gaiman is cancelled for being a sex creep, so apparently there won’t be one. (This is why men should never be allowed to be involved in anything ever.)

Read: ShipCore (Erios909): I don’t think it’s technically litRPG, even though it has large blocks of robotic text in square brackets. Also no magic, unless you count forcefields and FTL travel and dubious nanotech. However, there are also no male main characters.

Read: Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc vol 3 (Sekka Iwata, Yu Aoki): Magical girl magitech convention, which you would think would be the best place for a monster attack, but it does take some work to save the day. Also possibly there’s a plot.

Written: 140. I came up with a name, which might not be the most nominatively-deterministic, but that’s okay. People just have names sometimes, even in the superhero genre.

Also Ken Day (Observed) but he doesn’t like people to make a big deal of it. We went over to help him watch MST3K, though.

Watched: MST3K: Space Mutiny. Mutiny on a generation ship is a simple concept that should be doable even in the 80s, so how did they make it so bad? Even in South Africa? The frame story was pretty nonsensical too. Because MST3K.

Written: 242.

I presume that’s for the US, and every day in Germany is Bratwurst Tag, but maybe they don’t eat bratwursts anymore and it’s a weird historical holdover for Americans. Anyway, I ate all the bratwursts I had a while ago and haven’t bought any more, but they sound really good right now.

Watched: Dead Boy Detectives 1.6-7: I guess when an escape from literal Hell is placed on the mantelpiece in the first episode…

Read: Cosmoknights vol 1 (Hannah Templer): Powered-armor knights “joust” (it’s a melee) to win the hands of space princesses for their sponsors, because patriarchy and classism. A young mechanic who lost her princess years ago runs into some queer ladies who recognize this system as bullshit and adventure ensues. If only they all had the same idea of what to do about the problem…

Read: Fight Me (Austin Grossman): Not directly related to Soon I Will Be Invincible, but a similar superhero universe. A superhero team is assembled from teenagers who got powers and did crimes, drama happens, many years after they have fallen apart and separately retired/gone into hiding/moved to another continent and changed their names, events pull them back together and further drama ensues. It is very much about how being a superhero doesn’t help you get your life together, entirely the opposite.

Read: I Can’t Say No to the Lonely Girl vol 1 (Kashikaze): A good student is extorted into getting an absentee student to come to school, the absentee student agrees to attend and study in exchange for kisses and possibly other wishes to be granted later, good student doesn’t know what to make of this. It is not a ground-breaking concept even in the smaller world of yuri manga, I’m sure, but I like it anyway.

Written: 205.

But do ebooks count? Iconoclasm and heresy!

Marith got us Chinese food.

Watched: Dead Boy Detectives 1.5: Poor Jenny. Poor Niko. Poor Charles. No new boy for Edwin, but a cliffhanger about boys.

Read: The Mercy of Gods (James SA Corey): A human colony so lost they don’t even really know they’re a colony is conquered and octomated by surprise aliens and their best and brightest carried off to slavery among alien creatures and alien worldviews. The aliens are pretty alien, as well as extremely inhumane, but the second-rate academic who is the main viewpoint character is starting to figure them out by the end of the first book. Presumably the second book will turn everything upside down, although I’m pretty sure the great enemy will turn out to be [SPOILER].

Read: The Dead Cat Tail Assassins (P Djeli Clark): Deranged cult assassins, missing memories, mysterious girls, undead monstrosities, serial killers, a city-wide party, and [SPOILER]. And snark.

Written: 134.

Hi Jus!

Still testing negative, although I actually started too early so I should test a couple more times before declaring victory.

Successfully did some shopping, played some Minecraft (blazes suck), visited people for anime and conversation and hugs.

Watched: Bungou Stray Dogs 1.7-9: That’s a very strange condition for a power. How did they even find out about it?

Written: 101.

Dinosaurs are the best. Even ones I am not currently eating.

Read: Let’s Do It Already! vol 1 (Aki Kusaka): Not nearly as raunchy as it sounds. She’s a normal modern girl who wants to smooch her boyfriend, he’s the scion of an extremely old-fashioned and rule-bound political family and possibly on the spectrum, their story is not that interesting.

Read: Exes & Foes (Amanda Woody): They used to be best friends until they had a falling-out, they both have terrible parent problems (although hers are definitely worse), now they’re in high school and have both fallen for the new girl. Drama ensues. So much drama. Their friends are very long-suffering.

Watched: Dead Boy Detectives 4: Even-numbered episode, no new boys for Edwin. And sadly, although killing a psychopomp may be gratifying in the moment, it’s not likely to stick.

Written: Exactly 100 of poking at individual sentences, but I think I need to throw all this away and go off in a different direction.

I don’t seem to like chicken fingers (strips, tenders, whatever) anymore. It is very sad.

Did several shops today, so the cats can continue to feast upon gooshyfoods. Also did some more landscaping and copper-oxidizing and whatnot in Minecraft.

Read: United Fleet (Sean Fenian): More improbably-successful wish-fulfillment with alien shipyard and asking people to be reasonable.

Written: 149.

Wow, it’s been a long time. It’s also National Intern Day, so obviously I need an intern to make me a hot fudge sundae!

Did go into the office today, ate a spicy burger, did hardly any work, did remain masked around humans and their virus-filled faceholes.

Watched: Dead Boy Detectives 3: Edwin’s closet full of milkshakes brings approximately 2/3 of a boy to the yard per episode.

Read: Kaina of the Great Snow Sea vol 1 (Tsutomu Nihei, Itoe Takemoto): Tsutomo Nihei far-future megastructures, this time an atmosphere canopy anchored by giant tentacle-trees. Young man in the last village atop the canopy is surprised to discover there are people on the surface, etc. Not sure what the snow sea is made of that doesn’t automatically solve a water shortage, but I’m sure all will be revealed in due course.

Read: No Man Left Behind (WR Gingell): The actual conclusion, in which many surprising events occur. Some of them are perhaps more surprising to the characters than the reader, being heartwarming when Athelas has given up on his heart.

Read: The Moon on a Rainy Night vol 4 (Kuzushiro): This volume is more about deafness than romance, but they are still adorable.

Read: “The Year Without Sunshine” (Naomi Kritzer): Ordinary working-class people coming together during a near-future climate disaster. It’s the wealthy professionals that go all Mad Max.

Read: “One Man’s Treasure” (Sarah Pinsker): Even when there’s actual magic, rich people abuse it and leave huge messes for poor people to clean up.

Written: 305, some fiction and some adventure notes. After reading an actual Perils & Princesses adventure, I realized I need a doom counter and some wrinkle tables.

On the one hand, I feel like this should be a global holiday, and on the other hand, what impact has it had? Humans still suck.

Managed to get up and go shopping not too late, so I could do the other shopping I failed at last weekend and still be at home to sit in front of a fan and go blblblblblblbl. Played a little Minecraft, but the lag was awful so I logged out again.

Watched: Bungo Stray Dogs 4-6: Murder! More murder! Weirdos! More weirdos! Occasional bits of serious plot in between the comedy!

Written: 170. How does writing work? Not like this, apparently.

I am so bad at this. Have I ever made a friend in my life? How?

Watched: Dead Boy Detectives 1-2: The dead boys are very dumb, but at least their living sidekick is a little better. Also the exposition is clunky, but whatever. It’s a cute show.

Read: The Ancient Magus’ Bride: Wizard’s Blue vol 5-6 (Makoto Sanda, Isuo Tsukumo): The war is kicking off, excellent time for a multi-chapter flashback to Ao’s past, which I don’t think we were previously very aware was mysterious. But it is!

Written: 256.

Technically I was on call today, but only as backup in case the weekend shift (we have that now!) ran into something they couldn’t handle, but they didn’t, so I guess I’m fairly gruntled. I was much less gruntled with my whole endealment yesterday and the day before.

I felt a little queasy so instead of getting a big wad of pastrami and sauerkraut, I had a normal roast beef sandwich while doing my shopping and it worked very well. Good job, me.

I did a little landscaping in Minecraft. A diamond shovel with Efficiency 5 just tears through hills, but it also tears through bees that wander into the line of fire, so I had to take a break to go recruit some bees from another hive and breed them up and stuff. Still haven’t managed to set up a flat place for aging copper.

Shoulders still sore, weather still hotter than I would prefer, but embodied existence not much more unpleasant than usual today.

Holy crap, what happened to Republicans thinking “gun control means being able to hit your target”?

Watched: Bungo Stray Dogs 1-3. I have seen some episodes of this, but did not remember the way [SPOILER] walks in and goes “nice comedy show you got here, let me BLOODILY DISMEMBER it”.

Read: No Man’s Land (Elliott Kay): My reading list says I read all previous books in this series, but I don’t remember any of the new alien threat events that this book follows on from. I was able to figure out what was going on well enough that I didn’t feel a need to immediately go back and reread, although I may at some point. Also, I hadn’t remembered that main character’s original job in his local armed forces was specifically preventing war crimes, but there need to be more people on that duty. Also also, extremely worrying details about aliens. I feel like the humans are not scared enough of the Krokinthians, never mind some of the new guys.

Read: Buck the Halls (Zoe Chant): I thought I had read all of Kit’s “Virtue Shifters” novellas except the latest, but no! I had somehow not read this one! I really liked it, because Inner Stag! Tragic Antlers Incident! Additional, Possibly Even More Tragic Antlers Incident! Also no sex and I didn’t miss it, so I must be old now. (Narrator: What does he mean “now”?)

Written: 368, somehow. I guess it’s easy to write a 13-year-old being dramatically depressed?

I need to get some paper bags to put books into for taking to the used book store. Maybe Marith can steal some for me.

Lying with my head on a pillow kind of worked for sleeping, but not very well. I had to take the morning off to recuperate, but my upper torso is feeling a lot better, so I was able to actually do so, and then work in the afternoon. Also, none of us have to stay late on Fridays any more under the new system.

Watched: The Ancient Magus’ Bride 2.24: A little bit of climax, mostly denouement (spellcheck thinks I got that word right on the first try, go me). This is where the latest English volume of the manga ends, so we’re completely in sync and left waiting for more to be translated.

Read: The Witches’ Marriage vol 3 (Studio Headline): Surprisingly, the end! The challenges Melissa and Tanya face in this volume are the Final Trials, and to nobody’s surprise they manage to open the gates by acknowledging their true feelings and enter paradise.

Written: 134.