Previously, in Trip's Life...
31 January 2020 - Friday
Brain, brain! What is brain?!
Watched:
- The Good Place 4.13:
The finale! It is very sad, as it must be, but also very correct for
every one of the characters.
Read:
- Starfire: A Red Peace (Spencer Ellsworth): It's like
Star Wars with the magic swords and evil empire and destiny
and psychic
powers, but grittier, like the "Hellflower" books, and a bit weirder.
Words:
FAIL. Ugh, everything I have is terrible and the whole thing should be
disposed of in a subduction zone, never to be seen again. Too much
happens for no good reason! Also there needs to be a reason for the
characters to not go to adults with their problems. (I'm thinking of all
the stories where the kids discover something awesome that adults would
take away, so they keep it secret even when it turns out to be trouble.)
Make a comment!
30 January 2020 - Thursday
I was at work late last night, so tonight must be Friday, right?
Right? Right?
At least there was lightly-breaded salmon.
Watched:
- Elementary 3.10:
Chekhov's plant geneticist. But Sherlock was not terrible, even if there
is going to be a lot of drama with Kitty soon.
Read:
- To All The Boys I've Loved Before (Jenny Han): Teen
romance about a girl who deals with her crushes on unattainable boys by
writing love letters to them and never ever sending them, which cannot
possibly go wrong. She is not a particularly strong female character,
but I can totally sympathize with being scared of things like driving.
Words:
CHECK, I guess.
Make a comment!
29 January 2020 - Wednesday
For the first time in approximately 623427 years, I have been to a
dentist! They were very nice (possibly too cheerful) and did not abuse
me for letting my teeth go without maintenance for so long, but some
maintenance will have to happen. The tooth that I thought I broke is
actually a baby tooth that was never displaced but has finally let go,
and has to come out. The tooth I knew was dead is dead and has to
come out. The crown that I was told would probably last for a decade,
ten years ago, has to be replaced. But first, two appointments of deep
cleaning, which is rigorous enough to require anaesthesia.
No gaming tonight, too many people are busy. Instead I made the
tragic sacrifice of staying late at
work so that coworkers could go to the company party in San Francisco
with booze and barbecue.
Marith made butternut squash sage ravioli with spinach and goat
cheese, which was good to come home to.
Read:
- Mortal Engines (Philip Reeve): Postapocalyptic future,
airships,
everyone lives on giant mobile cities, scavenging the ruins of the past
for things better left dead. Pretty much YA adventure (teen
protagonists, no sex or significant gore) but with a remarkably high
body count.
Words:
CHECK.
Make a comment!
28 January 2020 - Tuesday
La la work la.
Watched:
- Leverage 2.5:
The one where Parker is not the worst small-time TV news reporter.
Read:
- The Best of Uncanny (ed Lynne M Thomas, Michael Damian Thomas):
Short stories and poetry from Hugo-winning semiprozine Uncanny, featuring
such authors as T Kingfisher and Arkady Martine. I am not worthy
to judge the poems, but all the prose pieces are good, which is pretty
unusual for an anthology. Pretty much every piece would cause the
sad/rabid puppies to die of apoplexy, so that's good!
- Prosper's Demon (KJ Parker): Unpleasant but cunning
exorcist vs cunning demon possessing that world's equivalent of Leonardo
da Vinci. There is much cunning, and also art.
- Stars of Empire Referee's Handbook (Terry N Sofian):
More world-building, crushed under a pile of terrible game design. I
still haven't found the book that tells me about Mars, but this one has
information on the giant bug monsters that almost ate England, so that's
good.
- On the Shoulders of Giants (Chance Phillips):
OSR, everyone lives on the floating bodies of the 12 Olympians after
they murdered each other, new gross classes related to living on giant
dead bodies.
Words:
CHECK, technically.
Make a comment!
27 January 2020 - Monday
Ew, Monday.
Watched:
Words:
CHECK, barely.
Make a comment!
26 January 2020 - Sunday
Another day without no commute, but at least this time instead of
work, it's
SCRPG
and also gaming munchies! I don't know how to spell the name of the
tapioca-cheese orbs Jeremy makes, but I can apparently eat an unlimited
number of them.
This time the Atlantic City Rollers interrogated the captured
supervillains before turning them over to the Feds, and learn about the
criminal conspiracy Gears and Lightning and the suspicious shipping
company American Transport Unlimited. They also decide the robot-maker
from last issue is redeemable, he just fell in with a bad crowd, and
promise to look out for him.
After an investigatory montage in New York involving robotic Hot
Wheels cars and shipping containers, the Rollers find that the ATU
facility in Atlantic City is prone to containers dropping out of the
system and other shenanigans, so The Mechanic gets the fully-automated
facility to ignore Anonymouse and she sneaks in to get a look at their
records. But it seems that someone has already been opening up their
filing cabinets, and when she tries to take a look, the chair
attacks!
The shapeshifting villain has also brough several knight-themed
powered troopers and some snipers with lasers that punch right through
intervening shipping containers, and also the building catches on fire,
but eventually, somehow, the Rollers prevail with only Feathers actually
getting knocked out.
It is agreed, this issue is "Nuclear Robot II: Laser
Boogaloo".
Watched:
- RWBY 7.11: Yep,
that's some doom. Even if certain parts are not true, it's still a lot
of doom, and also not very sensible on Ironwood's part.
- The Good Place 1.12:
Finally, the Medium Place! Too bad Jason and Janet didn't think to ask
Mindy St Clair for advice. Shawn is The Worst.
- The Way of the Househusband vol 2 (Kousuke Oono): Much
like the first volume, ex-Yakuza tries to do housewife stuff, like yoga
and posting pictures of his cooking on Instagram.
Words:
FAIL. I have no excuse, I just suck. Also my computer is in the kitchen,
which is a stupid place for it. But larger apartments in Mountain View
are very expensive.
Make a comment!
25 January 2020 - Saturday
I am still the very worst at getting up, but I did eventually manage
to go grocery shopping. That is not much accomplishment for an entire
day.
Ken made some super
upsetting sandwiches of deep-fried togu, spaghetti squash salad, and
General Tso's sauce for dinner. They were surprisingly good! Then he
whisked Jus off to his company party, but Nonny was too tired to go, so
Ayse
remained behind to put him down and then we watched some anime without
them.
Nigh-weekly anime:
- RWBY 6.9-10:
I argue with Marith, but she's right that there had to be a better way
to deal with getting to Atlas.
- AKB0048 10-13:
Some more training episodes, and then the main girls return to their
homeworld as
fully-fledged fledgling AKB! The swimsuit
episode was not as bad as it could have been, because no one agreed with
the one girl who agonized over her figure. My belief that the kiraras
eat people is still viable. Both WOTA and DES are deeply weird. Perhaps
we will learn more in the next season.
Words:
FAIL.
Make a comment!
24 January 2020 - Friday
I almost had to be on call this weekend, but coworker M is feeling
better.
Watched:
- The Good Place 4.12:
That was a good problem and a good solution, but cramming it into one
episode after the conclusion of the main plotline didn't do Patty
justice.
- The Good Place 1.11: The
one where Michael tries to use guilt, but Eleanor is too good.
Read:
- Atomic Accidents (James Mahaffey): An examination of
all the ways in which humans are not smart enough to handle radioactive
or fissionable material, from radium-based snake oil up through
Chernobyl and Fukushima. Aside from numerous facepalmings, it conveyed
to me a sense of just how finally balanced fission reactors are, and how
easy it is to make a pile of moderately radioactive glop turn into a
horrifying blue flash of death. Also, the technology that was standardized
for civilian power plants after it worked well in the completely
different context of submarines is pretty dumb. That said, nuclear power
is not what's going to kill us all.
- Remedial Rocket Science (Susannah Nix): Romance by the
wife of a pocket frond. No actual rocket science involved, but it was
cute and mushy.
- Siryn (CE Murphy): An inversion of The Little
Mermaid, where the mermaid is not little or helpless or
voiceless, and the prince gets what's coming to him.
G 24 Jan 2020: The World Beneath The Clouds (Terry Sofian): Venus
sourcebook for
Stars of
Empire. Lots of detail but not necessarily the detail I find
interesting to read. At least it has some information about the alien
invasions and terraforming of Mars and such in the back. (Aliens suck.)
Words:
CHECK, barely.
Make a comment!
23 January 2020 - Thursday
In the weekly training meeting, I knew some things that my coworkers
did not, which always makes me happy. But they knew things I didn't, so it
evens out.
Then I stayed at work until forever because it's Thursday.
Words:
FAIL. I still blame capitalism.
Make a comment!
22 January 2020 - Wednesday
This week no one was sick and only one person was busy, so we had
Ethiopian food and
13G
as planned.
I continue to be absolutely terrible at playing a leader type, I
don't even know why I bother. Fortunately, Ken's character was able to save us
from our own incompetence by having a literal carte blanche that no one
knows (in character) where he picked up. Now instead of spending a
season being Illuminated, the PCs are on their way back towards home,
undeterred by a partial walktapus crawling out of the river. (They
killed it with fire.)
Read:
- The Secret Chapter (Genevieve Cogman): Book six in the
series about a heroic librarian in a multiverse of order dragons, chaos
fae, intrigue, and skulduggery. This time the intrigue and skulduggery
are dragon-oriented, and hint at the history of the whole system.
- Sal and Gabi Break The Universe (Carlos Hernandez): Unashamedly
wacky, like Daniel Pinkwater, but more Cuban-American. I really liked
it, even though the main character is a guy. (I seem to recall 8th-grade
boys being much worse horndogs, but possibly middle-schoolers have
gotten better since my day, or probably middle-schoolers have always
been better than I was.)
Words:
FAIL. I blame capitalism.
Make a comment!
21 January 2020 - Tuesday
Marith survived her first day at work!
Watched:
- Leverage 2.4: I
would scowl at Sophie being all emotional over a kid if Eliot hadn't
done it last episode. But this show is still ridiculous.
Words:
CHECK. Wrote a little more, although I'm getting to the end of what I
know and will have to make stuff up, which is the part I'm really
worried about sucking all the energy out.
Make a comment!
20 January 2020 - Monday
No work today. But I did not do anything appropriate to the holiday,
I was just useless.
Watched:
- Elementary 3.9: You'd
think Sherlock would take his sobriety more seriously with such a
pointed example of Drugs in front of him! But I guess he is, he just
isn't happy about it, which is fair.
Words:
CHECK. Making tables of scenes and plot points wasn't working as well as
I hoped, so I am writing what is labelled "prose outline" because I
could not remember the word "synopsis" to save my life. It's possible
this will destroy all desire to write the story in detail, but at least
then I'll know!
Make a comment!
19 January 2020 - Sunday
First SCRPG
of the new year!
Nighthawk gets information from a retired hero of past generations,
the Midnighter, about someone planning to build a nuclear-powered giant
robot according to old Nazi blueprints. The information checks out, so
the Rollers alert the locations most likely to be raided for materials
and wait for villains to appear.
The first sign of potential trouble is when the Rollers are called to
the one place in the region that has significant amounts of nuclear
materials, a decommissioned reactor that is having its remaining
spent fuel transferred to another site — the ideal time for
someone to try to make off with it. And indeed, the black helicopters
full of commandoes and hazmat transport powered armor workers attack
just then! The villains have a plan, and the protestors that flock to
any mention of the word "nuclear" effectively take themselves hostage,
but the Rollers soon sort things out. Only two of the transport workers
manage to take off, and Moth and Feathers knock them out of the sky.
Sadly, no information is forthcoming from the captured goons, so the
Rollers don't know to show up and protect the one place that makes
submarine hull plates suitable for use as giant robot armor until they
get a call from the security guard about strange goings-on.
This time there is an actual supervillain, glowing brightly and
blustering while robots make off with stacks of metal plates. There are
also robots that make robots, and make guns to hand to newly-made
robots, but they aren't that great without the direct intervention of
their creator, who Moth finds lurking nearby. The robot-maker is
scarpery, and the glowing lady is zappy, but they are still no match for
the Atlantic City Rollers!
Next week, back on schedule, we hope.
Watched:
RWBY 7.10: That's
actually a really good time to make a morale-raising annoucement, but I
think the writers still have no idea how numbers work.
Leverage 2.3: That
was pretty legitimately terrifying, although I still have no sympathy
for hedge-fund bro.
Words:
FAIL.
Make a comment!
18 January 2020 - Saturday
I had to answer a customer question right when I was already awake to
start being on call, but then I went back to sleep for about five hours
because I am COMPLETELY USELESS. At least the customers did not demand
utility of me.
Marith got burgers to celebrate her new job! Hurray!
Ayse had medical drama slice-of=life yesterday and
was still pretty out of it, so we did not have much anime. But Jus got
two episodes of Sailor Moon like she always wants!
Nigh-weekly anime:
- Sailor Moon Stars 189-190:
Just because everyone knows everyone else's secret IDs doesn't mean they
will work together, apparently.
- RWBY 6.7-8:
Maria's backstory, and also her Hunted.
Read:
Words:
FAIL.
Make a comment!
17 January 2020 - Friday
Not only did Marith get a job today, she got promoted to full-time
before she's even started! She's still underemployed, but it's better
than nothing!
Watched:
- The Good Place 4.11: Aw, that was sweet. Wait, is that the end? But there's another episode!
- Orphan Black 2.1:
Picking up the doom right where season 1 left off. Is this the time that
Art will finally get told what's going on, or will he be left hanging
like the last four times someone said they were going to dish?
Read:
- The Iron Will of Genie Lo (FC Yee): Sequel
The Epic Crush of Genie Lo and pretty much wraps up the
story. More obnoxious gods, more demons, and college visits, plus
epilogue.
- Race to the Sun (Rebecca Roanhorse): Middle-schooler vs
Navajo mythology. From the Rick Riordan Presents line of own-voices non-white
mythology YA fantasy, which so far has been pretty swell.
Words:
FAIL.
Make a comment!
16 January 2020 - Thursday
It was windy and threatening to rain this morning, so I tried out
this "layers" concept. It seemed to work okay.
Read:
- Woman World (Aminder Dhaliwal): One day, men stop being
born. Sometime around then, civilization goes through a rough patch. In
the aftermath, a village of women are trying to live their lives. Simple
art, one or two pages per episode, made me laugh.
- Dreamstorm (MCA Hogarth): Back to life-threatening
drama, and one partner rushing off to save the other, but all's well
that ends well.
- Family (MCA Hogarth): Space elf finally takes skunktaur
back to his planet to meet his family. Space elf world is pretty
horrible, and so are a lot of the space elves, but this series is all
about family.
Words:
FAIL. I suck.
Make a comment!
15 January 2020 - Wednesday
Mike is out due to germs, and Kelsey is out due to capitalism, so that
left the four of us to play Roll for the
Galaxy and eat Thai
food. First game: Brooks won. Second game: Ken won, but the rest of us
tied for second. Third game: Dave won, but I came in second.
Read:
- Best Left Buried: The Crypt Collection (Zachary Cox):
A simple and very grim dungeon-crawling game, where you have to spend
SAN-equivalent to use any of your class abilities (in addition to losing
it when confronted with scenes of unimaginable horror) and can only
regain it by going mad.
- Mindline (MCA Hogarth): Sequel to
Mindtouch. Space elf leaves his partner to do a very prestigious medical
residency and everything goes horribly wrong. Did I mention the special
psychic link they have? (Not that ridiculous, they're both psychic to
begin with.) It's much more important in this volume.
- Dreamhearth (MCA Hogarth): Unlike the life-threatening
drama of the previous book, this time our heroes only have to persuade a
space station that they deserve residency permits. Also money woes,
rival therapists, conniving grandmas, and extremely dangerous scones.
Words:
FAIL. I blame me.
Make a comment!
14 January 2020 - Tuesday
Marith had a job interview today! Even if they are wise enough to
hire her, she will be underemployed, but it's better than retail
standing!
Read:
- Beneath The Missing Sea (Sam Sleney, Zachary Cox, Ben Brown): Yesterday
there was a 40-mile-wide inland sea here, now there's just a huge hole
with no water, and all the things that used to be safely underwater are
scuttling like cockroaches. A hexcrawl adventure setting,
nominally for Best Left Buried,
but easily convertible to any system where making up monster stat blocks
is easy.
- A Witch's Printing Office vol 1 (Mochinchi, Yasuhiro Miyama):
I had hoped this would be about printing and bookbinding in a fantasy
world, and some of it is, but mostly it's about Comiket in a fantasy
world, which is not as interesting to me.
- My Room Is A Dungeon Rest Stop vol 1 (Tougoku Hudou, Takaya Kiyoshi):
Male lead gets an apartment in downtown Tokyo super-cheap because it
connects to a fantasy dungeon full of slimes and goblins. Female lead is
buxom and helpless and often underdressed and easily duped, so bleah.
Also, we need better fantasy worlds.
- Monster of the Week (FT Lukens): Sequel to
The Rules and Regulations for Mediating Myths & Magic,
further adventures of hapless bi (pan?) boy trying to survive high
school while working as an assistant cryptid wrangler/diplomat and his
hot boyfriend and token straight friend and threatened by parents, TV
reporters, and dog monsters. Bridger is such a good-hearted disaster.
Words:
Shockingly, CHECK. Because I am now counting anything more than zero.
Make a comment!
13 January 2020 - Monday
Oogh, Monday the 13th. Most accursed day of the calendar. 5-hour
customer meeting, although it did all go smoothly.
Watched:
- Elementary 3.8:
Almost made the NYPD seem sympathetic for a moment! Also I am glad they
have not dropped Sherlock's sobriety stuff even after two seasons.
Read:
- The Promised Neverland vol 13 (Kaiu Shirai, Posuka Demizu):
Hey, look, it's some hope! I wonder how this will go horribly wrong and
require Emma and Ray to brain their way out?
- Mindtouch (MCA Hogarth): Platonic love story between a
genetically-engineered ace skunktaur and a
genetically-engineered-but-in-denial space elf, studying xenopsychology
together. Much more touching than I make it sound. Ends with doom, but
there are four more books in the series so presumably they will
eventually arrive at some kind of work-life balance together.
Words:
FAIL. Blargh. Maybe instead of failing to write fiction I should fail at
implementing my idea for a magical girl dungeon crawling game. Or figure
out what the actual stories are for Lovecraft Country so that I can
implement it in
PbtA.
Or I could die in a pit. That one seems like the greatest contribution
to world culture.
Make a comment!
12 January 2020 - Sunday
Slept in like four hours, which made me feel slightly well-rested,
but also wasted most of the day because I am defective. Then I wasted
the rest of the day doing nothing because I suck.
Watched:
- RWBY 7.9: I'm not as
personally offended as Marith is by some characters not getting enough
to do, but she's right that a lot of people should be doing a lot of
things, not just the few characters we've had since season 1.
- The Good Place 1.10:
Love confession episode! Including the one that was very surprising at
the time!
- Leverage 2.2: This
was mostly an Eliot episode, and that's okay, but it still needed more
Parker.
Read:
- Ran and the Gray World vol 5 (Aki Irie): This volume
focuses a lot more on the epic turmoil in the magical world than on Ran's
messed-up personal life, but there's still some of that. Also, hot
springs episode! (Not Ran, sheesh.)
- Tomo-chan is a Girl vol 6 (Fumita Yanagida): The
secondary couple have finally gotten together, but the primary couple
are still floundering with awkwardness. We get an extended flashback to an earlier
phase of their awkwardness, too, and also find out about that thing with
Gundou-san.
- Stars of Empire Player's Handbook (Terry N Sofian): Unfortunately,
this book was almost entirely the very detailed and retro system with
modifiers and charts for every situation, and hardly any description of
the steampunk setting with humans throughout the solar system and giant
bug monsters eating England and other cool stuff. I looked on DTRPG, and
I'm not sure any of the books associated with this game has that, which
I find confusing and also stupid.
Words:
Still FAIL. I realized what decision the MC needs to make, although it
still needs context around it. But maybe it's enough? I don't even know,
man.
Reminder! by marithlizard (Mon Jan 13 03:05:06 2020)
Choosing to relax on a weekend day on which you have nothing scheduled and no children who require minding is not a failure of any sort, it is proper human self-care. Do we have to run you through the capitalist dystopia deprogrammer again?
Re: Reminder! by Trip (Thu Jan 16 22:15:39 2020)
But there are so many things that need doing for myself!
Make a comment!
11 January 2020 - Saturday
We needed the cleaners, but it's still weird having people in our
apartment first thing in the morning.
Despite the huge amount of extra shopping requested by Ken, I got all
the things, or at least reasonable substitutes, and there was tasty
burrito dinner.
Nigh-weekly anime:
- Sailor Moon Stars 188: Now everyone knows everyone's secret ID, but that doesn't help Aluminum Siren!
- RWBY 6.5-6: Oh, that's what happened to the village. Also, one of Maria's secrets!
- Chihayafuru 3.13: The queen challenger is settled! I can't blame Suo for hitting on Chihaya, they're both weirdos.
- Shirobako 4-5: That guy has such Mediocre White Man energy, despite not being technically white (but dominant ethnicity of the area, close enough). I think all the women should just stab him. Or at least him lock in the cell when it's free.
Words:
FAIL. I have no scapegoat this time. I have been thinking, though, and
maybe I can overcome some of my worldbuilding conundrums by making my MC
not average for catgirls. As a bonus, I can make her even more
traumatized by her backstory! Also I can give her backstory more
tragedy. But can I write that much doom?
Make a comment!
10 January 2020 - Friday
I feel like I did some work, but I have little show for it except
finding an obscure bug that will probably never be relevant except to
this one customer issue. Also I had to stay late to cover for Boss A,
but she will be back from India next week.
Watched:
The Good Place 4.10:
I think the technical term for this is "maltheism". But on the other
hand, no universe that includes Disco Janet can be all bad. And
somehow, not the finale?
Words:
FAIL. Capitalism again.
Make a comment!
9 January 2020 - Thursday
I did not accomplish much at work, but at least I stayed late to
communicate my failures to the next shift?
Watched:
Read:
- The Mongolian Wizard (Michael Swanwick): Short piece, alternate
history with magic but with no less of the Great Game. Possibly leading
into a WWI/II analog that's not Germany/Hitler-based? Apparently there
are a bunch more short stories following this one.
- Monsters of Mars (Edmond Hamilton): Ancient (okay,
1931) novella about heroic Earthmen getting duped into teleporting to
Mars. After almost a century of SF, it seems horribly clichéd,
but I'm sure it was innovative at the time.
- Hannah Green and Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence (Michael Marshall Smith):
Although the protagonist is an eleven-year-old girl, I wouldn't call
this a kid's book. There is too much death (not all deserved), cussing,
existential angst, thoughts about what it means to become an adult, and
sympathy for the devil. On the other hand, no sex and hardly any
romance. I dunno, man.
Words:
FAIL. I definitely blame capitalism this time.
Make a comment!
8 January 2020 - Wednesday
First Wednesday night
13G
and
Chinese food of
2020! This session, the people who were not enjoying the grossly
transphobic hospitality of the Lunar garrison executed their plan to
rescue those who were. At least nobody got killed?
A bunch of Mike's friends decided that he needed way too many glorantha dice,
so he regifted most of them to us. The strike rank and hit location dice
are not useful, but we enjoyed rolling the rune dice and getting runic
associations to go with our random numbers. For the system, it is handy
that the runes are in alphabetical order, but it would be thematically
better if Air weren't a natural 1. If custom cards were easier, I might
try to make a deck of cards with more and better combinations. All 20
runes &mult; 20 numbers might be a bit much, but we could probably come
up with something.
Read:
- Monster Roster vol 1: Desert Denizens (Samantha Gundaker):
Dungeon World
monsters inspired by mythologies of peoples from desert regions. They
will still eat your face.
- You Can Be A Cyborg When You're Older (Richard Roberts):
Not related to Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm A
Supervillain, but pretty similar in a lot of ways despite being
nominally kind of cyberpunk. The over-the-top body modification is not
unlike superpowers, and there are many strange people for our teen
protagonist to make friends with. The thing with the AIs is legitemately
augh. There's a bit from Soon I Will Be Invincible about
how many superpowers are more like chronic medical conditions with
exploitable side effects, which I liked but was vague on until I read
this book.
- Snow Day (Andrea K Höst): Another postscript to
the Touchstone series but I no longer remember enough of the characters
to be heartwarmed.
Words:
FAIL. Normally I would blame Jus, but this time I blame capitalism.
Make a comment!
7 January 2020 - Tuesday
I was productive at work again, at least for a few hours. I had four
meetings and only two of them were with customers! Also I learned some
stuff.
Watched:
- Leverage 2.1:
That was even sillier than the first season. Although as Marith pointed
out, nothing is as ridiculous as what happened with the bank bailout,
and that's not even fiction.
Read:
- Wyrde and Wayward (Charlotte E English): Regency(?)
England, some families have a tendency toward manifesting bizarre
magical traits (being vampires, raising the dead, turning into dragons,
etc), MC is from a family known for this but doesn't have powers, comedy
of manners ensues.
- Monsterarium (Ahimsa Kerp, Nahid Taheri): Whimsical (but creepy) OSR monsters.
- Monster Roster vol 2: Arctic Anomalies (Samantha Gundaker):
Dungeon World
monsters inspired by legends from cultures that live in cold places. I
cannot comment on the cultural appropriativeness, but they will totally
eat your face.
Words:
Addditional FAIL.
Make a comment!
6 January 2020 - Monday
I did a fair number of things at work, some of them even not wrong,
but I also ate a bunch of extraneous carbs, and it's only Monday. Actual
Monday, not secretly Thursday or Friday at the same time.
Watched:
- Orphan Black 1.10: Well,
that's a lot of doom. I don't think it's really binding under the rules
of the US Patent Office, though, especially given the timeline.
Read:
- Gleipnir vol 5 (Sun Takeda): Wow, our female lead is
extremely murdery. And I don't think she's a good influence on the male
lead either.
- Sub-ether Zero, zero vol 1.1 (Gwendolyn Harper):
DCC-based
far-future science fantasy, grotty megacities on a ruined planet that
also has the current hot entertainment hub, so kind of a mix between 40s
LA noir and Judge Dredd. More specifics than I would want,
but it's for DCC players. Lots of random tables for things/people/plot
hooks to meet on the street. Apparently a part or preview of a more
complete setting to come, which might have interesting aliens.
Words:
FAIL. I just do not seem to ever have enough brain in the evening to do
more than a tiny bit, and sometimes not even that. Not that I can do
anything with plot or characterization or theme, and only barely with
worldbuilding or description. I'd say I should stick to bad game design
instead of bad fiction, so I can push the plot and characterization onto
someone else, but that's even more pointless.
Make a comment!
5 January 2020 - Sunday
Oh, right, that's why I don't like shopping on Sunday: the store is
full of people and everything is out of stock. Maybe it would be better
if I was able to not sleep in and went shopping right at opening time?
Seems unlikely that I'll ever know.
The customers were much quieter today, which is good, because
apparently I made enough mistakes yesterday.
Watched:
Orphan Black 1.8-9:
Felix is still the best. Alison is growing on me, although she is still
a complete disaster. Oh, and there was some plot stuff.
Words:
FAIL. But I'm pretty sure I need to do more outlining or at least I need
a better idea of the climax, when my MC makes a choice and then has to
fight for it. Also I really need to answer the existing questions about
how unusual my MC is and whether her power is too good for getting out
of trouble and not good enough for getting into trouble. So yah, I suck.
Make a comment!
4 January 2020 - Saturday
Because I am dumb, I ended up with all of today and half of tomorrow
on call (but hardly any Sundays for the rest of the quarter, so I can
game if I don't give up in despair) and the customers are being annoying.
Nigh-weekly anime:
- Sailor Moon Stars 187:
- RWBY 6.3-4:
So much exposition! And then [SPOILER] finds out about the end of last
season.
- Chihayafuru 3.11-12:
It doesn't seem like making someone do karuta in someone else's style
would actually be very good training at all. But never mind that, it's
time to determine who will face the current Queen and Master!
Read:
- Futaribeya vol 1 (Yukiko): Slice of life, mostly
4-koma. A responsible and traditionally feminine girl goes to boarding
school and has to room with a beautiful but not-very-feminine girl. They
get along great, and by the end of the first volume are just beginning to
think that their friendship makes looking for romance unnecessary. Not
very much cheesecake at all.
Words:
FAIL. I blame customers.
Make a comment!
3 January 2020 - Friday
Yay, it's Friday! I did some work, I guess.
Watched:
- Elementary 3.7: The
one that smells like pumpkin pie. Also a surprisingly positive view of
non-monogamy for a female character on mainstream TV.
Read:
- The Tiger and the Wolf (Adrian Tchaikovsky): It's the
beginning of the Iron Age, everyone is a shapeshifter, almost everyone
is
horrible, the end of the world may be coming soon, a ragtag band of
outcasts and fish out of water are probably going to have to be the ones
to fix everything. Good shapeshifting tricks, nice descriptions of
divine apparitions that are probably not literal.
- Dark
Alleys & Twisted Paths (Martin Killmann): The author thought the
core
13th Age
book didn't have enough spells/powers/talents/spells, so he made a whole
bunch of new ones. Also rewrites of the sorcerer and wizard classes to
be more like previous D&Ds. If I liked 13A more, this would probably be
a great resource.
Words:
CHECK. Maybe I'm to the point where I should start writing? Or maybe I
need to firm up the outline more? Hard to say. Outlining, how does it
even?
Make a comment!
2 January 2020 - Thursday
Ew, back to work. And now people are in the office, but at least it's
Thursday to go with the Monday? No, wait, I have to stay late on
Thursday. Bah!
At least we get lunch service again.
Read:
- Pawn (Timothy Zahn): Petty criminal and alcoholic is
abducted by mysterious aliens to repair a mysterious spaceship full of
mysterious goings-on. Like most of Zahn's work, oddly lacking in
feels.
Words:
CHECK, by an even smaller margin.
Make a comment!
1 January 2020 - Wednesday
Today I did some chores around the house, so that was a responsible
start to the new year, even if not an ambitious one.
Read:
- Still Sick vol 1 (Akashi): Yuri doujinshi artist who
disclaims all interest in 3D girls meets a coworker who is interested in
her work, or maybe her, and has a dark secret.
- My Father Is A Unicorn vol 1 (Monaka Suzuki): Just what
it says on the tin. The unicorn is never explained. He changes shape a
lot and causes great consternation in the apartment building.
Words:
CHECK. By the loosest possible interpretation, but not zero!
Make a comment!
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Sproing!
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