criminy! it's almost a year-and-a-half since last time we played it! october of 2024!
no wonder i could barely remember what was going on in that campaign!
anyhow, coming soon is secret of the dragon emperor part 25.
and we really need to crank on this thing, because elle says we haven't even done half the adventures in the campaign book, which means we could be looking at not finishing up until well after part 50, however long that takes us to get to.
xoxo,
claire
we've been reading this manga series the last several months called "happiness," by an artist named shuzo oshimi, and today we finished off the last two volumes.
wowzers!
i'm not exactly the world's most giantest fan of horror stories, and in particular, i get a little oogly at really gruesome and brutal ones, which, holy cow, this series really is. like, instead of a list of trigger warnings like, "gore, torture, injury to puppies, and smoking," it could almost save time by having a "safe" list instead.
"caution! everything except walking the plank! if walking the plank is your only trigger, you can definitely read this manga, no problem."
anyway, it's not only super-disturbing because of all the stuff that happens in it, it's even super-er disturbing-er because most of the main characters just really don't deserve anything bad to happen to them at all, much less all the vampirism and imprisonment and torture and medical experiments and losing friends and family members and on and on and on.
so i was really uncertain whether the ending would turn out to all be worth it, or if i'd just be left in a big pile of sad and ick. would it be one of those stories where all that awfulness would lead up to something meaningful? or one of those stories where you turn the last page and are like, "welp, that was super-well-written and -drawn and all that, but i never want to read anything like it again, ever, ever, ever."
spoilers! don't read any more of this post if you're the kind who's just desperate to subject yourself to a 10-volume series of ghastly and appalling horror and torment without any guarantee that you'll end up being glad you subjected yourself to the experience.
so ... are all you spoiler-hating types gone? okay, then!
jiminy cricket, what an amazing ending this series had! i'm serious about this: as awful as everything leading up to the last volume was, the finale turned out to be absolutely beautiful and way more than worth it. 10 out of 10, would definitely recommend ... if you can take a bunch of kinda queasy-making, stomach-churning, horror-y kinda stuff.
anyway, if you're into freaky vampire stories with mind-blowing endings that actually make you feel better about the world, go ahead and jump into this one with both feet!
xoxo,
claire
card?
nope.
candy?
nope.
dinner and/or dancing out on the town?
afraid not.
the fact is, we haven't ever made all that much of valentine's day around here. and do you want to know why?
it's because ...
every day is special when we're together.
xoxo,
claire
we got tacos for breakfast this morning! and we got gobs of them, so there we even had a few left over for lunch.
everybody digs breakfast tacos, right? i mean, probably not everybody. but we're keen on them around here and i get the impression lots of other folks are too ... especially on tuesdays.
is that a thing in your neck of the woods?
most days, we're cereal and coffee types here in the worthy household. every once in a while, there's oatmeal ... or donuts!
but tacos are a nice changeup because they're savory instead of sweet, and you can mix and match them, which doesn't really work with cereal. two or three different tacos (yes, i admit i sometimes hog down three whole tacos) ... that's like a multi-course meal, you know? but if you try having two or three kinds of cereal, it kind of ends up a big weird mish-mash. that's especially true if the three kinds of cereal are something like granola (because that's what heddy likes), another one like lucky charms (which i'd like to pretend was just around the house for ariel and sasha, but heck, who doesn't like lucky charms?), and then life cereal or golden grahams or something. i mean, there are definitely kinds of cereal you could mix together and get away with it, but not fruit loops and bran flakes.
breakfast tacos all go together, though.
potato and egg + carne guisada ...
picadillo + bacon, egg, and cheese ...
bean and cheese + another bean and cheese + another bean and cheese ...
you can have basically an infinite variety of breakfasts just off of different kinds of tacos. (attention, msg! please do not come in here reading my blog and then calculating the actual number of possible combinations of breakfast tacos!)
not every tuesday is taco tuesday, but it's hard to beat taco tuesday when it actually rolls around.
xoxo,
claire
it's been a sit-and-watch tv kind of day around here today. there may also have been some lazing in bed. and some other things in bed. and then some more lazing nobody's been super productive, which seems to have suited us all pretty well!
sometimes you just have to chill, you know?
xoxo,
claire
