Wonderduck's Pond

July 03, 2022

No Longer Hagridden

After 11 days, the Powers That Be decided that I was COVID-19 free and could rejoin the general populace. I still feel not so great, but I guess that'll be a thing for a while. Food tastes . different, like vaguely metallic maybe. It's not like the kitchen here needs any help in the "making food poorly" category.

Well, at least I have a new roommate. My last one, who I loathed, went into Plagueville a week after me roughly, so I've been placed in a room with an elderly man who can't really speak, or honestly much of anything. Quite often the only sound from this room is the beeping alarm on the IV pump I'm hooked up to three times a day, screaming there's an issue of some sort... usually that it's empty.

Like now, as I'm writing this at 8am. It's been beeping for an hour as it waits for the Nurse to come turn it off and disconnect me. Staffing levels are pretty awful on weekends.

In other, non-medical news, I started playing Arknights a couple of days ago. An MMORPG Tower Defense game doesn't seem like it'd work, but so far so hoopy. It's nothing like FGO, I'll tell you what. But the art is good and I have an anthropomorphic badger carrying a riot shield on my team... what's not to like?

Posted by: Wonderduck at 07:12 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 231 words, total size 1 kb.

1 I wish I could get into tower defense games, it seems like there are some interesting things happening in that space right now mobile-wise. Hooray for general improvements here & there, nonetheless!

Posted by: GreyDuck at July 03, 2022 10:39 AM (rKFiU)

2 Since you appear to be into MMORPGs, and you could probably use some more entertainment outlets, I'd like to recommend <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Templar-LitRPG-Eternal-Journey-ebook/dp/B089R34ZK7">Twilight Templar</a> by CJ Carella. Five books in the series so far, and I've enjoyed them (though the author could've used a better copy-editor, and the stat-dumps get a bit repetitive).
Basic premise: 60,000 gamers are abducted to a world that operates identically to the game (Eternal Journey Online) that they were all just playing. The story follows one player (Hawke Lightseeker, nee: Ben Velasco) as he levels up from newbie Paladin to...well, something more.
Lots of fun.

Posted by: jabrwok at July 11, 2022 08:22 AM (iyhH7)

3 Wait, so English-language authors are getting into the isekai craze now?

May the goddesses have mercy on us all.

Posted by: GreyDuck at July 14, 2022 03:08 PM (rKFiU)

4 Isekai books were pretty common in the US, in the Seventies and early Eighties. Quag Keep by Andre Norton, which was the first D & D tie-in novel, and Joel Rosenberg. Some others. Probably would have been more if publishers would have taken them. And the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon.

Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at July 15, 2022 07:12 AM (sF8WE)

5 I'd argue that A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court could be considered an isekai.

Posted by: Kathryn at July 16, 2022 06:18 AM (8548M)

6 Isekai is typically called LitRPG here in the US.

Posted by: StargazerA5 at July 17, 2022 07:03 AM (3TbQP)

7 Yes, portal fantasy is a long-running tradition/trope, sorry I should've been more specific: The very very currently-popular (for certain values of "popular") isekai trope of "gamer(s) transported into the world of their favorite game" is what I was forehead-slapping about.

Posted by: GreyDuck at July 17, 2022 08:43 AM (rKFiU)

8 Oh, I see. I hadn't even heard about that sub-type. The isekai I am considering learning Japanese for is Ascendance of a Bookworm, which doesn't involve a gamer in a game world.

Posted by: Kathryn at July 21, 2022 07:08 PM (8548M)

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