Tag: marith

Hi Ken!

Went to the office, some coworkers were there, ate samosas and saved my chicken biriyani for later, tried to straighten things up for vacation.

Watched (live-action TV): Leverage 4.15-16: the one where they help a rich guy, and the one where Hardison tries to be the mastermind. Only two episodes left in the season, so the guy who shows up at the end is probably going to be important for the finale.

Read (RPG): Under Hollow Hills (Meguey Baker, Vincent Baker): You are a fairy circus that travels around performing and getting involved in fairy shenanigans. Pretty much the opposite of Apocalypse World tonally, yet still very PbtA. Shifting toward Summer or Winter, planning shows, ensuring there’s always someone who doesn’t want you there, attending your own funeral, all the important fairy tropes are covered, in a way that’s generic enough to let players come up with their own ideas of fairy but evocative enough to always be Fairy.

Read (novel): The Devils (Joe Abercrombie): In an alternate Europe full of anthropophagous elves, murder, religious schisms, murder, various forms of holy and unholy sorcery, murder, etc, an extremely hapless monk is given command of a band of monstrous criminals and sent to deliver the lost princess of Troy to her throne. It’s Abercrombie, so it’s the darkest and murderiest of comedy, but surprisingly for alternate-historical grimness, I don’t think there’s any sexual violence. Stayed up way too late finishing it.

Written (catgirl): 171.

Why yes, every aspect of the world is completely fucked up.

Watched (live-action TV): Murderbot 1-2: Surprisingly, I didn’t hate it! Sure, the main casting was Wrong, but at least it was a real actor who could be misanthropic, and everybody else was fine. The changes were appropriate for the medium, the Murderbot voiceover wasn’t terrible, the Preservation crew were weird space hippies with ethics and feelings instead of profit motive, etc. Worth signing up for a free trial of AppleTV for.

Written (catgirl): 250 exactly.

One of two, and that’s not counting Velociraptor Awareness Day.

Went to the office, spaced out during a long all-hands meeting, ate some rice and vegetables and meat, put up with Coworker R being a libertarian and also engaging in the British national sport of complaining (I have no moral high ground here), closed some cases.

I complained on slack about being ditched for the journey to and from Roseville, so now everybody there can hate me too. They’re right that I could at least look for a taxi if I hate both gig economy and people doing things for me, though.

Watched (live-action TV): Leverage 4.14: While the girls were out righting a wrong at a fancy party, the boys were getting into some kind of mobster trouble with an idiot.

Read (novel): Emberstone Farm vol 2 (L Meili): More OP-ness, world events that are alarming to people who think they live in reality, system usage that’s alarming to people who think they live in reality, extremely off-screen sex, nothing like an actual problem for the MC.

Read (manga): Assorted Entanglements vol 2 (Mikanuji): Apparently it’s been two years since I read volume 1, so I don’t remember if any of these are the same characters, but they’re all super gay and somewhat ridiculous anyway.

Written (catgirl): 202.

Yep, there it is! Still not a velociraptor.

I used the Miracle of the Wheel to take four whole bags of books to the used book store this time, and also set out at a more auspicious hour, so I was able to get everything sorted and go shopping and get lunch without dying despite the busses being all messed up due to some kind of running cult observance.

Watched (anime): Delicious in Dungeon 15-16: More monsters, more oppression for Marcille, but also the return of Falin’s admirer and his ninja ladies, and a glimpse of the new, improved Falin.

Read (short): “Lady Antheia’s Guide to Horticultural Warfare” (Seanan McGuire): Looked this up to tell someone who had read Overgrowth, ended up rereading it. Changing the setting to modern for the longer, more serious, version was probably the right choice, but that means no ray guns.

Written (catgirl): 298. Hey, that’s more than 250!

Because fuck Nazis, that’s why.

Went to the office, only Coworker T was there, ate a Thai(?) ground pork and rice thing, did some work.

Watched (live-action TV): Leverage 4.13: Everyone attempts to have a night off, but Parker, Sophie, and Tara find a leverage job. As always, nobody can get anything done without Hardison, but the other boys are pretty useless.

Read (graphic novel): Fangirl vol 3 (Rainbow Rowell, Gabi Nam): Boy trouble, writing trouble, sister trouble, parent trouble.

Written (catgirl): 169.

Also Hug a Friend Day, National Pretzel Day, National Veterinary Day, and of course Independent Bookstore Day. Sadly, there was nothing I wanted at the bookstore this week, but there has been before and will be again.

Watched (anime): Delicious in Dungeon 12-14: Quest complete! Story’s finished, right? …oh. Also, flashback to Kabru and his followers.

Read (nothing): Nothing, but I have made a huge dent in my physical TBR pile and didn’t buy anything new today, so I’m probably fine.

Written (catgirl): 171, some of it even story and not just notes.

All hail Emperor Maximilian XXIX of the Northern Shores!

But no parades for my digestive tract, which apparently was working up to being really gross and causing me to sit on the toilet in the middle of the night so I could faint onto the floor and break the litter box and scrape up my face and bang my tooth, and also sleep poorly. I stayed in bed until later in the morning, but eventually it seemed like I was enough of a hollow husk of a body to get up and log in to work. I accomplished several tasks, even.

Marith claimed the mysterious shoes, so that’s good.

Watched (live-action TV): Leverage 4.12: That was a very silly episode. Maybe Nate should put more work into not being a jerk and less into speaking Football.

Read (anthology): Duties (Moe Lane): Another four-story collection, with a robot who won’t shut up about how gross meatbags are, a dryad, the secret base where the US government sends everything that you might naively assumed would go to the warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and a frog.

Read (manga): Avant-Garde Yumeko (Shuzo Oshimi): Yumeko doesn’t want to sleep with anybody, she just wants to know what dicks look like. Then it gets weird. Contains actual pictures of dicks, which I was really not expecting. So many dicks.

Written (catgirl): 119, still notes. I should probably stop futzing around and write something for real.

Er, I mean Easter.

Coworker N is still on vacation, so I had to work 7-13:00. Bah, early! But there wasn’t too much work to do, and the next person logged in punctually, so I was able to trundle down to Monkeycat Towers have Easter dinner with friends and search for the lost art of conversation. It was also very nice, although I feel bad for not being cool or doing things.

Read (manga): Dandadan vol 12 (Yukinobu Tatsu): Alien invasion! Astral travel! It’s pretty much the next part of what was going on in vol 11.

Read (anthology): Revisionary: Four Tales of the Mythos (Moe Lane):More or less the Cthulhu Mythos, anyway. Four stories of terrible things that happen to those who mess with things beyond human ken (cursed books, death-world monsters, interdimensional visitors, New England, etc).

Written (catgirl): 143 more of worldbuilding notes.

Also Garlic Bicycle Day.

Slept in too much, but made the bus to shopping with about one minute to spare. Also gave a little old lady directions.

In the afternoon, I was functional enough to go over to Monkeycat Towers to help dye eggs and clean out leftover adobo. It was very nice, because friends are good.

Watched (anime): Delicious in Dungeon 10-11: Finally, the red dragon!

Read (manga): Reincarnated as a Sword vol 1 (Yuu Tanaka, Tomowo Maruyama, Llo): A random schmoe isekai’d into a magic sword and an orphaned 12-year-old catgirl team up to be highly OP in a generic litRPG world.

Read (novel): Castaways (Craig Schaefer): Teenagers in magic school, in the same setting as the Daniel Faust etc books. Kids who don’t have any better options get sucked into another dimension and enrolled in a magic school that even they can tell is not a shining example of the genre. Bullying, dangerous magic, hardass teacher, reformed serial killer teacher, dangerous wildlife, going off-campus once a year to shop, all the standard tropes. Also interdimensional zwilniks and girl-smooches.

Written (catgirl): 107. This trend is in the wrong direction.

It is very important to be aware of velociraptors!

Watched (live-action TV): Leverage 4.11: Parker seems a little too into that role, although Hardison’s not complaining. Also, I’m not sure that’s a fight Nate should have picked for them, but on the other hand, fuck all those guys.

Read (manga): Nightfall Travellers vol 2 (Tomohi): More exploration of hills and shrines and other spooky places. Maybe it’s actually the other girl who will turn out to be a ghost?

Written (catgirl): 109 of notes.

Musk is doing his best to make it suck, but his shitshow is transient.

Once again slept until 1030, then got up and did some shopping.

Ken gave us delicious chicken adobo (probably not cockatrice), and we talked to Ayse about kitchen history because Dave was surprised at the lack of kitchens in Ptolus apartments. It was a nice visit.

Watched (anime): Delicious in Dungeon 8-9: The undine, and the gnomes and Nomari. So far this seems to be following the manga pretty closely.

Read (manga): Asumi-chan is Interested in Lesbian Brothels! vol 2 (Kuro Ituski): A near-miss with meeting the girl she’s looking for, so she has to have a threesome and cosplay instead. Still completely lacking in redeeming social value.

Written (catgirl): 437 more of worldbuilding notes, but mostly lists of names.

I have some of those! Victory!

Watched (live-action TV): Leverage 4.9-10: The one where they have to save the day with only an airport as resources and the one where Sterling talks them into stealing a technobabble from a chess tournament.

Read (manga): Leviathan vol 1 (Shiro Kuroi): Scavengers investigate a derelict spaceship while reading the journal of one of the schoolkids who descended right into savagery when the ship was damaged.

Written (catgirl): 234 of worldbuilding notes.

If only! We could use a nice alien conquest about now.

Slept in as usual but instead of grocery shopping, I went to the rally downtown because seriously, fuck all those motherfuckers. The crowd was pretty old overall, but there were a few youngsters, so perhaps there is hope for the future. I tried leaving my phone behind, not because I expected trouble today, but to see if it worked, and yeah, it was fine. I think I was the only one who did, though.

Ayse is back from her expedition to Nashville, with bonus tornadoes. Er, stories of tornadoes, she did not bring any actual tornadoes.

Watched (anime): Delicious in Dungeon 6-7: The one where they eat a mimic, and the one where they eat a kraken.

Read (manga): After God vol 2 (Sumi Eno): Less bizarre than the volume that introduced the weird elements, as is inevitable, but more gods and people getting massacred unexpectedly and even more gods and creepy powers and creepy people.

Written (catgirl): 157.

Went to the office, ate a Mediterranean-salmon burrito thing, did some work.

Watched (live-action TV): Leverage 4.8: Conning the Mako.

Read (manga): Go With the Clouds North-by-Northwest vol 1 (Aki Irie): A Japanese teenager in Iceland, using his secret psychometry powers to do detective work while his grandpa picks up on the ladies. Lots of Icelandic scenery, people who make the MC’s life difficult, family trouble. By the same mangaka as Ran and the Gray World.

Read (novel): The City That Would Eat the World (John Bierce): In a world where everything runs on the very specific blessings of myriad gods, a god appeared who slowed aging for members of the city watch as long as they were on the walls. A few centuries later, everyone is officially part of the guard and the entire city is walls (except the interstices where the underclass labor and age, but that’s not important) and doing its best to cover the whole world. A disillusioned citizen and an outsider whose home was destroyed by the city’s extractive industries and general capitalist shittiness get stuck taking a god to the West Pole through this bizarre world full of corrupt societies, and doing their best to not suck along the way. There’s a lot of exposition because it’s a very different world, and the main characters are unfortunately straight, but people resisting capitalism is always good.

Written (catgirl): 122.

I wrote a little about mermaids before I even knew what day it was.

The busses are back since a court ordered the union to stop striking, so I was lazy about shopping.

Went to watch anime and get Ayse hugs but she was not there! She is in Nashville with her friend.

Watched (anime): Delicious in Dungeon 4-5: The one where orcs murder everybody, but they like Senshi.

Read (manga): The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor vol 3 (Anko Yuzu, Sarasa Nagase, Mitsuya Fuji): FIXME The conclusion of the skulduggery at the port, we find out more about the divine conflict, Jill kicks ass.

Written (catgirl): 212.

Didn’t go to the office today, because Marith and I had to go see Jus in Footloose! I knew many of the songs, but had no idea they were from this show or anything about the plot. Yay Jus!

Read (manga): Sasaki and Peeps vol 1 (Buncololi, Pureji Osho, Kantoku): A salaryman decides to get a pet, but the bird he picks out at the pet store is actually a wizard from fantasy world. So far, mostly about interdimensional commerce, but apparently a bunch of female characters are going to show up. Not sure if it’s going to be a harem manga or what.

Written (game design): 170. My ideas for melee combat don’t quite work for sniping or spellcasting, ugh.

D’oh, I completely forgot!

Randomly took the day off work, since I was owed a day from working on President Day. Meant to get up and listen in on Friday morning training anyway, but completely failed and ended up sleeping in until I felt bad about not feeding the cats. Then I was moving so I fed myself with Pakistani-Indian Fusion Cuisine, spicy chicken qorma and less-spicy samosas and butter garlic sesame-seed naan. It might have been sufficiently celebratory.

I could possibly have done something useful, but mostly I cleaned up browser tabs, quite a few of which were short stories I had been meaning to read. Watched some TV with Marith, who is sick as well as having no computer. Probably I didn’t catch her cold. I hope my computer didn’t catch anything either.

Watched (live-action TV): Leverage 4.7: The one with shady funeral home family, where Parker has an honest-to-something feeling.

Read (manga): In/Spectre vol 19 (Kyo Shirodaira, Chashiba Katase): A bunch of one-chapter stories. Kuro tried to star in one, Rikka played a horrible prank, assorted yōkai caused trouble.

Read (short): “Victory Citrus is Sweet” (Thoraiya Dyer): A spacer who is actually kind of a jerk gets himself and his apprentice in trouble by cutting corners to show somebody up.

Read (short): “Welcome to the Medical Clinic at the Interplanetary Relay Station | Hours Since the Last Patient Death: 0” (Caroline M Yoachim): A future in which the current American medical system is still in place. Story in the form of a choose-your-own-adventure.

Read (short): “When the Yogurt Took Over: A Short Story” (John Scalzi): Definitely a different spin on the “enough computers together form a mind” trope.

Read (short): “Transcript of Interaction Between Astronaut Mike Scudderman and the OnStar Hands-Free A.I. Crash Advisor” (Grady Hendrix): Did you want your AI to be useful? Sorry, your timeline stems from the Trump-Musk presidency, you only get a chatbot.

Read (short): “Wikihistory” (Desmond Warzel): Everybody who gets access to time travel does it, then some long-suffering admin has to revert their changes.

Read (short): “In the Forests of Memory” (E Lily Yu): A sad story about an old lady in a cemetery of holographic grave markers, living off the offerings.

Read (short): “Presence” (Ken Liu): A sad story about an emigrant visiting his dying mother in the old country via telepresence.

Read (short): “The Thief of Memory” (Sunyi Dean): What is identity but memory? Also not a happy story, although you can’t blame a desparate teenager for making a rookie mistake.

Read (short): “The Dark House” (AC Wise): A haunted house, a haunted photographer, haunted photographs.

Written (game design): 136.

Does maniacal cackling count?

Went to the office, had the room to myself, ate a Mediterranean chicken burrito, did a little work. Probably didn’t hydrate enough.

Watched (live-action): Leverage 4.6: Elliot saves a small girl from a carnival.

Read (novel): Stars, Hide Your Fires (Jessica Best): A small-time crook from a crapsack world infiltrates an upper-crust ball to pick pockets, but although she meets a cute girl, the upper crust has problems of its own. Very Star Wars setting: blasters and spaceships, but social structures including security procedures are stuck in Three Musketeers era at best.

Read (manga): In/Spectre vol 17 (Kyo Shirodaira, Chashiba Katase): A different yuki-onna mystery, with extra historical sword school shenanigans.

Written (game design): 104.

Also Buzzard Day (hi jill).

Busses still not running (just give the workers a fair contract already, management!) so I had to walk to shopping. It was okay, but on the way back, carrying bags in my hands was a pain. I don’t have a large backpack and wouldn’t want to carry refrigerated food for an hour without the insulated bag, so I guess I’ll try the miracle of the wheel next week.

My favorite web serial Katalepsis is back, so I was able to read the new chapter over sandwich as had become my habit. Go [NEW CHARACTER]!

Watched (anime): Delicious in Dungeon 2-3: Ah, the living armor. And it’s getting past the picking-on-Marcille-all-the-time phase, which is good.

Read (novel): The Tomb of Dragons (Katherine Addison): Third (and final?) book about the sad gay necromancer detective in the world of The Goblin Emperor. Perhaps he is less sad, now!

Read (manga): Creepy Cat vol 4 (Cotton Valent): Final volume! We find out where Creepy Cat and the Creepy Cats are from and what is up with all that. The end!

Written (catgirl): 128.

Or Pie Day, depending who you ask.

Had another multi-hour customer call, but my suggestion in hour 1 turned out to be the solution as soon as I stepped into the other room during hour 5.

Watched (animated TV): The Dragon Prince 3.8-9: The final battle! Not very well-commanded on either side, but that’s it for the season, and a hook for next season.

Read (novel): Installment Immortality (Seanan McGuire): Another one from the perspective of the babysitter ghost, still fighting the Covenant with all her new restrictions now that she serves a proper god and not the Crossroads. Finally she gets to interact with normal ghosts, which come in a great variety, because this series is all about taxonomy.

Read (manga): Pandora Seven vol 1 (Yuta Kayashima): The only human on a remote island is thrust into adventure when other humans show up to get the power hidden there and it activates and attaches to the heroine. Flying ships, mechanical forests, unethical biotech witches, and human dominance over the other sapient species by means of prophecy should be cool, but it’s not quite there.

Written (catgirl): 184

 

I ward off the Tooth Fairy with floss and fluoride!

Watched (animation): The Dragon Prince 3.5-7: Humans are the worst, and yet Viren is taking that as a challenge.

Read (novel): Momo Arashima Steals the Sword of the Wind (Misa Sugiura): A bullied Japanese-American middle-schooler discovers that she is actually special and goes on an adventure through Japanese mythology. It’s legitimately hard being Momo, some minor anger issues are perfectly understandable.

Read (manga): I read enough that I’m keeping up with my inches-per-week, but it’s part of a huge thick omnibus so I haven’t finished and logged the title yet.

Written (catgirl): 153.

Go hippos! Eat the humans!

Coworker A who normally covers weekend days is out, so I had to be on call this PM. Only one case, which is a problem for Future Me (or maybe even Future Somebody Else) anyway.

Apparently Jus has dumped her girlfriend and gotten a boyfriend (who sounds very nice). I had to tease her about not being a very good lesbian.

Watched (anime): Bungo Stray Dogs 3.10-11 (35-36): Of course the solution they settle on is to go somewhere and murder each other. Good thing their subordinates are smarter, even if only slightly.

Read (manga): The Evil Secret Society of Cats vol 1 (Pandania): Four-panel comics about sentai supervillain cats plotting to distract and/or charm humans.

Written (game design): 268 somehow.

Also Abolition of Slavery Day, ahahahahaha.

Did my usual shopping, and also went to the hardware store because I had clever idea after the GM approved reskinning cloudkill to do cold damage.

Read (manga): Yakuza Reincarnation vol 8 (Hiroki Miyashita, Takeshi Natsuhara): Another corrupt enterprise unraveled by punching the people who deserve it, and also OP isekai magic.

Watched (anime): Bungo Stray Dogs 3.8-9: Another cunning plan to pit the Port Mafia and Armed Detective Agency against each other, but they have a cunning plan to thwart it! Maybe.

Written (game design): 186, still not making any actual progress. Maybe I should swap back to one of the other projects.

Another one that’s probably illegal now.

I got up and went shopping slightly earlier than usual, but did not accomplish anything with the extra time. Went to watch anime with peeps, and ended up watching more than usual because Ayse was too busy being an Internet Star to receive hugs.

Watched (anime): Bungo Stray Dogs 3.5-7: What, did you think the Guild was done for just because their giant flying whale crashed?

Read (manga): Dra-Q vol 1 (Chiyo): A vampire girl tries to go to human high school, and immediately falls in love with a total delinquent, breaks every rule of being in human society in the first chapter, runs into rampaging werewolves, etc. Gory and weird, but so far they seem to have a somewhat healthy romance?

Written (game design): 182

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.