I played a little of FFXIV's new patch (the writers are so sassy lately--especially with Alisaie--and I love it) but then my laptop started getting a bit overwarm in MSQ quest spots from all the many many people loading into the same location. So I've put that aside and I'll pick it up again maybe tomorrow? My FC wants to run maps anyway so I'll be online. I rewatched more of The Good Place instead (I'm right at the end of Season 2), and just now I edited our grocery order as per Pez's requests.
Pez has been playing Yakuza fairly solidly. She's definitely warmed up to this; she says everything she complained about early on (bad level design, for instance, and some lazy sidequest design) is still accurate but the character growth has been very pleasing and she loves her team members very much. So that's good -- she adores the Yakuza games and I really didn't want her to feel let down by this installment.
We have been talking again about moving out of England; if Scotland declares independence (they want another referendum) we will move there, probably to Glasgow or similar. We've discussed other places (Germany, Ireland) too but for various reasons that's the least problematic--Germany would be high on our lists but being an exporter of retail goods there is a tax nightmare, for instance, and we have to be aware of queer-acceptance in other places, etc. There are definitely things we'd want near us when we move (airports, japanese food, a chinatown, public transportation) and it seems likely Scotland will make it relatively straightforward for businesses like ours to migrate. So that's a decision.
My kittens are asleep, my wife is happily beating up cultists, and I'm gonna go read.
Pez has been playing Yakuza fairly solidly. She's definitely warmed up to this; she says everything she complained about early on (bad level design, for instance, and some lazy sidequest design) is still accurate but the character growth has been very pleasing and she loves her team members very much. So that's good -- she adores the Yakuza games and I really didn't want her to feel let down by this installment.
We have been talking again about moving out of England; if Scotland declares independence (they want another referendum) we will move there, probably to Glasgow or similar. We've discussed other places (Germany, Ireland) too but for various reasons that's the least problematic--Germany would be high on our lists but being an exporter of retail goods there is a tax nightmare, for instance, and we have to be aware of queer-acceptance in other places, etc. There are definitely things we'd want near us when we move (airports, japanese food, a chinatown, public transportation) and it seems likely Scotland will make it relatively straightforward for businesses like ours to migrate. So that's a decision.
My kittens are asleep, my wife is happily beating up cultists, and I'm gonna go read.
A while ago I spotted a lamp base in the window of the lighting shop near work: a hare, sitting on a pile of books. It was vastly too expensive for me, however. Pez looked it up and found it online for 2/3 of the price, which was still a bit too expensive, and then she found a much cheaper but similar-artstyled lamp base with a hare in a nearby homewares store. Today we nipped down so I could inspect it, and I liked it enough that we bought it! Pez is going to use the IKEA lamp I have on my bedside table for *her* impending bedside table. :)
We also picked up groceries, and got a taxi back as it was raining heavily, and then I played some FFXIV (custom deliveries are a doddle, why did I think they weren't) while Pez napped. I cooked dinner and now we're on MFMM again...
We also picked up groceries, and got a taxi back as it was raining heavily, and then I played some FFXIV (custom deliveries are a doddle, why did I think they weren't) while Pez napped. I cooked dinner and now we're on MFMM again...
Yesterday we worked on various bits and pieces. In the evening, Pez took me out to a local italian place we like as my final birthday treat.
They offer meat and pasta and so on, but all their specials are seafood, and they're always delicious. Pez had scallops with bacon, followed by a lobster and calamari risotto, followed by tiramisu. I had deviled whitebait, then a half-lobster and scallops in thermidor sauce (it's July, after all), and for dessert I had a smooth panna cotta with butterscotch sauce. We also had a good white wine with our mains, and I had a moscato dessert wine that was very like a chilled mulled wine. It was an excellent birthdaying meal.
Today I have mostly been gathering ruffles on my skirt for Lili. Pez found me a plausible-enough pair of boots on AliExpress that should arrive in time. Whee!
And finally: I've been churning my ebay sales money into comics. I picked up the full runs of the sandman spin-offs The Thessaliad, The Corinthian, and Petrefax for a song today (they were never collected, as far as I know, so this is the only way to read them - I'd love to pick up the bast series too but #1 is not up for sale in the EU so it's prohibitively expensive to import) and I've filled out my original Sandman single issues to cover all of Fables and Reflections. \o/
They offer meat and pasta and so on, but all their specials are seafood, and they're always delicious. Pez had scallops with bacon, followed by a lobster and calamari risotto, followed by tiramisu. I had deviled whitebait, then a half-lobster and scallops in thermidor sauce (it's July, after all), and for dessert I had a smooth panna cotta with butterscotch sauce. We also had a good white wine with our mains, and I had a moscato dessert wine that was very like a chilled mulled wine. It was an excellent birthdaying meal.
Today I have mostly been gathering ruffles on my skirt for Lili. Pez found me a plausible-enough pair of boots on AliExpress that should arrive in time. Whee!
And finally: I've been churning my ebay sales money into comics. I picked up the full runs of the sandman spin-offs The Thessaliad, The Corinthian, and Petrefax for a song today (they were never collected, as far as I know, so this is the only way to read them - I'd love to pick up the bast series too but #1 is not up for sale in the EU so it's prohibitively expensive to import) and I've filled out my original Sandman single issues to cover all of Fables and Reflections. \o/
Tags:
Anyone who is here from a friending meme: hi! I will add you back/grant access when I get a chance -- it might take a little while as I run off and cook/tidy/write/etc as necessary!
Yesterday I made a Great Wave off Kanagawa bag!
This was made with leftover scraps of printed fabric from a dress I made (and leftover silk from a cosplay). This bag has metal bag feet and a magnetic closure and inside pockets, all which makes me feel quite smug and professional about it.
I do know what I'd do differently if I started over, though, so perhaps that'll come in handy for whichever bag I make next from my stock of fashion-y fabrics. I just need to find a good design for the maneki-neko printed canvas...
This was made with leftover scraps of printed fabric from a dress I made (and leftover silk from a cosplay). This bag has metal bag feet and a magnetic closure and inside pockets, all which makes me feel quite smug and professional about it.
I do know what I'd do differently if I started over, though, so perhaps that'll come in handy for whichever bag I make next from my stock of fashion-y fabrics. I just need to find a good design for the maneki-neko printed canvas...
Tags:
I finished Persona 5! Which was a slog, especially towards the end when I was just so done with random fights against generic enemies. I got my ass literally kicked for cheating on Doctor Takemi (I picked the wrong dialogue choice earlier on and inadvertently ended up dating another girl, so I decided to roll with that since the protag seems pretty assholish anyway) so thank you Persona for there being consequences.
It's just a bit... the plot only just hangs together (the game TELLS you that itself, and dismisses it as being because the plot is manipulated as a game). And what happened to Crow anyway? And why don't I care about most of the characters? Sigh.
Keith's jacket is all made. I should make his belt pouches, whee. While making the jacket I finally saw Anastasia (which was pretty but gave me history-nerd grumpies) and then rewatched Hot Fuzz. I don't know why it doesn't quite work for me any more, but I was left quite unsatisfied.
Our wigs arrive tomorrow! *weak yay* At least that means we get to just focus on the packing of a weekend's orders today.
It's just a bit... the plot only just hangs together (the game TELLS you that itself, and dismisses it as being because the plot is manipulated as a game). And what happened to Crow anyway? And why don't I care about most of the characters? Sigh.
Keith's jacket is all made. I should make his belt pouches, whee. While making the jacket I finally saw Anastasia (which was pretty but gave me history-nerd grumpies) and then rewatched Hot Fuzz. I don't know why it doesn't quite work for me any more, but I was left quite unsatisfied.
Our wigs arrive tomorrow! *weak yay* At least that means we get to just focus on the packing of a weekend's orders today.
Monday was a stupidly busy work day. Flat out packing orders and moving inventory so it fitted inside the warehouse all day (for a large chunk of the day we couldn't fit a delivery pallet inside) and we ended up leaving at about 7pm and still had to go buy groceries before we could go home. So exhausting.
But I spent time on Monday evening to start setting up and using my Taiwan Palace Museum notebook as a planner/bullet journal of sorts. It's not as streamlined or organised as a proper bullet journal but (combined with the cute-as-hell gradient sticky bookmarks I bought) it's going to be an experiment in having a reminder system for myself. So far it contains notes and to-do lists on four planned/in-progress cosplays, some fic notes for one of the FFXV AUs, and two days of errands and task reminders. And a lot of washi tape all over the place because I can.
I sort of hope it'll be useful. At the very least, tomorrow I'll be reminded to take in this library book that should have been returned before I went on holiday, oops.
Today was a quieter day at work but I went in early and moved stuff around, tidied things up and swept the floor while Pez was having her driving lesson. We loaded up a pallet of goods to ship to our Dutch distributor after packing all the orders. I'm wondering if pallet strapping is one of those things we're going to have to re-learn the process of every time we ship a pallet. We seem to get confused every time by the strap tightener/cutter machine, threading it in multiple wrong ways before we find the one that actually does the thing. Ah well. There are worse problems to have.
Meanwhile I thought of THE PUN (and followups) that will move this stiff conversation in this fic into something more like terrible ignoct pun-flirting. Hooray!
But I spent time on Monday evening to start setting up and using my Taiwan Palace Museum notebook as a planner/bullet journal of sorts. It's not as streamlined or organised as a proper bullet journal but (combined with the cute-as-hell gradient sticky bookmarks I bought) it's going to be an experiment in having a reminder system for myself. So far it contains notes and to-do lists on four planned/in-progress cosplays, some fic notes for one of the FFXV AUs, and two days of errands and task reminders. And a lot of washi tape all over the place because I can.
I sort of hope it'll be useful. At the very least, tomorrow I'll be reminded to take in this library book that should have been returned before I went on holiday, oops.
Today was a quieter day at work but I went in early and moved stuff around, tidied things up and swept the floor while Pez was having her driving lesson. We loaded up a pallet of goods to ship to our Dutch distributor after packing all the orders. I'm wondering if pallet strapping is one of those things we're going to have to re-learn the process of every time we ship a pallet. We seem to get confused every time by the strap tightener/cutter machine, threading it in multiple wrong ways before we find the one that actually does the thing. Ah well. There are worse problems to have.
Meanwhile I thought of THE PUN (and followups) that will move this stiff conversation in this fic into something more like terrible ignoct pun-flirting. Hooray!
Tags:
A meme, because hey, why not. I'm a language nerd, this is my jam.
1. What’s your native language?
2. How many languages do you speak?
3. What language(s) are you currently studying?
4. How many/which languages would you like to know in the future?
5. Do your friends speak other languages?
6. What’s the most difficult word for you to say in your native & target languages?
7. How do you call your favorite animal in your target languages?
8. Write your favorite color in all the languages you know it in.
9. How long have you studied your target language(s)?
10. What’s your favorite word in your target language(s)? Least favorite?
11. What’s the funniest word in your target language(s)?
12. What’s the prettiest word in your target language(s)? Ugliest?
13. One thing you dislike about your target and/or native language?
14. Do you have any international friends?
15. Why are you learning your target language(s)?
16. Do you ever want to live somewhere where you’d speak your target language(s)?
17. What was/is the first language you want/ed to learn?
18. Have you ever made a friend speaking your target language(s)?
19. Do you listen to music in your target language(s)? If so, who are your favorite artists?
20. Opinion on duolingo?
21. What’s your favorite method of studying?
22. Have you ever played pokemon in your target language(s)?
23. Favorite blog in your target language(s)?
24. Do you ever speak to yourself in your target language(s)?
25. Ever speak to your pets in your target language(s)?
26. Do you ever feel like your target language(s) is(are) under appreciated? Why/why not?
27. How do people usually react when you mention that you’re studying your target language(s)? Do their reactions annoy you? Make you happy?
28. How do natives react when they hear that you’re studying their language?
29. Do you have any advice for someone who’s never studied a language before?
30. Where are you from? What are popular/”useful” foreign languages in your area?
31. Are there dialects in your country? Do you speak one?
32. Have you ever tried to learn a dialect for your target language(s)?
33. Do you ever want to have a career in languages?
34. How has learning languages impacted your life?
35. Do you have any big travel plans for the future?
36. What’s your least favorite language? Why? Favorite?
37. Do you know any obscure/useless words in your target language(s)?
38. Was there ever a word you pronounced incorrectly until someone corrected you?
39. What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you while studying your target language(s)?
40. Have you ever eavesdropped on people speaking your target language(s) in public?
41. Have you ever had a negative experience with a native?
42. What’s the most positive experience you’ve had with a native?
43. Tell me about your best friend in your target language(s)
44. Have you ever put sticky notes all over your house before?
45. Do you ever think in your target language(s)?
46. Are there any cognates between your native and target language(s)?
47. Have you ever met a stranger in public with whom you spoke your target language(s)?
48. Have you ever had an “I understand it now!” moment with your target language(s)?
49. Do you have any language pet peeves?
50. Is there a language that you’ve tried to learn but could never stick with it or just weren’t interested?
1. What’s your native language?
2. How many languages do you speak?
3. What language(s) are you currently studying?
4. How many/which languages would you like to know in the future?
5. Do your friends speak other languages?
6. What’s the most difficult word for you to say in your native & target languages?
7. How do you call your favorite animal in your target languages?
8. Write your favorite color in all the languages you know it in.
9. How long have you studied your target language(s)?
10. What’s your favorite word in your target language(s)? Least favorite?
11. What’s the funniest word in your target language(s)?
12. What’s the prettiest word in your target language(s)? Ugliest?
13. One thing you dislike about your target and/or native language?
14. Do you have any international friends?
15. Why are you learning your target language(s)?
16. Do you ever want to live somewhere where you’d speak your target language(s)?
17. What was/is the first language you want/ed to learn?
18. Have you ever made a friend speaking your target language(s)?
19. Do you listen to music in your target language(s)? If so, who are your favorite artists?
20. Opinion on duolingo?
21. What’s your favorite method of studying?
22. Have you ever played pokemon in your target language(s)?
23. Favorite blog in your target language(s)?
24. Do you ever speak to yourself in your target language(s)?
25. Ever speak to your pets in your target language(s)?
26. Do you ever feel like your target language(s) is(are) under appreciated? Why/why not?
27. How do people usually react when you mention that you’re studying your target language(s)? Do their reactions annoy you? Make you happy?
28. How do natives react when they hear that you’re studying their language?
29. Do you have any advice for someone who’s never studied a language before?
30. Where are you from? What are popular/”useful” foreign languages in your area?
31. Are there dialects in your country? Do you speak one?
32. Have you ever tried to learn a dialect for your target language(s)?
33. Do you ever want to have a career in languages?
34. How has learning languages impacted your life?
35. Do you have any big travel plans for the future?
36. What’s your least favorite language? Why? Favorite?
37. Do you know any obscure/useless words in your target language(s)?
38. Was there ever a word you pronounced incorrectly until someone corrected you?
39. What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you while studying your target language(s)?
40. Have you ever eavesdropped on people speaking your target language(s) in public?
41. Have you ever had a negative experience with a native?
42. What’s the most positive experience you’ve had with a native?
43. Tell me about your best friend in your target language(s)
44. Have you ever put sticky notes all over your house before?
45. Do you ever think in your target language(s)?
46. Are there any cognates between your native and target language(s)?
47. Have you ever met a stranger in public with whom you spoke your target language(s)?
48. Have you ever had an “I understand it now!” moment with your target language(s)?
49. Do you have any language pet peeves?
50. Is there a language that you’ve tried to learn but could never stick with it or just weren’t interested?
Back from two weeks away in Hong Kong and Taiwan, where I ate my bodyweight in delicious things and definitely bought my bodyweight in pretty things. Hong Kong -- and specifically Sham Shui Po -- remains a paradise for sourcing cosplay fabric and trimmings.
Tomorrow we vote (and voting tactically, here, means voting for the candidate I'd be voting for anyway) but I can't summon up the optimism to hold much hope that it'll mean an end to the current Conservative council here. Let's wish for me to be wrong.
The UK is cold and my mosquito bites itch. Grump.
Tomorrow we vote (and voting tactically, here, means voting for the candidate I'd be voting for anyway) but I can't summon up the optimism to hold much hope that it'll mean an end to the current Conservative council here. Let's wish for me to be wrong.
The UK is cold and my mosquito bites itch. Grump.
We got our gorgeous (and expensive) Black Box edition of Nier Automata yesterday. It comes with a big artbook (which we've not flipped through much in case of potential spoilers), a pretty steelbook case for the game, the soundtrack from the concert in Japan last year, various cosmetic DLC things and a figure of the game's main character 2B.
I've played perhaps an hour of it so far. Pez has played significantly more (because most of today I spent with a migraine in bed as she played). It's beautiful visually, the gameplay really flows well as it goes from genre to genre, and it has -- as one would expect from a sequel to Nier -- a wonderful soundtrack. I can't really talk about the story since I've missed most of it so far but thematically it seems close to the original Nier, meditations on the nature of humanity and consciousness.
Nier is one of my favourite games ever, and likewise for Pez -- it sits in a close second place to The Last Remnant for mutual meaningfulness to us as a couple -- so this game has a lot to live up to. The fact that there's actually a sequel is already a minor miracle. So far Pez seems pleased though, and since she's harder to please than I am, I suspect I'm really going to enjoy this game.
It's a busy month gamewise -- Nier Automata, Mass Effect Andromeda, Persona 5 (which technically releases in April now but still close enough). I'm putting off Andromeda until I see something that makes me more enthused about it, because honestly two big game releases within a month is enough of a money drain. If Nier and Persona both live up to the hype, then combined with FFXV and other recent acclaimed titles like Zelda: Breath of the Wind, The Last Guardian, and Horizon: Zero Dawn it feels like we're in somewhat of a golden age for RPG gaming.
I've played perhaps an hour of it so far. Pez has played significantly more (because most of today I spent with a migraine in bed as she played). It's beautiful visually, the gameplay really flows well as it goes from genre to genre, and it has -- as one would expect from a sequel to Nier -- a wonderful soundtrack. I can't really talk about the story since I've missed most of it so far but thematically it seems close to the original Nier, meditations on the nature of humanity and consciousness.
Nier is one of my favourite games ever, and likewise for Pez -- it sits in a close second place to The Last Remnant for mutual meaningfulness to us as a couple -- so this game has a lot to live up to. The fact that there's actually a sequel is already a minor miracle. So far Pez seems pleased though, and since she's harder to please than I am, I suspect I'm really going to enjoy this game.
It's a busy month gamewise -- Nier Automata, Mass Effect Andromeda, Persona 5 (which technically releases in April now but still close enough). I'm putting off Andromeda until I see something that makes me more enthused about it, because honestly two big game releases within a month is enough of a money drain. If Nier and Persona both live up to the hype, then combined with FFXV and other recent acclaimed titles like Zelda: Breath of the Wind, The Last Guardian, and Horizon: Zero Dawn it feels like we're in somewhat of a golden age for RPG gaming.
Weekend!
Since I had insomnia on Thursday night (just couldn't sleep) I was a bit out of it yesterday evening. Got halfway through the evil no-items dungeon on FFXV then hit a frustrating bug and paused it all to be grumpy. Managed to finish chapter 10 of this fic as well, which is good. I think it'll come out to 12 or 13 chapters in total. What's published is going to be at a pleasingly unromantic point for Valentine's day, so that's nice.
I need to work on Carbuncle this weekend. We've got a sewing pattern that should help with the face, and enough extra material to allow us some fucking-up attempts. I do want to finish my Dirk Gently read-through as well -- I always forget what a messy stream-of-unedited-ideas the first novel seems at first and then how it pulls all the threads together, in a way I massively massively envy and admire.
Sidenote: I was explaining to Pez last night that I am going through my days with an undercurrent of mortal terror. I am pretty sure we're at the apex of civilisation as we know it now, and it's all going to get swept away soon. It's too much, too crippling a fear to cope with, honestly, and so I bury myself in distractions because otherwise I find myself wanting to go live in a bunker.
Since I had insomnia on Thursday night (just couldn't sleep) I was a bit out of it yesterday evening. Got halfway through the evil no-items dungeon on FFXV then hit a frustrating bug and paused it all to be grumpy. Managed to finish chapter 10 of this fic as well, which is good. I think it'll come out to 12 or 13 chapters in total. What's published is going to be at a pleasingly unromantic point for Valentine's day, so that's nice.
I need to work on Carbuncle this weekend. We've got a sewing pattern that should help with the face, and enough extra material to allow us some fucking-up attempts. I do want to finish my Dirk Gently read-through as well -- I always forget what a messy stream-of-unedited-ideas the first novel seems at first and then how it pulls all the threads together, in a way I massively massively envy and admire.
Sidenote: I was explaining to Pez last night that I am going through my days with an undercurrent of mortal terror. I am pretty sure we're at the apex of civilisation as we know it now, and it's all going to get swept away soon. It's too much, too crippling a fear to cope with, honestly, and so I bury myself in distractions because otherwise I find myself wanting to go live in a bunker.
So Pez's FFXV cosplay got shared by the official FFXV facebook and twitter accounts (linking to our joint cosplay page on facebook for credit). Hooray, she's now internet famous, whee.
My own FFXV cosplay is going decently well. I bought some material called Selapar which is designed for making lampshades and which is sort of a thick double-sided sticky plastic, which should help with the ear shapes I need to make.
My own FFXV cosplay is going decently well. I bought some material called Selapar which is designed for making lampshades and which is sort of a thick double-sided sticky plastic, which should help with the ear shapes I need to make.
As per usual.
( books and manga )
( videogames and other games )
( music )
( tv and anime )
( film and theatre )
( cons, events, travelling )
( cosplay )
( other )
( books and manga )
( videogames and other games )
( music )
( tv and anime )
( film and theatre )
( cons, events, travelling )
( cosplay )
( other )
(apparently I didn't post my november reads, oops)
The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin
I really enjoyed this; my notes for this read have gone astray but basically I had a blast and love Alabaster and especially love the romance towards the end (and was VERY grumpy that it wasn't allowed to persist).
The Mage Storms by Mercedes Lackey (trilogy)
I love love love Karal. He's such a great POV character. I also love An'desha's whole evolution, and the way that he and Firesong manage to remain friends (if distanced) and the engineering stuff is great and, yes, okay, I just really like these books.
The Obelisk Gate by NK Jemisin
The sequel to The Fifth Season. I read most of it in one day and I think that was the way to do it, inhaling the story in one big gulp. I still love Alabaster very much, and the way the story and the motivations all unspool. Really looking forward to the next novel.
The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo by Zen Cho
I can remember people being all over this and I'm not quite sure why? It's… okay. The main character has a distinct voice, I'll give it that, but it didn't delight me the way it seems to have delighted others.
The Awakened Kingdom by NK Jemisin
This is a novella, set after the Inheritance trilogy, focusing on Shill. Eino is just wonderful and I loved Shill's growing wisdom and comprehension. The self-claiming was pretty awesome, and the magic was beautifully expressed.
Shades in Shadow by NK Jemisin
I will admit I skimmed the last of the three stories (Glee as a narrator does nothing much for me alas) but I enjoyed the Hado story and love love loved the Nahadoth one for being twisty and satisfying and delicious. I babbled the plot of the Nahadoth story to Pez afterwards because I liked it so much. Beautiful men who are rebelling against captivity, which I guess is a thing for me because that's twice in a row it's made me go yes yes please, though Eino and Haan (and Nahadoth too) are very, very different despite that superficial resemblance.
Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian
Okay, I tried. And it was fun, apart from the four pages entirely of mast and rigging names -- aka 'fuck you, readers, I did research for this and you will all suffer while I get it out of my system' -- but I don't think I can bear to work my way through more of the series. Pez and I were talking about how hard we find it to follow battle scenes in novels, and how we both end up skimming them and in this series that means I'm left with not a lot worth reading the books for.
Our Better Secret Lives by Matthew Amster-Burton
I backed this on kickstarter, because I'm a friend of Matthew's and have loved his non-fiction writing and hey, indie music focus in the 90s is my jam. Not surprisingly, I really enjoyed this novel as a result! I inhaled it in one happy go, and then went and listened to some of the music that meant a lot to me in my teenage years.
I also started Permutation City by Greg Egan and Golden Hill by Francis Spufford and set them aside.
I think possibly I read other books but unfortunately I didn't write them down and now, poof, the memory is gone.
The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin
I really enjoyed this; my notes for this read have gone astray but basically I had a blast and love Alabaster and especially love the romance towards the end (and was VERY grumpy that it wasn't allowed to persist).
The Mage Storms by Mercedes Lackey (trilogy)
I love love love Karal. He's such a great POV character. I also love An'desha's whole evolution, and the way that he and Firesong manage to remain friends (if distanced) and the engineering stuff is great and, yes, okay, I just really like these books.
The Obelisk Gate by NK Jemisin
The sequel to The Fifth Season. I read most of it in one day and I think that was the way to do it, inhaling the story in one big gulp. I still love Alabaster very much, and the way the story and the motivations all unspool. Really looking forward to the next novel.
The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo by Zen Cho
I can remember people being all over this and I'm not quite sure why? It's… okay. The main character has a distinct voice, I'll give it that, but it didn't delight me the way it seems to have delighted others.
The Awakened Kingdom by NK Jemisin
This is a novella, set after the Inheritance trilogy, focusing on Shill. Eino is just wonderful and I loved Shill's growing wisdom and comprehension. The self-claiming was pretty awesome, and the magic was beautifully expressed.
Shades in Shadow by NK Jemisin
I will admit I skimmed the last of the three stories (Glee as a narrator does nothing much for me alas) but I enjoyed the Hado story and love love loved the Nahadoth one for being twisty and satisfying and delicious. I babbled the plot of the Nahadoth story to Pez afterwards because I liked it so much. Beautiful men who are rebelling against captivity, which I guess is a thing for me because that's twice in a row it's made me go yes yes please, though Eino and Haan (and Nahadoth too) are very, very different despite that superficial resemblance.
Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian
Okay, I tried. And it was fun, apart from the four pages entirely of mast and rigging names -- aka 'fuck you, readers, I did research for this and you will all suffer while I get it out of my system' -- but I don't think I can bear to work my way through more of the series. Pez and I were talking about how hard we find it to follow battle scenes in novels, and how we both end up skimming them and in this series that means I'm left with not a lot worth reading the books for.
Our Better Secret Lives by Matthew Amster-Burton
I backed this on kickstarter, because I'm a friend of Matthew's and have loved his non-fiction writing and hey, indie music focus in the 90s is my jam. Not surprisingly, I really enjoyed this novel as a result! I inhaled it in one happy go, and then went and listened to some of the music that meant a lot to me in my teenage years.
I also started Permutation City by Greg Egan and Golden Hill by Francis Spufford and set them aside.
I think possibly I read other books but unfortunately I didn't write them down and now, poof, the memory is gone.
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So yesterday I finished the game (storywise) and today I picked up the last achievements so I could get my platinum trophy for it in PSN. There's a LOT of content I could still noodle at in-game -- hunts, fishing, recipes, item collecting, extra dungeons, extra monster quests -- but in theory you could poke at this for weeks and not really run out of game. We'll see how I feel. I do have FFXIV to catch up with.
Anyway, my feelings summarised: It's a big, complex, fun game with good bits and bad bits.
( spoilers )
Anyway, my feelings summarised: It's a big, complex, fun game with good bits and bad bits.
( spoilers )
Right then!
A summary: we went to Iceland. It was very cold, often dark, and we ate a lot of food and had a great time.
( Read more... )
Iceland was lovely. We'd both gladly go back again -- maybe in spring or autumn next time, since the snow-in-face did get a bit wearying, and we did miss the sun. But it's a wonderful place, and there's lots more to do than we did this time.
A summary: we went to Iceland. It was very cold, often dark, and we ate a lot of food and had a great time.
( Read more... )
Iceland was lovely. We'd both gladly go back again -- maybe in spring or autumn next time, since the snow-in-face did get a bit wearying, and we did miss the sun. But it's a wonderful place, and there's lots more to do than we did this time.
We are back! It snowed a lot (we got there just before the first snow this year), we ate a vast amount of food, we went swimming, and we went and saw waterfalls, horses, black sand, and a blue ice glacier. We did not see the Northern Lights -- the conditions weren't good for it on any night, and the boat trip we were to take was cancelled because of high winds. I don't think I mind? There's so much footage that it doesn't feel like we really missed out by not seeing it.
I'll be brutally honest: the weather was truly brutal. High winds (with gusts so strong they knocked over a coach, apparently), hail, snow, sleet. We were dressed for it, so it wasn't too awful, and we had a wonderful time that means we'd gladly go back to Iceland and do other things next time (horseriding, maybe, or a hike that goes onto the glaciers).
I'll post up our pictures and a more detailed report later, but if you just want to see quite how much food we shoved into our faces, https://www.instagram.com/sushicoffeecake/ has lots of photos of the meals etc.
I'll be brutally honest: the weather was truly brutal. High winds (with gusts so strong they knocked over a coach, apparently), hail, snow, sleet. We were dressed for it, so it wasn't too awful, and we had a wonderful time that means we'd gladly go back to Iceland and do other things next time (horseriding, maybe, or a hike that goes onto the glaciers).
I'll post up our pictures and a more detailed report later, but if you just want to see quite how much food we shoved into our faces, https://www.instagram.com/sushicoffeecake/ has lots of photos of the meals etc.
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Well, the week is over. No more work until January for us! We went and had a celebratory drink-and-dinner last night, because of course there was a lot of awkward finicky stuff to do on the last day and we were super tired by the end of it.
We've packed up our things for the Iceland trip -- the suitcases are about 70% sweater, at this point, since we're both very aware of how cold it's going to be there. But I have pretty clothes too, for the fancy restaurants we booked! We're staying in London tonight (after a Christmas party with friends, so my pretty clothes will do double-duty) and then heading to the airport tomorrow morning. I'm so excited, seriously.
We've packed up our things for the Iceland trip -- the suitcases are about 70% sweater, at this point, since we're both very aware of how cold it's going to be there. But I have pretty clothes too, for the fancy restaurants we booked! We're staying in London tonight (after a Christmas party with friends, so my pretty clothes will do double-duty) and then heading to the airport tomorrow morning. I'm so excited, seriously.
Yuri!!! on Ice is a weird show. An anime about male figure skaters, coming at a time when a young male Japanese figure skater is becoming a skating icon -- but a show that is definitely not about that skater, instead focusing on a skater who is actually a little bit old for the sport. The show delivered gorgeous animation for three episodes and since then has been coasting on mostly awful animation (seriously, even in the skating scenes it's ropey sometimes) but beautiful choreography and a gay romance that people have fallen over themselves for. Despite the fact that we don't really see them fall in love -- partly because the show moves too fast to really devote time to it, and partly because they just sort of do the face-smushing 'these two guys are hot, they fancy each other, that's enough' thing that is a bit unsatisfying.
Clearly my opinion is in the minority, though. People are delighted by any actual gay representation, and adore the show. Figure skaters adore it. It's super popular even among people not into anime.
Episode ten switches to Viktor's POV for the first time, and that's a nice change, and they make a token effort to explain why he likes Yuri, and they have all the skaters interacting with each other in entertaining ways, and a big relationship milestone is passed. And then they drop the ending, which is a) funny and b) actually a little sad -- clearly the things that were said actually meant a great deal to Viktor and kindled the romance on his side, and yet Yuri was too drunk to remember that night.
Anyway, I am glad they took an episode to do non-skating stuff and focused on the people, because now I am a lot less grumpy about the character development in this show.
Clearly my opinion is in the minority, though. People are delighted by any actual gay representation, and adore the show. Figure skaters adore it. It's super popular even among people not into anime.
Episode ten switches to Viktor's POV for the first time, and that's a nice change, and they make a token effort to explain why he likes Yuri, and they have all the skaters interacting with each other in entertaining ways, and a big relationship milestone is passed. And then they drop the ending, which is a) funny and b) actually a little sad -- clearly the things that were said actually meant a great deal to Viktor and kindled the romance on his side, and yet Yuri was too drunk to remember that night.
Anyway, I am glad they took an episode to do non-skating stuff and focused on the people, because now I am a lot less grumpy about the character development in this show.
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We went to Hyper Japan Christmas Market!
Well. First Pez and I got dressed up: Pez put on her Yurio costume, and I got a bit dolled up:
Getting off the train I got asked twice about my hair (it's a wig, of course). Anyway, we went for a nice meal at Honest Burger near Liverpool St. We got there just before 1pm, and the staff member snuck us a brunch menu. Their bubble and squeak is very, very nice.
After that we went over to Tobacco Dock. I haven't been to that venue before. It's nice; lots of space, but quite open to the elements and we kept getting a bit lost due to the layout. We'd picked up tickets to the Sake Cocktail awards thing, so we headed over to that and tried the three different cocktails on offer to pick a winner (Pez liked the one with banana wasabi puree and pepper, I liked the one with sparkling yuzu sake and cointreau). Next to it was a free sake sampling area, with the idea being that you tried things and then bought things after. We bought things!
From left: sparkling yuzu sake, sparkling sweet sake, cloudy traditional sake (medium-dry), cans of the yuzu jelly sake. And the leopard pendant I bought elsewhere in the event.
After that we met up with some of our friends and hung out with them for a while, having a wander, picking up some tasty ice cream and ducking back into the sake tasting area for a bit. I convinced Pete to pick up a whole bunch of sake now for the tasting event at Minami, too. Eventually our feet gave out, so we came home!
And now Pez and I are here with a tiny dominoes pizza, hot cookies and a lot of sake. A very nice day!
Well. First Pez and I got dressed up: Pez put on her Yurio costume, and I got a bit dolled up:
Getting off the train I got asked twice about my hair (it's a wig, of course). Anyway, we went for a nice meal at Honest Burger near Liverpool St. We got there just before 1pm, and the staff member snuck us a brunch menu. Their bubble and squeak is very, very nice.
After that we went over to Tobacco Dock. I haven't been to that venue before. It's nice; lots of space, but quite open to the elements and we kept getting a bit lost due to the layout. We'd picked up tickets to the Sake Cocktail awards thing, so we headed over to that and tried the three different cocktails on offer to pick a winner (Pez liked the one with banana wasabi puree and pepper, I liked the one with sparkling yuzu sake and cointreau). Next to it was a free sake sampling area, with the idea being that you tried things and then bought things after. We bought things!
From left: sparkling yuzu sake, sparkling sweet sake, cloudy traditional sake (medium-dry), cans of the yuzu jelly sake. And the leopard pendant I bought elsewhere in the event.
After that we met up with some of our friends and hung out with them for a while, having a wander, picking up some tasty ice cream and ducking back into the sake tasting area for a bit. I convinced Pete to pick up a whole bunch of sake now for the tasting event at Minami, too. Eventually our feet gave out, so we came home!
And now Pez and I are here with a tiny dominoes pizza, hot cookies and a lot of sake. A very nice day!
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Iceland planning in overdrive! We bought fluffy warm hats in a sale and I have already booked us in for:
* a foodie walk-and-sample tour around Reykjavik
* a boat trip at night to try and view the Northern Lights
* a day-long tour of the south coast (taking in a trip to a glacier, a black sand beach, and some waterfalls).
The foodie tour guide also helped me book two fancy restaurants for nice dinners. I have also found a promising looking cafe that does seasonal fancy soup (like reindeer) in bread bowls if we have time and stomach space for that.
We're going to come back four sizes larger at this rate.
A friend of ours is coming up to visit in early December too, which will be lovely. This winter is going to be so full! I'm going to have no time to thoroughly nerd out over FFXV at this rate.
(Relatedly: FFXIV: I'm powering through storyline because I can. I still love Aymeric. I spoiled myself for his storyline while looking up his JP voice actor and it's THE BEST STORYLINE I'm so happy. Also: Alphinaud got a much more decent outfit! I've warmed up to Alphinaud a lot in Heavensward's storyline. It helps not to be listening to his English VA, I think. Also I'd forgotten how much I love exploring in this game. Heavensward has lots of new space, it's lovely.)
* a foodie walk-and-sample tour around Reykjavik
* a boat trip at night to try and view the Northern Lights
* a day-long tour of the south coast (taking in a trip to a glacier, a black sand beach, and some waterfalls).
The foodie tour guide also helped me book two fancy restaurants for nice dinners. I have also found a promising looking cafe that does seasonal fancy soup (like reindeer) in bread bowls if we have time and stomach space for that.
We're going to come back four sizes larger at this rate.
A friend of ours is coming up to visit in early December too, which will be lovely. This winter is going to be so full! I'm going to have no time to thoroughly nerd out over FFXV at this rate.
(Relatedly: FFXIV: I'm powering through storyline because I can. I still love Aymeric. I spoiled myself for his storyline while looking up his JP voice actor and it's THE BEST STORYLINE I'm so happy. Also: Alphinaud got a much more decent outfit! I've warmed up to Alphinaud a lot in Heavensward's storyline. It helps not to be listening to his English VA, I think. Also I'd forgotten how much I love exploring in this game. Heavensward has lots of new space, it's lovely.)
We just got offered tickets to the Pokemon Sun & Moon launch party next week, but it's the same night as the FFXV launch and we're more hyped for that. Oh well! It was a lovely thought, it's just an unfortunate coincidence of game launches.
We're also going to Hyper Japan next week! We haven't been to a Hyper Japan in years. I decided to splash out for a) priority entry and b) the sake cocktail event add-on tickets. I don't think we'll cosplay, but we'll see friends and drink some nice cocktails, so, hooray!
Pez also just surprised me with a trip to Iceland planned for just before Christmas (basically: we go to a Christmas dinner with friends in London and then head off northwards the day afterwards). We're staying in a pretty fancy hotel too, from the looks of it. I'm so delighted; I loved Iceland the last time I visited and am really pleased to go back. I'm looking forward to hot springs and to eating all the things (I was vegetarian last time) and also to trying to see the Northern Lights! But we might need to go buy some very warm clothing beforehand.
We're also going to Hyper Japan next week! We haven't been to a Hyper Japan in years. I decided to splash out for a) priority entry and b) the sake cocktail event add-on tickets. I don't think we'll cosplay, but we'll see friends and drink some nice cocktails, so, hooray!
Pez also just surprised me with a trip to Iceland planned for just before Christmas (basically: we go to a Christmas dinner with friends in London and then head off northwards the day afterwards). We're staying in a pretty fancy hotel too, from the looks of it. I'm so delighted; I loved Iceland the last time I visited and am really pleased to go back. I'm looking forward to hot springs and to eating all the things (I was vegetarian last time) and also to trying to see the Northern Lights! But we might need to go buy some very warm clothing beforehand.
FFXIV: I've finished all the storyline leading up to Heavensward!
That was a lot of quests, lots of raids and dungeons which I just kept my head down for and got done. I changed the voice options to JP because I just couldn't bear the English voice acting any more, and thankfully I did this *before* hitting the hours of cutscenes at the end of ARR. I actually watched the cutscenes and saw the, alas, spoiled-for-me-already plot events. It's not the best or most unpredictable plotting in the world, but I liked that it made Alphinaud admit how badly he'd fucked up. And I got to watch my new favourite character being wonderful:
(Everyone loves Aymeric.)
I have, since the big twist, popped back to Ul'dah (to poke at my squadron). Nobody batted an eyelid. I'm a seven foot tall purple dragon with a red blotch on his face, but NOBODY NOTICES ME. I love things like this in games. I also unlocked the Sea of Clouds. There's lots of story to keep going on with, lots of side-quests, lots of exploration. How much can I do before FFXV eats all my attention, I wonder.
That was a lot of quests, lots of raids and dungeons which I just kept my head down for and got done. I changed the voice options to JP because I just couldn't bear the English voice acting any more, and thankfully I did this *before* hitting the hours of cutscenes at the end of ARR. I actually watched the cutscenes and saw the, alas, spoiled-for-me-already plot events. It's not the best or most unpredictable plotting in the world, but I liked that it made Alphinaud admit how badly he'd fucked up. And I got to watch my new favourite character being wonderful:
(Everyone loves Aymeric.)
I have, since the big twist, popped back to Ul'dah (to poke at my squadron). Nobody batted an eyelid. I'm a seven foot tall purple dragon with a red blotch on his face, but NOBODY NOTICES ME. I love things like this in games. I also unlocked the Sea of Clouds. There's lots of story to keep going on with, lots of side-quests, lots of exploration. How much can I do before FFXV eats all my attention, I wonder.
FFXIV: I completed a bunch of storyquests. There are a lot left until I even start Heavensward and open the new area (foolishly I'd failed to realise how many patch-addition quests are slotted in between ARR and Heavensward's story) but I've managed to get my base relic bow (yay) and that quest involves wiping out some raids that are plotline necessary anyway, so, progress. Lots of things cleared, lots of progress. My character is decked out in Ironworks gear mostly because I had silver chocobo feathers to trade in for most of it, but (of course) I've just realised I have to grind for more Poetics tokens to upgrade my bow and am now regretting burning tokens on the matching ironworks gloves. Oops.
So far I'm right: people are nicer to me in my new character setup and there's no way I'm playing any better than I did before. Most of the time I'm not even buffing my comrades now. And yet.
Yesterday we went out for late lunch with a friend, bought stuff for Pez to make Christmas pudding with (it has to be started way in advance) and then we watched all of the FFXV anime over since he hadn't seen it. It's not long until the game itself launches. I've pre-ordered the day one edition and I'm looking forward to the launch event -- our local cinema is livestreaming the actual launch event, and showing Kingsglaive (the prequel movie) as well. A four-hour evening of FFXV stuff, and there are freebies too apparently. We snagged Premier seating because I got a tip-off it was the same price (and it was) so we'll even be guaranteed a good view and comfy seating for the thing. Hooray, a marketing campaign that may actually get past my jaded expectations! I want to go into this hyped and ready to enjoy the thing.
So far I'm right: people are nicer to me in my new character setup and there's no way I'm playing any better than I did before. Most of the time I'm not even buffing my comrades now. And yet.
Yesterday we went out for late lunch with a friend, bought stuff for Pez to make Christmas pudding with (it has to be started way in advance) and then we watched all of the FFXV anime over since he hadn't seen it. It's not long until the game itself launches. I've pre-ordered the day one edition and I'm looking forward to the launch event -- our local cinema is livestreaming the actual launch event, and showing Kingsglaive (the prequel movie) as well. A four-hour evening of FFXV stuff, and there are freebies too apparently. We snagged Premier seating because I got a tip-off it was the same price (and it was) so we'll even be guaranteed a good view and comfy seating for the thing. Hooray, a marketing campaign that may actually get past my jaded expectations! I want to go into this hyped and ready to enjoy the thing.
Weekend! Weekend!
(Tomorrow we might have food plans. Otherwise NO PLANS. I may sleep a lot.)
With my usual fickleness I decided I wanted to switch up my FFXIV character entirely again; this time change the name to something less feminine (he's now Qubine Nassau, hahaha) and play around in the character customisation to see what I could come up with. I now have a glorious male dragon-guy character, all muscles and height and PURPLE.
My FC's leadership changed hands a few days back and the new leader pinged me yesterday to a) admire my new char's looks and outfit and b) tell me that I will get a bonus on levelling other classes after I hit 60 on my main class, in case I might want to leave them until I've done that. I didn't know this! But I don't think it's going to change how I play much. I pulled my ALC class up to 35 last night, which was very quick and easy since potions go for a pittance in the market so you can just buy HQ ones and turn them in for EXP.
I do think I'll feel better about BRDing through the rest of the main story in my new character setup, since the asshole speedrunner types are just generally less assholish to buff male characters. Funny how that works. Should make dungeons a lot more pleasant, I think.
(Tomorrow we might have food plans. Otherwise NO PLANS. I may sleep a lot.)
With my usual fickleness I decided I wanted to switch up my FFXIV character entirely again; this time change the name to something less feminine (he's now Qubine Nassau, hahaha) and play around in the character customisation to see what I could come up with. I now have a glorious male dragon-guy character, all muscles and height and PURPLE.
My FC's leadership changed hands a few days back and the new leader pinged me yesterday to a) admire my new char's looks and outfit and b) tell me that I will get a bonus on levelling other classes after I hit 60 on my main class, in case I might want to leave them until I've done that. I didn't know this! But I don't think it's going to change how I play much. I pulled my ALC class up to 35 last night, which was very quick and easy since potions go for a pittance in the market so you can just buy HQ ones and turn them in for EXP.
I do think I'll feel better about BRDing through the rest of the main story in my new character setup, since the asshole speedrunner types are just generally less assholish to buff male characters. Funny how that works. Should make dungeons a lot more pleasant, I think.
Valvrave fic idea turned over today: AU where L-elf and A-drei are faking a long-running relationship just so they can actually have an excuse to whisper about revolution plans (and then the revolution sort of happens without them and the rest of the squad therefore stay alive to be heartbroken that it was all a fakery). Honestly any excuse to write fake-dating plotlines, I'm a sucker for the trope. But the Siberia story outline has to be finished first (8k words and counting).
We survived the last Monday before MCM, despite the inevitable avalanche of orders to pack and send! And our wig order arrived and some of the wig heads (they're pretty!) and my Dazai costume. We even managed to go get some groceries before coming home, so neither us or the cat is going to starve. And the bus driver kindly let us on his bus despite our passes apparently not being valid for that bus, whoops.
Our Amazon order from last week has vanished into the ether; nobody in the business park has seen it despite it being delivered to a 'reception'. Amazon have refunded it, at least. And the other delivery we're waiting for (more wig heads and a bag for Pez's Yurio costume) is *allegedly* coming on Wednesday. We're getting there! Slowly! But we're approaching readiness!
We survived the last Monday before MCM, despite the inevitable avalanche of orders to pack and send! And our wig order arrived and some of the wig heads (they're pretty!) and my Dazai costume. We even managed to go get some groceries before coming home, so neither us or the cat is going to starve. And the bus driver kindly let us on his bus despite our passes apparently not being valid for that bus, whoops.
Our Amazon order from last week has vanished into the ether; nobody in the business park has seen it despite it being delivered to a 'reception'. Amazon have refunded it, at least. And the other delivery we're waiting for (more wig heads and a bag for Pez's Yurio costume) is *allegedly* coming on Wednesday. We're getting there! Slowly! But we're approaching readiness!
Our restock wig order was supposed to arrive today; according to the tracking information, it didn't get loaded onto the plane in Hong Kong and so the delivery company are flailing around. Great! Awesome! That's not at all time-critical or anything! *weeps* Other deliveries we desperately need have also been delayed (wig heads, for instance). I hate being so reliant on flaky delivery companies. Importing is such a pain.
Costumes are coming along; I need to finish chopping down L-elf's wig, and shorten the pants I got for Dazai. I'm giving a talk on the Friday of MCM about wig styling, so I should also dig out the Amnesia wig and check it looks suitably pretty for when I'm pretending I'm an expert on how to make wigs look pretty.
Pez bought a batch of Valvrave doujinshis from Japan, which arrived on Monday -- basically all the Karlstein ones she could find on Mandarake's website that didn't have dreadful art on the interior previews. Mostly A-drei/L-elf, but some others too. Japanese Valvrave fandom is pretty decent: these are mostly well worth the purchase! The doujinshis are either cracky, porny or THIS IS NOT OKAY OH MY HEART. One we both thought was really intriguing was part 1 of 2, and according to the artist's pixiv account she never released part 2. Wah.
It's been the sort of week where comfort eating is the only option, honestly.
Costumes are coming along; I need to finish chopping down L-elf's wig, and shorten the pants I got for Dazai. I'm giving a talk on the Friday of MCM about wig styling, so I should also dig out the Amnesia wig and check it looks suitably pretty for when I'm pretending I'm an expert on how to make wigs look pretty.
Pez bought a batch of Valvrave doujinshis from Japan, which arrived on Monday -- basically all the Karlstein ones she could find on Mandarake's website that didn't have dreadful art on the interior previews. Mostly A-drei/L-elf, but some others too. Japanese Valvrave fandom is pretty decent: these are mostly well worth the purchase! The doujinshis are either cracky, porny or THIS IS NOT OKAY OH MY HEART. One we both thought was really intriguing was part 1 of 2, and according to the artist's pixiv account she never released part 2. Wah.
It's been the sort of week where comfort eating is the only option, honestly.
Saturday: we got dressed up nicely and went into the town centre for lunch. We tried a local italian restaurant we hadn't been to before. It always gets really high reviews on tripadvisor and so on, but it's tucked away down a side-street and we keep forgetting it's there. I had chicken pate as a starter, then crab tagliatelle for my main (delicious!) and then a banoffee ice cream thingy afterwards, and it was great and extremely decadent.
After that we went clothes shopping; Pez got a hoodie for her Yuri cosplay (I failed to find cream/white trousers for Dazai, so I'll be searching ebay I guess) and I bought fluffy fox pyjama pants and fluffy fox bedsocks! It was either foxes or Christmassy things for both, weirdly, and while it's cool enough to want fluffywarm clothing it's not actually December yet.
This morning I finished FFXIV's main story! I recruited a party of people who were (theoretically) okay with m watching the cutscenes in the last dungeon; in the end they lost patience a bit and ran off ahead and wiped out the last boss without me, but one person did carefully hang back with me to make sure I didn't get lost for most of it, and I actually got to see the whole dungeon instead of having to skip the plot. Finishing the main story means I'm now allowed to get the Heavensward content, so there are new quest icons all over the place and new dungeons to clear and it's a tad overwhelming honestly. Whee. I'm trying to get a fancy bard bow, and I want to unlock the new area (Ishgard) so I have two dungeons to definitely go ahead and clear already. Content! So much content!
We went into work late this afternoon to do some more stockpiling of things for MCM; pouring out bottles of prosthetic glue and cutting up thermoplastic, so they're sale-ready, because we don't want to be doing prep stuff in our booth. It's not a fun way to spend a Sunday but since it's October we'll be swamped most of the week and we need to find the time somehow.
After that we went clothes shopping; Pez got a hoodie for her Yuri cosplay (I failed to find cream/white trousers for Dazai, so I'll be searching ebay I guess) and I bought fluffy fox pyjama pants and fluffy fox bedsocks! It was either foxes or Christmassy things for both, weirdly, and while it's cool enough to want fluffywarm clothing it's not actually December yet.
This morning I finished FFXIV's main story! I recruited a party of people who were (theoretically) okay with m watching the cutscenes in the last dungeon; in the end they lost patience a bit and ran off ahead and wiped out the last boss without me, but one person did carefully hang back with me to make sure I didn't get lost for most of it, and I actually got to see the whole dungeon instead of having to skip the plot. Finishing the main story means I'm now allowed to get the Heavensward content, so there are new quest icons all over the place and new dungeons to clear and it's a tad overwhelming honestly. Whee. I'm trying to get a fancy bard bow, and I want to unlock the new area (Ishgard) so I have two dungeons to definitely go ahead and clear already. Content! So much content!
We went into work late this afternoon to do some more stockpiling of things for MCM; pouring out bottles of prosthetic glue and cutting up thermoplastic, so they're sale-ready, because we don't want to be doing prep stuff in our booth. It's not a fun way to spend a Sunday but since it's October we'll be swamped most of the week and we need to find the time somehow.
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Pez is planning on wearing the Russian Yuri from Yuri on Ice to MCM, so she's sourcing bits and pieces for it. I'm going to do Dazai from Bungo Stray Dogs, which Pez has been nudging me towards anyway and which we can just buy from Taobao. It'll be nice to be up to date for once, and they're both easy to wear costumes that aren't so elaborate as to be distracting. We'll also wear our Valvrave uniforms for one day -- L-elf for me and A-drei for Pez. I'm deciding what else to wear on the third day -- probably the heroine from Amnesia because it's a cute girly costume with a moderately fancy bit of wigwork to show off. Three pre-bought costumes! I feel lazy and yet accurate at the same time. But honestly wearing something I've made myself when I'm going to be behind a table most of the time seems a bit silly.
FFXIV stuff: Level 50 Carpenter, woohoo! I get a HUGE shiny carpentry saw as a reward, plus I can use the fancy smithing gloves I bought after the Ixal quest chain finished. At this point the game is firmly nudging me to finish the main storyline quest and start up Heavensward (not doing so basically means there's a big content wall I can't get to the other side of) so maybe I will do that at some point soon.
FFXIV stuff: Level 50 Carpenter, woohoo! I get a HUGE shiny carpentry saw as a reward, plus I can use the fancy smithing gloves I bought after the Ixal quest chain finished. At this point the game is firmly nudging me to finish the main storyline quest and start up Heavensward (not doing so basically means there's a big content wall I can't get to the other side of) so maybe I will do that at some point soon.
We finished watching Bungo Stray Dogs, which is now onto its second season and a different main arc. Combined with our enjoyment of Yuri on Ice, that gives us two current animes to try and keep up with! We were also keeping up with two things last season, this is amazing since I think of myself as madly behind the times with anime viewing. We are finally shelling out for a Crunchyroll sub, as well -- we've been using guest passes until now, but they ran out last week and, well, we probably should pay for it at this point, especially since we can't obsessively rewatch Valvrave without a premium account. We're told that Crunchyroll actually distributes sub fees based on what you watch, which I very much approve of! I like the idea that our money isn't being thrown at shows we don't care about, especially given how much awful stuff there is on there.
The PS4 Pez bought me has really changed our viewing habits, I think. It has Netflix and Crunchyroll and Amazon video as apps. I mean, our TV gives us apps too; BBC iPlayer and 4onDemand and so on, but we don't switch to those nearly as often as we switch to watch things on the PS4. And we do still watch a lot of random TV as background noise, but we watch far more stuff by choice than we used to. On Sunday night we watched Amelie, which Pez hadn't seen before, and which I like a great deal -- I own it on DVD, but somehow actually putting it on as a DVD is so much more deliberate an action than just streaming it via the PS4.
Speaking of the PS4: on Sunday I played FFXIV almost all day. I finished the Ixali beastquest chain! And I crafted and crafted and crafted and so I am now at least level 15 in all the crafting professions. This makes it easier to do *all* crafting projects, because of the extra skills you unlock at level 15. My level 45 carpenter can easily now push out high-level bows and fishing rods and also *furniture*. Furniture sells for a lot of in-game money as well as being nice in my own apartment; I burnt ~300k on resources for the crafting binge and drained my funds but after my retainers sold a few things I'm back up to ~280k already. Very tempted to go botany-mad for wood this evening, so I can make more furniture.
(Work has been crazybusy. And today we went to the gym and I put up all my weights to be hard, to the point where I was actually out of breath after my circuit on the resistance training machines. I am very tired. FFXIV seems like a good, non-efforty way to burn my evening. :D)
The PS4 Pez bought me has really changed our viewing habits, I think. It has Netflix and Crunchyroll and Amazon video as apps. I mean, our TV gives us apps too; BBC iPlayer and 4onDemand and so on, but we don't switch to those nearly as often as we switch to watch things on the PS4. And we do still watch a lot of random TV as background noise, but we watch far more stuff by choice than we used to. On Sunday night we watched Amelie, which Pez hadn't seen before, and which I like a great deal -- I own it on DVD, but somehow actually putting it on as a DVD is so much more deliberate an action than just streaming it via the PS4.
Speaking of the PS4: on Sunday I played FFXIV almost all day. I finished the Ixali beastquest chain! And I crafted and crafted and crafted and so I am now at least level 15 in all the crafting professions. This makes it easier to do *all* crafting projects, because of the extra skills you unlock at level 15. My level 45 carpenter can easily now push out high-level bows and fishing rods and also *furniture*. Furniture sells for a lot of in-game money as well as being nice in my own apartment; I burnt ~300k on resources for the crafting binge and drained my funds but after my retainers sold a few things I'm back up to ~280k already. Very tempted to go botany-mad for wood this evening, so I can make more furniture.
(Work has been crazybusy. And today we went to the gym and I put up all my weights to be hard, to the point where I was actually out of breath after my circuit on the resistance training machines. I am very tired. FFXIV seems like a good, non-efforty way to burn my evening. :D)
Final Fantasy 14 stuff: Today I burnt through FATEs and dungeons on FFXIV for enough tokens to promote my character two ranks, which meant I could buy property (finally). And so: I now own an apartment in the game! It's not very exciting at the moment; it has a bed, a chair, two flowerpots, and two merchants standing there. Since the merchants just blankly look in one direction, I also built an internal wall to stop them watching me sleep. Tomorrow I will probably finish up the Ixali beastquest chain. And maybe bite the bullet and finish up the main storyline quest dungeon, so I can access Heavensward content.
I currently have three retainers (inventory issues to do with culinarian levelling drove me to three) including a David and a Qubine. My chocobo is called Rush, and my apartment's name is Athlum. I'm enjoying this intense TLR nerding so much.
We watched Good Will Hunting and gosh there's some not-very-good acting in it, and some of it's very mawkish and unconvincing. Robin Williams is good, but then he usually is. I think the trouble is that I don't buy the romance, and without it the whole ending falls apart, so: enh.
Tonight we are watching more Bungo Stray Dogs and it continues to make me facepalm. And yet it's still worth watching. It's nicely subverting a bunch of tropes, at least.
I currently have three retainers (inventory issues to do with culinarian levelling drove me to three) including a David and a Qubine. My chocobo is called Rush, and my apartment's name is Athlum. I'm enjoying this intense TLR nerding so much.
We watched Good Will Hunting and gosh there's some not-very-good acting in it, and some of it's very mawkish and unconvincing. Robin Williams is good, but then he usually is. I think the trouble is that I don't buy the romance, and without it the whole ending falls apart, so: enh.
Tonight we are watching more Bungo Stray Dogs and it continues to make me facepalm. And yet it's still worth watching. It's nicely subverting a bunch of tropes, at least.
We watched the first episode of Yuri!!! on Ice and it was sweet, lots of hero-worship and pretty ice dancing and I know it's going to get more fanservicey (from the look of the next episode preview) but so far it's not as fanbaity as I'd feared.
And now we're watching Bungo Stray Dogs and it stars, amongst others, a very bishie incarnation of the Japanese author Osamu Dazai as a sort of supernatural detective/warrior in an agency of several such. He is introduced trying to drown himself on a whim, and cheerfully speculates on suicide methods and suicide generally. He has a superpower, nulling other superpowers on demand, and his superpower is called No Longer Human. This should give you some idea of the tone of things, I think, especially if you've read No Longer Human or if you know anything about Osamu Dazai at all. I can't tell if I love it or if I've actually found my breaking point for 'Japan, no too far this time' but we're watching the rest now. Pez wants to cosplay from this and specifically for me to cosplay Dazai.
I am sort of tempted. And yet.
(We're pretty sure Akutagawa is in it too, and Tanizaki just showed up. I think this is specifically designed to break my brain.)
And now we're watching Bungo Stray Dogs and it stars, amongst others, a very bishie incarnation of the Japanese author Osamu Dazai as a sort of supernatural detective/warrior in an agency of several such. He is introduced trying to drown himself on a whim, and cheerfully speculates on suicide methods and suicide generally. He has a superpower, nulling other superpowers on demand, and his superpower is called No Longer Human. This should give you some idea of the tone of things, I think, especially if you've read No Longer Human or if you know anything about Osamu Dazai at all. I can't tell if I love it or if I've actually found my breaking point for 'Japan, no too far this time' but we're watching the rest now. Pez wants to cosplay from this and specifically for me to cosplay Dazai.
I am sort of tempted. And yet.
(We're pretty sure Akutagawa is in it too, and Tanizaki just showed up. I think this is specifically designed to break my brain.)
It was our fourth wedding anniversary on Saturday! We went into town for cake and coffee in the afternoon, and then (because Pez was rummaging earlier and couldn't find a single 'dressed-up-nice' handbag) we went for a browse around the two local department stores for handbags, and bought Pez a very nice Vivienne Westwood clutch bag as an anniversary treat. In the evening we went for dinner at a restaurant near work, in a building where they've made a feature out of the old cannon-ball damage to the exterior. The dinner was... quite good? Not especially outstanding, but we had cocktails and dessert and a nice time.
On Sunday I spent time levelling up gathering classes on FFXIV, and then in the evening I reached for some biscuits and pulled a muscle in my shoulder so badly I thought I'd dislocated it. Just what you need when the next day is a) the first Monday b) after payday c) in the month of Expo/Halloween. It was painful to lift anything heavy, including my laptop, so I went to bed early and sulked to music instead.
I successfully survived Monday and packing a lot of orders at the shop and my arm seems better, but we went for dinner at the noodle bar after work. The noodle bar have put up their prices again and it is, we think, now just a bit too expensive to do dinner spontaneously there any more; next time we'll go somewhere cheaper. Tonight is another FFXIV night (it's good for non-thinky button-mashing activity) and maybe some more reading later. My current fic is sprawled to 18k. Even my short little mostly-PWP fic is 8k. I need to learn economy of wording, desperately.
On Sunday I spent time levelling up gathering classes on FFXIV, and then in the evening I reached for some biscuits and pulled a muscle in my shoulder so badly I thought I'd dislocated it. Just what you need when the next day is a) the first Monday b) after payday c) in the month of Expo/Halloween. It was painful to lift anything heavy, including my laptop, so I went to bed early and sulked to music instead.
I successfully survived Monday and packing a lot of orders at the shop and my arm seems better, but we went for dinner at the noodle bar after work. The noodle bar have put up their prices again and it is, we think, now just a bit too expensive to do dinner spontaneously there any more; next time we'll go somewhere cheaper. Tonight is another FFXIV night (it's good for non-thinky button-mashing activity) and maybe some more reading later. My current fic is sprawled to 18k. Even my short little mostly-PWP fic is 8k. I need to learn economy of wording, desperately.
Having finally named my phone, I dropped it today and cracked the screen quite badly. Oh, Kyouya, I'm sorry. It's still usable, so I'm not rushing to get it fixed, but sigh. It's supposed to have super-strong glass!
The local waffle-dessert place had a big rebranding today (they told us about it last time we went in) and so we went to try their new menu. Mostly the rebranding is that they've added a few more savoury options, including the exact thing Pez was hoping for: fried chicken with maple syrup, on a waffle. The owner stopped by, told us we were his oldest customers (...hm) and we told him we liked the food.
Afterwards we went to the posh hotel place for cake and coffee on their terrace, and that was lovely too.
(I'm enjoying the kindle! There are definitely aspects that are irritating -- it's hard to flip through a book I've already read to find a certain bit again, for instance -- but it's a very nice way to read novels.)
The local waffle-dessert place had a big rebranding today (they told us about it last time we went in) and so we went to try their new menu. Mostly the rebranding is that they've added a few more savoury options, including the exact thing Pez was hoping for: fried chicken with maple syrup, on a waffle. The owner stopped by, told us we were his oldest customers (...hm) and we told him we liked the food.
Afterwards we went to the posh hotel place for cake and coffee on their terrace, and that was lovely too.
(I'm enjoying the kindle! There are definitely aspects that are irritating -- it's hard to flip through a book I've already read to find a certain bit again, for instance -- but it's a very nice way to read novels.)
1) The Killing Moon by N K Jemisin (library)
I read about 80 pages of this, enjoyed the tone of it greatly but couldn't warm to any characters and eventually decided I would return it to the library and perhaps borrow it again another time.
2) Everything and the Moon by Julia Quinn (library)
This opens with an author's note about how she doesn't believe in love at first sight and this was her attempt to write it. She says that she thinks she has convinced herself in this book. I'm not sure she convinced me. It felt distinctly romance-by-the-cliche; the beautiful but (oh no) clumsy girl, the handsome earl, the misunderstanding that leads to a years-long-estrangement because of pride, the fucking overheard soliloquy that resolves it, the oddly meh-inspiring opinionated maiden aunt and cousin -- both characters who I would normally have loved in other JQ novels, but here they just felt like retreads. Also, sheer nitpickery but it made me wonder if JQ was even paying attention when she was writing it: if your hero and heroine both have black hair and blue eyes, having the hero joke that nobody would think she was his sister given their respective colouring is not actually a joke that works.
3) An Irresistible Batchelor by JR Ward (library)
This is the author who does the shamelessly iddy Vampire Brothers romance novels, and this was nowhere near as shameless and iddy as those are, alas. It wasn't a terrible read. It was just predictable, and a bit dull. Apparently I'm not in a mood to forgive romance novels for being average at the moment.
4) The Prize in the Game by Jo Walton
I picked this up secondhand, and then when I got around to reading it realised I had already read it some years ago. Which is fine; I recall it as being a good book, and I'll re-read it someday, so it can sit on a shelf for now.
5) Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb
I read this because I got a kindle, and this was already in my amazon ebook library (I think there must have been a giveaway at some point). I'm glad it was here to read; I had a good time, and enjoyed the characters, and enjoyed the layers and masks and deceptions of every single person whose viewpoint we got too see.
6) What Makes This Book Great by Jo Walton
I read a sample of this because amazon suggested it, and then I bought the ebook because Tor.com wasn't letting me at the articles there and I don't mind paying extra for ease of reading. The articles do a thing which good analysis does: makes me want to read a lot of books I've not -- for whatever reason -- bothered to add to my (already very long) internal mental to-read list, enough for me to add a lot of titles to my actual amazon wish-list, to the point of me just leaving amazon open for easy find-and-add on my laptop while I read on my kindle. Admittedly I still don't see myself reading Brust or Cherryh or Bujold, but these essays made it clearer why those authors don't work for me, I think.I have to say that Walton is another person who makes me wonder why I bounced off Pamela Dean's Tam Lin. I mean, I didn't even bounce off it interestingly, I just thought it was boring and that I didn't like Janet very much, but I didn't hate it. I just... I didn't fall in love with the people in it, or with the lifestyle, and so many people I know seem to revere the damned book that I just feel like I'm missing a huge emotional component by not getting it. Oh well.
I read about 80 pages of this, enjoyed the tone of it greatly but couldn't warm to any characters and eventually decided I would return it to the library and perhaps borrow it again another time.
2) Everything and the Moon by Julia Quinn (library)
This opens with an author's note about how she doesn't believe in love at first sight and this was her attempt to write it. She says that she thinks she has convinced herself in this book. I'm not sure she convinced me. It felt distinctly romance-by-the-cliche; the beautiful but (oh no) clumsy girl, the handsome earl, the misunderstanding that leads to a years-long-estrangement because of pride, the fucking overheard soliloquy that resolves it, the oddly meh-inspiring opinionated maiden aunt and cousin -- both characters who I would normally have loved in other JQ novels, but here they just felt like retreads. Also, sheer nitpickery but it made me wonder if JQ was even paying attention when she was writing it: if your hero and heroine both have black hair and blue eyes, having the hero joke that nobody would think she was his sister given their respective colouring is not actually a joke that works.
3) An Irresistible Batchelor by JR Ward (library)
This is the author who does the shamelessly iddy Vampire Brothers romance novels, and this was nowhere near as shameless and iddy as those are, alas. It wasn't a terrible read. It was just predictable, and a bit dull. Apparently I'm not in a mood to forgive romance novels for being average at the moment.
4) The Prize in the Game by Jo Walton
I picked this up secondhand, and then when I got around to reading it realised I had already read it some years ago. Which is fine; I recall it as being a good book, and I'll re-read it someday, so it can sit on a shelf for now.
5) Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb
I read this because I got a kindle, and this was already in my amazon ebook library (I think there must have been a giveaway at some point). I'm glad it was here to read; I had a good time, and enjoyed the characters, and enjoyed the layers and masks and deceptions of every single person whose viewpoint we got too see.
6) What Makes This Book Great by Jo Walton
I read a sample of this because amazon suggested it, and then I bought the ebook because Tor.com wasn't letting me at the articles there and I don't mind paying extra for ease of reading. The articles do a thing which good analysis does: makes me want to read a lot of books I've not -- for whatever reason -- bothered to add to my (already very long) internal mental to-read list, enough for me to add a lot of titles to my actual amazon wish-list, to the point of me just leaving amazon open for easy find-and-add on my laptop while I read on my kindle. Admittedly I still don't see myself reading Brust or Cherryh or Bujold, but these essays made it clearer why those authors don't work for me, I think.I have to say that Walton is another person who makes me wonder why I bounced off Pamela Dean's Tam Lin. I mean, I didn't even bounce off it interestingly, I just thought it was boring and that I didn't like Janet very much, but I didn't hate it. I just... I didn't fall in love with the people in it, or with the lifestyle, and so many people I know seem to revere the damned book that I just feel like I'm missing a huge emotional component by not getting it. Oh well.
Yesterday I went down to London to have lunch with a friend, and then came back with Krispy Kremes for my wife. It was a nice trial for the kindle, since I had also forgotten to take headphones for my iPod. I got about a third of the way through Robin Hobb's Ship of Magic (one of the books I mysteriously had already available to me) on my journeys and then read another third or so in the evening. Amazon helpfully recommended me a bunch of interesting things as ebooks, so I tried some samples as well. Samples are a very nice benefit of ereaders. Reading on the kindle is a perfectly fine reading experience -- though I had one glitch where the book lost my position and I had to swipe across forty pages to find my place because I didn't know where I'd gotten to -- but I realised that I am sort of used to reading electronic things like fic a certain way, by scrolling continuously so my eye-position in the text stays about mid-screen. It's hard to get used to reading electronic documents as if they were books with real pages.
Meanwhile my local library got in touch to tell me they've stocked The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate on my recommendation, hooray. I mean, I bought The Fifth Season for my birthday because I am impatient but I will likely borrow The Obelisk Gate so I am pleased anyway.
Pez and I have our four-year wedding anniversary on Saturday! This means we're going for a nice dinner. There's a place very near our work that gets rave reviews, and we've been curious for a while. Let's hope it's nice.
Meanwhile my local library got in touch to tell me they've stocked The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate on my recommendation, hooray. I mean, I bought The Fifth Season for my birthday because I am impatient but I will likely borrow The Obelisk Gate so I am pleased anyway.
Pez and I have our four-year wedding anniversary on Saturday! This means we're going for a nice dinner. There's a place very near our work that gets rave reviews, and we've been curious for a while. Let's hope it's nice.
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I got a Kindle Paperwhite! There was an offer on QVC on the weekend and I've been uhming and ahhing over buying an ereader for a while (never owned one before). It's black, comes with a pretty purple leather case, and I have named it Andrei.
(My ipod is Qubine, my laptop is Hiroshi, my old phone was Masaharu. Apparently I've never named my current phone, so it's now Kyouya. The theory is that if I name the thing for something I like, I'll take better care of it.)
I own two ebooks already on amazon for reasons that are a bit unclear to me, and there's a lending library thing I get access to because I have Amazon Prime (oh, and a free choice from six 'preview' ebooks each month, it turns out). Weirdly the first ebook I went looking for that wasn't already on my normal wishlist was a copy of The Last Herald-Mage series, because I ditched the physical books a while back but wouldn't mind an e-version for comfort reading. It turns out they don't exist in ebook form. Grumble. It looks like some of the other early Lackey books have been recently made available, though, so I suppose I'll wait and see. I do also want to read the Aubrey-Maturin series but having seen the cost to buy it all on kindle I think I'll borrow it via the library instead.
Otherwise my wishlist is full of things my library only stocks the first in the series of, or doesn't stock at all.
(My ipod is Qubine, my laptop is Hiroshi, my old phone was Masaharu. Apparently I've never named my current phone, so it's now Kyouya. The theory is that if I name the thing for something I like, I'll take better care of it.)
I own two ebooks already on amazon for reasons that are a bit unclear to me, and there's a lending library thing I get access to because I have Amazon Prime (oh, and a free choice from six 'preview' ebooks each month, it turns out). Weirdly the first ebook I went looking for that wasn't already on my normal wishlist was a copy of The Last Herald-Mage series, because I ditched the physical books a while back but wouldn't mind an e-version for comfort reading. It turns out they don't exist in ebook form. Grumble. It looks like some of the other early Lackey books have been recently made available, though, so I suppose I'll wait and see. I do also want to read the Aubrey-Maturin series but having seen the cost to buy it all on kindle I think I'll borrow it via the library instead.
Otherwise my wishlist is full of things my library only stocks the first in the series of, or doesn't stock at all.
Tags:
It's been a nice lazy weekend. I've played FFXIV a fair bit (I got my fisher to level 50, yuss, and my botanist is at 20). I've written fic, which mostly means I've written porn but hey, it's still writing. Today we put on Moyashimon Returns after browsing around the Crunchyroll options for a while. Pez gave me most of the first season of Moyashimon back when we were first dating, and I only got through about half of that (too distracted by life stuff at the time), but I remember that it was enjoyably bizarre. The main hero can see and talk to (and is talked to by) bacteria and microbes, and there's a lot of focus on brewing and brewing techniques. It's fun and silly and cute. Returns is likewise a lot of fun. I'm not really following the plot because I'm doing other stuff online, but every time I look up I'm rewarded by something worth seeing, and the ending song is a joy to watch every time.
Otherwise we've sort of marathoned through most of Star Trek: The Next Generation recently, starting in season 3 and now about a third of the way into season 6. It's watchable, occasionally good and often a bit cringeworthy and a lot of the time it feels like plot points are being anviled onto viewers. Worf is the best.
Otherwise we've sort of marathoned through most of Star Trek: The Next Generation recently, starting in season 3 and now about a third of the way into season 6. It's watchable, occasionally good and often a bit cringeworthy and a lot of the time it feels like plot points are being anviled onto viewers. Worf is the best.
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