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Detroit: Become Human? In 2024?
Oct. 21st, 2024 09:54 pmMy roommates and I have been playing Detroit: Become Human for the first time. I have seen playthroughs, but my friends are going into it blind.
( Lots of spoilers below )
IF Comp is Almost Over
Oct. 4th, 2024 09:58 pmBeen trying to finish up Blood of Zeus season 2, but it's so slow! And, well, it's bad. It's super bad. I can't defend it in any way. But I'm watching it in Japanese and calling it study. I tried putting on the Japanese subtitles in addition to the dub, but ... it's a completely different translation!!!! So while I could technically do both the sub and the dub I can't actually read along without effort.
I completely forgot about IF comp this year. I usually play at least 5 games so I can judge, but I've been so busy this year the whole thing completely slipped my mind. So I was reminded only a couple days ago and tried to play some games really fast (but still carefully) to get my votes in.
The first game in my personal queue was Awakened Deeply. It s a space parser game where you're going around a space ship solving puzzles. It was extremely basic. You find one thing in a room and that thing solves the puzzle in another room, rinse and repeat. There were a couple of places where some vocabulary got me stuck, and for some reason I have a terrible relationship with the "leave" verb in parser games. I always try to "leave [noun]" which almost always throws an error, and never try just "leave" until I'm at my wits end, at which point I remember to try just "leave" and finally manage to exit whatever thing I've been put in. I hate that verb. There was also one puzzle that I simply didn't understand. That was the last puzzle of the game too, and the only one that really required more than picking up a thing that had the answer on it. So I wasn't particularly impressed with this one.
The second game was just on the edge of right up my alley but also just too esoteric for me to really be able to grab onto it. It's called Verses. I don't know what the plot was even though I played it through, but it involves "analysis" which involves interacting with Romanian poetry and getting lost in translation, but also there's mutants and dystopia and lots of viscera and shit, and someone dies. It felt interesting but just a half step away from meaning anything for me. I think the fact that you change the language by clicking on it, including translating poetry from Romanian to English, which removes the original language, which makes it feel very hard to read the original closely. I'm not grading this one until I've played my five games, because it's so hard for me to place.
Medical care in this country is so broken. I got some email telling me it's time for a checkup, and I can do it this hybrid way where I fill out an internet survey first and then there's followup by a person. It warns you that this costs money, but it said that it took my insurance, so I figured ok, I guess this is a thing I should do.
They make you fill out this form which is like, how old are you, how much do you weigh, do you remember your last blood pressure check, do you need a HIV test, etc. All absolutely basic stuff. And at the end it's like, thanks, that'll be 350 fucking dollars lol. 350 entire bucks to tell a survey I don't get enough exercise. Now, I do have insurance, but it does not tell you if your insurance actually covers this bullshit and it doesn't give you the cost of the service until the very end, so it's not like anyone can make an informed decision on whether or not it's worth it to roll the dice. And I think my insurance does cover the service but when I saw that number I still became murderous with rage. This country is so broken. And this isn't even for the fucking follow up, in which someone actually has to do something. Fuck this shit.
*
Anyway, I finished reading Teckla. Spoilers below, but it's an old book so...
( Spoilery Review )
*
In HSR news, I am fuming that there's not a single male 5-star in this rotation. I want to roll for Moze, but there is no pity for 4 stars and I don't want to waste my jade on the ladies. As much as I like them, as a F2P I can't afford them if I want to go all in for when the guys pop up. So I used my free 10-pull of Feixiao and just got Asta. *weep*
I am however enjoying this patch's side story. The Belabogians are still my favorite cast (yes, more than Penacony) and Luka was in my roster for a long time. HSR's writing also feels much stronger with their smaller, encapsulated storylines. I haven't finished the tournament, but I figure I'll get there in a couple of more days. And then it's time to see how bad the Apocalyptic Shadow is.
*
I've been trying to write a few fic for the Fandom Gift Basket, but it's just not happening. I can't get my brain to discard all the other shit I have going on and focus. And I'm not finding any good hooks to get my dumbass brain zoned in. I was able to write 2 gifts for the last one so I feel bummed that I'm not doing my part better this time. I'll keep on trying I guess. (Also I know some people hate it when people complain about their own writing, in which case, fair warning, that's all I fucking do when I talk about writing. It's suffering.)
As I was trying to get something down tonight I was thinking about my life back in high school, when I was writing thousands of words every day, simply due to the fact that my school was trash, I was bored to the point of mental break for 8 hours a day, and all I had to keep myself from screaming in frustration was a pen and a notebook. I don't miss those days, because again, school bored me so much that I swear to god it legitimately traumatized me, but boy does being trapped in a 0 stimulus environment for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, provide an opportunity for a certain degree of creativity. Now whenever I sit down all I can think about is the 100s of things that I need to get done, and the consequences of not doing them is no longer a 0 and a teacher saying they are concerned I'm not living up to my potential, lol.
They make you fill out this form which is like, how old are you, how much do you weigh, do you remember your last blood pressure check, do you need a HIV test, etc. All absolutely basic stuff. And at the end it's like, thanks, that'll be 350 fucking dollars lol. 350 entire bucks to tell a survey I don't get enough exercise. Now, I do have insurance, but it does not tell you if your insurance actually covers this bullshit and it doesn't give you the cost of the service until the very end, so it's not like anyone can make an informed decision on whether or not it's worth it to roll the dice. And I think my insurance does cover the service but when I saw that number I still became murderous with rage. This country is so broken. And this isn't even for the fucking follow up, in which someone actually has to do something. Fuck this shit.
*
Anyway, I finished reading Teckla. Spoilers below, but it's an old book so...
( Spoilery Review )
*
In HSR news, I am fuming that there's not a single male 5-star in this rotation. I want to roll for Moze, but there is no pity for 4 stars and I don't want to waste my jade on the ladies. As much as I like them, as a F2P I can't afford them if I want to go all in for when the guys pop up. So I used my free 10-pull of Feixiao and just got Asta. *weep*
I am however enjoying this patch's side story. The Belabogians are still my favorite cast (yes, more than Penacony) and Luka was in my roster for a long time. HSR's writing also feels much stronger with their smaller, encapsulated storylines. I haven't finished the tournament, but I figure I'll get there in a couple of more days. And then it's time to see how bad the Apocalyptic Shadow is.
*
I've been trying to write a few fic for the Fandom Gift Basket, but it's just not happening. I can't get my brain to discard all the other shit I have going on and focus. And I'm not finding any good hooks to get my dumbass brain zoned in. I was able to write 2 gifts for the last one so I feel bummed that I'm not doing my part better this time. I'll keep on trying I guess. (Also I know some people hate it when people complain about their own writing, in which case, fair warning, that's all I fucking do when I talk about writing. It's suffering.)
As I was trying to get something down tonight I was thinking about my life back in high school, when I was writing thousands of words every day, simply due to the fact that my school was trash, I was bored to the point of mental break for 8 hours a day, and all I had to keep myself from screaming in frustration was a pen and a notebook. I don't miss those days, because again, school bored me so much that I swear to god it legitimately traumatized me, but boy does being trapped in a 0 stimulus environment for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, provide an opportunity for a certain degree of creativity. Now whenever I sit down all I can think about is the 100s of things that I need to get done, and the consequences of not doing them is no longer a 0 and a teacher saying they are concerned I'm not living up to my potential, lol.
Friday Five
Sep. 9th, 2024 11:47 pm![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
thefridayfive, a bit late but since I submitted the questions I feel I should answer them.1. What is the last shower thought you had (aka random thought in the shower or during downtime): It was coming up with these questions lol. Otherwise I'm usually coming up with scenes for drawerfic.
2. What is the last thing you changed your mind about? I went back and forth about taking a roadtrip cross state to see some friends over the weekend. Eventually decided to go for it and had a nice time.
3. What was the last low-stakes argument you were in about? Whether or not the shopping mechanics in MOBAs are stupid. (They are and I hate them.)
4. What is an idea you have that you know would probably never work, but it would be cool if it did? I'd like to open up a bookshop with just the books that I like. No one else likes them so it would be a fast fail.
5. Who is someone who has ideas you like, or take inspiration from? Mona Eltahawy is a feminist thinker I like a lot. She's very no nonsense and not afraid to be incendiary at times to get her point across, but it's very speaking truth to power.
HSR is that you?
Sep. 8th, 2024 12:28 amI play Gay Harem on and off, which is a porn gacha game. As far as the "game" part is involved, there isn't one really. It's basically a click chore simulator. But it's amusing to me because of 1) the over the top porn, and 2) it pumps out a dozen new guys a month, and to keep up that pace it ... "borrows" from other intellectual property. Mario, Final Fantasy, DBZ, Dragon Age, they will steal from everything, but they try to get away with it (and so far have succeeded I guess) by calling their stuff parody and also changing everything just enough so that the source is obvious but the Gay Harem version is a bizzaro alternate. I logged in for the first time in a while yesterday and one of the current event features these guys. Meet. Dr. Scientia, Leopard, Seppo, and Flynn lol.
I also gave Deadlock a try. The hero shooter aspects seems fun, but I have always disliked MOBA and this game is significantly more MOBA than it is hero shooter. I'm going to give it a few more chances, but "lane phase" and "shopping to win" is not my idea of a fun game, so I'll probably pass on it.
I also gave Deadlock a try. The hero shooter aspects seems fun, but I have always disliked MOBA and this game is significantly more MOBA than it is hero shooter. I'm going to give it a few more chances, but "lane phase" and "shopping to win" is not my idea of a fun game, so I'll probably pass on it.
Reborn and some gaming
Sep. 5th, 2024 08:42 pmRead Reborn by Seth Haddon over this weekend. It was alright. Big plus was it was adult fantasy. I think I liked Reforged better though. The story in this one was ok enough. It felt a little directionless in many parts, which seems to be a big pitfall for stories that involve exile or fugitives, but despite a lot of rushing back and forth I liked all the characters and there was still a decent sense of scale. Distances felt distant enough, communication across countries felt appropriately difficult. And I like the worldbuilding in this series. There are cultural clashes and interesting religious practices etc. Reborn does the same thing Reforged does where it dumps so much fantasy jargon at me in the first few chapters I don’t know if anything will ever make sense, but things settle down quickly enough and it’s all perfectly followable in the end.
In the time that I haven't been reading I've just been grinding LEZ, which was predicted. I used to play a ton of stepmania when I was younger, and had some tracks that I adored. They were all lost in one of my many computer moves in the following years, which is a shame because I can't remember what any of the tracks were called. But I'm very out of practice with this sort of thing, and haven't played any music in general many years, so my sense of timing really needs to be retrained. On top of that unlike stepmania LEZ doesn't give any visuals for off beat notes, so it's not as easy to eye the spacing in some points. The sort of music that people seem to like to use as tracks nowadays is also highly syncopated, so it's been a challenge, but playing just raw hit the button at the right time rhythm games does something good for my emotional state for some reason. I just like to grind them.
Playing LEZ did make me nostalgic for stepmania, so I went poking around to see if it was still available. It seems like it technically is. The last update was in 2023. But the forums are completely dead. The last community post was like 4 years ago. So likely most of the great tracks that I used to play are lost to the decay of the internet. That's a real shame.
One of my mutuals on HSR sent me a message for the first time since I started playing, and it was to gush about my Aventurine lol. He is a pretty boy, and also very stronk at E1S1. When his rerun comes around I may just try to get another Eidolon for him, because he's by far my strongest unit. I also got Gepard and Welt back to back just with raw standard tickets, which means I have all of the standard banner's men now! I still don't have Bronya or Himeko, and I don't know if I want to use my 300th free pick for them. On the one hand, that would probably be the meta play to get Bronya. On the other hand, men.
In the time that I haven't been reading I've just been grinding LEZ, which was predicted. I used to play a ton of stepmania when I was younger, and had some tracks that I adored. They were all lost in one of my many computer moves in the following years, which is a shame because I can't remember what any of the tracks were called. But I'm very out of practice with this sort of thing, and haven't played any music in general many years, so my sense of timing really needs to be retrained. On top of that unlike stepmania LEZ doesn't give any visuals for off beat notes, so it's not as easy to eye the spacing in some points. The sort of music that people seem to like to use as tracks nowadays is also highly syncopated, so it's been a challenge, but playing just raw hit the button at the right time rhythm games does something good for my emotional state for some reason. I just like to grind them.
Playing LEZ did make me nostalgic for stepmania, so I went poking around to see if it was still available. It seems like it technically is. The last update was in 2023. But the forums are completely dead. The last community post was like 4 years ago. So likely most of the great tracks that I used to play are lost to the decay of the internet. That's a real shame.
One of my mutuals on HSR sent me a message for the first time since I started playing, and it was to gush about my Aventurine lol. He is a pretty boy, and also very stronk at E1S1. When his rerun comes around I may just try to get another Eidolon for him, because he's by far my strongest unit. I also got Gepard and Welt back to back just with raw standard tickets, which means I have all of the standard banner's men now! I still don't have Bronya or Himeko, and I don't know if I want to use my 300th free pick for them. On the one hand, that would probably be the meta play to get Bronya. On the other hand, men.
Rhythm Games
Aug. 29th, 2024 10:38 pmI keep feeling like I need to make excuses for why I'm both stressed out with work related stuff and also spending a lot of time on leisure that I don't really have time for, so this is my vow that I'm just going to stop feeling compelled to do that. I think most people get that sometimes when you're stressing out find yourself doing literally anything other than what you're supposed to be doing. T_T
Last weekend there was a rhythm game event on Steam. I love rhythm games so I downloaded a whole bunch and gave them a shot.
Compared to most demo fests I'd say that this was a big success.
Last weekend there was a rhythm game event on Steam. I love rhythm games so I downloaded a whole bunch and gave them a shot.
( The Great: )
( The Good: )
( The Bleh )
Compared to most demo fests I'd say that this was a big success.
Japanese stuff and HSR stickers
Aug. 24th, 2024 04:44 pmStarted watching Mob Psycho, which has been on my to-watch for a while. The English sub on Netflix kind of sucks, but it gives me the gist, gives me the supernatural vocab, and I can fill the rest in with the Japanese audio. I did not osmose this show correctly at all. Mob is a middle school student?! I'm only one or two episodes in but I'm intrigued.
( Japanese reading )
( Convention Stuff )
Yesterday I finally got around to weeding my books, and got four bankers boxes worth of them out. That's a lot of books, but they were all things that I'd picked up for cheap and said I wanted to read some day ages ago, and I never picked them up or opened them. I still have a lot of those still hanging around, but I tried to be as aggressive as possible with just getting rid of things and being honest to myself about if I'd actually read them. Doing this kicked up a ton of dust so now breathing in my room is going to suck for a little bit. Clearly I need to do more cleaning of the shelves or something. The work was sorely needed to be done, because I was picking my way through piles and piles of books and it was all cramping my style a bit too much. Back when I was moving often this sort of cull was enforced by having to fit all my stuff into a car, but since I've settled the problem has gotten a little out of control. I'm hoping that pick out another two boxes worth, and then there will be some room to breathe! Even with all the culling I did, there are two shelves double shelved of "to read" books still looking at me accusingly.
(no subject)
Jul. 31st, 2024 09:49 pmJeeze oh man. The crazy season for work is basically over, though, it is not as over as it's usually over due to certain Life Choices. But right on the tail end of it all I managed to pick up COVID and kind of got knocked on my ass for a while, and it's taking me longer than I would like to not just get healthy again, which is kind of sorta done, but also to reset mentally and start clawing back the good habits that I was trying to cultivate before I spent more than a weak barely eating and sleeping all day long. My bedtime is fucked up again, my attention span is low again, my fridge is empty again, I'm just a mess!
So this blog post is sort of an attempt to reset and reassess a little bit. It's not really a half year mark thing, but regardless here are how things have been going.
I did pretty good about eating more vegetarian meals during the first few months of the year. So the last couple of months I've only had a few days that were fully vegetarian. I'll try to get back on the horse but the whole, constantly on the edge of malnutrition thing is a problem.
I have resisted a lot of books that I would have otherwise bought due to the book purchasing moratorium, but I haven't been perfect. I think maybe 5 or six books have snuck into the house even though they should not have lol.
My reading also has not been at a particularly high rate. I recently got through half of Steven Brust's Teckla, and I'm enjoying that book a lot. I think it's a bit of a brave premise. The first couple of books were about being a crime lord and an assassin, and this book is like, "you know, that's maybe not the most spiritually healthy thing to be." The book is not wrong about that lol, but I typically don't expect a fantasy paperback to be willing to interrogate itself like that. I'm curious to see how this one ends.
I also read Woodland Stranger by Jane Buehler. It was unfortunately not good. It wasn't terrible, but just in the mediocre Original Works M/M category. The prose was very stark. Some parts were ok that way, some were way too dry and full of telling. The characters felt kind of shallow as a result. And the plot was frustrating, because it kind of wanted to be an adventure fantasy that dealt with a couple difficult subjects, like war and loss of family and possibly even toxic army culture? But it also realllly wanted to be safe and comfy at the same time, and it was like reading through a moral gauze. I read the book as part of a review program, which is always a little awkward because I want to support authors and see them succeed, but also believe very strongly that reviews are for readers, not authors, so with this program I often find myself trying to be frankly critical without sounding too mean. Sometimes that feels like a hard thing to do.
The one thing I did manage to achieve while sick and laid up was get Chronos on farm in Hades II. I have seen the matrix, his patterns are nothing to me now, and/or I just managed to build my arcana deck up enough and have a better grasp of weapon loadouts to start the fight at a much better advantage lol.
My goal for the near future is to write a couple small things forfandomgiftbasket. I thought I'd have more time to do this but COVID obliterated my energy for everything.
And after that I want to finally. FINALLLYYYYY finish all the BLM VNs. I'm so close goddamnit.
So this blog post is sort of an attempt to reset and reassess a little bit. It's not really a half year mark thing, but regardless here are how things have been going.
I did pretty good about eating more vegetarian meals during the first few months of the year. So the last couple of months I've only had a few days that were fully vegetarian. I'll try to get back on the horse but the whole, constantly on the edge of malnutrition thing is a problem.
I have resisted a lot of books that I would have otherwise bought due to the book purchasing moratorium, but I haven't been perfect. I think maybe 5 or six books have snuck into the house even though they should not have lol.
My reading also has not been at a particularly high rate. I recently got through half of Steven Brust's Teckla, and I'm enjoying that book a lot. I think it's a bit of a brave premise. The first couple of books were about being a crime lord and an assassin, and this book is like, "you know, that's maybe not the most spiritually healthy thing to be." The book is not wrong about that lol, but I typically don't expect a fantasy paperback to be willing to interrogate itself like that. I'm curious to see how this one ends.
I also read Woodland Stranger by Jane Buehler. It was unfortunately not good. It wasn't terrible, but just in the mediocre Original Works M/M category. The prose was very stark. Some parts were ok that way, some were way too dry and full of telling. The characters felt kind of shallow as a result. And the plot was frustrating, because it kind of wanted to be an adventure fantasy that dealt with a couple difficult subjects, like war and loss of family and possibly even toxic army culture? But it also realllly wanted to be safe and comfy at the same time, and it was like reading through a moral gauze. I read the book as part of a review program, which is always a little awkward because I want to support authors and see them succeed, but also believe very strongly that reviews are for readers, not authors, so with this program I often find myself trying to be frankly critical without sounding too mean. Sometimes that feels like a hard thing to do.
The one thing I did manage to achieve while sick and laid up was get Chronos on farm in Hades II. I have seen the matrix, his patterns are nothing to me now, and/or I just managed to build my arcana deck up enough and have a better grasp of weapon loadouts to start the fight at a much better advantage lol.
My goal for the near future is to write a couple small things for
fandomgiftbasket. I thought I'd have more time to do this but COVID obliterated my energy for everything. And after that I want to finally. FINALLLYYYYY finish all the BLM VNs. I'm so close goddamnit.
Not much to report
Jul. 2nd, 2024 09:16 pmI've been so wrecked work wise I haven't had much time to do anything. I usually binge on games for next fest, but I was only about to try a few extremely short ones. None of them were particularly notable.
I'd caught up with the HSR story and wasn't playing much at all except to use down my energy. The last limited I pulled for was Aventurine, who I got his E1S1 for, and he has basically trivialized most basic content for me now after I had to build up and struggle on most of the plot bosses before his arrival. I'm not pulling for anything else until a new Husbando that I desire comes around, so I'll have lots of jade for Sunday (hahaha...) when he finally appears. The foxian that got teased I'll try to pick up too. I like character designs that are not so over the top. It might take me a bit to get through the new update. I'm less enthusiastic about it because all the Firefly marketing has turned me off her entirely.
I got Hades 2 a while back but have only had a couple nights to really have a go at it. The bosses feel a lot harder than the Hades 1 bosses. They've been fun, but Cronos is wrecking my shit. It took me about 30 runs to finally kill him. And a boss outright disappeared in a patch before I could kill it it seems. My only real complaint is that there feels like there are a lot more systems and mats to keep track of in Hades 2, which I don't like so much. The card table is an interesting idea but also I don't like stopping the fun part of the game to fiddle with it. The boss fights are awesome though, and I'm liking the loadout options.
I haven't been able to finish up any of the VNs or read anything. I haven't watched anything recently either. The weird work related bullshit got slightly more bullshit and parallel to that bullshit I basically picked up a second full-time job. I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking, but for the past month I have been running on fumes. This part of the year is always the most hectic for me, but this year it just feels like it's doubly so. I'm looking foward to the chance to relax for a weekend... maybe next month.
I'd caught up with the HSR story and wasn't playing much at all except to use down my energy. The last limited I pulled for was Aventurine, who I got his E1S1 for, and he has basically trivialized most basic content for me now after I had to build up and struggle on most of the plot bosses before his arrival. I'm not pulling for anything else until a new Husbando that I desire comes around, so I'll have lots of jade for Sunday (hahaha...) when he finally appears. The foxian that got teased I'll try to pick up too. I like character designs that are not so over the top. It might take me a bit to get through the new update. I'm less enthusiastic about it because all the Firefly marketing has turned me off her entirely.
I got Hades 2 a while back but have only had a couple nights to really have a go at it. The bosses feel a lot harder than the Hades 1 bosses. They've been fun, but Cronos is wrecking my shit. It took me about 30 runs to finally kill him. And a boss outright disappeared in a patch before I could kill it it seems. My only real complaint is that there feels like there are a lot more systems and mats to keep track of in Hades 2, which I don't like so much. The card table is an interesting idea but also I don't like stopping the fun part of the game to fiddle with it. The boss fights are awesome though, and I'm liking the loadout options.
I haven't been able to finish up any of the VNs or read anything. I haven't watched anything recently either. The weird work related bullshit got slightly more bullshit and parallel to that bullshit I basically picked up a second full-time job. I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking, but for the past month I have been running on fumes. This part of the year is always the most hectic for me, but this year it just feels like it's doubly so. I'm looking foward to the chance to relax for a weekend... maybe next month.
Linguistics in my chocolate
May. 30th, 2024 10:52 pmIt's been a rollercoaster day and a bit of a mess of a spring. I forgot that I tend to get super depressed after coming back from Japan. And I hit the seasonal work anxiety time, so I have not been doing particularly well.
Today life was significantly improved by the conviction of Trump (GET FUCKED, YOU LITTLE SHIT) but also has not been perfect because of workplace drama in which someone tried to basically fuck me over. This is extremely atypical. As in, 10 years in this business no one has tried to pull shit like this on me. So I'm like... almost amused by the gall. I'm also not sure how I'm going to deal with it but I'm trying not to stew, because if my brain goes pitbull on negativity I'm in for a bad time for like 3 days straight minimum.
So I figured I write about something else (you see I almost failed... lol).
I'm a small linguistics nerd. My only claim to expertise is the handful of undergrad classes I took on the subject so long ago I couldn't tell you what any of them taught me, and my active involvement in it nowadays is reading linguistics blogs, coming up with a couple words for my conlang every year, and getting pressed over fantasy linguistics in media. So take my opinions with a grain of salt, but I do tend to seek out media that has something to do with language, and ended up encountering two such things recently. The reviews have been siting in my "to publish" 4thewords file for too long so here they are.
( Arrival )
( Chants of Sennaar )
I'm always looking for more interesting linguistics related stuff so if anyone has recs I'm very open to them! That includes non-fiction! (I already know about Babel though =x)
And then, because it's Friday somewhere in the world,thefridayfive :
1. What are three things you refuse to live without? Taken literally I'm minimalist enough that I like not being to attached to things, but if I had to choose, it would be books, my desktop computer, and my zojirushi rice cooker.
2. What are your three favorite items of clothing? Whatever style of Uniqlo pants I own that I have 5 pairs of. I like my fox print shirt, that was a new thriftstore find. And my ratty gray pullover is starting to become more hole than threadbare but I still wear it three seasons out of four almost daily.
3. What are your three favorite books? Kokoro, then the other two depend on the day. Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is high up there. Count of Montecristo too.
4. What are three things you'd grab if you had to evacuate your house quickly? Small safe, external drive, one of my rarer books.
5. What are your three favorite songs or musical works? Kind of impossible to say. I kind of feel like I don't have many solid favorites for anything. But at this moment the music that immediately comes to mind is Adagio for Strings, Dream Theater: Dance of Eternity, Camo & Krooked - Ruhepuls
Today life was significantly improved by the conviction of Trump (GET FUCKED, YOU LITTLE SHIT) but also has not been perfect because of workplace drama in which someone tried to basically fuck me over. This is extremely atypical. As in, 10 years in this business no one has tried to pull shit like this on me. So I'm like... almost amused by the gall. I'm also not sure how I'm going to deal with it but I'm trying not to stew, because if my brain goes pitbull on negativity I'm in for a bad time for like 3 days straight minimum.
So I figured I write about something else (you see I almost failed... lol).
I'm a small linguistics nerd. My only claim to expertise is the handful of undergrad classes I took on the subject so long ago I couldn't tell you what any of them taught me, and my active involvement in it nowadays is reading linguistics blogs, coming up with a couple words for my conlang every year, and getting pressed over fantasy linguistics in media. So take my opinions with a grain of salt, but I do tend to seek out media that has something to do with language, and ended up encountering two such things recently. The reviews have been siting in my "to publish" 4thewords file for too long so here they are.
( Arrival )
( Chants of Sennaar )
I'm always looking for more interesting linguistics related stuff so if anyone has recs I'm very open to them! That includes non-fiction! (I already know about Babel though =x)
And then, because it's Friday somewhere in the world,
thefridayfive : 1. What are three things you refuse to live without? Taken literally I'm minimalist enough that I like not being to attached to things, but if I had to choose, it would be books, my desktop computer, and my zojirushi rice cooker.
2. What are your three favorite items of clothing? Whatever style of Uniqlo pants I own that I have 5 pairs of. I like my fox print shirt, that was a new thriftstore find. And my ratty gray pullover is starting to become more hole than threadbare but I still wear it three seasons out of four almost daily.
3. What are your three favorite books? Kokoro, then the other two depend on the day. Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is high up there. Count of Montecristo too.
4. What are three things you'd grab if you had to evacuate your house quickly? Small safe, external drive, one of my rarer books.
5. What are your three favorite songs or musical works? Kind of impossible to say. I kind of feel like I don't have many solid favorites for anything. But at this moment the music that immediately comes to mind is Adagio for Strings, Dream Theater: Dance of Eternity, Camo & Krooked - Ruhepuls
Friday Five
May. 18th, 2024 12:21 amFrom thefridayfive
1) Is summer a break for you, or is it busier? No such thing as summer break for me. In fact this is about as busy as it gets right now.
2) What's next for your travel plans? I have a wedding I'll be driving to this month, and next month a job trip. The job trip will be nice because I'll be stopping in between to see family.
3) What have you spontaneously done lately? Tried to see the northern lights. We only got a a faint view of them because we couldn't find a place without much light pollution. I made the mistake of letting my friend do the navigating because he grew up here and said he had seen them a bunch before, but he had no idea where to go somehow. I suggested multiple specific places for us to go and he just didn't seem to understand that for me to look at the lights I needed to actually stop the car somewhere. Eventually he finally admitted he didn't actually know where he was making me drive lol. I gave him 4 options and he was like, uh just go straight... little more.. uh... little more... I'm never letting him navigate for me again lol. I finally just stopped at the first safe turn I saw, which was a small dead end street, we got to see a thin band of discoloration in the sky, nothing very colorful because the houses were all completely lit up still, and then a few minutes later an angry 20 year old walked the 200 feet from his house to kick my car because suburbanites are wild.
At that point I decided that this was not a particularly magical experience and just went home. The weird faint line in the sky was kind of cool though.
4) What's your favorite way to unwind after a long day? Video Games
5) What's in your pockets? Nothing as usual. Sometimes it's keys.
thefridayfive 1) Is summer a break for you, or is it busier? No such thing as summer break for me. In fact this is about as busy as it gets right now.
2) What's next for your travel plans? I have a wedding I'll be driving to this month, and next month a job trip. The job trip will be nice because I'll be stopping in between to see family.
3) What have you spontaneously done lately? Tried to see the northern lights. We only got a a faint view of them because we couldn't find a place without much light pollution. I made the mistake of letting my friend do the navigating because he grew up here and said he had seen them a bunch before, but he had no idea where to go somehow. I suggested multiple specific places for us to go and he just didn't seem to understand that for me to look at the lights I needed to actually stop the car somewhere. Eventually he finally admitted he didn't actually know where he was making me drive lol. I gave him 4 options and he was like, uh just go straight... little more.. uh... little more... I'm never letting him navigate for me again lol. I finally just stopped at the first safe turn I saw, which was a small dead end street, we got to see a thin band of discoloration in the sky, nothing very colorful because the houses were all completely lit up still, and then a few minutes later an angry 20 year old walked the 200 feet from his house to kick my car because suburbanites are wild.
At that point I decided that this was not a particularly magical experience and just went home. The weird faint line in the sky was kind of cool though.
4) What's your favorite way to unwind after a long day? Video Games
5) What's in your pockets? Nothing as usual. Sometimes it's keys.
Charmed and Dangerous
May. 16th, 2024 07:36 pmI am very backlogged on posts I meant to make but now it feels like to time to make them has passed. I did just finish a book though so here's what I thought of that at least.
Charmed and Dangerous is an anthology of m/m fantasy. I picked it up because I was looking up books by Ginn Hale, and this one listed her as one of the contributors. Tl;dr is it's good. The stories are urban fantasy types, for the most part, and aside from a couple stories I liked them all. Decent variety of plots and pairings within the relatively narrow genre of m/m fantasy romance. For a more thorough review:
( Read more... )
Charmed and Dangerous is an anthology of m/m fantasy. I picked it up because I was looking up books by Ginn Hale, and this one listed her as one of the contributors. Tl;dr is it's good. The stories are urban fantasy types, for the most part, and aside from a couple stories I liked them all. Decent variety of plots and pairings within the relatively narrow genre of m/m fantasy romance. For a more thorough review:
( Read more... )
Stuff I've been consuming
May. 1st, 2024 10:18 pmI haven't been reading as much this year as last. My concentration has been hard to wrangle for a while. And it was not particularly well wrangled before. But I did finish a decent Sci-Fi book recently.
Waaiiiit a second...
Apr. 17th, 2024 11:48 pmSo in my last post I mentioned that I had seen a Haikyuu movie and I just assumed that it was old content, but after chatting with my brother about it he was like, uh, no, none of that is in the anime, you watched something completely new. Welp, lol.
My only excuse is that
1) It's been a long time since I saw the series.
2) The movie starts with a flashback scene and there are many flashbacks throughout
3) The last anime movie I saw was a rehash so I thought that was maybe a thing and
4) look, a lot of volley ball games look the same ok?
But no. The Battle of the Trash Bin was COMPLETELY NEW CONTENT and I was just watching it the whole time going "oh it's interesting how they're kind of mixing the old episodes, oh I don't remember this scene huh I guess it's been a while." I fucking gaslit myself.
So yeah, I actually saw a BRAND NEW Haikyuu movie! And I should probably watch the series again or something so I remember the whole context behind the match, or at least the tournament arc.
My only excuse is that
1) It's been a long time since I saw the series.
2) The movie starts with a flashback scene and there are many flashbacks throughout
3) The last anime movie I saw was a rehash so I thought that was maybe a thing and
4) look, a lot of volley ball games look the same ok?
But no. The Battle of the Trash Bin was COMPLETELY NEW CONTENT and I was just watching it the whole time going "oh it's interesting how they're kind of mixing the old episodes, oh I don't remember this scene huh I guess it's been a while." I fucking gaslit myself.
So yeah, I actually saw a BRAND NEW Haikyuu movie! And I should probably watch the series again or something so I remember the whole context behind the match, or at least the tournament arc.
The anime plunder
Apr. 15th, 2024 09:06 pmEven though it's been a month, I'm just now trying to get in order the things I brought back from Japan. So here's part 2 of that, all the fannish stickers and paper I got.
( Graphic Heavy )
Japan Again!
Mar. 27th, 2024 10:24 pmEugh god.
Jet lag is such a pain in the ass. The worst part about it (I might be repeating myself here but I am sooo jet lagged I don't care) is when I come back it takes forever to recover because I've got nothing going on at home and can just pass out at 5PM every day after work. So it's been a while since I came back from my last trip to Japan and I'm still fighting off sleep during the sunlight hours so I don't wake up at midnight like I have the last few days. Even though I've been trying to stay up things are just not resetting.
Here's a review: Spending 18 hours in transit sucks ass.
But going to Japan is still worth it. This trip was part leisure and part business. It's very rare that I get to Japan twice in so short a time span. It will be a few years before I get the chance to go again. And this time I was solo for a large portion instead of hanging out with family, so since I didn't need to worry about anyone but myself on the leisure leg I went a liiiiiiittle bit wild on the merch. Compared to some people I'm sure I was still modest about it but since I don't buy too much stuff during regular times coming back with a pile of things this time felt like a major splurge. I ended up picking up some cheap kimono, and some tea supplies.
Jet lag is such a pain in the ass. The worst part about it (I might be repeating myself here but I am sooo jet lagged I don't care) is when I come back it takes forever to recover because I've got nothing going on at home and can just pass out at 5PM every day after work. So it's been a while since I came back from my last trip to Japan and I'm still fighting off sleep during the sunlight hours so I don't wake up at midnight like I have the last few days. Even though I've been trying to stay up things are just not resetting.
Here's a review: Spending 18 hours in transit sucks ass.
But going to Japan is still worth it. This trip was part leisure and part business. It's very rare that I get to Japan twice in so short a time span. It will be a few years before I get the chance to go again. And this time I was solo for a large portion instead of hanging out with family, so since I didn't need to worry about anyone but myself on the leisure leg I went a liiiiiiittle bit wild on the merch. Compared to some people I'm sure I was still modest about it but since I don't buy too much stuff during regular times coming back with a pile of things this time felt like a major splurge. I ended up picking up some cheap kimono, and some tea supplies.
( Books I bought )
BG3 Run 1 Complete
Feb. 29th, 2024 08:12 pmI have "finished" Baldur's Gate 3. That is, I got to an ending credits, at least.
My first run ended kind of like this:
---
So now that my first playthrough is over I got some takeaways:
Stuff Tav did and did not do
So now, eventually, I'm going to roll a Durge and romance Gale. I'm not sure what sort of Durge I'm going to roll. I want something with high charisma so I can see all of the stuff I couldn't by being a tongue tied little murder machine, but I don't care too much for the CHA class options. I thought maybe a Male Drow Monk. Or if Cha a Male Drow Paladin. Are those allowed? Probably? I'm also not sure if I want to be good or evil. My Tav was, theoretically, good in that he worked for the good guys, even if he wasn't nice about it. So I didn't see any of the evil bits. I don't know how happy Gale would be about such a route though.
I'm curious as to what people thing are things that shouldn't be missed in the game, now that I've gone through once with a minimum of spoilers. Are there any interactions or scenes or things that were your favorite? Is there a companion interaction that you love to see? I'm going to go back to my plethora of Tav saves too and poke around some options. I don't know if I want to just hit an ending with a Thrall!Astarion and Human!Tav or go even further back and see if I can't get Astarion ascended, as he probably should have been in this run.
But for now I'm a little burnt out on BG3. The game is too damn big, so the save scumming and rerolling will have to wait for a while.
My first run ended kind of like this:
( Tav's End )
---
So now that my first playthrough is over I got some takeaways:
Stuff Tav did and did not do
( Choices Made )
So now, eventually, I'm going to roll a Durge and romance Gale. I'm not sure what sort of Durge I'm going to roll. I want something with high charisma so I can see all of the stuff I couldn't by being a tongue tied little murder machine, but I don't care too much for the CHA class options. I thought maybe a Male Drow Monk. Or if Cha a Male Drow Paladin. Are those allowed? Probably? I'm also not sure if I want to be good or evil. My Tav was, theoretically, good in that he worked for the good guys, even if he wasn't nice about it. So I didn't see any of the evil bits. I don't know how happy Gale would be about such a route though.
I'm curious as to what people thing are things that shouldn't be missed in the game, now that I've gone through once with a minimum of spoilers. Are there any interactions or scenes or things that were your favorite? Is there a companion interaction that you love to see? I'm going to go back to my plethora of Tav saves too and poke around some options. I don't know if I want to just hit an ending with a Thrall!Astarion and Human!Tav or go even further back and see if I can't get Astarion ascended, as he probably should have been in this run.
But for now I'm a little burnt out on BG3. The game is too damn big, so the save scumming and rerolling will have to wait for a while.
Friday Five
Feb. 25th, 2024 06:10 pmLittle late but I've lost the plot this month.
1. Your favorite book? Kokoro. I don't tend to reread books but I've reread this one a number of times. I'm due for another read soon I think. I want to try it in Japanese someday.
2. Your favorite movie? I tend to say Laputa, but I don't know that I really have one. I'm not a massive movie watcher. The only movie I got super fannish about was Inception, so maybe that one? But I also don't think it was the best movie I watched, just the one that created the most interesting playground.
3. Your least favorite adaptation of a book to a movie? Les Mis was pretty bad, but Phantom of the Opera hit me at a time when I wasn't jaded enough to endure it, so I'mma go with that one.
4. Your least favorite adaptation ever of anything to a movie? The Dragon Ball Z Movie was certainly the worst one I'd ever experienced personally.
5. Your first ever novel/comic book/movie character crush? Well my first cartoon crush was Puck from Gargoyles. I also had a thing for Shawdowspawn from the Thieves' World series.
1. Your favorite book? Kokoro. I don't tend to reread books but I've reread this one a number of times. I'm due for another read soon I think. I want to try it in Japanese someday.
2. Your favorite movie? I tend to say Laputa, but I don't know that I really have one. I'm not a massive movie watcher. The only movie I got super fannish about was Inception, so maybe that one? But I also don't think it was the best movie I watched, just the one that created the most interesting playground.
3. Your least favorite adaptation of a book to a movie? Les Mis was pretty bad, but Phantom of the Opera hit me at a time when I wasn't jaded enough to endure it, so I'mma go with that one.
4. Your least favorite adaptation ever of anything to a movie? The Dragon Ball Z Movie was certainly the worst one I'd ever experienced personally.
5. Your first ever novel/comic book/movie character crush? Well my first cartoon crush was Puck from Gargoyles. I also had a thing for Shawdowspawn from the Thieves' World series.
