I watched the 90s X-Men: The Animated Series back when I was in school with no knowledge of the comic books. While I haven't rewatched it so I can't vouch for how it has aged, I remember that at the time I really enjoyed it for having one of the few things animated television had at the time; an ongoing storyline. As it turns out, many of those story arcs were adapted from the comics, and eventually formed the basis by which I would judge every X-Men adaptation to follow. Also, as it turns out, the character I most fell in love with, was largely made up specifically for the animated series.
More specifically, since it was his job to get killed off in the first two-parter, they reinvented an old Marvel character who wasn't being used anymore and gave him the new code name Morph.
Yes, I managed to fall in love with a character who died in the first two episodes. I was really into shapeshifters so Morph naturally played into the character type I'd root for the most.
The show was still interesting enough though, so I kept watching. And then season 2 happened, and Morph returned as a mind-controlled antagonist. He later got freed from mind-control, but was still mentally messed up. And so going forward generally each season would have a Morph episode I'd look forward to as he dealt with his trauma, and then he'd be gone until the next one. I really liked those check-ins, even though by the final season I knew that a large part of the reason he was kept on the sidelines was likely that he didn't have a comic book equivalent that took part in many of the story arcs they were adapting.
Still, he was included in the send-off of Charles Xavier in the series finale, which made me happy to see that he was still considered in-universe as a core part of the X-Men.
Now, getting close to 30 years later, we have X-Men '97 which rather than reboot the series simply picks up where the original left off. Xavier is gone and the world entrusted to those left behind. (Though I notice they leave it as the Professor has passed away and not that he sailed away in a starship with his alien princess girlfriend as a way to try to preserve his life.)
I figured I would watch it at some point, since it looks like the animation team did an excellent job of recreating the feel of the 90s cartoon as we remembered it rather than what it actually looked like. The side by side opening comparisons on YouTube are a little unfair as the original opening was incredibly good and when you look at actual episode footage from the older show you can see it's much flatter than the new work by Studio Mir, best known for the Avatar series and the Voltron remake.
X-Men '97 was going to remain in the "at some point" like a lot of things in my viewing backlog, except that I did watch one of those opening comparison videos and noticed that there were two additions to the cast. The original X-Men, perhaps realizing they were dealing with a large cast of characters and an audience who are probably unfamiliar with most of them, had a neat opening sequence that would showcase a character (and their powers if possible) along with their name. This allowed viewers to gradually pick up everyone's names over time.
Morph, as I later realized, was not in this line-up, since he was introduced with the intention of being killed off, but since everyone was new to me, it was hard to recognize that his name was not among the deluge before he died.
But he is in the opening of X-Men '97. (And Bishop. Which I have a slightly harder time accepting for story reasons, but don't want to get into here.)
The new opening credits first show Morph as how we knew him back in the older series, before turning him into a blank slate looking humanoid rather like a doppelganger from Dungeons & Dragons, which has been a "I'm a shapeshifting creature with no actual identity" marker in other media before, so while I missed the more human look, I wasn't thrown by it.
It also looks like Morph is now non-binary. Not a problem, since being a shapeshifter able to assume either gender likely makes gender irrelevant, but it was a little jarring that I found out through the informational boxes played during the ending credits and not from natural dialogue (so far as I noticed).
I felt a little like Morph's long journey out of PTSD and back into the land of ready for action was glossed over, though I vaguely remember their return to the manor in the original series was also rather abrupt so this might not entirely be X-Men '97's fault.
Because Morph was introduced and killed off so quickly, in a way, X-Men '97 is the first time we're really seeing them when they're not dealing with trauma, and I'm not entirely sure they would have been my favorite now if I was a kid watching this for the first time. They're a little weird and a little inappropriate with their humor, but it's nice that having them alive gives Wolverine a buddy. The two were supposed to be good friends in the original, so failing to save and actually saving Morph were big character moments for Wolverine, but it was something that was said rather than told.
X-Men '97 makes sure Morph and Wolverine hang out and get to be the buddies they're supposed to be. Which is great.
But watching the two launch episodes also gives me another reason to understand why Morph was likely left to "recover" for the majority of the series. Now that they're part of the active team again, it's pretty obvious that Morph isn't that great at combat in a series where the majority of the showcase mutants are living weapons.
There are moments where they get to use their shapeshifting to great effect, turning into the mutant Archangel in order to fly, and others where it seems a little more forced. Basically, to make Morph combat-worthy, the writer uses them as a source of Easter eggs mimicking various characters from the old show, often giving them their powers as well. While this makes sense for Archangel, who has wings, it was stretching my disbelief a bit to see Morph turn into Psylocke and use her psychic blades, since this implies it's not just a physical mimicry but one that goes all the way down to the genetic level. At that point, what's stopping Morph from shifting into a double of Magneto and using all the power of magnetism?
(This actually reminds me of one of the old Morph episodes when Wolverine tries to hunt them down and a mentally unstable Morph turns into a rhinoceros while fighting him. Once the shapeshifting stretched beyond humanoid forms, one of my friends called bull on the writing.)
Still, I'm glad Morph's integration into the cast gave me the impetus to watch X-Men '97 since it was an enjoyable return to memory lane and I look forward to seeing what the rest of the series has for the season. I know there are a lot more characters than room to give all of them story arcs (hence retaining an updated version of the opening credits that lists all the key players in the cast and seems to be updated with every episode), but I hope Morph gets a bit of a spotlight for themselves. I feel like we still have a lot of catching up to do.
And also, I just really want to see Morph on an infiltration mission of some kind. That's what shapeshifters do best!
(Next Day Addendum: I ended up watching the 72 episodes in 35 minutes recap over on Screen Crush which does an amazing job of touching on every single episode of the original X-Men and I'd completely forgotten Morph had shapeshifted to use other mutants' powers in the past, and that they pretty much solo-ed Master Mold in one of their return episodes, so I take back that they would have been baggage for lack of combat ability. Now it's more of a question of why wouldn't you throw them at every enemy you've got?)
Showing posts with label misc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label misc. Show all posts
Monday, March 25, 2024
Monday, December 25, 2023
Merry Christmas!
Normally I schedule my blog posts to go on up Mondays, and since this Monday is Christmas it seems a bit weird not to acknowledge it. So, I hope you and yours have a Merry Christmas if you celebrate, or a good day if you don't.
Look back on this year there's a lot I didn't get done that I hoped I would have. For instance, I've embarrassingly have not finished any books this year. That isn't to say I haven't read any, but I haven't finished, which is a bit annoying. So when my Top 5 lists go up starting next week, there won't be one for books I've read, since even if I manage to squeeze one in this year, it doesn't see right to showcase just the one. I'll try for a fresh start in 2024.
Similarly, I want to get back into writing regularly again in 2024. To be honest I haven't been able to set a regular schedule for myself since the Covid pandemic, and I don't know if it's an artifact of the fact I'm still working at home or that I just haven't found my groove again after my stomach cancer. But again, that's something I hope to remedy.
I see how this post is starting to turn into a New Year's resolution post, so enough with that!
I'm currently enjoying even if Tempest for the Switch, which feels like an otome tailor made for me between the detective work, the romance, and the dark fantasy setting. I actually forgot I was playing an otome at one point because I was so engrossed in the witch trial portion of the game. It'll be fun trying to fit everything I want to say in the VN Talk for it, but I have a little time since I have other game posts scheduled go up after my Top 5 lists go through.
See you in the next year and have a good one!
Look back on this year there's a lot I didn't get done that I hoped I would have. For instance, I've embarrassingly have not finished any books this year. That isn't to say I haven't read any, but I haven't finished, which is a bit annoying. So when my Top 5 lists go up starting next week, there won't be one for books I've read, since even if I manage to squeeze one in this year, it doesn't see right to showcase just the one. I'll try for a fresh start in 2024.
Similarly, I want to get back into writing regularly again in 2024. To be honest I haven't been able to set a regular schedule for myself since the Covid pandemic, and I don't know if it's an artifact of the fact I'm still working at home or that I just haven't found my groove again after my stomach cancer. But again, that's something I hope to remedy.
I see how this post is starting to turn into a New Year's resolution post, so enough with that!
I'm currently enjoying even if Tempest for the Switch, which feels like an otome tailor made for me between the detective work, the romance, and the dark fantasy setting. I actually forgot I was playing an otome at one point because I was so engrossed in the witch trial portion of the game. It'll be fun trying to fit everything I want to say in the VN Talk for it, but I have a little time since I have other game posts scheduled go up after my Top 5 lists go through.
See you in the next year and have a good one!
Monday, October 2, 2023
Time Flies and the End of 2023 is Careening Towards Me
I often joke about how at the rate time moves my life will be over before I know it. It's hard to believe it's October already, so we're in the final quarter of 2023.
Most people probably save their retrospectives for December with their end of the year posts, and I usually do my own in January (largely because I don't post more often than once a week and I won't know what last minute books, games, and anime I'll squeeze in the last minute of December). So what October means for me is a general sense of running out of time.
How much did I write this year? Am I ready for another round of NaNoWriMo in November? Did I make any progress on my gaming backlog? Fall is the rush to squeeze in everything I've been putting off all year. I'm not one to make new year's resolutions in January so much as try to complete all of them in the rush to December.
Usually something gets missed. I keep trying new ways to track and manage my time, and I like my current time tracker, so when I wonder "Where did Friday go?" I can actually say "Yes, there was a doctor's appointment, I went grocery shopping afterward, I fell asleep the rest of the afternoon, chatted with gaming friends in the evening, and then played video games until bedtime." So I know what I'm doing. Managing it is still work in progress.
It's interesting being able to see where my time is going, and being able to skip month to month or days at a glance (I'm using a tabbed spreadsheet). Sometimes I use it for something completely unrelated to time management such as "When did I have my last MRI?" since I know I'll find it in there.
But still, time waits for no one and 2023 is already on its way out.
I expect to do NaNoWriMo in November, and I'm mentioning it now because I expect to start my VN Talk series for Radiant Tale next Monday and I'd like it to run uninterrupted for the six weeks it'll take to finish, which will take us midway into November, and a little late to be making NaNo announcements. I really enjoyed this game, it was my single must-play of the year, and though it has its share of things I'm going to complain about, I want to say that the reason I tend to point out the various things that didn't work for me in these various story-based "Talk" posts, is because I like these kinds of games and I wish they had done better. I only ever cover games I like enough to complete.
I'm not sure what will come after Radiant Tale on this blog, but I would like to finish at least one more otome visual novel and one RPG period before the end of the year, though depending on the kind of RPG it might not be post-worthy material. Etrian Odyssey III keeps giving me funny looks and it always bothers me when a game I'm partially through (and still plan to finish) comes out with an HD remake because my playthrough has taken that long.
Most people probably save their retrospectives for December with their end of the year posts, and I usually do my own in January (largely because I don't post more often than once a week and I won't know what last minute books, games, and anime I'll squeeze in the last minute of December). So what October means for me is a general sense of running out of time.
How much did I write this year? Am I ready for another round of NaNoWriMo in November? Did I make any progress on my gaming backlog? Fall is the rush to squeeze in everything I've been putting off all year. I'm not one to make new year's resolutions in January so much as try to complete all of them in the rush to December.
Usually something gets missed. I keep trying new ways to track and manage my time, and I like my current time tracker, so when I wonder "Where did Friday go?" I can actually say "Yes, there was a doctor's appointment, I went grocery shopping afterward, I fell asleep the rest of the afternoon, chatted with gaming friends in the evening, and then played video games until bedtime." So I know what I'm doing. Managing it is still work in progress.
It's interesting being able to see where my time is going, and being able to skip month to month or days at a glance (I'm using a tabbed spreadsheet). Sometimes I use it for something completely unrelated to time management such as "When did I have my last MRI?" since I know I'll find it in there.
But still, time waits for no one and 2023 is already on its way out.
I expect to do NaNoWriMo in November, and I'm mentioning it now because I expect to start my VN Talk series for Radiant Tale next Monday and I'd like it to run uninterrupted for the six weeks it'll take to finish, which will take us midway into November, and a little late to be making NaNo announcements. I really enjoyed this game, it was my single must-play of the year, and though it has its share of things I'm going to complain about, I want to say that the reason I tend to point out the various things that didn't work for me in these various story-based "Talk" posts, is because I like these kinds of games and I wish they had done better. I only ever cover games I like enough to complete.
I'm not sure what will come after Radiant Tale on this blog, but I would like to finish at least one more otome visual novel and one RPG period before the end of the year, though depending on the kind of RPG it might not be post-worthy material. Etrian Odyssey III keeps giving me funny looks and it always bothers me when a game I'm partially through (and still plan to finish) comes out with an HD remake because my playthrough has taken that long.
Monday, February 20, 2023
Eating More
This is gonna be one of my health update posts for those who inquire from time to time. I don't think I'll ever be 100% of what I was prior to my bout with stomach cancer, but I continue to improve.
Ever since my surgery I've tracked what I eat with a goal of hitting 1600 calories a day, which was enough to maintain my weight, but not really enough to gain, and the entire thing was derailed by my shingles episode last year. I had a "nice" weight I was maintaining, but lost almost ten pounds that I didn't have when the shingles was so bad I didn't want to eat. (The shingles was on my head and gave me incredible eye and headaches.)
Though it eventually got better (mostly, I'm still on pain medication for the nerve damage it caused), I've spent the past year trying to play catch up, and I still have not gotten back to my early February 2022 weight. But, things are getting better.
My capacity to eat will never be what it used to be (no stomach equals less space to store incoming food), but I'm getting better at identifying what digests quickly for the amount of calories provided and I added a calorie column to my food tracker so I can track long term how much I'm eating. When I can, I try to add in a little more, pushing my intake to 1700 or 1800 by the end of the day.
My oncologist thinks that it may be best for me not to push myself too hard and focus more on maintaining than gaining, and I think I'm doing at least that.
Ever since my surgery I've tracked what I eat with a goal of hitting 1600 calories a day, which was enough to maintain my weight, but not really enough to gain, and the entire thing was derailed by my shingles episode last year. I had a "nice" weight I was maintaining, but lost almost ten pounds that I didn't have when the shingles was so bad I didn't want to eat. (The shingles was on my head and gave me incredible eye and headaches.)
Though it eventually got better (mostly, I'm still on pain medication for the nerve damage it caused), I've spent the past year trying to play catch up, and I still have not gotten back to my early February 2022 weight. But, things are getting better.
My capacity to eat will never be what it used to be (no stomach equals less space to store incoming food), but I'm getting better at identifying what digests quickly for the amount of calories provided and I added a calorie column to my food tracker so I can track long term how much I'm eating. When I can, I try to add in a little more, pushing my intake to 1700 or 1800 by the end of the day.
My oncologist thinks that it may be best for me not to push myself too hard and focus more on maintaining than gaining, and I think I'm doing at least that.
Monday, December 26, 2022
2022 Year in Review
I haven't been blogging as much these past few months. Part of it is because I'm still trying to find my writing groove again post-cancer. Even though I completed NaNoWriMo it wasn't easy and I haven't been as happy with my draft as I've been in previous years. It feels like I either need to relearn or figure out new writing habits. But in any case, difficulty writing has led to less writing-related content.
As for gaming, I oddly didn't play many games after June of this year, leading a drought of things to post about after my Variable Barricade blog series wrapped up. I did manage to squeeze in a few very short indies, but they're not the longer games I prefer. It's not that there's anything wrong with being short. I think Pre-Odyssey: Odysseus, Penelope and her Ducks is one of the sweetest (and funniest) games I've played all year and it's only a few hours long. But generally speaking I like something long enough to have both a main plot and a sub plot. It's like the difference between reading a novel and a short story.
Next year I'll probably play more, at least on the visual novel side. Since I didn't play as much this year as I expected I'm fairly backlogged on my VNs, which is really strange for me as I generally only keep a handful in reserve for a rainy day. Part of this is due to the otome boom we experienced this year, as more Japanese publishers are entering the English language market and more indies are starting to come into their own, but there are also some mystery games that I just haven't gotten around too, with more on the horizon. I'm cautiously optimistic for next year's Process of Elimination and Master Detective Archives: Rain Code for mystery titles, and definitely looking forward to Radiant Tale on the otome front.
If there's one thing I'm particularly happy about with this blog though is that I finally updated the layout, which has allowed me to use larger screenshots and the blog no longer looks like it's twelve years old. I suppose one of these days I should move to Wordpress, but that's an effort for another time.
This is my last post of the year, so I wish you all a Happy New Year.
My blog will pick up again in January with at least three weeks of definite content as I go through my favorite books, games, and anime of 2022. See you then!
As for gaming, I oddly didn't play many games after June of this year, leading a drought of things to post about after my Variable Barricade blog series wrapped up. I did manage to squeeze in a few very short indies, but they're not the longer games I prefer. It's not that there's anything wrong with being short. I think Pre-Odyssey: Odysseus, Penelope and her Ducks is one of the sweetest (and funniest) games I've played all year and it's only a few hours long. But generally speaking I like something long enough to have both a main plot and a sub plot. It's like the difference between reading a novel and a short story.
Next year I'll probably play more, at least on the visual novel side. Since I didn't play as much this year as I expected I'm fairly backlogged on my VNs, which is really strange for me as I generally only keep a handful in reserve for a rainy day. Part of this is due to the otome boom we experienced this year, as more Japanese publishers are entering the English language market and more indies are starting to come into their own, but there are also some mystery games that I just haven't gotten around too, with more on the horizon. I'm cautiously optimistic for next year's Process of Elimination and Master Detective Archives: Rain Code for mystery titles, and definitely looking forward to Radiant Tale on the otome front.
If there's one thing I'm particularly happy about with this blog though is that I finally updated the layout, which has allowed me to use larger screenshots and the blog no longer looks like it's twelve years old. I suppose one of these days I should move to Wordpress, but that's an effort for another time.
This is my last post of the year, so I wish you all a Happy New Year.
My blog will pick up again in January with at least three weeks of definite content as I go through my favorite books, games, and anime of 2022. See you then!
Monday, September 19, 2022
Betrayal Legacy Board Game
I feel like my fiction blog has mostly transformed into my gaming blog rather than using gaming content to fill in between my writing posts, and even then, I haven't been good about putting up posts every week. Part of this was due to my second round of cancer last year and the shingles kicker earlier this year, but ever since my shingles episode my energy has been low so there have been more times than I've liked where I just decided it was easier not to post. (I need to run through another big otome game, lol. Those give me content for weeks.)
Don't worry, I'm still seeing all my doctors regularly, so I hope to have more energy again soon.
So this week, I'm going to talk about Betrayal Legacy, which is one of a growing number of board games that play out over an extended number of gaming sessions. Each group of players will have the story play out differently for them based on who wins and who loses.
Betrayal at House on the Hill is the original base game featuring a bunch of premade characters who will explore an old house. It's been around since 2004, and the players take turns moving from room to room, uncovering spooky things, until eventually enough ill omens have been unturned that the "haunt" is revealed.
The fun thing about the original Betrayal is that you have no idea what's going to happen when you start. Based on the omen drawn and the room the player is standing in, you flip through a book to the appropriate entry and it tells you what happens. One player is usually turned traitor (it's usually but not always the haunt revealer) and sent from the room to read one set of instructions while the rest of the players read another. When both parties are done, the game resumes with the main party and the traitor each trying to fulfill their objectives. A few scenarios might not have a traitor at all.
Since you never know what you're going to get, there's a lot of replayability, and I've played this version of the game with several different groups of people without ever getting a repeat.
Betrayal Legacy is the campaign version of Betrayal at House on the Hill. You still start out with a house, but it's not creepy yet. Each player picks one of five families to play, and my group had four fairly static players who were there for most sessions, and the fifth family was shared by a fifth and sixth player who were never there at the same time.
We started this game as something to do in between our D&D sessions if we didn't have our full group present for important story points or the DM needed a break, and while I don't remember the exact date we started, I would hazard a guess that we began in 2018, because we had already been playing for a while before we wrapped up our D&D campaign in 2019. (And I know that date, because when Covid forced us into isolation in March 2020 we all were like "Thank, God we finished that campaign!" Which sounds kinda funny, but it'd been running longer than any of us thought it would and our last few sessions had already been hard to schedule.)
So Betrayal Legacy didn't start up again until late 2021, after people started getting vaccinated and I could be reasonably safe coming out of the house (because, you know, immunocompromised).
Still, it's a fun game. Each session at its most basic level plays out like Betrayal at House on the Hill, except that sometimes you might start somewhere other than the ground floor hallway. You then explore the house until enough omens have been triggered for the haunt to start and someone (usually) ends up being designated the traitor and presumed to be working for nefarious purposes. In one scenario my group had though, they were pretty sure the traitor was actually the good guy and everyone else was doing something bad. This was more or less confirmed by the scenario immediately after it, which was a nice twist.
However, unlike the base game, things that happen can affect the house. There are ghosts haunting certain rooms, and open spaces for new ghosts to be added if someone dies there. Though dying sucks a bit since it leaves you out of play and passively witnessing the rest of the conflict (unless you're the traitor, in which case you may have minions to move), it is fun adding a sticker to permanently mark on the gameboard where your character ate it.
Different conclusions to the scenario are read depending on the result, whether the traitor wins/loses, or if the party wins/loses in the traitorless scenarios, and in turn, those results affect future iterations of the game. We physically destroyed room tiles because something happened in them that according to the story rendered them forever unusable, and replaced them with other rooms according to the story. Some event cards, random things that could happen throughout the game, could be destroyed before ever being put into play because they were simply "not part of our story."
And yet, the final scenario felt rather pre-ordained. I won't spoil the particulars, but despite all the this is/isn't part of your story, I don't think the final scenario would have been all that different if we had done drastically different things. I haven't read how other people's games turned out, but it felt like who won/lost all our previous sessions didn't really matter, and being a writer I had hoped for a more personalized narrative build up.
In retrospect this may not have been possible, or difficult to implement, but it still felt like a missed opportunity. I was not the game owner for our sessions so I don't have the box to reference, but there was essentially a story deck we'd go through to start off each scenario, and things would occasionally be taken out of it as directed by the game. Since the story deck is pretty static, the final scenario is likely the same for everyone. It's just the set dressing might be different.
Though it took us about four years to finish, we're pretty happy that we did, and we only really had one complaint about the final scenario and it involved a particular game mechanic we collectively didn't like. Since we didn't like it, we avoided engaging with it unless we absolutely had to. In the final session it turned out that if we'd regularly been using it, we would have gotten a massive bonus towards the final showdown. Instead the final session turned into a weird slog where four of us were dead (including the traitor) and our last player spent several turns engaging with this mechanic solo while everyone else watched. And then he died in an anti-climatic fashion unique to this mechanic and that was it. The traitor won.
Still, it was overall a good experience, and even though the campaign is over, my friend the game owner started going through the rules and apparently the fun can continue. We jointly decided to permanantly transform a particular room tile into a different version of itself by placing a massive sticker on it, and apparently we can still heirloom items (a nifty way to mark something as having been in your family for generations).
One last thing I want to mention is the helm. In Betrayal Legacy you're given this disc called the helm and once per game session you're allowed to fill up a crest slot on the helm with your family crest in order to get a free reroll of the die. Obviously this is very nice when you're in a tight spot and about to die, but at the same time... you're pretty sure you shouldn't be doing this. Nothing comes for free, especially in a game like this one.
Despite that, the game encourages you to worship the helm and find your own way of revering it as it's lifted out of the game box each session. The helm is only ever to be handled by two hands, never one. That kind of stuff.
Well, I'm quite happy that I disrespected the helm. And while it likely will never come into play again, I'm tickled that there is now a physical reminder of my disrepect that will remain forevermore.
Don't worry, I'm still seeing all my doctors regularly, so I hope to have more energy again soon.
So this week, I'm going to talk about Betrayal Legacy, which is one of a growing number of board games that play out over an extended number of gaming sessions. Each group of players will have the story play out differently for them based on who wins and who loses.
Betrayal at House on the Hill is the original base game featuring a bunch of premade characters who will explore an old house. It's been around since 2004, and the players take turns moving from room to room, uncovering spooky things, until eventually enough ill omens have been unturned that the "haunt" is revealed.
The fun thing about the original Betrayal is that you have no idea what's going to happen when you start. Based on the omen drawn and the room the player is standing in, you flip through a book to the appropriate entry and it tells you what happens. One player is usually turned traitor (it's usually but not always the haunt revealer) and sent from the room to read one set of instructions while the rest of the players read another. When both parties are done, the game resumes with the main party and the traitor each trying to fulfill their objectives. A few scenarios might not have a traitor at all.
Since you never know what you're going to get, there's a lot of replayability, and I've played this version of the game with several different groups of people without ever getting a repeat.
Betrayal Legacy is the campaign version of Betrayal at House on the Hill. You still start out with a house, but it's not creepy yet. Each player picks one of five families to play, and my group had four fairly static players who were there for most sessions, and the fifth family was shared by a fifth and sixth player who were never there at the same time.
We started this game as something to do in between our D&D sessions if we didn't have our full group present for important story points or the DM needed a break, and while I don't remember the exact date we started, I would hazard a guess that we began in 2018, because we had already been playing for a while before we wrapped up our D&D campaign in 2019. (And I know that date, because when Covid forced us into isolation in March 2020 we all were like "Thank, God we finished that campaign!" Which sounds kinda funny, but it'd been running longer than any of us thought it would and our last few sessions had already been hard to schedule.)
So Betrayal Legacy didn't start up again until late 2021, after people started getting vaccinated and I could be reasonably safe coming out of the house (because, you know, immunocompromised).
Still, it's a fun game. Each session at its most basic level plays out like Betrayal at House on the Hill, except that sometimes you might start somewhere other than the ground floor hallway. You then explore the house until enough omens have been triggered for the haunt to start and someone (usually) ends up being designated the traitor and presumed to be working for nefarious purposes. In one scenario my group had though, they were pretty sure the traitor was actually the good guy and everyone else was doing something bad. This was more or less confirmed by the scenario immediately after it, which was a nice twist.
However, unlike the base game, things that happen can affect the house. There are ghosts haunting certain rooms, and open spaces for new ghosts to be added if someone dies there. Though dying sucks a bit since it leaves you out of play and passively witnessing the rest of the conflict (unless you're the traitor, in which case you may have minions to move), it is fun adding a sticker to permanently mark on the gameboard where your character ate it.
Different conclusions to the scenario are read depending on the result, whether the traitor wins/loses, or if the party wins/loses in the traitorless scenarios, and in turn, those results affect future iterations of the game. We physically destroyed room tiles because something happened in them that according to the story rendered them forever unusable, and replaced them with other rooms according to the story. Some event cards, random things that could happen throughout the game, could be destroyed before ever being put into play because they were simply "not part of our story."
And yet, the final scenario felt rather pre-ordained. I won't spoil the particulars, but despite all the this is/isn't part of your story, I don't think the final scenario would have been all that different if we had done drastically different things. I haven't read how other people's games turned out, but it felt like who won/lost all our previous sessions didn't really matter, and being a writer I had hoped for a more personalized narrative build up.
In retrospect this may not have been possible, or difficult to implement, but it still felt like a missed opportunity. I was not the game owner for our sessions so I don't have the box to reference, but there was essentially a story deck we'd go through to start off each scenario, and things would occasionally be taken out of it as directed by the game. Since the story deck is pretty static, the final scenario is likely the same for everyone. It's just the set dressing might be different.
Though it took us about four years to finish, we're pretty happy that we did, and we only really had one complaint about the final scenario and it involved a particular game mechanic we collectively didn't like. Since we didn't like it, we avoided engaging with it unless we absolutely had to. In the final session it turned out that if we'd regularly been using it, we would have gotten a massive bonus towards the final showdown. Instead the final session turned into a weird slog where four of us were dead (including the traitor) and our last player spent several turns engaging with this mechanic solo while everyone else watched. And then he died in an anti-climatic fashion unique to this mechanic and that was it. The traitor won.
Still, it was overall a good experience, and even though the campaign is over, my friend the game owner started going through the rules and apparently the fun can continue. We jointly decided to permanantly transform a particular room tile into a different version of itself by placing a massive sticker on it, and apparently we can still heirloom items (a nifty way to mark something as having been in your family for generations).
One last thing I want to mention is the helm. In Betrayal Legacy you're given this disc called the helm and once per game session you're allowed to fill up a crest slot on the helm with your family crest in order to get a free reroll of the die. Obviously this is very nice when you're in a tight spot and about to die, but at the same time... you're pretty sure you shouldn't be doing this. Nothing comes for free, especially in a game like this one.
Despite that, the game encourages you to worship the helm and find your own way of revering it as it's lifted out of the game box each session. The helm is only ever to be handled by two hands, never one. That kind of stuff.
Well, I'm quite happy that I disrespected the helm. And while it likely will never come into play again, I'm tickled that there is now a physical reminder of my disrepect that will remain forevermore.
Monday, June 6, 2022
New Site Layout
Embarrassingly enough, I've had the same blog design, more or less, for about twelve years and it was looking pretty dated. I kept telling myself I was going to fix it, and like many things, it got pushed off. (And all those bouts of illness didn't help.)
Finally, I decided that it was time. I was going to look for a new layout!
And this is the one I chose. I think it looks pretty clean. I like that it's not stark white, but it's still dark text on a light background, and I'm able to make a wider main column for the blog writing itself. I did have to cut a column to do so, but I wasn't updating my published works column regularly since I had to add cover art manually each time, and many times online magazines don't even have cover art, so they didn't get included. The end result was that it ended up looking outdated.
Now I hope to simply have one image of the latest publication, so it'll be less work to keep current, and I figure most online magazines at least have a logo of some kind I can use going forward.
I'm still tinkering with things so some of the widgets might move around, and I'm not sure I like the red link color, but for the most part this template should be here for a while.
Finally, I decided that it was time. I was going to look for a new layout!
And this is the one I chose. I think it looks pretty clean. I like that it's not stark white, but it's still dark text on a light background, and I'm able to make a wider main column for the blog writing itself. I did have to cut a column to do so, but I wasn't updating my published works column regularly since I had to add cover art manually each time, and many times online magazines don't even have cover art, so they didn't get included. The end result was that it ended up looking outdated.
Now I hope to simply have one image of the latest publication, so it'll be less work to keep current, and I figure most online magazines at least have a logo of some kind I can use going forward.
I'm still tinkering with things so some of the widgets might move around, and I'm not sure I like the red link color, but for the most part this template should be here for a while.
Monday, April 25, 2022
April Odds and Ends
This is going to be a more upbeat post than my March 2022 Health Update so I wanted to title it something else.
But for those wondering about the health stuff. I'm on nerve pain medication to manage the remaining damage the shingles left me with. It may take months for it to heal, which I figured since I'd already gone through nerve damage due to both my chemotherapy and my surgery. So the medication I'm taking isn't new to me. It's just... well... I wish it wasn't necesssary.
The rash is still visible on my face, and while I itch a bit, I think it's more from the nerve damage than the rash itself, since the medication also makes the itching go down (though it doesn't entirely go away). My scalp sentitivity has even made me part my hair differently because I can't stand having my bangs falling down on the nerve-damaged skin.
But on the bright side, shingles fatigue is gone. I'm eating more. I don't always manage it, but sometimes I can squeeze in more than 1600 calories in a day, so I'm hoping to gain more weight (since I'm still under what I was).
Though nothing I've played in 2022 has appeared on my blog yet (Rose in the Embers really got stretched out with my illness), I'm still playing games when I get the chance. I'm not going to do a blog post on it since it's not an RPG or visual novel, but Hungry Hearts Diner is a lovely free to play mobile game about running a neighborhood diner that ends up having a tearjerker of a story, and you never have to watch an ad if you don't want to.
I'm woefully behind on others forms of entertainment. Usually I watch some anime or read some books, but I haven't finished a single one of any of those this year. Some of it is likely time lost due to shingles and remaining medical issues from my cancer, but also I think my attention span just hasn't been where it needs to be for them. Maybe I'll pick them up again as the year passes.
And finally, I've started writing a new short story. It's been a long time in coming, and it's not like I never had ideas while sick, but finally putting new words down on the keyboard has been something I haven't started until recently. I hope it all turns out all right. Writing is supposed to be like any muscle where if you do it regularly, it becomes easier, but I've definitely been out of practice. We'll see how it goes. Wish me luck!
But for those wondering about the health stuff. I'm on nerve pain medication to manage the remaining damage the shingles left me with. It may take months for it to heal, which I figured since I'd already gone through nerve damage due to both my chemotherapy and my surgery. So the medication I'm taking isn't new to me. It's just... well... I wish it wasn't necesssary.
The rash is still visible on my face, and while I itch a bit, I think it's more from the nerve damage than the rash itself, since the medication also makes the itching go down (though it doesn't entirely go away). My scalp sentitivity has even made me part my hair differently because I can't stand having my bangs falling down on the nerve-damaged skin.
But on the bright side, shingles fatigue is gone. I'm eating more. I don't always manage it, but sometimes I can squeeze in more than 1600 calories in a day, so I'm hoping to gain more weight (since I'm still under what I was).
Though nothing I've played in 2022 has appeared on my blog yet (Rose in the Embers really got stretched out with my illness), I'm still playing games when I get the chance. I'm not going to do a blog post on it since it's not an RPG or visual novel, but Hungry Hearts Diner is a lovely free to play mobile game about running a neighborhood diner that ends up having a tearjerker of a story, and you never have to watch an ad if you don't want to.
I'm woefully behind on others forms of entertainment. Usually I watch some anime or read some books, but I haven't finished a single one of any of those this year. Some of it is likely time lost due to shingles and remaining medical issues from my cancer, but also I think my attention span just hasn't been where it needs to be for them. Maybe I'll pick them up again as the year passes.
And finally, I've started writing a new short story. It's been a long time in coming, and it's not like I never had ideas while sick, but finally putting new words down on the keyboard has been something I haven't started until recently. I hope it all turns out all right. Writing is supposed to be like any muscle where if you do it regularly, it becomes easier, but I've definitely been out of practice. We'll see how it goes. Wish me luck!
Monday, March 14, 2022
March 2022 Health Update
I don't really like writing these kinds of posts, but after letting my blog idle for almost a month when usually, even in bad times, I have some posts queued up, I felt I needed to say something.
In January, as some of you know, I finally had my feeding tube removed. It was supposed to be a great moment. I was finally able to maintain my own body weight without relying on supplemental calories being fed directly into my gut. And though it was a little rockier than I liked, it was mostly working. In fact, the former hole into my gut has headled up pretty nicely. There's definitely evidence that something used to be there, but overall, it looks pretty good.
The important thing was, maintaining my weight. Because I can only eat so much in a day with my now reduced digestive track I have to be really diligent about eating. Gaining weight is hard, and I'd "fattened" myself a bit before having the tube removed so I'd have a buffer for future disasters. ... Which unfortunately did not take long to hit me.
In late February, I was hit with an incredible headache that turned out to be a precursor to shingles... on my head. I've heard it's pretty awful no matter where it is, but the head was pretty bad. I had splitting headaches, even with prescription painkillers, and I'd be awake at 2am counting down to 4am just because I had to wait 6 hours between doses of pain meds. It was so bad I couldn't stand to see any light or computer screens, and I told my family that if they wanted to communicate with me they needed to call instead of text.
Worse, I was in so much pain I really didn't feel like eating, even though I knew I couldn't afford to lose weight. I tried to eat at least a little bit everyday, but still, it wasn't the 1600 calories I needed to maintain my weight. I lost all my safe buffer weight and then some.
As I'm writing this, it's been almost three weeks, my headache is mostly gone, but not entirely. My right eye is no longer swollen shut, but it's still a bit swollen and ends up closing on its own if I'm resting my eyes and not looking at anything in particular. My rash is fading, but still itches. And I'm still under weight.
Which is all to say, I'm a little slow right now. I'll get back to blogging soonish, but that's why I've been gone the past few weeks.
In January, as some of you know, I finally had my feeding tube removed. It was supposed to be a great moment. I was finally able to maintain my own body weight without relying on supplemental calories being fed directly into my gut. And though it was a little rockier than I liked, it was mostly working. In fact, the former hole into my gut has headled up pretty nicely. There's definitely evidence that something used to be there, but overall, it looks pretty good.
The important thing was, maintaining my weight. Because I can only eat so much in a day with my now reduced digestive track I have to be really diligent about eating. Gaining weight is hard, and I'd "fattened" myself a bit before having the tube removed so I'd have a buffer for future disasters. ... Which unfortunately did not take long to hit me.
In late February, I was hit with an incredible headache that turned out to be a precursor to shingles... on my head. I've heard it's pretty awful no matter where it is, but the head was pretty bad. I had splitting headaches, even with prescription painkillers, and I'd be awake at 2am counting down to 4am just because I had to wait 6 hours between doses of pain meds. It was so bad I couldn't stand to see any light or computer screens, and I told my family that if they wanted to communicate with me they needed to call instead of text.
Worse, I was in so much pain I really didn't feel like eating, even though I knew I couldn't afford to lose weight. I tried to eat at least a little bit everyday, but still, it wasn't the 1600 calories I needed to maintain my weight. I lost all my safe buffer weight and then some.
As I'm writing this, it's been almost three weeks, my headache is mostly gone, but not entirely. My right eye is no longer swollen shut, but it's still a bit swollen and ends up closing on its own if I'm resting my eyes and not looking at anything in particular. My rash is fading, but still itches. And I'm still under weight.
Which is all to say, I'm a little slow right now. I'll get back to blogging soonish, but that's why I've been gone the past few weeks.
Monday, September 27, 2021
September Health Update
My post-surgery cancer treatment ended about a week and a half ago, but I didn't say anything sooner because quite frankly the side effects are still with me, and they're only finally starting to ebb. Even this weekend I would still dry heave if I sat up too long, which is not fun. And I still tire very quickly.
But things are supposed to get better in the coming weeks and I already feel like I'm on the upswing. It's a very slow upswing, but it's going up.
I have a lot to do to get healthy again. I'm finally starting to exercise a bit after radiation treatment left me trying to stay prone for most of the past month, and I've got to put some weight on.
Previously I'd mentioned that I have a feeding tube in my gut to supplement my calorie intake. It's still there and doing its job, but I'm hoping in the next month or so I'll finally be eating enough by mouth to have it removed.
At the very least, treatment is over for the foreseeable future and now we're moving on to the monitoring phase to periodically check for signs of it coming back (which it hopefully won't).
But things are supposed to get better in the coming weeks and I already feel like I'm on the upswing. It's a very slow upswing, but it's going up.
I have a lot to do to get healthy again. I'm finally starting to exercise a bit after radiation treatment left me trying to stay prone for most of the past month, and I've got to put some weight on.
Previously I'd mentioned that I have a feeding tube in my gut to supplement my calorie intake. It's still there and doing its job, but I'm hoping in the next month or so I'll finally be eating enough by mouth to have it removed.
At the very least, treatment is over for the foreseeable future and now we're moving on to the monitoring phase to periodically check for signs of it coming back (which it hopefully won't).
Monday, May 17, 2021
May Health Update
It's been about a month since I last posted and my situation has improved substantially. I hesitate to say I'm completely back in action, but I'm in good spirits. It feels strange when people tell me they're surprised by how cheerful I am as I talk about the remainder of my treatment, because to me it's not really that I'm laughing in the face of danger so much as I've resigned myself to what needs to be done and I'm no longer dwelling on it.
I'm still on my feeding tube, and taking in an additional 350 calories a day that way to keep my weight up, but that's much better than it was. I was stuck at taking 700 liquid for a month and for a while I was really frustrated that I couldn't wean myself off a little more, but this past week I finally started gaining weight, so I lowered my intake.
Unfortunately my chemo treatment is probably starting again this week (pending my blood test results), so depending on how I feel, I might need to temporarily bolster my feedings. Chemo makes me nauseous, but on the bright side, the feeding tube goes straight into my gut so in a worst case scenario I don't need to worry about swallowing food.
The current plan is for eight weeks of chemo followed by six weeks of a hybrid chemo/radiation treatment to hopefully kill off any cancer cells that might not have been cut out during surgery. So I'm still going to be in treatment for another three and a half months. I'm not sure yet whether I'll get a break between chemo and chemo/rad. It's so far out I haven't asked.
Aside from that, my neuropathy issues following the surgery are improving. My oncologist said the nerves affected as the same as for carpal tunnel syndrome, so I started wearing a wrist brace to help it heal. I still can't feel temperature out of the first three fingers of my left hand, but the pain spikes are less now and in general my hand feels better when I wake up. Typing is still uncomfortable, but it's a not outright painful to use my left hand anymore.
I'm still on my feeding tube, and taking in an additional 350 calories a day that way to keep my weight up, but that's much better than it was. I was stuck at taking 700 liquid for a month and for a while I was really frustrated that I couldn't wean myself off a little more, but this past week I finally started gaining weight, so I lowered my intake.
Unfortunately my chemo treatment is probably starting again this week (pending my blood test results), so depending on how I feel, I might need to temporarily bolster my feedings. Chemo makes me nauseous, but on the bright side, the feeding tube goes straight into my gut so in a worst case scenario I don't need to worry about swallowing food.
The current plan is for eight weeks of chemo followed by six weeks of a hybrid chemo/radiation treatment to hopefully kill off any cancer cells that might not have been cut out during surgery. So I'm still going to be in treatment for another three and a half months. I'm not sure yet whether I'll get a break between chemo and chemo/rad. It's so far out I haven't asked.
Aside from that, my neuropathy issues following the surgery are improving. My oncologist said the nerves affected as the same as for carpal tunnel syndrome, so I started wearing a wrist brace to help it heal. I still can't feel temperature out of the first three fingers of my left hand, but the pain spikes are less now and in general my hand feels better when I wake up. Typing is still uncomfortable, but it's a not outright painful to use my left hand anymore.
Monday, April 19, 2021
April Health Update
I've been home from the hospital for about three and a half weeks now, and though I'm improving, things are still rough. I have a feeding tube in my gut that connects to a feeding pump half the day to make sure I get enough nutrition because I can't eat enough through my mouth right now. But even that is an improvement. I'm making progress. At least the tube isn't necessary 24/7 anymore.
The surgery seems to have gone reasonably well, though I lost all of my stomach. The surgeon tried to save some of it, but it just wasn't in the cards, and after getting my genetic testing back, it looks like taking all of it probably was a good idea. It turns out that I have a genetic defect that predisposes me towards getting stomach cancer, so even if some of my stomach had been saved, I think there would have been a decent chance of the cancer coming back independantly just because my genes suck.
Even though I'm home, I'm still not active much. I can really only do one or two small chores a day, and there have been a lot of times when I've had to make the choice of "Do I write this e-mail or that e-mail?" Because I just can't sit up for very long without getting tired and writing while lying down is not great either. A lot of times things get pushed off to another day, which is why it's taken me longer than I wanted to write about how I'm doing, since I know people have been wanting to know.
It doesn't help that the surgery caused some nerve damage due to my positioning on the operating table. The anesthesiologist and his team were supposed to move my limbs around during surgery to keep the circulation going, but apparently didn't do a good enough job so I woke up with severely numb hands. Though I got the feeling back in them before leaving the hospital, I still can't feel temperature in my thumb and first two fingers of my left hand, and about half the fingers on both hands are overly sensitive to some degree or another which can make it painful to type.
As a writer, this really sucks. And the occasional pain spike in my healing fingers doesn't help. They do seem to be getting better, but really slowly, and from what I'm reading online it may be months before they're fully back.
It looks like my cancer treatment will be changing going forward. My previous round of chemo didn't look like it was that effective, so it sounds like my oncologist may be trying a combination radiation/chemo treatment for my next stretch of treatment. Given that this is a genetic cancer, there might be the possibility of getting into a clinical trial as well.
I'm on leave from work for another month, and I'll probably need it. This is much worse than when I had my endometrial cancer a year and a half ago and the recovery much slower. Though there's a light at the end of the tunnel, it's still very far away.
The surgery seems to have gone reasonably well, though I lost all of my stomach. The surgeon tried to save some of it, but it just wasn't in the cards, and after getting my genetic testing back, it looks like taking all of it probably was a good idea. It turns out that I have a genetic defect that predisposes me towards getting stomach cancer, so even if some of my stomach had been saved, I think there would have been a decent chance of the cancer coming back independantly just because my genes suck.
Even though I'm home, I'm still not active much. I can really only do one or two small chores a day, and there have been a lot of times when I've had to make the choice of "Do I write this e-mail or that e-mail?" Because I just can't sit up for very long without getting tired and writing while lying down is not great either. A lot of times things get pushed off to another day, which is why it's taken me longer than I wanted to write about how I'm doing, since I know people have been wanting to know.
It doesn't help that the surgery caused some nerve damage due to my positioning on the operating table. The anesthesiologist and his team were supposed to move my limbs around during surgery to keep the circulation going, but apparently didn't do a good enough job so I woke up with severely numb hands. Though I got the feeling back in them before leaving the hospital, I still can't feel temperature in my thumb and first two fingers of my left hand, and about half the fingers on both hands are overly sensitive to some degree or another which can make it painful to type.
As a writer, this really sucks. And the occasional pain spike in my healing fingers doesn't help. They do seem to be getting better, but really slowly, and from what I'm reading online it may be months before they're fully back.
It looks like my cancer treatment will be changing going forward. My previous round of chemo didn't look like it was that effective, so it sounds like my oncologist may be trying a combination radiation/chemo treatment for my next stretch of treatment. Given that this is a genetic cancer, there might be the possibility of getting into a clinical trial as well.
I'm on leave from work for another month, and I'll probably need it. This is much worse than when I had my endometrial cancer a year and a half ago and the recovery much slower. Though there's a light at the end of the tunnel, it's still very far away.
Monday, February 1, 2021
Another Health Update
It's been a while, so I figure it's time for another update.
I am currently done with chemo. I was scheduled for four two-week rounds of chemotherapy prior to surgery, and the last of those two week periods has ended. Now I'm recovering and my goal is to gain weight and exercise. No date for surgery has been set yet, because it will depend on what my weight and overall health looks like as we get closer to the middle of the month.
The expectation is that I'll lose a lot of weight after surgery (since part of my stomach will be removed and I won't be able to eat solid food for while) so I need to pack on the pounds in order to have something to lose. The surgeon doesn't want me to become a skeleton, and chemo has been making my weight yo-yo up and down. Now that it's done, my weight is more up, but still not as high as the surgeon would like it to be.
I don't know whether or not the chemotherapy has been effective yet, though I'm hoping it has been. I had a CT scan last week and have a doctor's appointment this week to go over the results. Fingers crossed the thickening of my stomach has gone down so they have a better idea of where the cancer is vs what was inflamation due to the cancer.
On a somewhat related note, my blogging will likely continue without much interruption even once surgery is underway. I can queue posts in advance, so if I can finish assembling them before I go in, the blog can run without me for a few weeks or more while I recover (though hopefully it will not be that long!). I played a number of visual novels while laid up with cancer treatment, so I've got a Cafe Enchante series of posts as well as single posts for Hatoful Boyfriend and Our Life: Beginnings and Always that should carry this blog through to the end of March.
I am currently done with chemo. I was scheduled for four two-week rounds of chemotherapy prior to surgery, and the last of those two week periods has ended. Now I'm recovering and my goal is to gain weight and exercise. No date for surgery has been set yet, because it will depend on what my weight and overall health looks like as we get closer to the middle of the month.
The expectation is that I'll lose a lot of weight after surgery (since part of my stomach will be removed and I won't be able to eat solid food for while) so I need to pack on the pounds in order to have something to lose. The surgeon doesn't want me to become a skeleton, and chemo has been making my weight yo-yo up and down. Now that it's done, my weight is more up, but still not as high as the surgeon would like it to be.
I don't know whether or not the chemotherapy has been effective yet, though I'm hoping it has been. I had a CT scan last week and have a doctor's appointment this week to go over the results. Fingers crossed the thickening of my stomach has gone down so they have a better idea of where the cancer is vs what was inflamation due to the cancer.
On a somewhat related note, my blogging will likely continue without much interruption even once surgery is underway. I can queue posts in advance, so if I can finish assembling them before I go in, the blog can run without me for a few weeks or more while I recover (though hopefully it will not be that long!). I played a number of visual novels while laid up with cancer treatment, so I've got a Cafe Enchante series of posts as well as single posts for Hatoful Boyfriend and Our Life: Beginnings and Always that should carry this blog through to the end of March.
Monday, December 28, 2020
Health Update
I hadn't meant to leave this blog alone so long, but my waking/sleeping schedule has changed since starting chemotherapy and I used to write and prep my posts Sunday night, and my Sunday nights have become a lot shorter with me going to bed much earlier than I used to. It's taken me longer than expected to adjust.
I'm now in the tail end of my second round of chemo and things aren't nearly as bad as the first (which was so bad that I could barely eat for several days). I'm on stronger nausea medication now and while some side effects are persisting, or becoming more prominent, I'm mostly dealing with it.
Of course, I can say this now because I'm in the second half of my second round and the start of the round is always the worst. This coming weekend I'll probably be happy just getting chicken soup down.
Admittedly one of the things I was most depressed about was losing my hair. Those of you who've met me know that I had very long hair that fell to my waist. That's all gone now.
I'm not actually bald, but I had my hair cut very short at the start of treatment, which turns out to have been a good decision because now I'm shedding all the time. I'll put down a towel on my pillow and the next day it's like a cat or a dog spent the night rubbing it, except I'm the one leaving all the hairs behind.
I suppose I'll bald before the end, but right now it's just thinning, rather unevenly, so I generally wear a beanie when I go out, though I also have what I've been calling my "temp wig" for occasions when it might be better to have hair.
The reason it's temp is that all the hair I cut is being crafted into a prosthetic (thankfully covered by my insurance, because otherwise it's pricey), so come late February/early March I'll have my hair back as a custom wig in time to wear for my post-surgery chemo and the long months waiting for my hair to grow back.
As for my day to day, local friends and family have been great, bringing food and driving me to my appointments. I'm really grateful for everyone who's been helping out.
I'm now in the tail end of my second round of chemo and things aren't nearly as bad as the first (which was so bad that I could barely eat for several days). I'm on stronger nausea medication now and while some side effects are persisting, or becoming more prominent, I'm mostly dealing with it.
Of course, I can say this now because I'm in the second half of my second round and the start of the round is always the worst. This coming weekend I'll probably be happy just getting chicken soup down.
Admittedly one of the things I was most depressed about was losing my hair. Those of you who've met me know that I had very long hair that fell to my waist. That's all gone now.
I'm not actually bald, but I had my hair cut very short at the start of treatment, which turns out to have been a good decision because now I'm shedding all the time. I'll put down a towel on my pillow and the next day it's like a cat or a dog spent the night rubbing it, except I'm the one leaving all the hairs behind.
I suppose I'll bald before the end, but right now it's just thinning, rather unevenly, so I generally wear a beanie when I go out, though I also have what I've been calling my "temp wig" for occasions when it might be better to have hair.
The reason it's temp is that all the hair I cut is being crafted into a prosthetic (thankfully covered by my insurance, because otherwise it's pricey), so come late February/early March I'll have my hair back as a custom wig in time to wear for my post-surgery chemo and the long months waiting for my hair to grow back.
As for my day to day, local friends and family have been great, bringing food and driving me to my appointments. I'm really grateful for everyone who's been helping out.
Monday, November 30, 2020
It's Cancer Again
So here's the news I'd been alluding to for most of this month.
At the end of October I was diagnosed with stomach cancer. It sucks, not just because it's cancer, but because it's the second cancer I've been diagnosed with in as many years. There's possibly something going on at the genetic level, we're looking into that, but in the meantime… Well, I'm just trying to get through my treatment one step at a time (though sometimes those steps are in a bit of a rush).
Though last year's endometrial cancer was no joke, quite bluntly, dealing with stomach cancer is going to be much longer and more involved. I didn't need chemotherapy last year. This year I do. I'm going to be on chemo for eight weeks, surgery, and then eight weeks of chemo again afterwards.
Needless to say, this upended a number of plans I had for my personal life, from participating in this year's NaNoWriMo to seeing my new niece, and it really sucks that this is happening during covid since the chemo is going to render me immunocompromised.
For the next 5-6 months I expect to be not quite myself as I'll likely be fatigued, possibly nauseous, and dealing with other side effects from chemo. I hope to keep blogging during this time though as it brings me a lot of joy and the doctors are encouraging me to keep up my normal activities as much as possible.
Some of you reached out to help me with my cancer treatment last year, for which I am still deeply appreciative. At this point I don't know what the eventual damage will be since I'm early in treatment and most of the bills are still to come, so I don't need help at this time. And to be honest, I feel a little bad at the thought of asking again. But if it gets to that point, I'll say something.
And I would like to add something on a related note. If you happen to be a writer eligible for SFWA, an event like this is a good reason to become a member. Their Emergency Medical Fund helped a lot last year. It wasn't even close to the top of the list of reasons why I joined, but turned out to be well worth the cost of membership.
At the end of October I was diagnosed with stomach cancer. It sucks, not just because it's cancer, but because it's the second cancer I've been diagnosed with in as many years. There's possibly something going on at the genetic level, we're looking into that, but in the meantime… Well, I'm just trying to get through my treatment one step at a time (though sometimes those steps are in a bit of a rush).
Though last year's endometrial cancer was no joke, quite bluntly, dealing with stomach cancer is going to be much longer and more involved. I didn't need chemotherapy last year. This year I do. I'm going to be on chemo for eight weeks, surgery, and then eight weeks of chemo again afterwards.
Needless to say, this upended a number of plans I had for my personal life, from participating in this year's NaNoWriMo to seeing my new niece, and it really sucks that this is happening during covid since the chemo is going to render me immunocompromised.
For the next 5-6 months I expect to be not quite myself as I'll likely be fatigued, possibly nauseous, and dealing with other side effects from chemo. I hope to keep blogging during this time though as it brings me a lot of joy and the doctors are encouraging me to keep up my normal activities as much as possible.
Some of you reached out to help me with my cancer treatment last year, for which I am still deeply appreciative. At this point I don't know what the eventual damage will be since I'm early in treatment and most of the bills are still to come, so I don't need help at this time. And to be honest, I feel a little bad at the thought of asking again. But if it gets to that point, I'll say something.
And I would like to add something on a related note. If you happen to be a writer eligible for SFWA, an event like this is a good reason to become a member. Their Emergency Medical Fund helped a lot last year. It wasn't even close to the top of the list of reasons why I joined, but turned out to be well worth the cost of membership.
Monday, November 23, 2020
Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!
May you and yours be safe this holiday. Personally, I'll be holed up and mostly virtual this coming weekend.
I was hoping for more to say this Monday, but this past month has been rough and I'm not quite ready to share with everyone, but that will likely happen in the near future. In fact, probably next week. It's just I don't want to break the news on one platform (my blog) and not have companion messaging ready on Twitter/Facebook/Curious Fictions/Ko-fi so no one feels left out.
In the meantime I'm trying to keep my spirits up and stay busy. And I hope to have some writing to share next month as well!
I was hoping for more to say this Monday, but this past month has been rough and I'm not quite ready to share with everyone, but that will likely happen in the near future. In fact, probably next week. It's just I don't want to break the news on one platform (my blog) and not have companion messaging ready on Twitter/Facebook/Curious Fictions/Ko-fi so no one feels left out.
In the meantime I'm trying to keep my spirits up and stay busy. And I hope to have some writing to share next month as well!
Monday, November 2, 2020
Not Doing NaNoWriMo This Year, Alas
Sometimes, it feels like fate has it out for you. And without going into details, just a few hours after my last post went live, I received news that made it clear that NaNoWriMo wasn't going to happen for me this year.
I'm likely to be busy in the first half of November, and probably out of commission in the second half, which means no room for writing on a regular schedule. That's too bad because I was looking forward to it, and it would have been my tenth year of participating in a row, but that's the way the cookie crumbles, and not making ten years in the row doesn't mean I'll never write another 50,000 words in a month.
I wish I had more to say at this point, but I'd like to wait until I have more information. I'm very detail-lite myself right now, other than the fact I know things are going to be rocky.
If you're inclined to offer prayers or good wishes, they'd be appreciated.
I'm likely to be busy in the first half of November, and probably out of commission in the second half, which means no room for writing on a regular schedule. That's too bad because I was looking forward to it, and it would have been my tenth year of participating in a row, but that's the way the cookie crumbles, and not making ten years in the row doesn't mean I'll never write another 50,000 words in a month.
I wish I had more to say at this point, but I'd like to wait until I have more information. I'm very detail-lite myself right now, other than the fact I know things are going to be rocky.
If you're inclined to offer prayers or good wishes, they'd be appreciated.
Monday, August 24, 2020
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Series End
I was going to start my Norn9: Var Commons blog series this week, but realized that if I did, I wouldn't have a chance to talk about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. while it was still timely. So Norn9 will begin next week.
So, I want to say first that I am not much of a TV person. I do watch a fair bit of anime, but I tend to have difficulty sitting through an hour long show. Watching a Western drama becomes appointment viewing where I have to block out an hour of time. It's very difficult for me to follow more than one series at a time.
And by that, I mean more than one series during its entire run. The only other series that I watched all the way through since I started Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was Agent Carter, which was aided by having a very limited number of episodes. There's a trail of partially finished live actions shows in AoS's wake that I eventually dropped because I find it difficult to watch more than one, even over the course of seven years. If two shows dropped new episodes at the same time and I was busy, then the less popular one would lose, never to be caught up.
Which is my roundabout way of saying that I really enjoyed Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. It had a rough first season. I wasn't sure about the characters, the stories were very much monster of the week, and I hated Skye, but I wasn't watching anything else at the time so there was no competition.
Then the second season got better. They introduced the Inhumans and ran a single overarching story arc throughout the season. The writing team even managed to completely rehabilitate Skye, moving her from being the rogue hacker character to a conflicted young woman who was learning about her (very complicated) family for the first time.
The fourth season was my favorite. Despite being broken up into three mini-arcs between Ghost Rider, LMDs, and the Framework, each one was extremely well plotted and surprisingly managed to build on each other.
After watching year after year, I grew attached to the characters, so the show was always must watch viewing for me (especially since I don't subscribe to any services that would make it easy to catch reruns). Some seasons weren't as strong as others, but like any good serial, it was fun seeing where the characters would go next.
I don't think Season 7 is one of the better seasons from a writing standpoint, but knowing that it was the final season, you can see the writers had a lot of fun with it, stuffing in references to previous seasons and the greater MCU. If you're gonna do your swan song, might well put on a good show.
And they did.
While I'm not entirely sure I like the Daisy x Daniel Sousa romance (I'm not sure what the age gap is, but it feels like it's on the large side), I do think bringing Sousa into the last season as a recurring guest star was one of the best surprises the show did. I'd liked him on Agent Carter and bringing him forward in time to avoid his otherwise necessary death (which still sort of happened in an attempt to perserve the timeline) allowed him to fill a role as a pragmatic novice who doesn't understand some of these newfangled things. That's not to say he doesn't pull his own weight, he does, but his toolkit is distinctly different from everyone else's.
Aside from Fitz being absent most of the season (due to his actor working on other projects), it felt like everyone got a chance to do something, and even robo-Coulson didn't turn out as static a character as I thought he would.
After I finished watching the finale, I ended up wandering around the internet looking for interesting trivia (and finding a really fun table read video on YouTube) because I was saddened that it was really and truly over.
I don't watch many shows, so the few that I do, I tend to remember well. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will be difficult to replace, and I loved that it had both Ming-Na Wen and Chloe Bennet, giving us two Asian woman with unrelated characters in the cast!
I'm sure people will recommend other shows to me. There's so much to watch out there, but I have no plans to pick up anything else right now. I figure something will fall into my lap eventually, but it's difficult to find something that will scratch just the right itch when you're looking for the one TV show you plan on watching for the next seven years.
So, I want to say first that I am not much of a TV person. I do watch a fair bit of anime, but I tend to have difficulty sitting through an hour long show. Watching a Western drama becomes appointment viewing where I have to block out an hour of time. It's very difficult for me to follow more than one series at a time.
And by that, I mean more than one series during its entire run. The only other series that I watched all the way through since I started Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was Agent Carter, which was aided by having a very limited number of episodes. There's a trail of partially finished live actions shows in AoS's wake that I eventually dropped because I find it difficult to watch more than one, even over the course of seven years. If two shows dropped new episodes at the same time and I was busy, then the less popular one would lose, never to be caught up.
Which is my roundabout way of saying that I really enjoyed Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. It had a rough first season. I wasn't sure about the characters, the stories were very much monster of the week, and I hated Skye, but I wasn't watching anything else at the time so there was no competition.
Then the second season got better. They introduced the Inhumans and ran a single overarching story arc throughout the season. The writing team even managed to completely rehabilitate Skye, moving her from being the rogue hacker character to a conflicted young woman who was learning about her (very complicated) family for the first time.
The fourth season was my favorite. Despite being broken up into three mini-arcs between Ghost Rider, LMDs, and the Framework, each one was extremely well plotted and surprisingly managed to build on each other.
After watching year after year, I grew attached to the characters, so the show was always must watch viewing for me (especially since I don't subscribe to any services that would make it easy to catch reruns). Some seasons weren't as strong as others, but like any good serial, it was fun seeing where the characters would go next.
I don't think Season 7 is one of the better seasons from a writing standpoint, but knowing that it was the final season, you can see the writers had a lot of fun with it, stuffing in references to previous seasons and the greater MCU. If you're gonna do your swan song, might well put on a good show.
And they did.
While I'm not entirely sure I like the Daisy x Daniel Sousa romance (I'm not sure what the age gap is, but it feels like it's on the large side), I do think bringing Sousa into the last season as a recurring guest star was one of the best surprises the show did. I'd liked him on Agent Carter and bringing him forward in time to avoid his otherwise necessary death (which still sort of happened in an attempt to perserve the timeline) allowed him to fill a role as a pragmatic novice who doesn't understand some of these newfangled things. That's not to say he doesn't pull his own weight, he does, but his toolkit is distinctly different from everyone else's.
Aside from Fitz being absent most of the season (due to his actor working on other projects), it felt like everyone got a chance to do something, and even robo-Coulson didn't turn out as static a character as I thought he would.
After I finished watching the finale, I ended up wandering around the internet looking for interesting trivia (and finding a really fun table read video on YouTube) because I was saddened that it was really and truly over.
I don't watch many shows, so the few that I do, I tend to remember well. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will be difficult to replace, and I loved that it had both Ming-Na Wen and Chloe Bennet, giving us two Asian woman with unrelated characters in the cast!
I'm sure people will recommend other shows to me. There's so much to watch out there, but I have no plans to pick up anything else right now. I figure something will fall into my lap eventually, but it's difficult to find something that will scratch just the right itch when you're looking for the one TV show you plan on watching for the next seven years.
Monday, August 17, 2020
Just a Quick Update
I realize I've skipped a couple weeks of blog posting, and while I wouldn't ordinarily say anything, I knew that I didn't have it in me to get something substantial for this week either.
To be frank, I haven't been feeling great these past few weeks. It's not so bad that I'm completely debilitated, but it's enough that my productivity isn't where I want it to be either. (And this heat wave is not helping either.)
So here are a few quick hits that might be worth your while until next week:
To be frank, I haven't been feeling great these past few weeks. It's not so bad that I'm completely debilitated, but it's enough that my productivity isn't where I want it to be either. (And this heat wave is not helping either.)
So here are a few quick hits that might be worth your while until next week:
- How I Outline a Short Story - I talk about the subject as part of a Writers of the Future podcast series
- MANGA Plus - Free manga to read on the publisher's own English language site. Only the latest chapters of currently are available, but they also rotate in classic series that have already completed.
- Why Cats Like Your Gamer Chair - Silly article concept, but answers given seriously
- Joker and Akechi Sing "You're Nothing Without Me" - The voice actors behind the two Persona 5 characters sing this duet (in character!) from the City of Angels musical
Monday, March 16, 2020
Hunkering Down
I almost didn't write a post this week, but I figured I'd at least say that I'm fine. I'm in southern California and if you're following the news at the moment, you may know that California's governor, Gavin Newsom has been declaring a number of emergency measures over the past few days; restrictions on gatherings, asking the elderly to self-isolate, etc.
My work has taken some measures of its own, and I'm fortunate that my day job is flexible enough that this is possible. In fact, I spent a fair amount of last year working from home while the doctors were trying to figure out what was wrong with me, so I know that 90% of my work I can do remotely without issue. The tricky thing is going to be working with my coworkers when everyone else is doing so at the same time, since they might not be as prepared for it, and we do have some equipment we needed to take with us.
I'm also an introvert who doesn't need to go out much, so the idea of staying home for an extended period of time doesn't bother me, and I'm fortunate enough that I was well stocked for food even before people started panicking. I didn't have to brave the grocery stores and I have faith that essential industries will remain working. As I was telling a friend, the panic buying is only inducing a temporary shortage, and regional distribution systems are still in place so grocery stores will fill up again as people get used to our current situation.
There's a lot that isn't good right now, but I remain hopeful that this cuts back on the spread of the virus while medical researchers get a better handle on how to deal with it. Stay safe, everyone.
My work has taken some measures of its own, and I'm fortunate that my day job is flexible enough that this is possible. In fact, I spent a fair amount of last year working from home while the doctors were trying to figure out what was wrong with me, so I know that 90% of my work I can do remotely without issue. The tricky thing is going to be working with my coworkers when everyone else is doing so at the same time, since they might not be as prepared for it, and we do have some equipment we needed to take with us.
I'm also an introvert who doesn't need to go out much, so the idea of staying home for an extended period of time doesn't bother me, and I'm fortunate enough that I was well stocked for food even before people started panicking. I didn't have to brave the grocery stores and I have faith that essential industries will remain working. As I was telling a friend, the panic buying is only inducing a temporary shortage, and regional distribution systems are still in place so grocery stores will fill up again as people get used to our current situation.
There's a lot that isn't good right now, but I remain hopeful that this cuts back on the spread of the virus while medical researchers get a better handle on how to deal with it. Stay safe, everyone.
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