Huh. That's a really good thought, and one I hadn't considered.
The term "content creator" is so.... well, baffling, in a lot of ways, to me, I didn't really consider that it /is/ different than being a storyteller.
Weekend!
So far it's been pretty restful, which is good. I got my chores and exercise done and played some of the new patch content in Final Fantasy 14! New ocean fishing routes, hell yeah!!
I wanted to play Elden Ring but the area I'm in is hard (for me) and putting up the Greggo Beacon isn't accessible today so I may try to sludge through it or maybe do a multiplayer summon? I dunno. I'm in a cave thing and normally I would just back out of it and keep exploring elsewhere but I had to drop down into it and uhhh I'm going to be honest I don't know how to get out of the cave now except to finish the dungeon. So, oops.
Right now I'm waiting for Sophie to get back from her parents' house so we can watch Babylon 5 and eat dinner together. (Well, long distance "together.") After that I'll decide if I wanna play Elden Ring, do some more Final Fantasy 14 chores, or what. Tomorrow I have some errands to run, then D&D after that.
Alright, lemme clean the kitchen while I finish waiting for Sophie and see if I can clear up some of my brain fog. I'm not in a bad or down mood but I just feel very scattered and meander-y today.
:(
Vampire Hunter D Volume 5: The Stuff of Dreams by Hideyuki Kikuchi 
Five stars
I liked this one so much I went back and adjusted Volume 4's rating to four stars lmao
We're officially in new territory for me! The other volumes I had read before, although it had been many years, but this one was fresh for me. It's very good! The basic premise is a town gets stuck in a vampire's dream and D gets pulled into it and cannot leave, so he has to figure out what's going on and how to resolve the situation. I liked the characters a lot; a few of the side characters get developed in ways I actually cared about, and there are some goddamn raw lines ("I love you with all my heart, and you hate me with every inch of your body" like okay go off king). Left Hand scolds D for deliberately drinking poison in order to be polite to an old woman, it's great.
This one and Volume 4 were much kinder to its women and I am desperately hoping this is just the trend now. The next one was published in 1988, so we'll have to see if the series continues to slowly drink its Respect for Women juice as we head towards the nineties. To be clear it's definitely not, uh, feminist writing, by any means, but this one was occasional comments like "that would be a hard task even for a man" vs. earlier volumes that heavily featured sexual assault. The obligatory prominent lady character with a huge crush on D in this one is Nan and it was such a relief that she was safe from that kind of harm. Her boyfriend did refer to her as potentially being "dirtied" by hanging out with D in a way that implied sullying her virginity (
) but that does not go great for him
(He challenges D to a duel and D is a firm believer that if you're grown-up enough to start a fight, you're grown-up enough to take an entire ass beating from that universe's most powerful dhampir)
Onto the next one! Later today I may start a tier list of favorite to least favorite; there's a bunch of these things and I feel like that would be a fun way to keep up with them as I go along.
#books2023
erikavonkaiser wrote: ↑Thu May 25, 2023 1:22 pmThe obligatory prominent lady character with a huge crush on D in this one is Nan and it was such a relief that she was safe from that kind of harm.
also it continues to be weirdly delightful how utterly disinterested D is in these women; so far the closest he's come to acting on anything was in Volume 1 when Doris hugs him (while naked, if I recall correctly, because she had gotten out of the shower) and propositions him to both have sex with her and bite her if he wants, since she's already vampire-bitten. She notices D is holding her in place very firmly against him but not in a sexy way, and it's because he's having a bloodlust moment and is holding her still until it passes. He literally goes "Sorry, I'm okay now" after snarling like a demon and then lets her go and walks off like nothing happened and she is just,
erikavonkaiser wrote: ↑Thu May 25, 2023 1:22 pmLater today I may start a tier list of favorite to least favorite; there's a bunch of these things and I feel like that would be a fun way to keep up with them as I go along.
Ta-da!
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 3: Demon Deathchase
Vampire Hunter D Volume 4: Tale of the Dead Town
Vampire Hunter D Volume 2: Raiser of Gales
I'm also gonna hashtag both this post and, at some point, my other book review posts, to make them easier to search, so:
#books2023
Purely in terms of titles, though, Demon Deathchase is S-tier
Oh that's an extremely good candidate for the 'in my pants' game
Pilgrimage of the Sacred and the Profane In My Pants
don't say it don't say it don't say it don't-----
yerFACE is an extremely good candidate for the "in my pants" game