The Cracked Mug v 2.0

[erikavonkaiser]

The best D art is when he is just a weirdo who is Shapes

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[erikavonkaiser]

Wednesday equivalent, so halfway there!

I do have some tasks/chores to get knocked out between today and my Friday equivalent:

• laundry + wash the dog bed that goes under my desk (started this already!)

• fffff I just realized I wanted to run the bathroom rug through the wash but totally forgot AH WELL I'll just vacuum it really good with the brush attachment

• trim Baby Dog's nails (got the nail charger trimming, this is -- lmao wtf did I just type, I mean I have the nail trimmer charging, but anyways this is probably a tomorrow task)

• attempt to cut my hair

• clean the bathroom really well (likely right after said haircut, as I imagine there will be tiny hairs everywhere)

• check on my VA ID card that I totally forgot existed

• make appointment for car thing

• dust the living room

• recycle out to recycle bins

I think that's more or less the highlights, plus whatever I end up "oh, lemme do [thing] real quick"-ing as I'm doing the main tasks. Not quite a Spring Cleaning or anything, since I already did that and also it's summer now, but just one of those weeks where I've realized I've got some tasks backed up so let's knock 'em out. Aside from that, work has been busy so far but not bad, hopefully that's the vibe for the rest of the week.

[erikavonkaiser]

o yeah lemme catch up on these really quick

Vampire Hunter D Volume 8: Mysterious Journey to the North Sea - Part Two by Hideyuki Kikuchi
Five even spookier sea monster stars
(My star ratings for these are all over the place but just know they have essentially an entirely different rating system than most other books I read, and one that is based solely off "how much did I have a good time while reading it")

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hey okay so this one actually slapped???

also I'm posting the cover art when I do these now

ANYWAYS I would say my main criticisms are that the cast was still bloated (I was able to more or less keep everyone straight but I think several of the villain troupe could've easily been combined and the priest/Toto was pretty pointless), there was One Unnecessary Scene that I made a face at (it actually wasn't a sexual assault thing but it was definitely "the writer unnecessarily slides in a fetish and I am annoyed I had to read it, as that is not what I signed up for"), and Su-In kinda lost the thread in the final arc despite otherwise being a great character. I'd still consider her an S Tier "D Damsel," but it's almost like Kikuchi got bored of writing her at the end, or something. Aside from that it was a genuinely good action/adventure romp with a strong throughline, some fun characters, a muscle mommy fisherwoman for a leading lady, and really fun development in terms of Left Hand and D's relationship. At one point Left Hand refers to D as his "landlord," which I thought was great.

There was also some kinda interesting stuff in this one, in a couple of different ways! For instance there's a "mermaid" character that is sometimes male and sometimes female, and when in true form appears to be a mixture of both. The pronouns the text ultimately used are "he/she" which was clunky, but serviceable (especially for a book published in 1989, I prefer "he/she" to the othering of "it"). I found myself wondering what the original Japanese used, just as a point of curiosity. Also there were giant fish monsters and D goes into a lil submarine at one point and and and

tl;dr book good

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 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

Hideyuki Kikuchi's Vampire Hunter D, Volume 02, adapted and illustrated by Saiko Takaki
Yeah sorry it's still not great

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This adapts Raiser of Gales and is way better as a manga than it was as a light novel, but unfortunately is still my least favorite of the series so far. It's just very heavy on punishing the leading lady in horrific ways, and I think this one is also heaviest I've seen so far on the trope of having random villains prove their villainy by openly threatening to rape/assault a woman. It's just exhausting and ends up feeling extra pointless, because the leading lady is already doomed by the narrative so her life just kinda sucks a lot and then she dies about it.

It's a shame because this novel has some huge D Lore Drops, especially in terms of his uniqueness (the tl;dr is that several characters in this one were attempts, by D's father, to recreate D, and it ends up very poorly). But, yeah, not worth how gross everything is, and how muddy the plot is otherwise.

[erikavonkaiser]

also I started playing Valheim (Masque's fault) and now all I want to do is flop on my couch and go on Viking adventures but unfortunately I must be a responsible and productive adult

[erikavonkaiser]

I feel like it shouldn't be too bad???

re: cutting my own hair

It was, in fact, not too bad! I did this yesterday and while it was expectedly messy, it worked out great! I'm definitely a little awkward at it but my bathroom mirror situation is such that I was able to double-check I got all of the sides and back and whatnot.

So I'm gonna just do that going forward! I am delighted because I honestly hate the errand of going to get my hair cut, mostly because I have become an insufferable City Gay that is agonized by the effort of walking to my parking garage, driving somewhere, finding parking, paying for parking, doing the thing, driving back, walking back from my parking garage-----

bluhhhh!!

When I lived in NC it really was not as laborious, but here I constantly am putting off getting a haircut just because the idea of going to do the thing (and on my precious weekend time, at that) is always supremely offputting. Now I can just do it in my own bathroom, and save money! Woo!!!

This is a boring thing to be excited about but man, I'll take clearing up an entire recurring errand off my docket for the foreseeable future as a win

[erikavonkaiser]

also I started playing Valheim (Masque's fault) and now all I want to do is flop on my couch and go on Viking adventures but unfortunately I must be a responsible and productive adult

today is this, but with the added bonus that I'm super lethargic (I am due to start my period, so probably because of that) and I just want to be horizontal on a comfortable surface and not have responsibilities zzzzzzzzzz

[Fetian]

Having done zero looking in to this specific instance, I can say that it's much easier to just avoid using pronouns in Japanese so that's probably what they did for that character!

[knightofcups]

This is a boring thing to be excited about but man, I'll take clearing up an entire recurring errand off my docket for the foreseeable future as a win

getting mek to cut my hair, and then learning to do it myself has been fantastic and exciting, so I think I am boring too : )

For real, though, just being able to run a clipper over my head whenever is awesome, and I cut my hair a lot more than I would otherwise, which is great, because having a neat buzz makes me feel super good about my physical self. And saves so much money!!

[erikavonkaiser]

In the cat cafe game I play on my Switch you can attract stray cats to adopt, and I got the ability to put down a special lure (literally trash) and---

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So of course,

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[erikavonkaiser]

• laundry + wash the dog bed that goes under my desk (started this already!)

• fffff I just realized I wanted to run the bathroom rug through the wash but totally forgot AH WELL I'll just vacuum it really good with the brush attachment

• trim Baby Dog's nails (got the nail charger trimming, this is -- lmao wtf did I just type, I mean I have the nail trimmer charging, but anyways this is probably a tomorrow task)

• attempt to cut my hair

• clean the bathroom really well (likely right after said haircut, as I imagine there will be tiny hairs everywhere)

• check on my VA ID card that I totally forgot existed

• make appointment for car thing

• dust the living room

• recycle out to recycle bins

More or less got everything knocked out! I did check on the VA ID card but it requires more brain than I was prepared for, and I do still need to make the car appointment but ehhhhhhhhh I got the important stuff done. I'm on my weekend now and enjoying myself! Taking a quick break after exercising to level Rex up for tomorrow's D&D and to make sure I have my planner accurate for Sophie's visit, and then I'll go back to playing Valheim.

okay byeeeeeeeeee