► Last night, I finished reading volume two of the official translation for Thousand Autumns, the end of which is fairly close to where I believe I left off with the fan translation. It actually surprises me that I was only this far into the novel—I’d assumed ( spoilers beneath the cut )

► More High Rollers Aerois thoughts! Currently, I just finished episode 91. ( beneath the cut )

► Finally, I have a poem to share— “The Star-Bright Hour” by Betty Alver.

I came across it because I was actually titling a fic after an excerpt from a different poet of hers, and wanted to reread the line in its original context, but was too lazy to dig out the book I originally found it in. So I tried to to see if I could find it online, but did not meaning that I had to go to my shelves anyway. However, in the process I found another poem by her which I liked and now want to share here.

( full text beneath the cut )

► I do also have some writing thoughts I want to take the time to reflect on (mostly in regard to iddyiddybangbang, which I successfully completed for the first time this year!), but that's for another post, I think.

Episode 50 of High Rollers: Aerois was… wow. My heart was pounding so hard as I listened, and I actually stayed up later than I meant to last night (I’d put it on for entertainment while starting on a new crochet project, but I'd only wanted to work on it for thirty minutes or so before bed) because I just had to hear the resolution and fallout of everything. ( more beneath the cut )

High Rollers: Aerois, covering episodes 39-42.

( beneath the cut )

More High Rollers: Aerois thoughts, up to episode 34, this time in bullet point form. ( beneath the cut )

► 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 )

This has been a week of illness for me, starting with me waking up on Halloween with a sore throat. I’m on the mend now, but I did default on my last 1K swap for my FIAB assignment. Maybe I could have managed it—I did canon review early in October, and the fic concept was one that would have wrapped up well in 1-2K, so doing it all in one day wouldn’t have been impossible—but I’m sick, and tired because of it, and I decided to go easy on myself.

I did finish the big unusual medium project I was working on for a different swap. I actually finished it on Sunday and was quite excited about it, but it took a few days for me to figure out the hosting for it. But it’s posted and approved now, so yay for that <3 It was a bit overkill for the amount I still owed on that swap, haha. But it’s good for the recip, at least.

► I’m about… six episodes in on High Rollers: Aerois, I think? They’re about to enter the chasm. ( spoilers beneath the cut )

► I did get a bit further in Bravely Default recently! By which I mean I finally, finally reached chapter five. ( spoilers beneath the cut )

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.

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 )

► Since my last update, I’ve listened to the live shows for The Adventure Zone (plus one and a...third, maybe? of the Switcheroo episodes). A few thoughts: ( beneath the cut )

► I also finished my first playthrough of Devil Survivor Overclocked recently. Well, I say first—I did a playthrough of the original version on the DS back in 2012, so I was already familiar with the game. ( thoughts + spoilers beneath the cut )

And that ended up being much longer than I expected (I thought I only had 1-2 paragraphs of things to say about this game, ahahahaha), so I think I’ll cut this update off here.

► I’m now officially caught up on Dragon Friends! And have finished the third season in the process. (I’ve not listened to the special yet, though, mostly because I just saw that it existed when I started writing this post.) ( all the spoilers beneath the cut! )

► I watched/rewatched Labyrinth with my mom last Saturday (she’d never seen it before). ( brief note )

► A bit over a week ago, I read this Avatar: The Last Airbender fic:

such selfish prayers (Katara-centric, with a side of Zuko/Katara, 47K)
Katara's ambition, so long set aside for the good of others, breaks free and sets fire to her soul. Or, Katara has a vision of her canon future, casts it aside, and becomes a world-changing politician instead.

And I did enjoy it, but for some reason, I walked out of it craving Katara/Hermione? I think it was because this fic definitely concentrated on the “I will never turn my back on people who need me” aspects of Katara’s personality, and it reminded me of Hermione and her own crusades for political change, especially with the house elves. They’d understand one another, I think.

(I’m not sure what it is with me and f/f crossover ships this year. With a few exceptions, I’ve always been pretty indifferent to crossover ships, but this year I’ve been racking them up like crazy.)