all these failsons keep getting away with dangerous dreams
Mar. 28th, 2026 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
proustbotIn 2023, I got covid for the first (diagnosed) time while on a family vacation next to the Pacific Ocean. My younger sister gave it to me.
In 2026, I got covid for the second (diagnosed) time while on a family vacation next to the Pacific Ocean. My younger brother gave it to me.
This 2026 round has been much milder (so far, knock on wood) than the 2023 version, and I've mostly spent the past two days sprawled in my room, semi-feverishly listening to audiobooks and searching for the most tedious things to do in my various casino games. I just want a constant bath of flashing lights, mindless tapping, and soothing noises. Every few hours, my family leaves an offering of food or drink on the floor before my door.
Richard Osman, The Last Devil To Die (2023) -- When an old friend is murdered over a missing shipment of heroin, ex-spy Elizabeth and her friends in the Thursday Murder Club investigate the overlapping criminal worlds of drug dealing and art forgery.
As noted above, I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Fiona Shaw, in a state of delirious distraction, so my critical faculties were not exactly working at top speeds. In that context, it was...fine. I think Osman may have written himself into a corner with this series, because he's now obligated to do cozy-murder-mystery plots involving lovable retirees, but it seems increasingly clear that his heart is really with doing black-comedy scenes with dim-witted criminals borrowed straight from a Carl Hiaasen novel. No shade -- Carl Hiaasen novels are great! -- but the strictures of the genre are now working against Osman. Additionally, The Last Devil to Die has an incredibly long mid-book interlude about physician-assisted suicide that feels less like "the plot/characters demand this!" and more like "the editors kept giving me notes on this subplot, and I kept writing additional chapters to answer their complaints!" Every time you-the-reader think that this incredibly grim subplot is finished, it rears its head again!
Tears of Themis (2021, iOS) -- Nothing particularly interesting has happened in this game recently, but there were two moments that did make me cackle aloud.
( Artem stares quizzically off into space )
Honkai Star Rail (2023-, iOS) -- I remain firmly and defiantly out-of-date on this game (ugh, Amphoreus, ugh), but I have played endless rounds of Currency Wars and made it up to Wealth Creator 26 during my covid times this week. One of these days, I WILL get three Peppys on the field at the same time!!
Genshin Impact (2020-, PC) -- Regretfully, I only made it halfway through the time-limited event about Varka's homecoming (witness me, I am finally too busy to stay current with this game), but to be fair, Varka's homecoming was pretty dull! In other news, I am nearly done grinding up all of my four-star characters to level 76. (It was originally level 75, but then Yanfei crept up to 76 just because she's a standard member of my overworld team and was absorbing ambient exp over the course of a year, so then I had to bring everyone up one additional level so that they're all arrayed nicely and evenly on the character-select menu. Yes, this doesn't suggest anything good about my mental health, I know.)
Honkai Impact 3rd (2018-, iOS) -- Made it as far as Chapter 11 with Bronya in Parallel-Universe Land with kid-Welt. This game remains Not Good, but I am fascinated to watch the menus/interfaces/gameplay-systems radically shift as I move through the first two "years" of content updates. (From what I can reconstruct, I've entered the content introduced with the 3.2 update now.) They really kept feverishly tweaking this game over time, huh?
In 2026, I got covid for the second (diagnosed) time while on a family vacation next to the Pacific Ocean. My younger brother gave it to me.
This 2026 round has been much milder (so far, knock on wood) than the 2023 version, and I've mostly spent the past two days sprawled in my room, semi-feverishly listening to audiobooks and searching for the most tedious things to do in my various casino games. I just want a constant bath of flashing lights, mindless tapping, and soothing noises. Every few hours, my family leaves an offering of food or drink on the floor before my door.
Richard Osman, The Last Devil To Die (2023) -- When an old friend is murdered over a missing shipment of heroin, ex-spy Elizabeth and her friends in the Thursday Murder Club investigate the overlapping criminal worlds of drug dealing and art forgery.
As noted above, I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Fiona Shaw, in a state of delirious distraction, so my critical faculties were not exactly working at top speeds. In that context, it was...fine. I think Osman may have written himself into a corner with this series, because he's now obligated to do cozy-murder-mystery plots involving lovable retirees, but it seems increasingly clear that his heart is really with doing black-comedy scenes with dim-witted criminals borrowed straight from a Carl Hiaasen novel. No shade -- Carl Hiaasen novels are great! -- but the strictures of the genre are now working against Osman. Additionally, The Last Devil to Die has an incredibly long mid-book interlude about physician-assisted suicide that feels less like "the plot/characters demand this!" and more like "the editors kept giving me notes on this subplot, and I kept writing additional chapters to answer their complaints!" Every time you-the-reader think that this incredibly grim subplot is finished, it rears its head again!
Tears of Themis (2021, iOS) -- Nothing particularly interesting has happened in this game recently, but there were two moments that did make me cackle aloud.
( Artem stares quizzically off into space )
Honkai Star Rail (2023-, iOS) -- I remain firmly and defiantly out-of-date on this game (ugh, Amphoreus, ugh), but I have played endless rounds of Currency Wars and made it up to Wealth Creator 26 during my covid times this week. One of these days, I WILL get three Peppys on the field at the same time!!
Genshin Impact (2020-, PC) -- Regretfully, I only made it halfway through the time-limited event about Varka's homecoming (witness me, I am finally too busy to stay current with this game), but to be fair, Varka's homecoming was pretty dull! In other news, I am nearly done grinding up all of my four-star characters to level 76. (It was originally level 75, but then Yanfei crept up to 76 just because she's a standard member of my overworld team and was absorbing ambient exp over the course of a year, so then I had to bring everyone up one additional level so that they're all arrayed nicely and evenly on the character-select menu. Yes, this doesn't suggest anything good about my mental health, I know.)
Honkai Impact 3rd (2018-, iOS) -- Made it as far as Chapter 11 with Bronya in Parallel-Universe Land with kid-Welt. This game remains Not Good, but I am fascinated to watch the menus/interfaces/gameplay-systems radically shift as I move through the first two "years" of content updates. (From what I can reconstruct, I've entered the content introduced with the 3.2 update now.) They really kept feverishly tweaking this game over time, huh?
