Jhereg, Demon Slayers ... and Cowboy Bebop but not the good one

On the recommendation of Falllover I picked up a copy of Jhereg and I enjoyed it! It was like a murder mystery except backwards, where the mystery was about how to do the murder. I guess that makes it a caper story? Some of the writing felt a little dated, not thematically or anything but voice wise there's the sort of quippy dialog and humor that I associate with spec fic of a certain age, but it's not really a detriment, and the worldbuilding was interesting enough. There's just enough there to serve the plot it seems, and maybe to plant a few seeds for future developments. I'll probably pick up the second book too if my local bookstore has it. I need to go by to try turning around a few books I want to get rid of to make space anyway, as I am in severe need of Marie Kondoing my library. Like, severe. I ended up buying a new bookshelf over the New Years weekend to deal with the issue a little but I would much rather just get rid of some things.

The other thing I did over the New Years weekend was watch the entire fucking run of Demon Slayers. Like Season 1, Episode 1, through the movie, and then straight into the current arc to the most recent episode. It was a lot of show, but it was like catnip to me. I just needed some straightforward shounen combat, pure-hearted protagonists, funky monsters and cathartic tragedy. But I loved it. And somehow Zenitsu was my favorite, even though his constant screaming is neigh unbearable. He's just got my favorite character design of the three, and his terror is relatable, haha. I just wish he wasn't so obsessed with the ladies, but hey, shounen anime, I know what I'm signing up for.  Also, Inosuke having a bijin face is just... the weird sort of thing I will always find entertaining. I'm a simple person who enjoys simple pleasures. I'm now waiting impatiently for new episodes, and digging around for fan art. Unfortunately I find fanfic for anime to not be to taste so I'm kind of stuck there.

 

( And here's the Cowboy Bebop Rant )

No King Rules Forever

Today youtube suggested I watch a two hour long video on the history of World of Warcraft. It seems to hit all of the major points, and watching it brought out some serious nostalgia. And even though WoW still exists and people still play it, the vid basically feels like a postmortem and a moment of closure for me as an ex-player.

Old WoW occupied a unique moment in time and basically defined my life for years. There's still stuff that happened in that game that I think of as some of the most memorable of my young life. It's a world I can never go back to, and it's weird to think about it sometimes as something that loomed so large for so long and then just disappeared for me when I finally quit cold turkey for the last time, something like 5 years ago. People I had spent more time with than anyone else in my life at that point were just gone. I still think about them sometimes and wonder how they're doing. There are moments when I wish I hadn't wasted so much of my life, literally years of /played, on WoW, and in the next second I wish more than anything that I was back then running through Azeroth with old friends on our various hijinks. It makes me tear up a little.

Ahh, I shouldn't have watched that video. I've been clean since Legion and I really can't go back, but I do wish there was somewhere else where I could get that same raw escapism. I know people are getting really into Final Fantasy now, but... It's just not the same.