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Weekly Fandom/Hobby Roundup

This morning, it was cool. Cool enough I could open up all the windows and get a cross-breeze... There are a couple of warmer days later in the week, but they'll be survivable. And then, possibly, that'll be it for the too-hot of the year? I can hope.

I started playing Fire Emblem Heroes again because after eight-and-a-half-years they finally kinda put in a unit for one of the original cast. Turns out the game is taking care of a lizard-brain need to click things that had been unfulfilled lately, and sure, I'll go with this. I don't care about the story so I can just skip through, level folks, and whatever happens?

Finished up a non-Gundam kit over the weekend. I've just been calling him Red Dude, but technically he's a Sword Shadow. There's also a green one, who is also a Sword Shadow despite having guns instead? Since they're red and green,

taichara pointed out they can be Cain and Abel from the first Fire Emblem game and now I'll need to get the green one.

Working on the ExCreR that I got a month or so ago. It's a SD-styled kit even though there's art in the manual of a non-SD version... It's a bit of a brick, and the places in the manual where it says 'cut the pins if tight' - just cut the pins in advance, self. I broke almost every pin in the waist and had to glue it. ^^;; (Not a huge deal. Glue happens, especially on non-Bandai kits.)

Also finished the first two seasons of Natsume's Book of Friends. I had read a good chunk of the series through the library and should get back to that...

Thank you to folks who've sent postcards and whatnot lately! (Several have vanished into my work bag, which needs a good clean.)

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(no subject)

I have finished the Bleach filler! Insert a maniacal laugh here.

They should have done more one shot filler episodes instead of too long boring arcs, and that's about all I can say about that. It's not that the reigei arc was entirely without merit (for one thing, I like how they actively tried to show Ikkaku incorporating Iba's feedback about his shitty battleground behaviour as a bit of a character motivation bridge between arcs, and while I didn't find Kageroza or Nozomi particularly interesting there were interesting moments and some cool fights, including surprising match ups like Komamura vs fake Soi Fon), but it did go on too long, and kept redoing the same thing in increasingly less interesting ways. How many times do we have to see Byakuya fight himself??

I do appreciate filler episode 342 because it's all about Ichigo and Rukia's friendship, and that's my favouritest thing in the series. For most part I'm :/ about them dragging out Ichigo's power loss, but I did like that the entire episode was a nice farewell between them.

And now onward to the fullbring arc. It's grown on me in the manga in reread, but we'll see how I feel when I watch it.

The new episodes of The Summer Hikaru Died and Kaiju no 8 on the weekend were great. I'm living for the uncomfortable tension between Yoshiki and "Hikaru", and the last episode was a real knife to the chest. And as for Hibino Kafka and his crew, the revelation that Kafka is now not fully transforming back from kaiju but small parts are staying monstrous was interesting, and I'm excited to see where they go with that. Also, I love that he's just going to do his best about it. Also, that the scientist was saved! And I think Narumi has grown on me, even though I found him dull at the start of the season.

I have also watched all four episodes in existence of Let's Go Karaoke!, about a member of the Yakuza approaching middle age forcing a middle school choir boy whose voice is about to change to go to karaoke with him so he can learn to sing better. It's not remotely what I thought I would be into, but it's so compelling. The first episode is so uncomfortable with how cringe Kyouji is, hahaha. Poor Satomi, having all that inappropriate karaoke time and struggling with so many teenage emotions. That scene in episode three just about rewired my brain. And the last episode! Crying while massacring an X Japan song! So good. I'm glad I got back into anime just in time to watch weird silly nonsense like this. A choir boy having inappropriate tension with a yakuza who makes him go to karaoke is not what I would have thought I enjoyed watching a year ago... but it's real fun.

Since I started it last Monday, I have also finished watching all 48 episodes of The Apothecary Diaries, which is unhinged behaviour, but also after everything I saw about this series before I watched it being that Maomao never has convincing attraction to men, I was surprised how obvious it is that she's attracted to Jinshi. I guess that must be ship war rhetoric from people who ship her with Loulan instead? She is very shippy with Loulan, but I don't like Loulan hahaha. Obviously she should kiss almost every woman though. I wouldn't have minded her smooching Suirei, but maybe Suirei should get smooched by Ah Duo instead.

I feel like Jinshi and Maomao should not hook up because that would fundamentally change their relationship in ways that wouldn't be great for Maomao. Much like with the X Files, I find the idea of them doing something with all that tension both compelling and ill-advised.

TBH, most of my favourite parts are when she's hanging out with concubines and other servants in the rear palace, or when she's chatting with her sex worker friends at the brothel. It's pretty good for interesting female interaction, and while it's frank about sexuality and sex work, and there's horrors in the backstory, and it mostly doesn't dwell too much on them to stop feeling light and charming. And the main character enjoys testing poisons on herself, in classic chemist fashion.

I did laugh every time they clearly did not have the money to properly animate a thing, so there was a succession of still images and a voice over.

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Bleach fic

Let's Eat! (705 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Bleach (Anime & Manga)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Abarai Renji/Kuchiki Rukia
Characters: Kuchiki Rukia
Additional Tags: Fluff, Missing Scene, Established Relationship
Summary:

Three moments in time when Rukia thinks about the people she shares food with.

(no subject)

Updates

- Tooth repair was straightforward and didn't require any extra unpleasant needles.

- I got my latest keybaord! I'd been staring at the Ink Noir keycap set for a while, and Glorious got had a sale on, so I decided to bite the bullet. I think I might have finally found a switch set that's too heavy, but I'm waiting on it. I can always switch out the switches. I am quite an aggressive typer apparently. I'm also wondering how much of the excess in typos is because I haven't yet built the feet into the keyboard to make it a flat keyboard, instead of the weird illogical default angle that's supposed to be 'ergonomic'.

- We went on a family vacation at a rental cottage which was a lovely time around family. Good visits, good time just to hang out. I did pick up a bug from on the trip so I came home with something like strep. Then I got on penicillin and my eye really flared up to the point where I couldn't open my eyes (my left eye because it was painful, my right eye because I opening that eye meant my left eye moved).

It started improving when I stopped the meds. I got on something else and everything seems to be resolved now, both the throat and the eye. Still not quite sure what happened, I've never had problems with penicillin before.

Appointment for the eye is in two weeks so we'll see if that has any more information.

The summer went by quickly, but I'm looking forward to my schedule settling out again in the fall.

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conventions

Delicious Gundams & Whatnot

M, Boycritter, & I went down for the local-enough Gunpla Builders World Cup event, which was about an hour away. Getting there was fairly straightforward, and we had time to look around the hobby store it was being held at. (And will be returning to, they had many things!)

Lots of fun conversations in the car (it has been awhile), and the actual Gundam models on display were all fantastic. (We actually got asked to help judge if we wanted to but there was no way - I thought they all had something truly great about them.) Aside from the modelers, the audience was the three of us + one other guy who knew the modelers, but we were delightfully enthusiastic and the store owners were great, too. A lot of fun. There were extra Participant pins, so we each were given one. (I'm also fairly sure I promised to bring an entry next year, so I guess I have four months to plan something and another eight to make it? Or something like that?)

We left and had to take a somewhat meandering route back, because road construction, and also having to cross Woodward on Dream Cruise weekend. But we did get to see a lot of cool cars at various points, including a Datsun, a yellow VW Beetle, a VW Bus, etc. Lots of yellow cars, which made for a lively game of Yellow Car. We also saw a Cybertruck and all burst out laughing because nothing could make that design salvageable.

Stopped at... a conveyor sushi restaurant! AMAZING! I had no idea there was one in reasonable distance (possibly that there were any in the US, tbh) and we had a blast. Ate ourselves stuffed because there were so many things we wanted to try. A++ would do it again when properly budgeted for.

All around fantastic day, though we didn't get back til ~3pm and I didn't get to sleep til after 4pm. Definitely going to have to do some mad science to get back on schedule.

I ended up snagging 00 Gundam + XN Raiser which I heartily debated on until 'weird 00 sidestory shit' won out. Also a 30MM Spinatio, HG Command Quanta, and MG Shenlong because that kit has been following me around for weeks now. And some accessories including a pack of little metal HO-Scale gravestones that will need some work and me learning how to trim up metal. ;_;

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Fandom 5k fic

Finally revealed! The fic I wrote for Fandom5k:

The Ordinary Ever After Part (5552 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Bleach (Anime & Manga)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ayasegawa Yumichika/Madarame Ikkaku
Characters: Madarame Ikkaku, Ayasegawa Yumichika
Additional Tags: Fluff, Slice of Life, Established Relationship, Humor, Smut, Post-Thousand Year Blood War Arc (Bleach)
Summary:

A series of moments in Ikkaku and Yumichika's life together.

Getting this assignment is also directly responsible for me getting back into Bleach, rofl. When thinking about signing up I saw someone requesting this pairing and thought, sure, I could write that pairing, I'm willing to sign up for that. And as soon as I got my assignment I went on an unhinged full manga canon review and got back into the anime and etc. etc. Well, I'm having a great time.

(no subject)

I've finally reached the point where I've posted more Bleach fic than I have Smallville fic, which feels right because I posted all that Smallville fic two plus decades ago. There should be a 'show only my top most written fandoms in the last five years' button 😂 I filtered by date updated for five year periods to see what fandoms I was most deranged about writing in in any given period, and first of all it's not even accurate because I have three fics tagged LOTR and it says I have only two. And secondly I think I've realised I'm just as unhinged in the 2021-2025 time period as I was 2001-05. I may have written 21 Buffy stories in the 01-05 period (well, I wrote more than that, but plenty of my early extra bad fic was not posted backdated to AO3, and in fact has been lost from the internet), but I also wrote ...uh... 23 Mysterious Lotus Casebook stories in a year and a half in the 2021-2025 period, so... there's that...

Whereas 06 to 10 and 11 to 15 is just [gandalf I have no memory of this place meme]. I wrote Merlin fic?? I wrote Teen Wolf fic?? I wrote Young Avengers fic?? I have absolutely no memory of ever writing getbackers fic, but I was obsessed with it, so at least that makes sense.

Entry tags:

Bleach fic

Limbo (1014 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Bleach (Anime & Manga)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kira Izuru & Matsumoto Rangiku, Kurosaki Ichigo & Kurosaki Isshin
Characters: Kira Izuru, Matsumoto Rangiku, Kurosaki Ichigo, Kurosaki Isshin, Tia Harribel
Additional Tags: Bittersweet, Grief/Mourning, Post-Winter War (Bleach), Awkward Conversations, Angst
Summary:

Three different shared griefs, in three different places.

So much for my career

All of FlyBase-Harvard is getting laid off on October 12.

Entry tags:

tv,
tv: japan

(no subject)

!!!! The new Kaiju no 8 episode! An absolute killer. I did not expect to be so emotional because I didn't think I was that invested in that character, but I cried. That episode was beautifully done.

Click for spoilers

Shinomiya Isao ;_; It was so good, he went so hard, and got so close. He was willing to destroy his body to defeat the kaiju and it wasn't enough! It got me all the more so because of that tech guy who stayed close to help and had to witness it all. And the flashbacks to his wife, and to Kikoru as a child, sobbing forever. I feel so bad for Kikoru. This is absolutely going to mess her up. She was already so fucked up by seeing Kafka nearly kill her dad, but now no 9 ate him. JFC, that's horrific. This was the emotional depth this season needed.

The new episode of The Summer Hikaru Died was also great. I love how it went into Asako's early childhood and showed what it meant that she could see ghosts, and how this was a positive for her, and the way she felt Yoshiki was safer with Hikaru. But also love the jealousy Yoshiki feeling turning to horror and anger at the end of the episode, and the complicated ways he's feeling about Hikaru. I think the complicated intense feelings - the way everything for Yoshiki is on the edge of one thing or another, never pure and uncomplicated, but always intense - is the great strength of the show. It really captures those teenage feelings through the supernatural horror metaphor of it all, but also works on the non-metaphorical level as well.

I'm now at the end of episode 325 of Bleach. I got through the end of all the Aizen stuff! Finally! The anime really dragged that out to the point of being tiresome, whereas I know I enjoy it a lot in the manga. I'm now square in the filler zone. The characters talk a lot faster in filler episodes because they're not trying to drag things out to avoid outpacing the manga 🤣 I thought I was going to appreciate the anime giving more time and space to the immediate aftermath of Aizen's defeat, but it turns out Ichigo watching Rukia fade from view as his powers disappear in the manga hits me a lot harder than the 'idk it could disappear some time' thing they're going for in the anime. I get why, it's so they can have filler arcs, but still. I do appreciate seeing Matsumoto's grief for Gin, though.

Some of the one shot filler episodes are pretty fun! The one with the squad 11 training exercise is fun, not just for the repeated joke of Renji and Ichigo joining in for no good reason, but also because it's about squad 11 (and especially that dumbass Ikkaku) being shitty and immature and passive aggressive about something for 100 years and Ichigo fixes that problem. The Kenpachi and Yachiru in Rukongai story was also great; I liked how it used those characters in a more serious way and filled in some of their backstory. Right now I'm in the midst of the Reigei arc, which is fine. Some of the fights are pretty cool.

I also started watching The Apothecary Diaries. I wasn't sure during the first episode, but the second episode charmed me, so I'm about six episodes in right now. I like the light touch it takes to serious things, without being too light, and Maomao and Jinshi are charming characters.

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i clean therefore i am

Hermitudes

Yesterday was apparently an economic blackout day in the US, which I at least found out about in time. I didn't have anything planned anyway; I am so very exhausted of doing things and being around people. Last week was A Lot.

The quick version:
- new toolboxen!
- new chair for the male parent!
- work was A Lot!
- old toolboxen in my garage!
- hmm why does my back hurt?!

Old toolboxen got a rinse at the car wash hose at the other end of the complex; while I moved it once a year to sweep and dust, the bottom and wheels were impressively grody after more than a decade. But it's back together in my garage and I've started moving some extra tools and utility room tools into it. Plan is basically to have a shoebox of basics in here and the rest in the garage as needed. This will give me at least a bit of space back in the utility room; a full transfer will probably wait til my traditional Tokyo Game Show Dead Zone Utility Room Cleanout.

Got about 3/5 of stuff done that I wanted to do; I'll take it.