Reading

Entry tags:

countdowns, rundowns, ruminations

The weekend was humid as fuck but I survived despite the humidity and the bus hell. Work was surprisingly Okay[tm] despite some individual wtfery (I say, with one shift left to go) ...

This weekend ...

- FFBE JP is shutting down in ~two months, just barely cresting its 10th anni. I am a few different flavours of something about this, mostly atm being annoyed that jp is getting an offline "Memorial Edition" that will allow revisiting the story and such when we got no such thing for gl last year -- and as long as this thing exists I bet Squenix will do nothing with the world and characters. (related: fuck Octopath Traveller.)

- Over three nights, probably ~2-3ish hrs a night, I wrote ~5k for a draft for

iddyiddybangbang. Never discount the power of spite, no u and Just Starting. (it is a Gundam thing and that's all I'm saying because my traitor brain will decide I'm finished otherwise.)

- Just when I thought I had run out of ability to pull my hair out by the roots because of Granblue, here we are. End of the week is sure going to be a Thing.

- I spent an inordinate amount of time chewing on Gatchaman related thoughts and things for a couple different reasons and now I've fallen into a (shallow) rabbit hole that's probably going to lead me into writing a post of some kind navel gazing about what Tatsunoko seems to consider Gatchaman canon/in-continuity/whatever. Man I just want to poke Ken and Joe with sticks, brain, why you gotta do this x_x

Entry tags:

New Community for Vampire Fans

Caroline from The Vampire Diaries. On the bottom half it read "vampire media"

Description:

vampiremedia is a community for all things vampires! Recs, discussion, meta, transformative works. If it's got vampires, we want it. Membership is open and all members can post. Currently hosting a vampire fandom recs event.

Current Mood: okay

thankfulthursday

thankfulthursday is a weekly gratitude community. Nothing is too big or too small to share.

· Photos are optional but encouraged.
· Check-ins remain open until the following week's post is shared.
· Do feel free to comment on others' check-ins but don't harsh anyone else's squee.

This week's check-in is open.

Entry tags:

oh hey look at that

The last time I posted was on the first of the month and I sucked before that.

In my defense, the world Exists[tm] and more to the point for the last stretch (and on top of a July filled with just lovely familial and ~wellness Events) the best description is, honestly and truly, Summer Has Unfortunately Occurred.

Fuck me do I hate summer.

I was even actually making headway with the FF Lindwyrm project and then shoop -- the wind right out of my sails because Fucking Summer.

Has there been anything aside from melting ...

- I did indeed build MG Deathscythe Hell, once again finishing a Master Grade gunpla in a weekend because I am apparently absolutely insane or something. It was a great time though and Hell is as much a dapper imp as ever so that was great

- Because ~~a goddamn miracle has happened I guess~~IntSys finally put bog-standard Bruno in Fire Emblem Heroes as a unit (and not a banner unit even), I am -- because I'm absolutely insane -- currently poking FEH again. ~~please ignore that there is deeply weird shit about this unit if you look closer ...~~ No idea how long this might last, because FEH is frankly a bad game and powercreep hell, but for now I'mma raise my duders and collect quotes and call it good. It's also less gross than Granblue and I feel weird saying that.

- Fuck Granblue. Seriously.

- This weekend a fan translating FE novels finished Book Two of the Gaiden novelization. I compiled what wasn't already collected into a copy of the drive file and epubbed it Sun morning; I finished reading it this morning.

This was a gleefully, wonderfully (batshit in places) interpretation of a fairly bare-bones Famicom rpg and I loved every goddamn speck of it, even as someone who loves the Shadows Of Valentia remake on the 3DS. Some of the ways to seamlessly integrate actual game mechanics -- like class promotions! -- was absolutely inspired, holy shit.

Love this version, can only hope the particular Archanea novelization getting started in the new year is half as good (there are several different novelizations out there for Marth's stuff, both of them). My ~~Navarre~~Marf variant collection shall continue to grow ~

- I have some lovely katazome paper (blue patterns!) coming from Japan and I can't wait to play around with them; I also ordered a little bookbinding kit, not because I completely don't know (I've experimented with several Japanese bookbinding techniques) but because I want to handfeel the kind of page paper an actual papermaking and bookbinding company selects, and see what I can match on my own. Also because why not lol.

- Mostly (slowly) pecking and poking at older games/hacks/fangames on the onion, when Fucking Summer hasn't made me too braindead and lacking in reflexes to do any such thing.

There's an announcement from Bamco later this morning about the next Tales of remaster, but an idiot already accidentally briefly uploaded the video and it looks like it's going to be Xillia. Bleh. Give me an Abyss remaster you goddamn cowards, if you aren't going to tackle the fancy Destiny remake --

Better yet, give us fucking Luminaria as a real game.

Do it, cowards -_-

Entry tags:

fandom_general

1character: a character-focused fanfic writing community

the banner has the image of a blank notebook and a pencil on a white background, with a bullet point list that reads: Pick a character. Pick a theme set. Write 50 one-sentence fic. The title of the community, 1character, is displayed under the list.

Description: Pick one character as your focus in this fic writing community in the style of

1sentence, choose from 1 of the 6 theme sets, and make your claim - then, write 50 one-sentence fic inspired by the prompts to share on the comm! This is an ongoing activity, open to writers for all fandoms, as well as original characters. Claims are good for three months, and you can get an extension of one month if needed.
Schedule: Ongoing
Links:
On Dreamwidth:

1character

Entry tags:

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.)

Entry tags:

Dreams and Mayhem: Hodge Podge!!!

Description:
It's one part dream.
One part disaster.
And absolutely 100% fandom.
It's Your OTPs/Fandoms combined with our chaos.

Schedule: From now until October 12, 2025 when our first challenges closes.

Links:
On Dreamwidth:

innitmarvelous_og | Hodge Podge

Entry tags:

books

thestoryinside

If you're anything like us, you'll no doubt have a mountain of books that you just never get around to reading. Well, that's where

thestoryinside comes in - have someone choose your book for you!

The process is simple: join the community, and each month sign up to be partnered with a buddy, who will then choose a book from your 'to read' list. At the end of each month there will be a community post to discuss your thoughts on the book(s) you read!

However, we're putting a twist on the traditional 'pick for me' routine and each month we'll vote on what genre of book we'll be reading; now, of course this is open to personal interpretation, for example, if the genre is horror and you're not a big fan, you could go for a Goosebumps book, or even Twilight. There will be an opportunity in each voting post to ask any questions you might have.

Entry tags:

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. ;_;