The Cracked Mug v 2.0

[erikavonkaiser]

Okay, got the living room/kitchen/tiny hallway tidied, I'm going to finish up the bedroom because it's still pretty clean from Sophie Visit and then I'll clean the bathroom tomorrow. I'm running out of energy and still have to go to work, so I don't wanna burn myself out too bad. I also did my usual Monday grooming Baby Dog chores (brushing her and her teeth, + I did trim a few nails today) so we're doin' alright!

Gonna sit and draw or maybe just flop for a bit before I have to get ready for work. Tomorrow I'll clean aforementioned bathroom and probably do a load of laundry and then I'll be ready to knock out Friday workshift and commence a-weekending.

[erikavonkaiser]

Vampire Hunter D Volume 9: The Rose Princess by Hideyuki Kikuchi
Three stars

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first off that cover art is my entire gender

second off this one was ... conflicting! It could've easily been one of my top favorites but ended up more middling.

Pros:
1) some great monster/horror concepts in this one, the head-taker sounded goofy but genuinely spooked me in its implementation and the Rose Princess enthralls people by sprouting evil flowers in them
2) I thought the Knights (minus the White Knight, see below ) were great supporting characters/villains and a really cool concept, although I wish they'd been explored/explained a little better
3) the "challenge level," for lack of a better way to put it, felt satisfying in this one; D is an overpowered character and finding the right balance of his might vs. the antagonists can sometimes be skewed too far one way or the other

Cons:
1) VHD has dipped its toes into queer-coding villains but this is the first one where it's bothered me; the White Knight is, um, well, I'll just say there's a lot going on there and all of it is homophobic
2) Elena is my least favorite flavor of D Damsel and gets a LOT of screentime, only to --

decide at the end that she wants to be a Noble and D kills her??? I do actually like the concept of this twist, because Elena is shown as craving power and revenge, so I don't think it's entirely out of left field. The problem I had is that Elena was irritating to me (she's the "tough girl" trope but the type that gets in the way all the time) and had a lot of narrative focus that I don't think she earned, so I just ended up waiting for her to go away and then, uh, she does, I guess.

points for D unceremoniously killing her, though; there was no dramatic pause or anything, just him confirming she wants to remain a vampire, her brazenly doing so and then realizing she fucked up right as D cuts her through

3) the Rose Princess herself did not entirely make sense, motivation-wise; I think the ultimate goal was "bored of immortality" but it was a bit all over the place

Anyways, I have a few more back-and-forth points but overall, yeah, this one's middleground.

Ordered from most to least-liked, and I am forcing myself not to give commentary on my decisions:

Vampire Hunter D Volume 5: The Stuff of Dreams
Vampire Hunter D
Vampire Hunter D Volume 8: Mysterious Journey to the North Sea - Part Two
Vampire Hunter D Volume 7: Mysterious Journey to the North Sea - Part One
Vampire Hunter D Volume 9: The Rose Princess
Vampire Hunter D Volume 4: Tale of the Dead Town
Vampire Hunter D Volume 3: Demon Deathchase
Vampire Hunter D Volume 6: Pilgrimage of the Sacred and the Profane
Vampire Hunter D Volume 2: Raiser of Gales

#books2023

[erikavonkaiser]

2) Elena is my least favorite flavor of D Damsel and gets a LOT of screentime, only to --

decide at the end that she wants to be a Noble and D kills her??? I do actually like the concept of this twist, because Elena is shown as craving power and revenge, so I don't think it's entirely out of left field. The problem I had is that Elena was irritating to me (she's the "tough girl" trope but the type that gets in the way all the time) and had a lot of narrative focus that I don't think she earned, so I just ended up waiting for her to go away and then, uh, she does, I guess.

points for D unceremoniously killing her, though; there was no dramatic pause or anything, just him confirming she wants to remain a vampire, her brazenly doing so and then realizing she fucked up right as D cuts her through

ALSO to continue the spoilertalk:

The Elena situation did result in a kind of unintentionally funny final scene? It's a pretty common VHD trope that as he's riding off into the sunset or whatever he will smile, either seen or unseen by other characters, with the shtick being that he never smiles otherwise but look, he cared all along! He does have a heart! etc

In this one, he talks with a character who was enthralled similarly to the way Elena was, and asks if while the character was suffering enthrallment he ever truly wanted to be a Noble. The character says no, of course not, he was always repulsed by the idea of hurting his loved ones and giving into bloodthirst. This is definitely D checking his own doubts after cutting Elena down, and as he rides off into the distance he smiles. This has the effect of him going "hahaha gotcha bitch" because he's confirmed Elena really did need to die

[erikavonkaiser]

Saturday equivalent!

I started off in Waiting for Thing anxiety mode because the electric company had a planned outage (for maintenance) in the morning and of course were late to start it, so I puttered around in a holding pattern until it went out around 10:00ish. After that I went ahead and got groceries, since I planned to use the outage to get productivity stuff done, and was successful at that. Got ingredients for fancy sandwiches, yay!

Part two of the productivity-during-power-outage plan was to go on my run but after I got back I decided to have a snack first and HOLY DAMN I got absolutely bowled over by a wave of exhaustion. I was dozing so hard I just saved in the middle of my Cyber Sleuth dungeon, turned the Switch off, and buried my head in a pillow to sleep, which I did until the power kicking back on woke me up. I think I slept for almost two hours, if I'm honest, and slept really hard because I remember dreaming and that is unusual for me to do/remember during a nap. I don't know what came over me but sometimes you just gotta let your body take you hostage into unconsciousness, I guess.

Anyway, after that I did end up going on my run which I just got cleaned up from so now I get to properly sit and play video games for a bit! Later I'm gonna try to get some writing done, but for now I sit in the air-conditioning and become a gay rabbit.

[erikavonkaiser]

I smoosh his face

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[erikavonkaiser]

also reminder to anyone with ceiling fans they leave on 24/7 that they get nasty and don't forget to clean them once in a while

signed,
an Erika whose power went out long enough this morning for her to confront some harsh truths about the state of her bedroom ceiling fan

(I've since vacuumed it off but SHEESH)

[erikavonkaiser]

took Baby Dog to the dog beach this morning and she paddled in the water :)

[erikavonkaiser]

A quick blast of what I've been up to:

Sophie visited overnight for a 5k! We took Baby Dog in the wagon; it was a great time, but I don't know if I'd take Baby in the wagon for that kind of event again. She only wanted to be in it about half the time and I was worried she was gonna hurt herself by over-exerting cuz like ... the spirit is willing, but the body is 15-years-old. I didn't wanna force her into the wagon, either, because I want it to be fun, so I'll have to assess if I want to train her to lay down more strictly or just accept it's for shorter trips.

Ordered some blackout curtains (but they're yellow, bcuz colors) for my living room to help with it getting gross and stuffy during sunset hours

Started playing No Man's Sky again because I wanted to show it to Sophie and now have been bitten by the bug, so I started the living ship quest which I'm excited about

Trying some new routine stuff I'll talk about more later maybe

aaaaand I guess that's it for now! I have a few more days of work and then will likely slug weekend cuz I've been busy lately and am low on spell slots. I'm low on spell slots in the good way, if that makes sense, where I've spent them doing positive things that I enjoy, but I still need to recover them before my body/brain decides to recover them for me.

[erikavonkaiser]

I will add one addendum, which is I am glad Sophie and I have similar (or at least compatible) brands of general scheduling/travel anxiety, if that makes sense? I like to know exactly when I'm leaving and have plans and alarms set and to know exactly what I'm in for when I get to a place, including how long I'm expected to be there. I am the sort of person who will leave very early to account for unexpected circumstances, and to have time when I get to the place to get my bearings. Sometimes I'm the sort of person who needs to look up parking or "scope out" the area on Google Street View. These all sound like reasonable things to me, but I'm aware that when trying to get or distribute the aforementioned types of information to someone who does not have a similar brain, I can sound bossy/demanding/micro-managing. I don't think it's anything wrong with me, or wrong with the person who finds my behaviors irritating, I think it's just a brain incompatibility that sometimes happens and that you need to account for if you're going to be doing a lot of planning together.

Anyway, Sophie and I are at a similar level of this particular anxiety, so we end up soothing each other instead of irritating each other

[erikavonkaiser]

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