This is not don't expect to be brass goods on your Nightstess's time to stream
from Kills. You'll find me so mind sidet. Hey, everybody, welcome
to Authors and Dragons side quest. This is what we do when we're not
out questing to be competent, which, if you're missing our Quest for Competence
episodes, everyone involved tonight is on Quest for Competence, So you can join
us next week and see what kind of stupid crap we get into. But
hey, Judy, what kind of stupid crap are we going to get into
tonight? Oh? By the way, I'm John Hartness, and I am
joined by the talented and lovely Misty Massey and the talented and lovely and diminutive
Judy Black. Misty, you're not very tall, but you're the but you're
the medium height one on this panel. Oh hear that? No matter the
size. Anytime, Well, I guess this time I figured we'd just talk
about what we're playing reading, watching, kind of like what's getting our nerd
going right now? Yeah, I don't have a whole lot to uh,
I don't have a whole lot to say about watching personally, because I'm I'm
working on Harker nine, and you know, I did just run a convention
at the beginning of June. So the idea of me having the bandwidth and
brainwidth to follow even a short anything deeper than a police procedure, an episodic
police procedural on. So there's been a lot of SPU in the house.
M m um. So I guess I have two, but one is a
little cheaty because it's also a play. UM. My roommates have both been
playing the new Zelda game Tiers to the Kingdom. UM. It is amazingly,
I've the only thing I've seen from it is somebody built a robot with
a rocket dick. Oh yeah, there's a lot of that. It basically
gives you free for all along stuff you can build. UM. The physics
engines amazing, the way that it handles like moving water and and just things
like that on the switch even UM is incredible. But it just is generally
like a delightful game. There's all sorts of silliness and cute little details like
if you run around without a shirt on the non playable characters comment on it,
and they all have different comments about it, and they're like, I'm
not speaking to you until you dress appropriately. You're a hero, you should
act like it. Like. You get this variety of interactions based on that.
Um, it's it's a lot of fun. That's kind of great.
Yeah, and I am not a Zelda. Yeah. It very much gives
fable vibes. And then you have these weird abilities that you get from the
magical arm that you get from redacted spoiler here m magical arms. So this
is like the first minute and a half of the game. But you if
anybody has seen Princess wantin Okay, it's very Princess Wanton Okay and Miyazaki um
Studio Ghibli movie inspired and you see that a lot. But basically, in
the first minute and a half, you're Euro gets attacked by evil darkness essentially
and loses it, loses his arm, which is then replaced by a helpful
spirit um who provides his arm, which does the helpful spirit buzz around.
You know. The helpful spirit is a a man that will make you question
if you're a furry or not. I don't know if you can hear my
roommate, yep, I do I have a live I have a live studio
audience right there. I do too, but they're fuzzy and don't give a
shot. But yeah, the uh yeah, he will. He will make
you question if you're a furry or not. Uh boy them dim hips,
um Um, I'm pretty sure you're either furry or I mean, I'm just
furry in general. Yeah, I can fit inside most of them, and
not even because I'm fat. But they're like when when I was working at
Carowin's, one of my roommate was Captain Caveman, and I was like,
hey, it seems like a pretty good deal. You work for fifteen minutes
and you're off for forty five because it's a thousand degrees. He said,
it's a pretty good deal. You're too tall, so what do you mean?
He said, you can't be over five nine and be any of our
characters because the suits won't fit. And also it's way less fun when some
eight year old decides to see if Captain's got balls, because they come up
and they uppercut Cavey right in the junk and then then Cavy knocks the piss
out of a little eight year old and it's a whole thing. Apparently,
no, he didn't, but there was a stern talking too. Yeah,
and just for your for your and I think his response was go for for
your enjoyment. There's a picture of the character in chat for you to uh
enjoy if you would like. But yeah, the game is super good.
I've immensely enjoyed watching my roommates play it UM and I play the role of
intrusive thoughts while they're playing UM. So I'm the one who says go in
the cave, go in the cave. Or the bomb bear. Yeah,
I'm the bad idea bear who you know. And it's great because they're both
playing it on the switch, one on the TV and one just handhel and
the the advice applies for either at anytime. So you were talking about Authors
and Dragons con in Portland August eleventh through thirteenth, Why Yeah, And you
gotta get your hotel room like a sap because that discount code is going to
end. And so if you want to be at the hotel and be able
to hang out with all of the cast that are going to be there,
all the cool guests, you know, just kind of celebrate, Yeah,
presents. I will turn fifty years old on midnight of the thirteenth, so
nine pm. Because I was born on the East coast. So yeah,
all right, so I'll be I'll spend my entire fiftieth birthday flying home.
Oh fun. The saving grace is that, thanks to the kindness of a
lovely assistant, I was able to get an upgrade, so I should at
least be able to fly home in comfort. Yeah, yeah, and we
will. Um. We will have to spend a little time with logistics because
a couple of our cast members are not going to be able to be there
in person, so we'll have to figure out how to pipe them in for
the games. Who the technical problems live in person? Yeah, if you've
ever seen any of our live episodes, you know why you don't really want
the unedited A and D because we're not cutting out funny and inappropriate stuff.
We're just cutting out shit like what just happened to me when my internet dropped.
But funny and inappropriate is why you come to A and D con.
Yeah, the technical issues are just a side bonus. The creative profanity that
we come up with as we as we encounter technical difficulties, or as we
try to train players how to use their character sheets on D and D beyond,
or try to train the DM on how to use Role twenty. Yeah.
Anyway, so I had a question for you, Judy about the switch.
Okay, you've got room, you've got one roommate playing on the little
handheld jobby, and you got one playing on the TV. Now, as
an as a certified old fart, there's no way I can play that game
on a screen. The screens, I mean, the screens are about the
size on my phone. No, they're way bigger. Hey, Carol is
bigger? Could you bring me your switch so I can show the size of
it. I mean, look, if we're going to show it in comparison
to Judy's head, it's not gonna be I know it's not going to be
a very good one. But yeah, I mean, okay, that's bigger.
But there's my phone in comparison. Okay, so it's maybe a third
again as big for the screen. Yeah, that ain't will work. From
my old eyes. You can. You can get a duck and hook it
to the TV. Yeah, that's what I did when I had a switch,
because I played Diablo three on Switch, um many many hours. Yeah,
it's a great system. I'm a little sad that it took me so
long to get one. I've never been a Nintendo girl. I've always been
like a PlayStation kind of gal um. So the Switch is my first,
my first Ninhindo system. One word of warning, um, don't try to
play the same game on two on multiple systems. Oh yeah, because the
buttons do different things. Uh yeah. Even when I go from the same
like different games on different systems, I still am constantly messing up because the
A button is not where the A button is on all them. Yeah.
So I'm like, okay, and jump that's canceled, and jump that's fire
bow. Okay, I'm dead. Yeah. So I've been I've been watching
a lot of Tears of the Kingdom, um, which it seems fabulous.
I don't think I am coordinated or talented enough to play it, um,
but it's a delight to watch. Um. And then some friends and I
do a weekly anime night, and we are currently making our way through Restaurant
to Another World, which is a it's a it's an anime about a restaurant
that is mostly in Japan, and then one day a week teleports randomly to
magical other worlds and serves magical dishes to all sorts of other people. So
flightful. Yeah, it is absolutely delightful. Um. It will make you
hungry though, because they spend a lot of time on the food animations,
so it will make you hungry. And I don't think it to be safe
because they even made vegetarian and vegan options in the restaurant too, So I
didn't get to be safe because usually I am and the other ones we've watched.
So walking pork chop not really not seducing you, is what I'm hearing.
Yeah, basically, yeah, I get too hungry on panels and all
of a sudden, everybody seems to be walking pork chops. Yeah, like
Teresa, give me a samich I need a samitchy. I needed something.
My first thought was noodles. It's all yeah, it's like I want noodles.
I want noodles waiting for me when we're done. I had pasta for
dinner. M Yeah, and then for me. I've been playing Diablo for
Yeah, how is that? If you like Diablo, if you like that
kind of play, it's great. It's a great successor to the Diablo franchise.
And basically, if you're not heavy into Laura and all that, you
just run around killing a bunch of shit getting better weapons you can. The
thing about what I'm seeing in a lot of games lately is that you can
go about this deep and get a ton of enjoyment out of it, or
you can really push to maximize everything and beat everything, and then that's a
different kind of enjoyment for me. I tend to game when I want downtime,
so I'm not looking to max I'm not men maxing a hero or any
of that, so I'm enjoying it. The graphics are astounding, The cuts
are beautiful. The things they're doing with the way light and wind and foliage
moving and shadows, it's just amazing. Now you can see where Yeah,
okay, I see why it took sadamn long for the fourth one to come
out. But and the storytelling is good. It's I feel like they're running
a little out of ways to tell similar stories because there's only so many times
you can have demons take over the world and have some chosen hero to fight
them and go through and these people are going to help you, these people,
There's only so many times you can do that. So I don't know.
I'm sure they're going to do a Diablo five because it's a license to
print money, and Blizzard is not on They don't. They don't show any
tendencies towards not wanting to make a bucket of money. They have lots of
other tendencies and most of them are shitty, but um, their capitalism is
on point. M h. I'm also playing a bunch of Marvel Snap,
which is um, it's a mobile game and it's a deck building Oh hello,
oh, hello, gandolf Um little six little knives jabbing into my leg
as buzz but wants to say hi. It's a deck building game and you
play against mostly real people. They're bots, of course, but it's fun.
It's something to play when you're in the bathroom. Oh you gotta have
you gotta have some way to kill like I was killed in time waiting for
the body shop to finish up with my with my car or bringing my car
around. Okay, I got five minutes, I'll play a game of Snap.
I'm mister, you're not much of a video gamer, not at all
real. That's not your thigh. No, but you've got a new D
and D game that you're playing live, don't you. I do the the
Quest for Competence, Well, no, I mean like, oh, oh,
you mean in the real world with like humans. I know some of
the people in your party. Yes, yes, I've been. We play
UM every other week, UM, on either Saturday or Sunday, whichever day
we can work out. But um, it's a it's my husband is the
DM and and I hey, he has gotten so enormous. Oh my goodness,
we'll do that. You feed them and they grow back and Chalker yeah
for real, I mean's his feet are this big round? So yeah,
your husband DMS. Yeah, my husband DMS. And then um, it's
a um two other writers of my well, no, let's see three other
writers actually, um, Susan Roddy and her husband Bill play with us,
and Alexandra Christian and her husband Tally Johnson play with us. And is Tally
playing a rogue in this one too. No, I'm the rugue. I'm
the rugue. No, he's playing it. He's playing a wizard. He's
playing a dwarven wizard and he gets for not banging the DM. Yep,
pretty much. It's it's hilarious though. I mean, I've taken to UM
most nights when we're playing, I will do my my overheard at D and
d thing on Facebook because some of the things that we that our group says
are hilarious and um and I just can't help it, and so I've put
it on there and um but um but yeah, we've we've been playing in
real life like you used to in the olden days, and we roll actual
physical dice clatter clatter, clatter across the table and all of that. Yeah,
we shirt. I got a math rock shirt today. Perfect. Teresa
needs one of those, because she was with me at Hero's Con last weekend
and we spent and we were talking about math rocks. Oh yeah, I
love it. Not to buy any Oh, that's that's hard. Yeah,
I love it because I can wear it to work because I work in the
math department and they just think math rocks. Yeah no, but sure whatever
whatever physical die though. I know it's fun. It's fun. So now
you've been playing DND for come minute? Yeah? Yeah, oh yeah,
I'm I'm been an old D and D lady from way way back. So
the first time I ever played with Misty, it was like, Okay,
Sacco is dead. Oh god, yeah no, not like that. The
only people that like Thacco are people who learned to play DND with Thacco.
Yeah, nobody who, nobody who learned in this in a way that makes
any sense, because what's the logic? How do you just from a design
space? How do you get to okay, the lower the number, are
you a golfer? Well? The the thing is that when I mean,
when you're learning a game that you know, you read the rules and that's
what the rules say, and it's like, okay, well this is what
the rules are, so you know, like you said, you learn it,
and then when they take it and flip flop it, all of a
sudden, I don't know what I'm supposed to be rolling in anymore. And
it's very hard. So you know, I'm getting used to it, but
it's not an easy They did the same thing with Magic gathering. When I
got back into magic, um Brandon Sanderson suckered me in and he was running
a draft at Liberty Con and I said, man, ih hadnan played Magic
in fifteen years? Oh, nothing's changed, She'll be fine. I show
up and there are new card types. I'm like, what do you mean,
what's a plane's walker? I've never heard of that? What God?
And then he's like, oh yeah, mana burn doesn't happen anymore. What
pathic artifacts doesn't turn them off anymore? What the world no longer functions?
I can't do this. Yeah, I was playing. I was playing last
night, and one of the cards I was playing with was originally printed old.
It was from an early set, and it was stone unplayable when it
was first printed because mana Burne was such a drawback. And for those of
you who weren't playing magic in the early nineties, you tap your land to
create resources, and the way you do that is drawing mana into your manipool.
And if you in your turn with manna and your manipool, you take
a point of damage for every point of manna you have. Okay, well
they got rid of that. So the card I was playing generated just enormous
amounts of manna. It's like thirty bucks now. It was thirty cents before
they got r a mana burn because it was useless. You would generate all
this manna and then kill yourself die. Yeah, So it was good that
they changed. Yeah, but it's still hard to learn. Yeah, there
are a few things that there are a few things that took a while to
catch on too. Yeah, And then I mean that's that's how it is
when you when you played it as long as I played the Indian as long
as I have um, and then they changed the rules so dramatically it takes
a minute. And um, you know, as long as I have a
patient game master who doesn't mind that I'm going I don't understand for the seventeen
time, then you know it's not on a problem. It's just every now
and then people run into into game masters who expect all players to know every
nuance of every rule, and that's when you when you have issues. I've
never had that problem. I'm really grateful, but I've heard from other people
who have, so yeah, me too. And I, UM, you
know, also, you and I, we don't. We don't go to
other public settings and game with a bunch of strangers. We pretty much play
with people they know. Judy, You've game with a whole bunch of other
different people. Usually I'm the game master, though, um for a reason,
because then I can set the tone and set the rules. And I
think when we were Jordan Gone, one of the players with a very rules
is written kind of guy, and he's like, okay, and I do
eleven damage. I was like, we do thirteen damage right right right.
It was like, no, I did eleven dammage, Like, no,
you did thirteen and the monster's dead. Great, moving on next heard.
Yeah, it's so interesting because some people are very um, I don't play
I don't get GM. Well for people who are min maxers, who their
goal is to create a character who is the pinnacle of one thing or like
the most broken possible way they could make a character to be, you know,
AC thirty eight, like you know I want, I want the stupid
chaos and the you know, well, I want to talk to the shop
keep kind of kind of goofy players. So it. Yeah, I try
to not play with Randos. If I'm gonna be in a game with Randos,
I want to be the one running it. That's my husband run.
He's more interested in us having fun and enjoying the story told than that holding
to the absolute concrete level of rules and and I think that that's been why
I've loved the game for so long. It's because I've had ms like that
that are cool with the role aspect the rule. Yeah. I mean for
me, most of the most of the GM, and hell, maybe all
of the GMing I've done has been performative. Yeah, I don't think.
I well, no, I DMed for you guys for a while and that
wasn't in performance, but kind of it was because with that many idiots it
was. It was a show. GMA. Always a little performance, even
if you're no one else but the players is watching. But I'm story but
I'm gonna DM you again pretty soon. Here missed you, Yes you are.
I just don't love about that on at Congregate. So if you want
to get if you're in the Winston Sale, North Carolina area and you want
to see a little of what you're gonna get at Authors and Dragons Cohn in
Portland, you can join me and Misty at Congregate and it's to sail in
North Carolina the middle of July and you can watch me DM Misty and Michael
G. Williams and Mike Stackpole and John Scalzi and and if you really want
to, you can buy the fifth and final seat in the game. And
I would love for another woman too by that seat because I'm feeling a little
isolated. No, not really, but yeah, but yeah, we're auctioning
off the fifth and final seat as part of the charity auction. So if
you want to play DND with John Scalzy and Mike Stackpole and Michael Williams and
Misty and me go to congregate. And I'm leaning a little because there's a
demanding cat on the floor next to my chair now and I will not try
to pick her up because she makes me bleed when I do that. Yeah,
Daisy, Daisy comes and says hello on her terms. That's fair,
gotcha? Yeah? Well, what are y'all reading? I mean, we
are writers theoretically a podcast about writing and being idiots. I mean playing D
and D well. When I was when I was sitting the beach, I
always load up on my kennel to the beach because I don't like to carry
a much books to the beach where they'll get all all, you know,
suggy and humidified and everything. So um, I loaded up on my kennel
this year and one of the books that I read it at the beach and
really really really enjoyed was Rachel Errands The Battle of the Medicine Rocks, which
is the second Planity series, the first of which was the last standard Very
good. Grow Um. These are weird westerns. They are the They feature
female main characters. Um. Even in one of the Big Bats is a
woman, So there's there are a lot of female characters in this If you're
looking for something that is not so so male centric, these are really good
books. Um. The the absolute main character Mary the Crow is um is
Sue and um she's she's able to find this special magical crystal in the mind
that nobody else can locate, and so she acts as a guide for miners
who are looking for for um veins of crystal to harvests because the crystal is
really valuable to the outside world. And so um, so she's the suit
she guides people through the mind. But then Calamus and but um, but
they're they're really good. Rachel Aaron is a fantastic writer. She's an edity
writer and um she you can find her work on amamzon very easily. And
um, I highly recommend these books. They were Mary Good Crow was probably
one of my top three books that I read last year, and Medicine Rocks
is going to go up and in my top five for this year on shore.
That's nice. I just picked I as you were talking about it.
I was in on Amazon and added it to my Kindle unlimited queue. Yeah,
I love Rachel. I really enjoy her Heart Strikers Dragon books. I
haven't read those yet. I need to. I really like them. There's
some it's it's kind of standard misfit urban fantasy stuff, but there's enough different,
um, different elements and influences to keep it interesting. It's not just
the same it's not the same old Chosen One tropes. It's more the unchosen
one if anything. And she I think she does a great job with them.
And she also had the Son of Your spat she did and uh oh
what was the Eli mon Press? Yes, I loved Eli mon Press.
I thought those were wonderful books. So those are those are more standard fantasy.
Eli mon Press is the thief and he has a little room that he
runs with and um, and they're so they're they're a fantasy that you're used
to, but oh so good fun fantasy. Um. They feel more like
Ray Feister Tad Williams than a lot of ain't know Joe Abercrombie going on up
in the Eli mon Press books, their characters will actually like people, may
even survive. You don't feel like you need to refill your antidepressant script when
once you finish a book, and Joe Abercrombie is a fantastic writer. I
just am not into grim dark because I live in a grim dark world.
So why are you eating the cape charging cable for my phone? Because she
can? Yeah, this cat man, she eats the weirdest crap. She
loves hardboard. Oh mind you two it cry mm hmm that nice crunch crunch.
Yeah. I've been reading a lot of thrillers. I've been I've been
on a I've been on a non spec fick kick a lot of um uh.
I can't remember the dude's name. It's the John Jordan Mysteries. Here.
Let's look on the phone, Kendall. Now, let's see if the
cat comes over and starts trying to eat my phone. Probably probably because cat
cat came back. But I have been reading a bunch of um Preston and
Child books, a bunch of the Pendergast. You've read a bunch of those,
an unsty Oh yeah, yeah, yeah a while back. But yeah,
well they're still going. Yeah. I just I just I can't read
one series a lot of books in series. I need to break it up.
So so I haven't read a Pendergast in a while. But I will,
I will get back to him because I liked him. Yeah, I
went back and read and I started with book three because I loved Relic,
which wasn't really a Pendergast book. I hated Reliquary. I thought Reliquary was
terrible. Um, it was the sequel to Relic. But then we're not.
But then they started with making Pendergas the focus in a Cabinet of curiosities,
and that was good. And I'm really fascinated by H. H.
Holmes, with kind of has that same feeling to it. So yeah,
I've been in a lot of that. Oh and just a couple of weeks
ago, as I was driving home from my sisters and Misty, I don't
know how the hell you're not homeless and bankrupt living this close to this joint.
I went to Ali's. Yeah, um, they had They had a
stack of NK. J Emison hard covers for five bucks a clip. The
city we became. They had ten copies. It was all I could do.
It was all I could do not to buy all ten and put them
out at cons and sell them. Have you read it yet? No?
I also got a David Baldacci book and a John Sandford book And like I
said, I've been on a thriller kick. So cool, Hello Princess.
Yeah, I'd love the city became. I read that a few months ago.
Um, from the library, I can get so much from the library
because there are so many books that I wanted to read it I can't afford
it all. And so I get a lot of books from the library.
I need to re up, I need to find my library card or get
a new one or whatever, and so I can start getting ebooks from the
library and audio. You can get audiobooks from the library too. I don't
have a whole lot in the way of um road trips going anymore. And
since I don't have a day job, I don't have a commute. Well
yeah, okay, I do, but I think I counted its fourteen steps
sixteen a lot of audiobook in that distance. Yeah, man, yeah,
So do you what are you reading? So I debated on whether I was
going to come up with like, you know, nice traditional like oh,
I'm reading this fantasy novel in this specfiic novel or whatever. So I'm reading.
I am re reading um a dn Mae, which is a Chinese type
book. Um, it's basically a Chinese boy love novel called UM the Scum
Villain's Self Saving System UM, and it's by Mojong choj tongju UM and it's
hilarious. It's uh it's Essakai style. Though. A guy who is hate
reading a stallion protagonist who has you know, three thousand wives ultra you know,
blackened anti hero protagonist. He's been hate reading this novel. It's transmigrated
into the villain of the novel who dies horribly by getting all his limbs chopped
off and then stuck in a pickle pot. And so he besides, I
don't want to do that. I'm going to be really nice to the protagonist,
and uh, yeah, nice to the protagonist. And it is hilarious
because the main character is the smartest idiot you'll ever meet. Um. It
also has an encyclopediatic knowledge of the book that he has transmigrated into, as
well as the author of the book has also transmigrated UM. So they eventually
run into each other when one of them says, oh fuck accidentally when something
that isn't supposed to happen happens, and the other one's like, that's an
English word. Who are you it's they're they're absolutely hilarious. Um. And
you know the author is like, oh my god, you're my biggest anti
fan. Hey, what's up. It's me and the guy. It's like,
great, I can kill you now no no wow, Yeah, that's
kind of scary with your worst fan shit to be transported into my book.
At all of those, I'd be dead. Yeah, no, hardy.
But yeah, the um the books, this is hilarious. Um. The
author has a bunch. All of them have hit the New York Times bestseller
list. Um as they are being released in English for the first time through
seven Seas. They're being translated a lot more um done are coming out now.
Um. And what I love about the books is that they also have
illustrations throughout them, and they're all just gorgeous. Um. The artwork is
beautiful for all of them. We're not gonna head but my headphones off again.
Baby. Yeah that's um. Those That's what I've mostly been reading because
in English, a lot of those books are like million plus words, so
um, there's they're big books depending on which one you're reading. Um,
but yeah, that one is my favorite because it's it is like millennial whatever
camera Millennial weeb who ends up in that, um, you know, other
worlds. So I'm like, yes, I relate to you, millennial weeb.
Yeah I think. I think if you're not millennial or younger, you
barely know what a weeb is. Yeah, but yeah, it's um,
it's it's very ridiculous, and uh, I just love the main character and
how stupid he is so much where he's continuously like, god, oh God,
the protagonist is the most beautiful, wonderful, most amazing person in the
world. I'm not gay, like the whole book. The whole book.
He's like if you've seen the most beautiful man in the universe, eyes,
like the universe sparkle, like all of the stars in the sky. Are
we are we No, We're not together. I would never. No,
He's like he is like every oh taku that I ever met in college,
So like every anime nerd kind of like shut in literally did nothing but read
this web novel and leave nasty comments for the author, Like that was that
was his social life. That was it. That was what he did.
Um, not at all a jog. But uh, yeah, it's it's
great and he just has no concept that like gay people exist essentially which is
great for the genre he's in. He essentially does not realize that the novel
genre has changed until ah, some things are happening bodily, and even then,
even then he's like, no, this is just to save the world
and stuff. This is not I don't this is you know, I'm not
enjoying anyone anyone would give into the protagonist. Anyone. He's so handsome and
wonderful and perfect with eyes like stars. Anyone. Protagonist is Lenny Kravitz,
essentially, who is many many. I was having that conversation with somebody this
weeoon. We were both it was I was talking with a woman and she
was like, yeah, Lenny Kravitz is my hall pass. It's like,
shit, girl, Lenny Kravitz my hall pass too. Yeah, husband,
three years and I just saw three thousand years of longing. And if you
haven't seen three Years, watch it and have tissue ready because the last two
minutes will break your freaking hard he rest. The rest of it reminded you
that you've been longing for you drissal Buffer about that long right? Oh yeah?
No, ny else really likes the protagonist in the book because they all
think he's a freaky weirdo. UM. So now the main character who's transmigrated
in is alone in his the most handsome man in the universe obsession. And
this is Chinese. Yes, it's originally Chinese, um, but it's translated
now into English officially. There's been unofficial translations for quite a while. Um
but some of them, like the first one I read, was mostly machine
translated with a bit of clean up, which is challenging, especially in Chinese
because there's not really pronouns so much in the same way, and so you
would just read a sentence that was and then he went to her and did
the heat with the foo and you're like, Okay, some buddy went somewhere.
Question Mark, it sounds like reading slush for an independent Publishero. Yeah,
it might be very That's that's the reality of what I'm reading. I
was gonna like come up with something like, you know, nice that I
could talk about, but no, I'm reading the Boys Love Esakai novel and
it's freaking hilarious and you should absolutely read it. I love it. I'm
obsessed. We'll talk about it for like a million years. I'm on a
freaking forum board about it. So I'm a moderator on a forum board about
invested. I am in deep. This is like my like fourth three reads.
So god, yeah, I don't know if y'all know, but I'm
a I'm a hardcore fan girl at heart. I started my I started my
con life is anname girl. I am a hardcore fan. I've known you
for more than a decade. I know, uh, you know. It's
funny you talk about rereads because that was one thing I was doing in the
run up to CON Carolinas, because I did not have the brain to absorb
anything new other than con bullshit. I was rereading the The Rift War saga
by Ray Feist, and I went through the first half dozen of those,
if not nope, more I went through like the first seven or eight of
those in the span of two weeks, and then I ran out of Kindle
credits and I was like, oh, I'm gonna have to pay full price
for these. Well, we're gonna have to wait. We're gonna put this
shit on our put this shit on our book bub watch list or something,
because he's got twenty something books in that series and at eight dollars a clip
on the book, Yeah, well we'll wait for that to go on sale.
Yeah, I've been in major like rewrote, reread or rewatch kind of
mood. I'm like, I do not have capacity for new things too much
right now, so it's just mmm, nope, yeah, I get that
all right. Well, we've been yammering for close to an hour. Do
we anybody got anything else we want to do? Or we want to just
go home? Okay too? But can I go eat now? Or do
we need to talk some more now? Do we need to walk off?
Or are we good? Walk off? My version of walking off is blow
the building up and walk out without everyone looking out the costlos heroes never look
back before we go, just in case right now they never Kickstarter for the
analogy, we got ten days left. We only need eighteen hundred dollars.
So if you haven't pledged already, please pledge, Please go choose something.
If you don't like the pledges, right to me, We'll make one up
just for you. And you are an unpublished writer, you can get one
on one query critique or a full line edit of your manuscript for certain tiers,
And for what I'm charging for this tier is less than half what I
charge to do a full line edit of one hundred thousand word novel. So
it's a pretty steep bargain there. Yeah, there's that. There's you can
get in a year of the Speculative along with your book for a price that
is much less than a standard year at the Sectific Academy. So and there
are tons of course you can so that's a really You can sign up to
have breakfasts with John and with Whichevers. We have to have handy and you
can ask us anything. You can talk to us, you know all through
the will bring your breakfast and everything. So I don't covering. Um,
I think there are a couple of touch rezations still left, so I mean,
yeah, you know, um there are the big ones. There are
still some some big ones left. And then of course you can just book
and and we would be for real if you just plug for the book.
But if you can get us out over that at hums all me and I'm
really excited. I checked it several times a day. It is really awful
and every time it changes, I yell out the amount to my family.
This is all all right, So thank y'all check us out in a week
to see what kind of ridiculousness we come up with on the quest for competence
and get out there and pick up your authors and dragons Con tickets, and
book your hotel room before the discounted rooms are all gone. Yes, yes,
and until then bye,