Mangela Lansbury

I summoned someone to help me with Ebrietas. They came into the garden place from outside, rode the elevator down with me, then sent it up. Then they ran in circles for a minute, did a joy emote, and leapt into the gaping hole where the elevator wasn't. Ebrietas is not going well for me.

Homestuck took a year-ish long break recently so Hussie could put the end together and put it all out there at once (or as close to at once as his servers could handle). Then he came back and was like, haha didn't happen, here's a little something at least, see y'all in April! And now it's still ongoing. I liked it when it was just a cute story about four friends. Then like 8 new casts were brought in and I just threw it in the garbage where it belongs.

I killed my first invader tonight, after forgetting I'd been invaded and almost dying. It felt good, after dying repeatedly to those giant brain dudes who frenzy you that I can't seem to figure out how not to die horribly to.

I decided to re-read the Otherland series by Tad Williams since I've been moving it around with me for over a decade and can barely remember anything about it. I'm only partway through the first book of the series and I'm really surprised by how good it is. There's a passing reference to a poly marriage in California through some news set-up, one of those blurbs that books put at the start of chapters to build a world. The main character is a black woman who's a professor in an IT field in South Africa. The racial problems in South Africa are dealt with in a surprisingly good way, and the way Williams writes about housing in northern California (increasingly insular gated communities and huge honeycomb slums) is really believable, in a sci-fi not-quite-dystopia way. It's not a perfect book, but for something that I went into expecting the kind of dumb, empty pulp I liked when I first read these (I think I last read this book in middle school or freshman year of high school?), it's been a surprisingly substantial read. It's still pretty pulpy, and I'm sure it'll only get moreso as the series goes on, but for now I'm just really enjoying that teenaged me actually liked something that now me still likes and finds relevant. Good job, teenaged me!

The Obergefell arguments today were just breathtakingly ignorant. The respondent argued for a literally medieval view of marriage, completely divorced from emotional attachment or intimacy and instead centered around power and convenience, and then argued on a completely imaginary definition of marriage where it doesn't bestow any dignity or higher social position on the married parties. The sheer ignorance of the history of gender and sexuality in the repeated references to a millennia old tradition of marriage dating back to the Greeks was frustrating, too. I don't think I've heard so many patently wrong things stated by even the justices in any oral argument.

I decided to watch Shirobako after seeing some people on here say good things about it. I really enjoyed the first half of it, and how everyone seemed kind of disenchanted about their position and where they were going in their career but getting support from their friends and coworkers. It was a nice portrayal. The second half has been... less good? It seemed like it took a thematic turn and went from being about this group of friends and their various troubles and how they deal with them to just being about how anime gets made and the drama in getting a show made. It's still believable and decently written/animated, and I'm sure if I was more interested in what it was about now I'd be more into it, but it's just not something I'm really interested in. I'll finish it out since I'm so close to the end. It's just disappointing that it changed so much between the first half and the second half.

Cainhurst Castle has been my favorite area of the game so far. It was super neat and fun to go through. Right now, I'm stuck on Nightmare Frontier.

I grew up calling a woman in my neighborhood Gay Bruce, her full given name, so it doesn't feel weird to me. And I don't know why, but it rubs me the wrong way when I see people asking when she's going to change her name. She having a hard enough time, in case it wasn't apparent from the media treatment. Just let her do her thing at her own pace!

I still call him Count Doodoo because I am a very mature adult.

A Gene Wolfe style Souls game would utterly decimate my life.

I thought it had its own domain, but the link in the episode 192 thread went to a dropbox... I think this is it on Github, though. http://karthikb351.github.io/thumbsdb/

For the third one, I'd gotten up to get some chocolate milk while the game was loading, so I just got back to an invader standing by the lamp throwing pebbles at me like... heyyyyyy let's fiiiiiight c'mon buddy let's not be friennnnnds.

The worst part of the whole Iceman thing to me is how all my straight comic fan friends are all "yay gay x-man!!!!" and won't hear otherwise. Ugh.

I got invaded for the first time tonight! Then the second. Then the third. Then I turned the game off.

I'm really oblivious when someone sends signals about liking me, which has gotten me in some terrible situations -- just like starting out with sex! I don't know. I'm trying to start as friends these days because the other way isn't working for me, but this is the first time I've actually felt sure that I like someone. It puts extra blinders on me because I end up overthinking things even though several of my friend's have rolled their eyes at me and been like, "He's obviously into you, dude." People are hard.

Wait, his given name is Spaff? Does that count?

I usually just dodged in other Souls games, so my problem has been taking damage and making them vulnerable, but dodging backwards and being unable to get back to them in time to run them through. Guess I just need to practice it, then!

I will give your regret some company maybe by being drunk and saying dumb things about my dating life??? I'm really into this guy I met recently in a friend context and I am really into him but don't know how to make the jump from friends to maybe more??? Like, he's a really good friend and we talk almost everyday and he's cool enough that I don't want to fuck that up, but he's maybe sending signals that he'd be into more or maybe I'm just a narcissist? I don't know, I usually start with sex because I'm an awful gay stereotype like that, so I have very little experience with making the jump the other way! It's scary and unfamiliar and I'm going to maybe ask him soon instead of playing the weird game of "into me or just French" and idk it's weird

I'm still using the starter pistol.

I beat the witch on my second try and immediately had no idea how I couldn't figure her out the first time around. Still terrible at timing the gunshot parries, though. Is there some trick I'm missing or do I just have bad reflexes?

It's a hard and uncomfortable thing to grasp, but there is truth to it. I can't speak to the experiences of people targeted by GamerGate, but I know from my personal experience as a queer person that silent support feels like damnation. It doesn't have to be much, just a little message of support. When you're in a bad situation, the words of support just mean a lot because not saying anything feels like you're saying, "This (read: you) doesn't matter enough to me to say anything about it."

I'm very bad at this game, but it's really fun! I can't kill Vicar Amelia at all, and the witch whatever just confuses me (but I've only tried her once) so I explored some more tonight. Had to put it down tonight after I tried to open a door and was killed by a giant... Thing???

"Don't do drugs or you'll live in filth" seems like a bright, chipper message compared to what you usually see.

I read a pretty interesting overview of the history of the magical girl genre today. It doesn't go into depth very much, but it was an okay read nonetheless! http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a03904/

I liked Haruki Murakami a lot when I read a ton of his books about a decade ago, but I think I might feel differently about them now. Not necessarily that I'd dislike them, I just think my tastes have changed a bit judging from how I've felt about Colorless Tsukuru and 1Q84.