Draginon

Long days at work this week. I’m a night owl so being forced to wake up before 8 is torture for me so you can imagine being woken up at 5. Then it’s around 8PM when I finally eat dinner. End of year inventory is the worst.

I take immortality since you can still get the million dollars along the way I’d rather sprint forever since the thought of flying outside an airplane terrifies me. Why would anyone pick medieval times?

Ate Keto for the first time. It’s got to be the blandest thing I’d ever eaten. These consisted of cinnamon muffins, lemon poppyseed muffin and a Nutella cupcake. They were all moist like they weren’t finished cooking at all or too much water was in the batter, the flavor went away pretty fast and I was left with no flavor at all, just chewy dough. The Nutella one was the worst offender since to mess up Chocolate anything shows how bad it was since the only times I’ve never finished a chocolate dessert was because it was too rich and I just couldn’t eat this thing at all. The best tasting was the lemon poppyseed but only on the small amount of frosting on top, though when I tried to not chew the frosting as much so that the lemon flavor stayed I was left with a strong lemon flavor from the frosting and a huge blandness from the muffin itself. I’m not against healthy eating but I’ve had foods that were vegetarian and vegan that I enjoyed and bland/no flavor food is something I do not enjoy at all. Not entirely sure how anyone can stomach it unless they are one of those supertasters who can’t handle even mild flavor. I did that when I first saw hashtags and couldn’t figure out why everyone was putting pound in front of stuff.

I was the student who would read in class after all the work was done. Never had a teacher confiscate a book from me though. Did have other students steal stuff from me, once in middle school a student from the classroom next door tried stealing my copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and I got it back because I knew the binding was pretty weak and a certain page had a rip on it. The one thing I find annoying about working in a school now is how the place is trying to 'promote' reading but they have no idea how to incorporate it or even get the teenagers interested. Some books they put at a much lower grade level but then they'll have Clifford and Dr Suess for the high schoolers. Then there were a couple books they had assigned to the recommended grade level and pulled them because one had some language (think like how 80's kids films had strong language and rated PG) and the other complained about a scene that talked about an abortion, but not in detail, and she described it as being explicitly graphic. What made that second one silly was that it was a required reading for that grade and she was the only teacher to complain about it. Oh and recently we had a read-a-thon and the way it was set up to record your minutes was actually discouraging reading since they wanted only 1-2 hours a day and I read more than that.

Just spent the last couple hours rearranging my movies into some kind of order. I now have tv shows together along with these categories: Disney Animated Canon, DAC Sequels, Pixar, classic Disney films, modern Disney, Studio Ghibli, Misc. animated, Misc. CGI, Musicals, Superheroes, box sets with single entries not in them, horror and steel cases. I also have Misc. divided into general Classic, 70's/80's, childhood and modern. I also put holiday stuff together for easy Christmas access. I was able to do this since there's a bunch of films and shows I decided I didn't really want to hold onto anymore, I had a couple duplicates, or I am upgrading them to a better version. The total is almost 60 so that's some space cleared up. Edit: Oh yeah, while doing the sorting I found that there were some missing titles like I own X-Men 2 and 3 but not the first one, 8 Disney Animated Canon films (mostly the Package films but who doesn't love a collection?) and a couple Pixar films. Kind of crazy what you discover eh?

So who's had that moment where in person or online you were talking with someone and you both were very friendly and suddenly the other person became hostile over something that really wouldn't cause such a reaction? I've had a couple of moments like this on DeviantArt. The first was with a trans artist and we talked a little on a few of his pictures. On one I casually mentioned I leaned more on the asexual side, the conversation had turned to sexual orientation for context, and suddenly his tone became hostile and he went on a tirade that I was exactly like one of his past boyfriends who was asexual and called him a freak for suggesting to have sex, they were far enough into the relationship for that to be a common thing. I was so upset I almost wanted to break the unspoken rule of not referring to a trans person by their birth sex but instead I just left and never went back to their stuff. Another one was just bizarre since I complemented an artist on one of her characters and she outright banned me from her gallery. Another artist we both knew had commented on artist #2's journal about banning someone earlier for trying to turn one of her characters into something they weren't or something along those lines and I replied to artist #2 that I was the one she banned and let them know what I commented, by this point artist #1 had hidden the entire conversation, and they thought she was out of line.

Double standards are the worst! Recently saw a picture on furaffinity that depicts r*pe double standards and the creator sees it as fine because it's a guy getting it without consent on his part. I'm seriously considering reporting that drawing to the moderators of furaffinity since that's not funny in the slightest.

Finished reading Cress from The Lunar Chronicles. Yes all the girls have appeared! Cress was so precious and I nearly cried when she found out who her father was. Winter's one scene was wonderful to read since she is so innocent, despite being a little crazy. Winter is next for me. Still have to grab the prequel Fairest and the short stories Stars Above.

Saw Avengers Endgame today. OMG this has to be the best superhero film ever made! I don't know what they could've cut out to make this closer to 2 hours since every moment was great. Is it okay to start talking about the film without spoiler tags yet?

Just recently watched Doctor Strange and watched Thor: Ragnarok and Infinity War today to prepare myself for Endgame. I've yet to watch Black Panther, Ant-Man and the Wasp and Captain Marvel but I'm considering those 'supplemental' (as in these are more origin films and context films for some things like Bucky in Wakanda, which can be inferred with Civil War, and the origins of Wasp and Carol Danvers) to the watch since I already owned Doctor Strange so figured I might as well watch and TR is an update status on Thor and Hulk while Infinity War is obvious. Will pick up Black Panther and Ant-Man and the Wasp in the future but I didn't want to get four films so these two had to go the wayside for simplicity of plot for me.

Let me put it another way: Imagine Stephen King delayed a bunch of books because 'writing horror is new to him' or if Brandon said he was having trouble writing SA4 because he wasn't used to writing fantasy stories. That's the exact thing being used as the excuse for a ride delay from Disney even though they've had experience with this exact ride system for 2 decades now. I'm not that interested in the ride itself, I hate the new art style for Mickey, but the excuse is what confounds me.

Not sure where to put this. I'm confused by the reason people are giving for why the upcoming Mickey Mouse ride at Disney World is being delayed to next year. Everyone is saying because the technology is new but it's just a trackless ride system with screens. It's not even the first time they've dabbled with this system since it's used for Pooh's Hunny Hunt at Tokyo (open since 2000) and the Ratatouille ride in Paris. Heck it's not even expensive to add or program since Sea World has one and many other theme parks with budgets smaller than Six Flags. So since they've used the system for 4 rides already and a cheap theme park can program these with no hassle what's the jig with Disney Florida?

Started some preliminary work on a story concept I had years ago and only recently thought "this could be a great children's book series" The story is about pirates in a world that's mainly islands and water so traveling by boat is the only way to get between islands (none are big enough to allow airports to be a thing so aircraft will never be built here since it would be an impractical use of resources). Each book is planned to have a flashback showing how each crew member came to be part of this team. Each of these people are planned to have a backstory that's going to make it where they just can't stay on their home island whether it's because of LGBT reasons, abuse, not considered masculine/feminine enough by their society's standards, needing a second chance or even wanting to see the world. I'm still working out who all the crew members will be, since I need to look up ship roles though the captain is a bit loose with that, but I do have about a dozen planned with the captain and first mate having their backstory figured out first since they're brother and sister (she'd be captain but pirate society is very backwards about inclusion and a woman captain would've been considered going too far by their standards) but their story will not be in the first book. Another thing about this society is that the people aren't exactly human. Appearance wise they look half human half animal. For example the captain is a monkeyman which is a human but everything from the waist down, forearms and ears look more monkey like. Some other species are more extensive depending on the species (like chameleonmen have the eyes and horns of a chameleon) but as a rule that's the basic appearance for all the people. Pretty much I want these books to be about inclusion and how it's okay to be different, even if there's only one person willing to give you a chance since the captain gives each of his crew members due respect and will not tolerate any hate directed at them. Hopefully the writing of these goes good.

Decided to finish Uncharted: Drake's Fortune before heading right into Kingdom Hearts 3 Critical mode. Boy that game got stressful towards the end when it turned into a horror game. I can definitely see how it was influenced by both the OG Tomb Raider, Indiana Jones and National Treasure and how the new Tomb Raider games were influenced by this game. Wish me luck with Kingdom Hearts 3 Critical!

Recently the radio station I listen to changed the morning host and some segments got changed. One new segment is called Fired From America and the one they picked today wasn't unreasonable or fireable. The story here was of the principal in a Houston school enforcing a dress code for the parents not to be in the building if they are wearing attire that implies they just rolled out of bed, like pajamas and hair rollers, or just showing off too much of your body like dresses that end at your butt. I don't think it's unreasonable for a school to enforce a dress code saying "don't be a slob or a hussy" since it's similar to what a fancy restaurant would enforce to keep a certain image.

Recently played Life Is Strange: Before the Storm and liked it since I liked the first game as well. Followed that up with The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, a prologue to Life Is Strange 2, a mundane made cool by a 9 year old type of game. Because it's only about an hour long there's not much to do and no trophies (they got around that by submitting it as a demo) so a neat game if you're short on time. Was playing the first Uncharted game but then Kingdom Hearts 3 just had to go and drop critical mode last night so I downloaded the patch and gave that a whirl... I didn't even know it was possible to die in a tutorial! I did better than most since I only died once to Darkside, the tutorial boss, since I noticed that if you try to attack it when it's holding that ball of darkness it's a one hit kill. Then came the first regular battle in Olympus and I died a couple times...using the Ultima Weapon. Yeah this mode is tough if you're dying in one or two hits from regular enemies while using the most powerful weapon in the game and the new exclusive abilities to help out with the difficulty. In other words Nomura and his team turned Kingdom Hearts into a Dark Souls game, though I am glad to have a challenge with this game since I didn't die once and all previous games I've died a few times even on easy mode

I live in the states so yeah... The worst new series to try starting are the long ones without an end known. I have The Sword of Truth still sitting on my shelf and I've yet to start on it, then I have the first installments of Dresden Files and Wild Cards with no end in sight for either. Another long one is Discworld with 41? books total (hate the fact that my copy of The Colour of Magic is spelled The Color of Magic) and I also have the first Harry Hole book which has no end so far. I'm holding off getting The Kingkiller Chronicles until book 3 is announced (wanted to do that for ASOIAF for when book 6 was announced but ended up finding AGOT for cheap) One series I am glad to have finished was The Wheel of Time, that was so long I had to take breaks to keep myself fresh. But there are some series I have that are complete but I don't yet have all the books like The Lunar Chronicles (own 3/6), Codex Alera (1/6) and two of the Rick Riordon series (2/3 norse 2/5 Apollo)

It's so nice when Brandon does stories like Legion, they're a breath of fresh air and such a quick read. I hope that Brandon eventually brings his other short stories and novellas out in a collection so I can read Snapshot (I don't do ebooks so I don't have a way right now) I already own Skyward so I can start that anytime but I have a few in progress series (where I've read 1 or more books but not finished the series itself. Luckily all the ones in this list are YA so easy pickings) and standalones I want to get through first and not add another in progress series to my list. I don't count incomplete series, like ASOIAF, as an in progress just because there's no way to finish reading them at this point.

Finished the final part of Legion last night. Reading all three together was nice and it's amazing how great the Aspects were. The ending was fun since it turned the whole story into a metaphor/allegory of what it's like being a writer. Also when reading it it was obvious how it felt like a script for a show and I didn't mind it at all. Was tempted to read Skyward next but I wanted to read something more fantasy and read a sequel of something I've already read so I'm now reading Cress book 3 of The Lunar Chronicles (I know it's more sci-fi but it's based off Rapunzel... strange how I've had a rapunzel year so far with Kingdom Hearts 3, reading a book about Gothel, watching some videos on the show and now reading Cress)

If you had the same condition as Stephen Leeds what Aspects would you want to have? I'd want one similar to Kalyani since having a translator/linguist would be helpful since I want to travel the world one day and I'm a fan of Japanese media so it would help to have someone who knows the language rather than have the locals speak English to me or have incorrect subtitles. Maybe this could also double for customs of the regions. Another would be one who's a financial type of person since we all need financial help A third could be one versed in law since I've encountered stuff in my job that always makes me go 'is that legal?'

Anyone hear of the feminist that hated building furniture because it would require consulting a manual?

Finished Mother Knows Best. Very good and loose with the film. Compared to the previous two it focuses far more on the focus villain, Mother Gothel, than on the original characters. In terms of feeling sorry for the villain Gothel is smack dab in the middle. She wasn't as horrid and destructive as Ursula and Beast but she also wasn't as heartbreaking as The Queen and Maleficent. The book in now on is the Legion collection.

Shout Factory was doing a march madness sale recently and I took advantage of it. Got myself a new Sentai season, Chōjin Sentai Jetman, and 5 volumes of MST3K (13/20th Anniversary, 15, 16, 19, & 20) along with preorders for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie and MST3K Volume 11

I'm watching Super Sentai currently. A couple weeks back I had watched the season Mirai Sentai Timeranger and that was a very good season, very grownup while being watchable for children without talking down to them. The story was copied for Power Rangers Time Force but the details are very different. One example involves the pink rangers in an early episode. Time Force pink she wanted revenge against one of the villains for attacking her and her fiancé a year prior, while TimePink wanted revenge because the villain killed her father, mother and little sister a decade prior. Then the head villain became the comic relief in Time Force showing how different the villains are. Now on Ninpuu Sentai Hurticanger and this is such a fun, hilarious and great season. Before seeing it I thought it was just going to be an average season but this is in my top 5! The plots get very silly, like a catfish monster that gives citizens mustaches to make them dance!, but it just works with the Rangers and villains.

The other day me and my mother went to this place in Fort Worth called Swiss Pastry Cafe and we wanted to take home some Black Forest cake. She said they made it differently than traditional cake, meringue and whipped cream, but I was expecting it to have that Black Forest cake flavor of cherry and chocolate. Not only did it not taste like cherry it was a disappointing cake overall.