Summary: Broken engagements, karma, condemnation events, doting, royalty, reincarnated heroines, banishment endings... it's fully loaded with all the charms of villainesses!! The comic adaption of 5 popular villainess stories that were published on syosetu! An anthology of oneshots with happy endings!!
My comments:
Volume 5
The Turmoil Caused by the Misunderstanding of the Prince and My Engagement Being Called off: The characters on the cover. The Prince calls off the engagement because he thinks she would rather be a scholar than a Queen but she was studying so hard in the first place for him/to be a good Queen. 0.5/5 stars
It Would Seem You've Broken off Your Engagement in Order to Marry Me, but I Have No Intention of Marrying You: Ehhh I wanted the girls to be together not that rando 'you should be...with my brother!' crap. 😾 3/5 stars
The Melancholic Noble Girl Clad in a Jet-Black Dress: The King breaks off the engagement this time and the Prince has a new squeeze but it was all in order to teach him how to be open about his feelings for his lady. Surely there was a better way?? Poor girl. I like how she gets her bit of revenge though. 0.5/5 stars Now That My Engagement Is Broken, I Can Have My Fill of My Beloved Sweets: Accusations, engagement annulment, third party swoops in and scoops her up. I think this one has definitely been done before. Relatable sweets addiction though she must have amazing metabolism. 2/5 stars
Shall We Lay Waste to the Flowery Path of Evil?: This part deals with taking down a child sex trafficking ring, good as always. 4.5/5 stars
Volume 6
I'm a Survival Gamer Reincarnated Into an Otome Game Villainess With Godly Aim: Quick one where a shooting game girly gets transmigrated into an otome game and saves the prince a couple of times and is accused of trying to kill him once. 3/5 stars
The Greedy Villainess: Right up until you think the engagement break-off is going to happen but it turns out the prince was just teasing the 'villainess' and they're both yandere for each other. Didn't understand where the real personality of the villainess, she may as well not have existed (her mind was transported). 0/5 stars
The Supporting Villainess Blooms After Her Engagement Was Broken: After he breaks off the engagement, she let's herself be who she really is and gets revenge with the help and love of her childhood friend. 2/5 stars
I Was Abandoned for My Younger Sister, but She's a Ticking Time-Bomb: Breaking of the engagement happens but her family is in on it and they save their house in the end. Good revenge plan and taking out the trash though I kinda wanted to see more of that part before it jumped to the happy ending. 3.5/5 stars
The Villainess Got Dumped, Doesn't Care, and Lives Happily Ever After With Her Super Masochistic Childhood Friend: Low IQ FL x masochist ML lolol. I kinda liked that it was just a misunderstanding and they were friends once it ended. I like the interesting matchup of the couple. 3/5 stars Let's Burn the Flowery Path of Evil: The two have a baby now. A play comes out about her and her stepson in a doomed romance but she turns it into an opportunity for herself, of course. 3/5 stars
[emphasis added] Martial law in the US would mean the temporary replacement of government and regular law enforcement by a solely military force.
Standard civil liberties, such as freedom of speech, assembly, or protection from detention without trial, are all suspended in the case of martial law being enacted.
The president has already tried to claim greater federal control over elections, which under the Constitution are administered primarily at the state and local levels of government.
In February, he said Republicans should nationalize boating in at least 15 places.
I'm guessing that the article's author used poor-quality speech-to-text, and didn't check the results.
Avatar: Luffy Skill: Even roll = forward one, Odd = back one once
Roll #1:
A 2, prompt: contemporary - Shugo Chara!.
Roll #2:
A 6. TBR tile. 43x15 is Love Me, Doctor!.
Roll #3:
A 6 and Double Prompts: mystery historical geikomi + favorite genre - Midnight Rescue.
Roll #4:
A 5 and the trip tile~ 14, so went back 5 tiles to Double Prompts again: supernatural romance + action adventure - Mosspaca Advertising Department.
Roll #5:
A 1, prompt: reincarnated in a game world - Akuyaku Reijou desuga, Shiawase ni Nattemesemasu wa!.
Roll #6:
A 5, prompt: mutual unrequited love - Love on Hold.
Roll #7:
A 2, prompt: finding love again - Love Tractor.
Roll #8:
A 5, prompt: action supernatural - One Punch Man.
Roll #9:
A 1 and using skill, rolled Even so going forward one onto the trap tile. Prompt: bisexual character - Mairimashita! Iruma-kun.
Roll #10:
Went back, rolled a 3. Prompt: gender bender - Lady Crystal is a Man.
Roll #11:
A 1 and the TBR tile. 17x50 is Eto Irokoi Zoushi.
Roll #12:
A 4 and the CR tile, 1x5 is Blue Exorcist.
Roll #13:
A 4 and the trap tile again, prompt: comedy drama - Silver Diamond.
Roll #14:
Went back and rolled a 2 and it's the Trip tile, oh boy. ...Holy shit I got a 38 which is the very last tile. I'm kinda sad about that but oh well. Prompt: historical action. Of course it's historical. May as well do Golden Kamuy.
Went to Komiket yesterday morning, mostly so I could pasabuy a very cute Hikaru no Go fanmerch that Daisy was interested in (.......turns out the artist hadn't actually produced them yet? So I bought the sticker that was in their folder hahahaha), but also because I'm trying to distract my anxiety brain by giving myself sidequests now and then.
...I'd like to take a moment to complain about how exhausting it is to spend the better part of the decade trying to improve oneself without ever feeling the satisfaction of achieving something. If anything, I feel even more dissatisfied and disillusioned!? I'm just a hamster running on a wheeeeeeel. Insert quote from the latest Song Exploder episode (Olivia Rodrigo - The Cure):
Like, I don't know. I think that this has been something that I've been learning in my adult life. Like all these things that I thought like, oh, once I like hit this milestone, then I'll feel okay.
I'll feel calm and I'll feel good about myself. I think getting older is realizing that like no outside forces can ever make you feel totally happy and content. It's like totally an inside job.
Anyway, I got Wounded Little Gods by Eliza Victoria, a fantasy novel; a sticker release book; a full-color wlw comic called The Intercession. And some fanmerch of MDZS, Go For It Nakamura, and Hikaru no Go that I plan to pass along.
Photos here
Can't go to a comics market without picking up a comic/book...
Dakilang Diwata, whom I bought The Intercession from, also happened to be selling MDZS stickers. It was 4 for P100 (<2 USD), which resolved my decision paralysis so I could just get one of each lol. I think there were also TGCF stickers? But I found the MDZS ones more eye-catching. Her art is so good!!!
Fanmerch from Fran aka Mak. The Go For It Nakamura pin is matte. It feels nice!
And a fish sticker book by Wronglyke, who appears to be a fish artist? Haha
And then today we played the Mid-autumn dice game, something that we don't do every year. Also something that's not very fun when we just play for money (everyone only wants to play for money) and your brothers are in a hurry to leave so they change stuff up to shorten the game (the point of allowing the game to play out longer is so people have the chance to roll the Ultimate winning combination). I have terrible luck too (and fewer dice rolls, as a single person) so I just lose money. 😅 I lost less money than the last time, at least!
This year's rule sheet (which got made fun of for looking like the work of a first grader...):
Btw speaking of brothers, my younger brother got married a few weeks back and I just realized I never told anyone about it—mostly because I have no one to tell and it was such a simple affair we didn't really have pictures either. There were ten of us total, including the bride and groom. And a cat that sauntered down the aisle. :D For lunch we had festive Chinese food, which I haven't had in ages—seafood spinach soup, Peking duck two ways (my parents privately complained that it wasn't very good, but I always find Peking duck pancake very fun to eat so I have no complaints), cereal prawn (that I loved), steamed fish (my dad felt it necessary to ask why the fish wasn't served sweet-and-sour/red)... good hakaw and beancurd rolls that I'm still thinking about even now... and a bunch of other food that I didn't have the stomach space to try (one thing of beef, a dish with mushrooms and perfunctory vegetables, one noodle dish, and one rice dish)...
In my opinion, the orientation of the statue's hands, presumably offering an embrace, is not consistent with the gesturaliconicity of its interpretation as a referee's signal for unsportsmanlike conduct. But still, it's a good joke.
I know that in general, people use image hosting sites to save space on their hosting account, or need them for their blogs, making posts in forums and other places around the web, but my experience over the years with them hasn't been that great. From image hosting services disappearing with no warning over night (I'm looking at you, image cave and nicpic host!) photobucket putting watermarks to advertise their services on to images and now imgur blocking people from outside of the US from viewing them (quite a lot of neocities websites and code groups here on dreamwidth like dreamcodes and fandom icons have a lot of their content unviewable to me). It's not a great visitor experience when you come across a site that has 'content not viewable in your region' all across the page, and an headache for website creators when they find that they've lost all their images, or have ugly watermarks all over their images that they've not put there. People are better off hosting images with their website host, blog host, etc. I don't know what the solution is for forum users.
A few weeks back I asked folks on Bluesky to share their favorite space opera. I have been working on my Space Opera Reading Challenge, slowly. Very slowly. 2026 is a collecting phase, perhaps. But I love adding books to my "used books to keep an eye out for" list and I'm building an excellent collection of mass market paperbacks while they last (rest well, weary traveler). This thread also helped remind me of titles I own in ebook. My ebook collection is incredibly disorganized and spread across multiple hard drives, but after I went through this list I was able to pull out eleven digital books!
While I love text-based micro-blogging, after losing Twitter I'm a little shy about trusting it long term. I do trust Dreamwidth, though, so here is a collection of all the books people shared with me. When people mentioned series, I included the first book. If folks dropped a specific title in the series, I also included that alongside. I haven't read many of these books/authors, so cannot speak to the quality of every work! I've only read 12/76, because I came to space opera from cartoons/film/video games/YA SF instead of adult SF.
One of the most interesting things that crops up is what people categorize as "space opera". This list may be annoying if you're a stickler. I'm pretty liberal with the category; if I really want to drill down, I use the term coffeeandink shared with me ages ago, planetary romance. Of course, given the rise of romantasy, using the term "romance" to mean "adventure" is archaic enough not to be useful anymore. Ah, the sands of time! The only two I didn't put in the list, but still wanted to mention because I think they are more planetary romance (lol) than space opera: The Pern series by Anne McCaffrey and the Aubrey–Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. Per the reccer on the last one: just pretend they're in space. :D
All links go to bookshop.org if I could find a book/ebook option, bn.com otherwise, and some are blank because I couldn't find anything on those two. If you know of a place to purchase the books online in a physical/digital format, hit me up. Support an author today!
1/2 cup diced onion 3 1/2 cups cauliflower florets 3 cups potatoes diced into 2 cm pieces 2 tomatoes diced 3 cloves garlic crushed (1/2 tsp garlic paste) 1 heaped tsp red chili powder 1/2 tsp turmeric 1/2 tsp coriander powder Salt to taste (or about a heaped tsp) 1/4 cup oil Chopped cilantro and/or green chilies for garnish
Heat oil in a large saucepan or wok – remember you have cups of veggies and you want room to move them around. When the oil is hot add the onions and sauté till the edges start turning golden brown. Add the garlic/garlic paste and stir fry for a minute, then add the spices and fry for another minutes or so. If the mixture starts to stick then add a splash of water.
Now add your vegetables and stir to coat them with the spices. Add the tomatoes, stir. Cover, bring the heat up and then drop it to low and check on it every 10 minutes. My veggies took 20 minutes to cook through. If they start to stick then add a splash of water. Once they are cooked through check for seasoning.
Adjust if necessary – you can add more red chili and more salt, but adjusting the coriander and turmeric at this point isn’t a great idea – those spices taste best in this when cooked off first. Top with cilantro and/or green chilies and eat hot with some naan.
The weekly chat posts are intended for just that, chatting among each other. What are you currently watching? Reading? What actor/idol are you currently following? What are you looking forward to? Are you busy writing, creating art? Or did you have no time at all for anything, and are bemoaning that fact?
Whatever it is, talk to us about it here. Tell us what you liked or didn't like, and if you want to talk about spoilery things, please hide them under either of these codes: or
I mean without being too pretentious about it, one of the things that sucks me in with Control (and, I assume, Remedy’s other games though I haven’t directly played them) is the level of environmental detail. Like this isn’t a "copy-paste the same six background assets over and over" game.
Having said that, though, I really feel some of the background details in Resonant might be (looks around furtively, speaks very softly) . . . political?
Finally finished Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, a satirical thriller that feels like it shares the same DNA as Gone Girl. The PoV character is Natalie, a tradwife girlboss influencer who lives in a ranch where she and her deadbeat husband sell the fantasy of living farm-to-table with an army of children (a la Ballerina Farm). One day she wakes up to find that she's time-traveled back to the time before technology and now has to actually live farm-to-table in a traditional household.
I did NOT enjoy this lol it starts out well enough but falls off and never gets back up, largely because the writing isn't very good. I found it hard to tell when some of the things the characters saying were meant to come off as weird or the writer was just sloppy. It's definitely better as a movie than as a book. The reading experience was, to me, dry and directionless, just moving from scene to scene with no real sense of how to tell a story or consolidate its themes. It is overly dependent on the alternating past/present structure in creating suspense. The satire and commentary never really get off the ground—you already know exactly what kind of people the characters are at the beginning of the novel and the flashbacks don't really add to that, they're just lore and if you skip them, very little is lost. (Well, the scenes about how she gets pregnant are at least significant and interesting.) I also really struggled to find a voice or personality in the first-person narration, to the point where it felt like it might as well have been written in limited third-person.
I did like really the threads about performativeness and how closely linked it is to narcissism, sociopathy, low self-esteem, and religious upbringings. I wish they'd pushed it further because these are all aspects I personally relate to (I'm the child of people with empathy issues and, subsequently, narcissistic tendencies and I often wonder if I inherited these in a less malignant way). Like, I am not a naturally kind person, it's something I had to learn and train myself in, and I also had to learn how to be a person by watching how other (better, happier, more normal) people behave. And I have no concept of happiness (I am, in fact, perpetually unhappy) and am constantly trying to fix and realign myself. So yeah, Natalie makes a lot of sense to me in terms of where she's coming from but as a character she's not very cohesive.
-
Other stuff:
I've been listening to the new Small Gods audio book, narrated by Andy Serkis. I'm not enjoying it and I'm so sad about it. :( I had no problem with his reading of The Lord of the Rings, but this one's just not hitting for some reason. Might just DNF because it's making me even crankier and sadder at work. 😂
Started listening to Light Box (Radiotopia), a podcast about AI music by someone who's in the music industry (as a composer) and has many thoughts about AI technology. I know nothing about AI, music, or the music industry so it's really fascinating.
Now through October 6th, supporters of our Patreon can vote for up to three options from our “short list” of choices. All backers get votes, so if you’re not a backer yet, and you want a say, now is a great time to become a supporter! Backing the Duck Prints Press Patreon comes with lots of other great benefits, too – access to a ton of short stories automatically, behind-the-scenes sneak peeks, membership in our private press Discord (not to be confused with our public press Discord), and coupons for our webstore – and that’s all JUST at the $3/month level! Higher tiers only get more!
Curious what the staff-picked short list is? Well…
The choices:
short and diverse trans smut pieces: this would be a collection of a large number of short stories (probably a 3,000 word count maximum, at least 30 stories), with the aim being to incorporate as much diversity as we can – trans people of all types, with a range of body diversity, pre-op and post-op and thin and fat and abled and disabled and as much as we can manage across those spectra and more!
queer disabled characters + bondage/shibari/etc.: the world needs more smut about disabled people and that’s a gap we’d like to fill. How does a couple/thruple/polycule/etc. navigate bondage (of multiple types – not just physical restrains, but also things like predicament bondage) when one or more involved party has a disability? Let’s explore the options!
non-traditional omegaverse, with a focus on transpresenting characters: while we love a good alpha/alpha, anything involving a beta, omegaverse poly, and all that, what we’re really thinking with this is genderfuckery + omegaverse – transpresenting characters, as in, whatever their assigned designation at birth, they are not that! Maybe they’re alpha to omega or omega to beta, or maybe they’re outside the omegaverse trinary (cause there are three designations, so it’s not a binary…), or presentation fluid, or, or, or.
queer holiday smut: we’re also expecting this will focus on trans characters (we really want to do an erotica anthology focused on trans characters, in case that wasn’t obvious), and this would be a celebration of diverse holidays. To ensure that diversity, we expect if we go with this theme, we’ll only accept one story per holiday, so we definitely won’t end up with a collection of 14 Christmas stories, 4 Halloween stories, and 2 token other holidays.
tarot-inspired queer erotica: do I need to say more? authors pick a tarot card and get inspired!
queer post-apocalyptic sex + pervertibles: how do people make do in a world gone to rot? What do they do for sex toys? “Pervertibles” are any object not made for sex that gets used for sex – like using a hair brush to spank someone or anything tube-shaped in place of a dildo. We want to see people get creative with the settings and show us how creative they can be!
The United States also totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control for the artificial intelligence being spoken of so much now, hereinafter officially called Super Intelligence, changing the name, and that the use of the word "artificial" makes intelligence fake. It makes it sound fake. And it is not fake. It's actually amazing, but we have to be careful. In fact, it is exactly the opposite of what it purports.
From this point forward, all of United States documents and, hopefully the world's will be changed to use the much more accurate term "super" as opposed to "artificial". So it's Super Intelligence. In other words, welcome to the new world of Super Intelligence-SI. SI, let's see if that goes, it sounds much better. It is much better, and it's much more accurate. Let's see if I have any power. Maybe I do, and maybe I don't. We're going to find out pretty soon.
This reminds me of one of my favorite examples of semantic drift.
The OED's sense I.1.a. for artificial, dating to c1425, is "Of a thing: made or constructed by human skill, esp. in imitation of, or as a substitute for, something which is made or occurs naturally; man-made."
Scrolling down through other senses over the years, we get some negatively-evaluated senses, like 1.4.a "Contrived or fabricated for a particular purpose, esp. for deception; resulting from artifice; feigned, fictitious", as well as some positively-evaluated (or at least neutral) ones, like II.6 "According to the principles of an art or science; scientific, systematic."
But then there's II.9.a "Of a thing: skilfully made or contrived; cleverly constructed", flagged as Obsolete, with citations through 1833, for example these (quotations expanded from the original sources):
1663 How to make a brazen or stone head, in the midst of a great field or garden, so artificial and natural, that though a man speak never so softly, and even whispers into the ear thereof, it will presently open its mouth, and resolve the question in French, Latin, Welsh, Irish, or English, in good terms, uttering it out of his mouth, and then shut it until the next question be asked. 1738 The artificial and elegant Structure of the Eyes, and the great fitness of their Parts, for the offices of Vision, are illustrated by the Laws of Opticks. 1833 The collocation of the words is so artificial in Shakspeare and Milton that you may as well think of pushing a brick out of that wall with your finger as of displacing a word without injury from one of their sentences.
Albertus Magnus, a celebrated philosopher of the thirteenth century, is said to have constructed an automaton which not only performed all the apparent motions of life, but absolutely answered questions. It is recorded of Thomas Aquinas, that, having accidentally seen the head, he was so terrified that he broke it in pieces, upon which Albert exclaimed: Periit opus triginta annorum! Though this appears one of the earliest instances of a speaking automaton constructed by one of the laity, there is no doubt but that the method of conveying answers to various interrogatories, by the agency of concealed pipes or a speaking trumpet, was practised at a very early period. That the impostor Alexander, however, caused his Æsculapius to speak in this manner is expressly related by Lucan. He took, says this author, instead of a pipe, the gullet of a crane, and transmitted the voice through it to the mouth of the statue. But the invention of the invisible girl, which may be considered as an improvement on the oracular responses of the darker ages, infinitely surpassed any of those hitherto recorded.
This very ingenious apparatus was publicly exhibited both at Bristol and in London for a considerable period, during which time no discovery was made of its internal mechanism; and it is probable that its construction would have remained a secret to all but the exhibitors, but for the ingenuity of Mr. (now Professor) Millington, who, in a course of Lectures delivered in the winter of 1806, explained the manner in which it was performed.
The visible part of the apparatus connected with the invisible girl was thus constructed: first a mahogany frame resembling a bedstead, having at the corners four upright posts about five feet high, was united by a cross-rail near the top, and two or more cross-rails near the bottom, to strengthen the frame, which was about four feet square. The frame thus constructed was placed upon the floor, and to the top of each of the four pillars were attached as many strong bent brass wires converging towards the top, where they were secured by a crown and other ornaments. From these wires a hollow copper ball was suspended by slight ribbons, so as to cut off all possible communication with the frame. The globe thus supported was supposed to contain the invisible being, as the voice apparently proceeded from the interior of it: and for this purpose, it was equipped with four trumpets, placed round it in a horizontal direction, and at right angles to each other; the trumpet mouths coming to within about half an inch of the respective cross-rails of the frame surrounding them.
When a question was proposed, it was asked from any side of the frame, and spoken into one of the trumpets, and an answer immediately proceeded from the whole of them, so loud as to be distinctly heard by the inquirer, and yet so distant and feeble, that it appeared as if coming from a very diminutive being. In this the whole of the artifice consisted; and the variations were so contrived that the answer might be returned in several languages, a kiss might be returned, the breath producing the voice was felt, and songs were sung, accompanied by the piano-forte, &c. To produce this illusion, the sound was conveyed by a tube, in a manner similar to the old and well known contrivance of the speaking bust; the invisible girl only differing in one circumstance; that an artificial echo was produced by means of the trumpets and hollow globe, in consequence of which the sound was completely reversed.
In the invisible girl the orifice of the tube was in one of the handrails just opposite the mouth of one of the trumpets, the opening being concealed by reeds and other mouldings; the tube itself, which was about half an inch in diameter, ran through half the handrail, then down one of the corner posts, and from thence under the floor till it reached a large deal case almost similar to an inverted funnel, along the side of which it rose till it came nearly into contact with the ear of the confederate, who with a piano-forte, &c. was concealed in this case. Any question asked by a voice directed into one of the trumpets was immediately reflected back from the concave interior surface of the globe to the orifice of the tube, along which it was conveyed so as to be distinctly heard by the person in the deal case, who returned the requisite answer, which appeared to come precisely from the interior of the globe. A small hole closed with glass was likewise left through the deal case and side wall of the apartment, by means of which the concealed person had an opportunity of observing and commenting upon any circumstance which occurred in the room.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluapapilio
MangaUpdates
![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
I read 
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
