fubar with postwar miracles

I've now watched through episode 249 of Bleach and am still in the depths of the sword filler zone. Emo villain isn't super exciting no matter how much he bleeds from the eyes, and overall I'm finding it a mixed bag. There's a lot that I just find kind of unconvincing about the premise. But there are upsides: the Hitsugaya episode about reconnecting with his sword and reminding it of a home they found is great, though to be fair most of that actually comes from the manga flashback about him meeting Matsumoto; I also thought it was an interesting choice for the anime to explicitly mark Kenpachi and Yumichika as very similar. Which I agree with! They have a lot in common, but their similarities aren't often drawn out (in canon or in fandom, tbh). I also like the continuing Matsumoto and Hinamori interactions, but the stuff with their zanpakutou has diminishing returns.

(I've also been fully immersed in rereading the series, and one of the things that strikes me about the early volumes of the Viz translation is how visible to me now is the youth slang that was used to translate it at the time, in a way it wasn't visible and obvious to me at the time. Then it was just how people spoke, but now it really sticks out.)

Luckily, shutdown this year has us staying on our shifts. (Though I admit to being slightly sad to not be able to grab takeout every day after work...)

Unfortunately it is still stupidly hot despite being dark and the humidity is actually brutal.

Got an amusing postcard from misbegotten, thank you! And zines from used_songs, yaaaay! (I flipped through them quickly, will look properly over the weekend, probably.)

And received some lovely icons over in femgiftboxes from cosmic_whore_writes and linky. <3 I wrote three things, which I will try to get archived to my own spaces this weekend for easier reading. ^_^;

sunshine_revival has started. The first prompt includes goals/plans, and since I do those monthly anyway, I'll get that posted sooner than later. (but not til after work, at least)

A few minutes ago, the first drop of 'Gundam Summer Fest' went live on the Premium Bandai site. I had a kinda chonky list of things I wanted and low expectations because "things sell out instantly" and yeaaah, lol. I actually managed nine of sixteen things on my list and then added in a couple other normal pre-orders with the same shipping month, so I'm pretty happy! There'll be at least one other drop next month? and then whatever after the pop-up tour is over, and of course I'm actually going to try to get to the last pop-up tour date so there might be some of these kits there?

I owe a post of kit photos and whatnot. Hopefully over the weekend.

TOTAL: 1 718...
... uuuuuuuuuuuugh. i mean for 10 days of that i was on vacation in greece but i had so much free time AND air conditioning and the rest of the month was also dead, so what gives, self. maybe it's the heat... :/

upside, i posted quite a bit! nice, nice.

POSTED !!! :
-cosplaying in another dimension with my tamagotchi! Chapter 2 (svsss, shen yuan/original luo binghe, adventure, OCs. (42 words XD)
-in This Economy chapters 9 and 10 ( bleach suburban ot4), seriously self post them slower BUT i managed to edit/fluff up the biggest issues i had with chapter 10, so it does in fact count like i wrote it this month.

IN PROGRESS
-cosplaying in another dimension with my tamagotchi! Chapter 3 (481 words)
-bleach suburban ot4 chapter 21 (946 words)
-naruto - cherry wine - madatobiizu ABO (180 words, very cool bit buuuut it contradicts early canon so hrthghgmmghghgh if can't fix then might not keep. not gonna post it.)

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( teaserssss )

We watched the Car-Go-Fast: The Movie today (F1 movie) and it was fun.

As a note to future self, bigger theater the front row of the back section is too far forward, and at the smaller theater the back row of the back section is too far back.

I appreciate how much they did as practical. They just had used the existing races and plugged in a fake team for a season. They worked out moments where they could get their cars on track in the inbetweens, and sometimes they had teeny little cameras on cars on the track so they could pretend that was their driver and just CGI the livery.

It was interesting to watch them blend movie with reality. Because they used existing races I had seen those races! Also because all the other drivers were real drivers it led to weird moments of wanting to cheer on the actual F1 driver I knew over this new person, or running into actual F1 driver knowledge vs Hollywood script. I kinda want to go back and watch the races to see which shots they used and who they 'took over' for some of the other shots (Pretty sure they called George Russel's car Lewis Hamilton's in the final race, for example)

It did have the annoying woman has to sleep with male lead, but was otherwise entertaining. Will probably rewatch when it comes out on streaming.

Next theater movie is going to be Superman!

I got to episode 237 of Bleach and am now in the midst of filler again, sigh. Even during the parts adapting stuff from the manga, the anime team thought we needed two episodes of Omaeda. And adapting fake Karukura town stuff but not being able to show gore meant that when Matsumoto was gored and everyone was panicking they couldn't show that and it seemed a little silly, because there was no visible wound. But at the same time, the horrors of Ayon were otherwise well realised... I do love the complicated interactions between Matsumoto and Hinamori.

As far as the filler arc I'm in now. Mixed bag, tbh. I've long heard it's one of the better filler arcs, but being better than the Shunsuke Amagai arc isn't saying much. I had the bad taste to actually enjoy the Bount arc 🤣 though.

I have just finished rereading the early urban fantasy parts of Bleach and the Soul Society arc. They're so tightly written and have an energy that leaps off the page. There are certain things that don't hit the same way now that I know the twists, but that just means I admire the skill that goes into making it all come together. It's been said before that the problem with later Bleach is that it's overstuffed, and it's really not wrong. Soul Society arc is such a ride. I feel like I love different things every time. I was especially vibing Renji and Byakuya this time, but sometimes I'm most unhinged about the Chad stuff, or about Ishida, or the 11th div, or the Shibas, or Yoruichi and Soi Feng.... The "why didn't you take me with you" always gets me.

Honestly there's a lot of later stuff that felt like asspulls at the time, but if you reread this arc already knowing it seems fairly well supported, like Yachiru turning out to be Kenpachi's sword, or everything with Gin. Which like, don't get me wrong, plenty of stuff in later arcs is still obviously asspulls like everything KT did with Unohana. But there's a lot of things later on that I feel would have more impact as obvious character growth moments if it weren't so overstuffed with characters that you forget between chapters about such and such. There's so much cool stuff in the fake Karakura town arc, and a bunch of things that pay off later on, but there's so much time and plot and excess new characters between the things set up there and when a lot of them pay off that if you're not paying close attention to a specific character's arc you might not even notice it. Like when Iba lectures Ikkaku to grow the fuck up and get over your bullshit and try to win a fight, even if it means stabbing someone in the back, and the next time Ikkaku shows up in the Fullbring arc he's stabbing someone in the back. But there's so much crap between those points it's easy to miss there's actual character growth there.

There's some great more obvious character stuff I've always loved with Matsumoto, Hinamori, Yumichika and Kira in that arc. But then there's also old man Yama being super boring.

Even in Hueco Mundo I don't get why we spend so much time on Szayelapporo, but then I love the never ending Ulquiorra v Ichigo stuff. But the latter has a clear emotional component and the former is just mad scientist that is hard to kill. Szayelapporo takes forever to defeat, Renji & Ishida are stuck against him forever and then Mayuri shows up and it's like, okay, this guy is just in the way, why should I care?

Whereas with Ulquiorra v Ichigo, there's an obvious emotional issue as well. Which is that even though Ulquiorra literally has a hole where his heart should be, he's obviously fallen for Orihime, and she's there watching the fight so there's something at stake.

I have bought more dirt though I'm not sure if there will be further plant hijinks this weekend or not.

Back at the beginning of the month, it was announced that there was going to be a Gundam Pop-Up Shop this weekend down in Kentucky and I thought 'well that's only seven hours away' and took a day off- but got talked out of it and a closer location has since been announced... I kept the day off mostly because I've barely used any, the year is half-over, and an extra day off sounded nice. ^^;;

Worked out well because I'll admit that finding out my ancient site was finally going offline did throw me for a bit of a loop. Did I then spend the night frantically archiving? Nope. I finished up HG Sazabi, who is a seriously big boy filled with Yearning, and noodled with some other stuff. And sprawled on my bed and let a cross-breeze blow through my place...

Saturday was mostly fussing around, looking for notes and building a little non-Gundam kit from Sheik Mainland, called a Yunque. Cute little critter, and while I'm not without minor complaints, it was a good build. Started on Starfall, finally, after what, two months of being utterly intimidated?

Going to try to get through a bit of my inbox. It's amazing that no matter what I do, I just don't seem to get anywhere. But, I suppose, it's not getting actively worse, either?

Got notice yesterday afternoon that my old website would be shuffling off in short order. A backup exists and I should have all the files/fics that haven't been archived yet, so I am not terribly upset or anything.

A 20+ year run... o7

It turns out that a few years ago Kubo dropped a Bleach oneshot that has updates on old characters, and some new characters and a bunch of lore, and when people asked if he's ever going to add more his response was basically 'I will if people stop nagging me about it'. Never change, Kubo.

( Read more... )

I've now watched through episode 220 of Bleach. The pillar fights really are so cool. I love Kira's speech about his weapon, and his squad being about despair. Truly, none more goth. Yumichika v Charlotte was just as stupid and yet cool as I remember it being in the manga, and Hisagi's fight was cooler than I remember. I love Ikkaku's failure and Iba giving him the 'grow up and get the fuck over yourself' speech so much. And Komamura ♥ ♥ Komamura is so good.

I am constantly finding parts of aspirational projects that were abandoned or otherwise lost to time. While cleaning up my hobby desk, I found four bottles of DecoArt craft paint and have no idea what I was intending to do with them... (black, white, red, purple - so a very basic set of colors that isn't helpful) Reddit helpfully let me know that while it's physically possibly to thin it down to airbrush consistency, it's not fun anywhere in the process. So that's out.

I also have an olive and a grey that I will someday tinker with and mix to repair worn spots on a wooden figure, but I've been putting that off for like a decade now and intend to put it off for a bit longer. I suppose the black and white can stick around for that?

(I guess these can all stick around for the hangar/manger if I ever get back to that? Not so much the red, but maybe the others can get used...)

The dining room table is also covered in zine-binding/related debris. I need to see what's there and what needs to be bound and do some little projects when I'm otherwise just watching something or being a mushroom.

But right now I'm a mushroom because it's too fucking hot.

I made it to episode 216 of Bleach! Yes, I did watch the two episodes of filler about Urahara being so bored he creates his own super sentai team. They were not without amusement but they were also… not great. The ~comedic sexual harassment~ thing Honshou Chizuru does isn't funny to me in 2025. I was going to say that KT loves his predatory lesbians, but I guess none in the series come to mind other than Chizuru and Giselle, and of those only Giselle is a villain… Can't tell if that makes it better or worse. But at least these episodes aren't as boring as the Shunsuke Amagai filler arc.

But 215 and 216 are non-filler, yay! Finally getting to see stuff I've wanted to see animated forever and really should have gotten around to when it came out so I wasn't catching up like this. I do wonder if the filler would have been even more annoying if I were watching the series as it came out, though. New opening credits song and animation! Feels like it's all bad shots for the Seireitei pin up calendar. TBH, I liked the previous opening credits better.

Anyway, resumption of the Ulquiorra v Ichigo fight. I do love Ulquiorra, and it's a great fight, and there's some great tension with Orihime.

And the four pillars! My boy Yumichika is back on my screen ♥ ♥ he and Ikkaku are so dumb, I'm enjoying their bits immensely. TBH, I don't remember much of the other pillar fights beyond thinking Kira's misery guts thing got kind of interesting. I don't remember anything about who he fought, though, so even though this part of the story isn't actually new to me, it feels new to me.

On the weekend I caught up with friends for dinner and mentioned I got back into Bleach, and someone made a comment about not liking one of the final pairings of the series and I had to be [jokingly] like 'are we going to have a ship war at this dinner table'. I am 100% Renji/Rukia trash. But it's not really a series for romance, and I can't say I care that much about Bleach ships in general. I have like two ships I care about in Bleach, and all my other opinions are about the fight scenes and outfits and weird nonsense. And the friendships. The high quality dumbass friendships. People try to engage me with their thoughts on Ichigo ships and I'm always like he could have ended up with Kenpachi for all I care, idgaf. And like, Ishida's in a beautiful long term relationship with his sewing kit, I don't care if he ever dates a human being.

I meant to spend about five minutes on plant care and then proceeded to spend about an hour, instead, complete with running myself out of dirt. That's a bit how my weekend has gone, though? I've gotten a lot done.

I took a deep breath and pushed myself past one of my major mental blocks with archiving and it... wasn't bad? Like, I had bumped up against some very old stories that are... Listen, they were never good. And then I asked myself if I really wanted to archive them. Yes, I want them archived. Yes, I've posted them to mailing lists, to Geocities, to my own site, to AO3. I can post them to Neocities and DW. They will continue to be a part of what I've created.

I also reminded myself that I just have to archive them; I don't have to read them. I also wrote a couple of drabbles and then... also archived those! Super-easy, even though one needed a fandom page made. But super-easy! I like this.

Finished up MG Exia, who I totally didn't want to throw out a window multiple times last weekend, nope. He definitely had his moments, but overall I didn't hate the build. (Which is good because I'm going to be doing it a lot.)

I started on HG Sazabi, who will be a much-quicker no-frills build. I'm going to hold off on polls for a bit until I get through my own little to-do list. I still need to build the HG Calrea that got me back into this bullshit.

Caught up with purplehellebore for a birfday lunch and whatnot. Went to the home improvement store and did not buy a 9/16ths wrench. (But I had two people restraining me...) Got some paint from the nerd store. Finished up a prototype for a hollow book.

Shadowverse Worlds Beyond released the other day but the less said about that the better. We're already grousing on mobilegames.

Movies: I just watched Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962) this week, which was creepy fun, if a little slow for me. (I felt that it had a cracking pace in the beginning, then really slowed down; the people in my horror club mostly felt the opposite.) Creepy from the beginning, especially with that doll, showing off a particular horror of the child star. Bette Davis is like a haunted doll come to life in this, but Joan Crawford keeps pace with her. They are so good at their characters' particular varieties of co-dependent dysfunction, and the twist at the end (which you can see coming, tbh) just intensifies the horror of what they've done to each other. And I know Joan Crawford was an odious person but, my gosh, she was so beautiful.

TBH, though, some of the other camp, like the voice acting on a couple of side characters, was a little too much for me, and I did think it dragged at some points, so it wasn't unqualified enjoyment for me.

Bleach: I have continued my watch and I've now finished 212. I enjoyed the flashback arc. Urahara is so terrible 💔 sometimes I love his terribleness and sometimes he's just the worst. ( Read more... )

Random, but I do always laugh at the backstory that reveals why Hisagi has 69 tattooed on his face.

I thought maybe if I'm getting back into Bleach I should also get back into Naruto, but when I reread the first few chapters of that I mostly felt too old for it 🤣 Last time I read Naruto I think I dropped it one arc after the timeskip. I got to see some cool Gaara stuff and then was like, okay, I'm done. I feel like Bleach I can reread because it's slightly more mature, even if not actually particularly mature. Like, at least he's 15 when it starts and half the characters are 100+ years old.

Weirdly on this reread & watch I've gotten really hyped by Kenpachi's moments of mature adult-ness?! Like obviously mostly he's there for a bit of biffo, but I love the flashback where he tells Ikkaku to knock it off with the death wish and grow tf up, and the bit in Hueco Mundo where he tells Ichigo it's not his job to save everyone and everything because the captains are there to do that.

Not just reading Bleach again, but watching it again. I never finished the old anime (and I guess the new one of the final arc isn't done yet but should be this year?). I wasn't sure where I was up to last time I watched, which would not be an issue if it were still on Crunchyroll, but alas... I was pretty sure I'd already seen the Shunsuke Amagai arc, which is the absolutely most boring filler arc. I will take no arguments on this. So I started the episodes just after, and it seems like that's a good choice, because it all seems to be Hueco Mundo episodes I haven't seen.

I remember last time I was watching I was excited to get to the end of the boring filler and get to animation of bits I enjoy from the manga, but I must have gotten distracted by the dozen other things I was watching at the time. Now I've reached episode 204... which turns out to be more filler, hahaha! But at least I got to see some cool fights before that.

Nnoitra v Kenpachi felt a little dragged out animated, but I do like the ending, the way the flashback makes it clear that they fight for totally opposite reasons. Kenpachi is so fighting obsessed that it's always a shock when he has his moments of adult sense and maturity, but it is in character for him, and I do like him telling Ichigo that fighting everyone and saving everything is not his job (I mean, we know that Ichigo is the main character and that therefore saving everything is his job, but it is good to see a semi-responsible adult tell him he doesn't have to be responsible for everything). I feel like Byakuya vs the guy with all the eyes was more exciting to me in the manga; the problem with how slow the anime is (and I get it's A. because they didn't want to outpace the manga too much and B. because this is aimed at 12-15 year olds, and therefore characters talk slowly; tbh, it's helpful for me as a language learner that they talk slowly) is that some things hit stronger for me in the written form where I can read at a pace that makes the impact strongest. But I do love Byakuya being ice cold in service of saving Rukia and how far he's come since the soul society arc. Mayuri vs Szayelaporro is like, fine, whatever, I liked it in the manga but I don't like Mayuri so I mostly wanted it over and done with.

But as soon as this new to me filler is done (please be only one episode), I get to see more cool stuff animated! For the first time for me! More of the Ulquiorra-Orihime-Ichigo not quite love triangle, my boy Yumichika showing up again, that fuckhead Ikkaku getting absolutely told, etc. etc.

Ugh, it's been hot and going to get hotter. The next week is going to be suffering.

Monday, got an oil change. I like my new mechanic! The shop is affordable and honest to a fault. They did a fairly thorough inspection and flagged a couple of things and when I went to schedule taking care of one of them, they insisted it wasn't a safety issue and that I'd be much better off saving up the money (because it will be pricey) and they'll see how things look next oil change. (Car is a decade old and this is apparently more of a 'x is starting to show a bit of wear' not 'x is about to fail'. I would have done the repair! So yeaaah, honest possibly to their own detriment, lol.)

Tuesday & Wednesday were help the 'rents days. Went a little hard on Tuesday but that just made Wednesday easier. On Tuesday, I waited around for packages that didn't arrive (they did, later, but beyond my timeframe)... I have another on the way from Bandai and I love the path their packages take. They always scan at a facility in Arizona called Navajo Nation which I assume is located in the greater Navajo Nation somewhere. Anyway, since the packages are always Gundams/Gunpla, I keep imagining Gundams and pilots stopping to admire the American Southwest and learning a bit about it.

We're back to shuffling things around at work, including my sanity. It has become a 'we all need to work on things as a team' but there's still no second shift and nobody leaves me notes. So I work on what the fuck ever and then reiterate that I am not psychic, leave me notes.

Weekend is going to be some errands and catching up with a friend for their birfday. Still picking up some things for the airbrush and whatnot. I definitely need a hygrometer and I also realized that I forgot to get primer. ^^;;

I have (at least temporarily) removed my Transformative Works Permissions Statements after an incident. It feels kinda bad but the incident feels really bad so I'm just gonna take some time and sort out some psychic damage and greater feelings.