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Jun. 1st, 2026 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
samcybercatI'm back from my weekend away staying with friends at Leeds. As usual, it was a wonderful, chill weekend and it was good to catch up with them to talk about all the many things, since there are a lot of talks that feel better to have in-person than online. We spent a good chunk of the weekend playing the new Tomodachi Life, which I'm pleased to say is a vast improvement over the original game and was actually fun to watch! Though I have to confess that it's probably not a game I'd get myself, purely because I don't have the patience to make the miis look as good as I'd like. It was a lot more fun to watch my two artist friends make brilliant miis based on our pets and favourite characters.
While I was there, I also watched season two of Smoggie Queens with them, which continues to be one of the most entertaining shows I've ever seen. Mostly, I'm amazed that the BBC in this current climate would greenlight a second season for a loud and proud queer comedy about working-class people from Teeside, but I'll keep my fingers crossed that the series will continue to see the luck its gotten so far and gets another season, because there are plot-points that I'm very invested in now, particularly Sal's situation with her crush Mel.
I also used some of the quiet time that I've had over the last few days to power through more Animorphs books. Four more since I last updated here. The first one was a Jake one, but managed not to lose my interest purely because it was set in the ocean with aquatic humanoid creatures. The second one was a Rachel one and left me once again frustrated that she often gets the shortest books out of everyone and the narrative just doesn't seem to like her very much (there is a good chance that Rachel being my favourite character is out of spite).
The third one was an Ax book and usually, like Rachel, he suffers shorter books, but this time around they were finally dealing with more Andalites arriving, including a girl one for Ax to crush on, so there was a bit more to say. I was very grateful once the series started to move away from the Andalites being seen as saviour aliens (which to be fair, didn't take that long) and now the series is firmly in the grim territory of the main cast realising that the magical alien race they've been hoping will come to win the war for them seemingly doesn't care that much about helping Earth or humans after all.
But even with all that, the fourth books managed to be the most engaging of the four I've read recently, being a Cassie book where she accidentally lets a cape buffalo get access to the technology that lets them all morph into animals and then has to deal with the horrific situation of this buffalo teaching itself how to morph into a human and the unanswered question of how much sentience it has after this, before she's forced to let the animal be killed by their enemies because if it can reveal their secrets, they'll all be killed.
Though while I continue to enjoy the series, there was a passage in Ax's book that irked me:
Now if you've read some of my other posts about Animorphs, you'll know that one of my biggest complaints about Jake's relationship with Cassie is that he barely ever stands up for her when the others, particularly Marco, are constantly picking apart everything she says and putting her down. It almost comes across that he's either embarrassed or frustrated by her a lot of the time, which makes it hard for me to enjoy them as the "main couple" of the series. However, I had at least until this point assumed that the series was aware of this and may have been leading up to something with it. This may still be the case, but it does make me worry a little that the book acted like it was surprising when, as usual, Marco berated Cassie and then Jake took Marco's side. Again, I'm aware that I might be making a mountain out of a molehill with this, but what can you do?
In terms of work, we've all had to do a bit of a shuffle for the next three weeks. We had a new-starter who had clearly bitten off more than she could chew with the job and quit effective immediately, so there were three weeks worth of rotas that the manager needed to cover. I didn't fair too badly in it, just working a bit more than I would've been originally. It's a shame, she seemed like a nice girl, but I could tell the job was a bit much for her. I think some people go for retail assuming it'll be an easy option and don't realise how much manual labour is involved in it in many places. I don't know yet if anyone else will be taken on to replace her though, so I guess we'll see.
While I was there, I also watched season two of Smoggie Queens with them, which continues to be one of the most entertaining shows I've ever seen. Mostly, I'm amazed that the BBC in this current climate would greenlight a second season for a loud and proud queer comedy about working-class people from Teeside, but I'll keep my fingers crossed that the series will continue to see the luck its gotten so far and gets another season, because there are plot-points that I'm very invested in now, particularly Sal's situation with her crush Mel.
I also used some of the quiet time that I've had over the last few days to power through more Animorphs books. Four more since I last updated here. The first one was a Jake one, but managed not to lose my interest purely because it was set in the ocean with aquatic humanoid creatures. The second one was a Rachel one and left me once again frustrated that she often gets the shortest books out of everyone and the narrative just doesn't seem to like her very much (there is a good chance that Rachel being my favourite character is out of spite).
The third one was an Ax book and usually, like Rachel, he suffers shorter books, but this time around they were finally dealing with more Andalites arriving, including a girl one for Ax to crush on, so there was a bit more to say. I was very grateful once the series started to move away from the Andalites being seen as saviour aliens (which to be fair, didn't take that long) and now the series is firmly in the grim territory of the main cast realising that the magical alien race they've been hoping will come to win the war for them seemingly doesn't care that much about helping Earth or humans after all.
But even with all that, the fourth books managed to be the most engaging of the four I've read recently, being a Cassie book where she accidentally lets a cape buffalo get access to the technology that lets them all morph into animals and then has to deal with the horrific situation of this buffalo teaching itself how to morph into a human and the unanswered question of how much sentience it has after this, before she's forced to let the animal be killed by their enemies because if it can reveal their secrets, they'll all be killed.
Though while I continue to enjoy the series, there was a passage in Ax's book that irked me:
I had never heard Marco speak so harshly to Cassie. But more shocking still was that Jake did not step in to silence him.
Now if you've read some of my other posts about Animorphs, you'll know that one of my biggest complaints about Jake's relationship with Cassie is that he barely ever stands up for her when the others, particularly Marco, are constantly picking apart everything she says and putting her down. It almost comes across that he's either embarrassed or frustrated by her a lot of the time, which makes it hard for me to enjoy them as the "main couple" of the series. However, I had at least until this point assumed that the series was aware of this and may have been leading up to something with it. This may still be the case, but it does make me worry a little that the book acted like it was surprising when, as usual, Marco berated Cassie and then Jake took Marco's side. Again, I'm aware that I might be making a mountain out of a molehill with this, but what can you do?
In terms of work, we've all had to do a bit of a shuffle for the next three weeks. We had a new-starter who had clearly bitten off more than she could chew with the job and quit effective immediately, so there were three weeks worth of rotas that the manager needed to cover. I didn't fair too badly in it, just working a bit more than I would've been originally. It's a shame, she seemed like a nice girl, but I could tell the job was a bit much for her. I think some people go for retail assuming it'll be an easy option and don't realise how much manual labour is involved in it in many places. I don't know yet if anyone else will be taken on to replace her though, so I guess we'll see.
