March was a rough month for me. I hurt my knee, and I'm still dealing with that. But the upside of being in pain is that my reading slump is over! Yay!?
I read a bunch, but didn't really get started until the end of the month. I also have some tracking numbers for my other usage and doings, so let's jump in.
Reading
- The Scarlet Cavern (Makalang Book 1) by Michael Dalton – Yes, a harem fic. But honestly, one of the better ones I've read. Yes, there was smut, but the plot drove this book. The language that the author chose is difficult to figure out, but other than that, I really liked it. I found the characters relatable, and the idea of a super male figure going to a dying planet to repopulate it was kind of cool and fairly well done. 4.5 Stars.
- Horns and Hugs by Logan Stone – This one was very odd to start, and I came close to DNF'ing it. Yandere-type stories are always interesting, but they are almost always soft. This one started out downright abusive. The succubus aspect of it wasn't appealing when she treated the MC like shit. But there was character growth on both sides, and by the end I liked it a lot more. 3 Stars.
- The Black Sky (Makalang Book 2) by Michael Dalton – Yes, I read a sequel. It's odd for me. But it was good. Not as good as book one, the plot wasn't as solid, and the smut more frequent. Also, the growing size of the harem makes it difficult to keep track of the female characters. The author is trying to tone it down, but it's reaching the limit on the number of people I can care about. Also, he seems to have wrapped up the main plot I enjoyed in the first two books and is now going on to the repopulation aspect. IDK how much I'll like that.
Fanfiction
- Read some Castle fanfic this month, mostly re-reading from fics I enjoyed long ago.
- Also found some Harry Potter fanfic that I'd not read before, which was enjoyable. I need to figure out a way to track this so I can actually know what I've read each month.
Mobile Usage
I need to do a better job of tracking this. IDK how accurate Android's tracking actually is. But here we go. I spend too much time on TikTok. Firefox and Fanfiction.net are where I do most of my reading.
- 28 Hours on Firefox – Mostly reading stuff on Ao3. Will start tracking this better.
- 21 Hours on TikTok – What the fuck? This can't be right, but dammit it probably is. That's 8 hours a week I spend doom-scrolling. FML.
- 9 Hours on Kindle – Seems like this would be more.
- 25 Hours on FanFiction.net – Lots of fanfiction. I didn't realize I was there so much. Again, must do a better job tracking.
Computer Usage Update
Couldn't get the time tracker app to run on openSUSE, so still no data here.
For April – Goals
- Finish The Will of the Many. I started this ages ago. I either need to finish it or officially DNF it.
- Write more blog posts here.
- Find a tracker for fanfiction or create a spreadsheet.
- Use TikTok less. FFS.
- Hopefully be able to report that my knee is better. Right now, it is painful and I hate even standing up.
Conclusions
The TikTok thing surprised the crap out of me, and not in a good way. That needs to be changed because I really get nothing of value using it. BookTok and politics aren't that important.
