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► Thoughts on my Dragon Ball Z rewatch, up through the end of the Raditz…. arc? (Does that count as an arc? It was surprisingly few episodes—only five—compared to the impact Raditz left in my head as a kid/teen.)

beneath the cut )

► I also meant to talk about/update on my Digimon Survive thoughts in this post, since I finished my first route/playthrough with my brother today, but it’s gotten quite late, so another time!
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► I just spent the whole of the past month moving! It has been a stressful time, though I think the worst of it is over. I still need to update to my new address in a few more places, but otherwise, all that’s left is finishing unpacking, organizing, some furniture building, etc. Which will take a while, but I’m not in a rush. I got my kitchen and bathroom in working order, and plan on tackling rebuilding my wardrobe/organizing that this weekend, and everything else after can take its own time.

► Me being me, I dealt with my feelings about Akira Toriyama’s death by diving into reading DBZ fic, despite it not being a “fandom-y” kind of canon for me. One very positive side-effect of that is that it led to me finally reading Ki-Blind by Sholio, which has been on my to-read list for years. Possibly even a full decade at this point, though I can’t say for sure. I know I had the FFN version of the fic bookmarked on my old laptop, which broke over five years ago now.

My verdict: 10/10, fully worthy of all the glowing recs it receives. It really captures the heart of the canon in an amazing way, like it’s another saga of the anime, and I appreciated the way it gave the side characters that canon half-forgot their time to shine.

► As of this week, I’ve also tentatively started a rewatch of DBZ. (Well. Actually, I watched the first episode of Dragonball first, remembered that I don’t actually like Dragonball, then switched to DBZ instead. Which had the interesting side-effect of me realizing all the parallels that are built into the opening episode of each respective series.)

I’m only a few episodes in, I’m not really fully focusing on it when I do have it on, and I don’t know if I’m actually going to rewatch the whole thing, but nonetheless, I’ve been enjoying my time with it. It makes for good background entertainment while I’m journaling or crocheting.

► I’ve made it to episode 24 of High Rollers: Aerois. Don’t have too much to say, but I did make a couple of notes in the file I keep for dw updates. brief thoughts beneath the cut )
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Reading: Just finished up Star Mother by Charlie N. Holmberg & greatly enjoyed it.
Listening: High Rollers: Aerois.
Playing: Still Bravely Default!
Watching: n/a
Writing: An overly ambitious project for FIAB. Fingers crossed that I can manage it!

► Brief update on my High Rollers: Aerois progress: mild spoilers )

► So, with Bravely Default, I haven’t actually got all that much further since my last update, in that I’m still working on the Vampire Castle Sub-Scenario. mild spoilers, maybe? )

► The other thing I did on train trip back home was read Thaumaturgical Studies, a FMA/Harry Potter crossover fic—WIP, currently 58K, last updated in April of this year. Despite it including one of my crossover pet peeves (aka, trying to pretend that the setting of a secondary world canon—in this case, FMA—is actually somewhere in our world, in order to make the crossover happen), it still really worked for me, and I’d recommend it.

It did throw me into an unexpected FMA mood. I’m not sure if I’ve ever talked about this under this username, but FMA (specifically, the 2003 anime) and Inuyasha were my very first fandoms. It’s hard to say which of the two was truly the “first”—there’s arguments to be made for the both of them. But though I’m still very fond of FMA (and did eventually watch and enjoy Brotherhood as well), it’s not something I’ve engaged with on a fannish level in a very long time.

I’ve collected some fics to read since then, though of the handful I’ve tried out so far, most of them haven’t quite clicked with me enough to rec. The one exception to this was a reread—Good Intentions (1.9K, outsider POV in the form of Ed’s granddaughter, set many years after the end of the 2003 anime).

I did also come across* some interesting meta about Ed’s automail and his identity as a disabled character (with a part two here), which gave me a lot to chew over. This is definitely not the lens I was viewing the character through back when I was first introduced to the series at 11 or 12 years old, so it’s been interesting to have that shift in perspective.

*I think it was linked by the author of the HP crossover fic?

So that’s been my past week in fandom in a nutshell.
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Well, it’s certainly been A While since I last updated. More than half a year, I think?

► I’ve been watching Digimon Ghost Game with my older brother (though we’re perpetually a week behind, since neither of us have Crunchyroll Premium), and I am so deeply charmed. I feel like it does such an excellent job of taking the Digimon concept and doing its own unique thing with it, while still maintaining the spirit of Digimon. Just… it’s making me really happy. ♥ I love the horror elements, and also just love the aesthetic of how it looks when the Digital World overlayers with the real world—cityscapes overgrown with nature, yes!
more beneath the cut; potential spoilers )

► The other bit of media that I’ve been spending a lot of time with lately is a game called Cozy Grove. Which also has ghosts! I don’t have too much to say about it, but it really fills the Animal Crossing-shaped hole in my life while simultaneously doing something quite different. I love the setting and atmosphere and art style, and playing it is such a good way to unwind after work.
mild spoilers )

► I also streamed all three episodes of TAZ Imbalance with a friend, and I have a few brief thoughts about it. Overall, I found it a fun return to the Balance universe—though I did think the ending was a bit abrupt—I had a, “wait, is that really it?” moment after the Time Dragon left. But mostly I really enjoyed it.
mild spoilers beneath the cut )
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► This has been such a year for nostalgia canons for me. Most recently, I’ve fallen in love with Yu-Gi-Oh all over again. I started slowly rewatching the Duel Monsters anime back in September, and over the last few months my love for this series (and the card game) has been creeping back to me slowly, but surely. ♥ more beneath the cut )

I’m thinking about going back and watching the sub once I’m finished with this rewatch. Idk if I actually will, though—especially since I did promise my big brother that I’d get started on watching GX (his favorite YGO series, which I’ve only seen around the first ⅛ of before) once I finished with Duel Monsters.

► More recently, I also went back and started reading the original Yu-Gi-Oh manga! I just finished that up this past Tuesday. I did have prior familiarity with the manga—when we were kids, my big brother owned the first volume + a copy of Shounen Jump that had a few more chapters from a few volumes later (though still safely in the season 0 range—think the Zombire chapters, if you’re familiar with them), and back then I read and reread those over and over. But until now, I’d never read most of it, and though I knew quite a bit about the ending through osmosis, this was the first time that I’d ever actually seen it, in any medium. brief spoilers beneath the cut )

That being said, I am really looking forward to watching the Dark Sides of Dimensions movie. I’ve been rather thoroughly spoiled for it, and it sounds really promising. I’m not sure when I’ll manage watching it, though. I haven’t been able to find any (legal) streams yet… I might ask my family for a copy of it for Christmas and settle things that way.

► Also: perhaps unsurprisingly, all of the above also led to me installing Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Links on Steam. I refuse to let it eat my life as much as it’s eaten my brother’s since he installed it on his computer earlier this year, but I am having fun with it, despite my initial “wtf” reaction to the three card limit for monster and spell/trap cards on the field.

185

Sunday, 11 March 2018 12:46 pm
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► I… accidentally marathoned Yuri On Ice? Which is weird, because for the longest time I hadn’t even intended on watching it at all. But a few months ago I saw a gifset of a few thoughts, spoilers, beneath the cut )

And...that’s all I have to say about it, I think?

► I’ve seen some advertisements for [community profile] fantasybig_bang (which is more of a mini-bang, imo; the minimum is 5K), and I’m… kind of considering it? I haven’t decided for certain yet, but I do have a longer fic project that I’ve been wanting to write, and this could provide some outside encouragement. I’ll have to think on it—sign-ups don’t close until 01 May, so I have plenty of time.
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► This update is basically all the various little things that I wanted to talk about during the end half or so of October/first few days of November, but didn’t get around to because of ToT / real life stuff / because the entries I did make took too much time to write and I didn’t want to make them longer. So it’s more of a hodgepodge than usual.

► I did finish the second Oden Cart game. I think it was a bit over a week ago? There are a few brief things that I wanted comment on.spoilers )

► Me, while watching flying witch: “I want to be a witch T_T”

Which isn’t exactly a new feeling, tbh, but it was particularly intense while watching that anime.

(Very soothing series to watch, though.)

► Apparently, Solmare (the company behind the Shall We Date? games), now has an online store with merchandise? ...Nothing for Niflheim, though. That’s not too surprising, seeing as there hasn’t been any events or anything for it since the one that ran February-March 2016, but I still had to check.

► Speaking of Solmare, I’ve started playing one of their newer games—the first time that I’ve picked a new one up in quite a while, actually. I think the last one was Blood & Roses? The one I’ve started playing is Shall We Date? We the Girls, and it was actually a misunderstanding which led to me picking it up. no real spoilers, I think? but this is a bit whiny )

► The other day, my brother sent me a Kotaku article about how mini-maps might be going away in games, and all I have to say is, noooooooooooooooooo. I already have a hard enough time finding my way around in open world games with the help of mini-maps! I don’t even want to think of how I’ll flail around without one.

► I decided to (slowly) start catching up with Dragon Friends, and episode 3.05 was pretty fun! Two highlights: spoilers )
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Mystic Messenger: omg, Jumin’s Bad Ending 01 was a DELIGHT. I thought I was going to hate it, but nope, it ended up being one my favorites so far! spoilers beneath the cut )

Speaking of A+ content, I also played through Seven’s Bad Ending 01 & 02. spoilers beneath the cut )

► More Spring 2017 anime first episode reactions! Which I should have posted at the beginning of this week at the latest, especially since I already had this portion of this update written then, but oh well. potential spoilers for the first episodes of Sakura Quest and KADO: The Right Answer )

Edit: Ahhh, I can’t believe I almost forgot about this, but I have another fic update.
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Um, long entry alert. This is what happens when I don’t keep up with posting...

► I beat Never Alone a day or so after I last posted. I was actually pretty close to the ending at that time, apparently. It’s not a long game at all— it only took me about three hours from start to finish, according to Steam. Overall… I still feel mixed? There were a lot of frustrating portions, which the occasionally stiff controls didn’t help with, but when it was good, it was a lot of fun, and I loved the scenery and the story. I don’t think I’ll ever replay it from start to finish (though I might take the time to do full achievements + the Foxtales DLC, since I already have that), but I am still glad that I played it, if that makes sense.

► In Mystic Messenger, I’ve achieved Jumin’s Normal Ending and Bad Ending 03. commentary, cut for spoilers )

► I mentioned the other day that the Mystic Messenger April Fool’s Event inspired me to make my own cardboard/paper Seven. What I kept forgetting to mention is that, a day or two later, I made a cardboard!Yoosung as well!
images beneath the cut )

Eventually, I’d like to make papercraft versions of all of the RFA, but I keep putting it off because it takes so long. I spent hours trying to get Yoosung’s pieces designed. ._. Next on the list is probably Jaehee, though I am concerned about how well her (brown) hair will contrast against the cardboard.

► I’ve also started on the Spring 2017 anime premieres! It’s been a while since I’ve kept up with currently airing anime, but I miss it, so I wanted to start the habit again. (I actually wanted to start with the Winter 2017 season, but… pretty much nothing aired that I felt like watching, ahahaha;;;)

I don’t have a premium account on Crunchyroll anymore (halted it because I was somewhere without internet access for most of last year, & can’t justify the expense at the moment, though I do intend to get it again someday), so I’m watching from a week behind on all of the airing anime. Here’s my initial reactions to the series I’ve tried out so far:
length; spoilers for the first episodes of Alice & Zoroku, GRANBLUE FANTASY, & The Royal Tutor )

► This entry was actually meant to be even longer, but it’s literally two minutes to midnight as I type this sentence and I’d like to post it before I go to bed, so no. I’ll try to update again soon to make up for it.
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► So, Wolf’s Rain. I have thoughts, and now that I’ve slept, I think I can put them in some semblance of order. spoilers for the entire series, but especially the finale )

tl;dr I think the series had a lot of flaws, but I still liked it a lot.

Mystic Messenger update: spoilers for Jumin’s Route, Days 5-10 )
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► Still making my way through all of Yoosung’s Endings in Mystic Messenger. Since my last update, I’ve gotten Bad Ending 01, Bad Ending 02, and the Normal Ending. cut for spoilers )

► It’s… already been a few days since Chocolate Box authors were revealed, haha, but I wanted to share what I wrote! I wrote a few fics, but nothing longer than 1K. For Harry Potter, I wrote a Lucius/Narcissa fic and a Tom/Ginny, pre-Harry/Ginny fic. The former was my assignment. I also wrote Emma Woodhouse/Harriet Smith for Jane Austen’s Emma and Lucina/Severa for Fire Emblem: Awakening. (In unrelated news, I now have a new FE:A ship. :P)

► Speaking of which… between writing Fire Emblem: Awakening fic for Chocolate Box and receiving it, I got struck by the urge to replay the game. So that’s what I’m doing now. I’ve just finished Chapter 14. cut for spoilers and length )

►My big brother and I have started watching Wolf’s Rain together! God, it’s been ages since I’ve watched this anime— well over a decade, I think. We never finished it— we only knew it through renting a disc or two from Hastings. (I remember it as being only one volume— the first one. My big brother remembers watching the first two volumes. He has the better memory, so I’m tempted to defer to him.)

Speaking of which, I’d forgotten… pretty much everything about it? I remembered that the main characters were wolves, and that their human forms were illusions, and I had very clear memories of them standing on those pipes in the first city talking to one another, and a few bits of memory about how Kiba was re: Cheza, but that was about it. I’d even forgotten about some of the main characters! Kiba and Tsume I remembered pretty decently, but Hige and Toboe kind of blended together for me— I remembered there was a character who was the “youngest”, and I kind of remembered Hige’s character design, so when he showed up I went, “oh, he must be the youngest.”

One thing that strikes me: I remember when I was a kid, I was very focused on the “ooo, pretty boys!” bit, but now I’m very much focused on the fact that they’re wolves and that the human form is just an illusion. I just find it such an interesting concept? And I love the moments where it shows what’s happening underneath the illusion so much. ♥

We just finished up episode 8 tonight, and I’m cautiously intrigued by where this is all going. Post-apocalyptic futures with wolves, yess. ♥
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► Another Mystic Messenger update! Since I last posted, I got two of Zen’s bad endings, and have started Jaehee’s route. cut for spoilers )

► I also started playing Liar! Uncover the Truth!. Right now, I’m about to finish up with the 4th Liar, and I’m really enjoying it! It’s interesting in the sense that I’m not particularly interested in the romances in this game— I’m mostly playing because it’s fun to fit together all of the clues and figuring out who’s the one who’s lying.

I did have to laugh when I met the main character’s coworker, Ayumi— mainly because I was about two seconds away from naming the main character Ayumi before I decided no, that name didn’t really suit her. (Instead, I named her Kanae.)

► I think that I’ve mentioned before that my big brother and I have this thing where we chose a series (usually an anime) and watch through it together? I mentioned this because last night we finished watching Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which we started after I came home. It was a rewatch for him, but the first time for me.

a bit of my history with FMA and overall reactions, including spoilers )

I also kind of want to rewatch the 2003 anime now, but it looks like it’s no longer on Netflix, and crunchyroll only has the movie. Woe.

Speaking of which, it occurred to me while watching Brotherhood that brief spoilers for the end of the 2003 anime )

► Google just suggested that I correct the word "homunculi" to "munchkin". I find this hilarious.
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► My Mystic Messenger update of the day: vague spoilers for the end of Day Five/Day Six )

► I ran across an AMV rec on FFA (well, several, actually, but I only watched the one for the anime I knew), and now I want to pass it forward. It’s Death Parade - Lorem Ipsum, and I thought it pretty well-made. (And hey, an excuse to use my Death Parade tag again! I honestly thought that wasn't going to happen.)

It’s been years since I last regularly watched AMVs… I don’t know if I miss it, per se, but I do still appreciate a good video. I might check out more of this person’s AMVs later. idk.

► I was waiting for the Day Three post of the Fandom Snowflake challenge to go up before posting this so that I could include it too, but… I think I’m going to skip out on this one. One thing that I’ve figured out over the years is that setting monthly and yearly goals don’t really work for me (as much as I love to read about other people’s goals and how they do on them). Setting daily and weekly goals (while keeping the broader picture of what I’d like to eventually achieve in the back of my mind) works much better for me.
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► When I promised that I’d talk about Amnesia Memories in my next post, I… had planned on it being much sooner than this. This would normally bode ill for the amount of detail I’d include, since it’s been weeks since I played it, but fortunately, I actually did a liveblog on a (private, locked) tumblr for my own benefit, so I have something to jog my memory with! cut for length )

So, tl;dr, while there were things I didn’t like about it, overall I really enjoyed the game.

► I watched the fourth episode of ERASED the other day, and spoilers beneath the cut! )
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► A new year, and a new anime season! Here’s my initial thoughts: into our smiles )

► Speaking of which— I don’t think I ever talked about my thoughts on last season, did I? In short: the only shows I watched to the end were Concrete Revolutio and Dance With Devils. I thought Concrete Revolutio was fantastic, if a bit messy in the middle, and I’ll definitely be watching when it starts up again.

As for Dance with Devils, it was immeasurably entertaining, and I’d actually argue that it was genuinely good by the end. I could go into rhapsodies over that ending, honestly. ♥ (Also— I was saving this link for a mid-season update I never did, but I have to say, this tweet was such an accurate summation of my thoughts while watching this one, especially in the beginning half.)

► I have a bit more to say (mostly about Amnesia Memories, which I spent the first ten days or so of this year playing), but I’ve been working on this entry on and off for about a week, and I just really want to get it posted now. Perhaps next time.
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It’s the last day of the year… which means that it’s about time I started on my usual end-of-the-year posts! This time, I’m going to start off with my yearly favorites.

I know that I usually include movies in these posts, but...I actually can’t remember watching any movies this year? I know I rewatched Labyrinth for the Trick or Treat exchange, and I know I rewatched the Winnie the Pooh Christmas/New Year’s movie on Christmas, but I can’t remember watching anything else.

Everything is in vaguely alphabetical order.

give these clay feet wings to fly )
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► I've decided to start rewatching Gundam Wing. I've wanted to for a while, and now that [personal profile] nanslice is hosting a Gundam Wing Rewatch at the pace of two episodes a week, I decided that I may as well take advantage of it.

While Gundam Wing is one of the beloved anime of my childhood, I don't think that I've actually ever seen all of it, and the parts that I have seen were all over the place, and completely out of order. I don't think it'd be inaccurate to say that I've probably seen a great deal of it, though. In any case, it's been many years, and my memory's pretty fuzzy, so I'm really looking forward to seeing it again, in order, and finally completing it.

I've decided to live-blog as I watch it. Originally, I was taking notes so I can summarize them for the discussion posts, but I think that I'm going to also share the live-blogs themselves here.
and here they are— spoiler-y, of course )

► As for Dragon Age 2: I haven't abandoned it. I just haven't been playing much of it recently, since between starting a new job and my mom hurting her leg, I haven't had much long stretches of free time to devote to it. Hopefully I'll be getting back to it soon. ♥
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► Many things to talk about today! (Mainly because I haven't updated this in a while, whoops.) Since my last entry, I finally finished watching Revolutionary Girl Utena. I... probably should have wrote this closer to my actually finishing it, because I've forgotten quite a bit of what I wanted to talk about. However, I do still have a few things to say. cut for spoilers, etc )

tl;dr I loved pretty much all of it, with the exception of the last minute or two. Does anyone have any post-series recs about the Student Council members? The longer, the better, but I'd take anything good— especially if it revolves around Nanami, or Nanami-Saionji-Touga, or Nanami+the rest of the Student Council in general.

► After finishing Utena, I decided that I wanted another (completed) series to watch on days where I didn't have any new spring anime to check out, and ended up going with Akatsuki no Yona / Yona of the Dawn. I actually wanted to watch it while it was still airing, but last fall— my final semester— was so busy that I didn't really have much time for anime. So, I'm watching it now.

Right now, I've seen about 19 episodes, and I am so in love. You all have no idea how hard it is/was for me not to just marathon this all. It's so, so good. cut for spoilers, etc )

Although the structure of individual episodes themselves leave something to be desired, the pacing of the overall series is absolutely perfect. I tend to prefer shorter series to longer ones, but as of right now, I definitely think that this is a series that deserves more episodes / another season. I just want to stay immersed in this world with these characters forever.

► I feel like Go! Princess Precure just keeps getting better and better. cut for spoilers for the last few episodes )

► Oh, I nearly forgot! I've decided to take place in [community profile] fic_promptly's Contest Week this week as a way to kickstart my writing (after sulking for a couple of weeks about the whole all-my-files-were-encrypted-thing.

So far, I've written about 3-ish pieces. I haven't cross-posted them to my writing journal or AO3 yet, though, mainly because I'm thinking about maybe doing another edit on them when I'm not limited by time restraints. I'll be sure to link to them here when I do so.
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► A bit over a week ago, my computer was hit by ransomware, and all my files were encrypted. I've lost quite a bit, including those scripts from the Lovesickness Event that I half-killed myself to get, and all the writing I did in the last month or two, perhaps more. I can't find the flash drive that I backed up my writing on, so I'm not 100% on what exactly still survives. In short, it sucks.

► On a slightly more cheerful note, I finally got around to watching the finale of Death Parade today. I say "slightly" mostly because this episode had me crying buckets of tears. Which is not a bad thing. cut for spoilers )

► I've also been playing Bravely Default lately. I got it for my birthday at the end of February, and started playing it about two weeks ago. At first, I was playing it rather slowly, but after the aforementioned thing with my computer happened, I started playing it much more, and then I got hooked.

Right now, I'm on Chapter Six. a few short comments; cut for spoilers up )

► I think I'm going to end this here, and go get started on watching some of the spring anime that's aired.

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