straightforwardly

Looking at my tags, I don’t think I’ve mentioned this here yet, but—since the start of this year, I’ve slowly, slowly been watching Demon Slayer as my weekly hang-out activity with my older sibling. We started back in January or February, I think? And currently, we’re most of the way through the Hashira Training Arc. Though, we actually took a long break after the Entertainment District Arc because Netflix in our country did not have English subtitles for the rest of the series, and as we’re both equally reluctant to shell out money for subscriptions, it took us a few months to reach the “ugh, okay, I guess if we really have to…” stage of acceptance re: splitting a crunchyroll premium subscription together so we could continue the series.

Short version of my thoughts on the series so far is that while it has its flaws, ultimately I’m quite fond of many of the characters and I’m enjoying myself. But talking about all that is not actually the reason why I sat down to make this post tonight!

My actual reason is that I wanted to take a moment and say that currently the dynamic between the Snake Hashira and Love Hashira (no, I do not have either of their names memorized yet) is hitting the shoujo romance-loving part of my heart just right, oh my god. Like, I’m not passionately shipping them—this is not a shippy series in general for me, and ( more beneath the cut )

Though I'm thinking that I might go spend the rest of my evening reading an actual shoujo manga now, because this has awakened a hunger for more of those specific romance/ship-dynamic vibes.

► 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 )

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 )

► 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 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.

► 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.

• Think Also Of Us [AO3 Link] (Mystic Messenger, Seven/MC, 1.1K)

► 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 )

► 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. ♥

► 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.

► 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.

► I've decided to start rewatching Gundam Wing. I've wanted to for a while, and now that 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. ♥