xanithofdragons

I really don't know where to be active online anymore. I like this space, but most of my LJ friends have left it, and I don't have DW friends yet. Twitter's okay sometimes, but it's too short. Tumblr was always a mess, and now they're removing swaths of adult content. Pillowfort was looking good, but it doesn't feel like as safe of a place for fan creators anymore. I like Ao#, but it's for posting, not community.

I like this space. I need to change my icons so they reflect my current interests more. I need to find friends on here.

Sorry, I know I've been neglecting this space m(-_-)m

I probably first ever read the Natsume Yuujinchou manga from scanlations back when I was in high school, but when I studied abroad in Japan in college, I started buying the volumes in Japanese to read and slowly worked on it that way, getting up to around volume 10? I also got the 1st and 2nd seasons of the anime on DVD and watched them. But at some point I got distracted and didn't read or watch it for a while.

Then, at some point in the summer of this year, I decided to go back and read through them all and then catch up. I think someone had mentioned to me that they thought the series had ended even while I was in Japan, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it's still ongoing!

Anyway, I quickly bought the rest of the released volumes and read through them all and then watched all of the anime that's out. Natsume Yuujinchou has been my favorite manga series from when I was reading through it studying abroad, and catching up, I gotta say that I'm totally hooked again. I even started buying the issues of LaLa that have new chapters to keep up with the latest stuff.

It's pretty much become my main fandom currently and I started writing fic for it. I don't think I've ever been so inspired and motivated to write before. Speaking of which, I decided that for the time being I'll mainly post all my new fic to my AO3, so check it out if you're curious. I mostly like shippy stuff in fandom, and Natori/Matoba has become my main ship for NatsuYuu with them and their prequel high-school era side chapters ♥. 7 out of the 8 fic I've actually finished and posted so far has been for them, even though I have plenty of other NatsuYuu ships I like.

I had known for a while that my local Half Price Books had a monthly board game night, but I just finally went to it for the first time last month, in February. Honestly I haven't made many friends in my area even a year and a half after moving, and I figured this would be a good fun activity that would get me in contact with more people. We played the Ghostbusters board game and another game whose name I don't remember, but it involved getting treasure off of a sinking island. Both of them were cooperative games, which was nice since I can be overly competitive sometimes.

The HPB staff member who was running it last month also started doing a monthly tabletop RPG event and he was encouraging us really strongly to go to it too, so I checked it out and had some fun doing that too. Tabletop RPGs are kind of something I've always been interested in but haven't had enough chances to do. He does one-time games using an open-source RPG platform called Cogent and it's very easy to use.

I really liked both events, so I went again this month. At board game night we played Tsuro which was really nice and chill and Evolution which I liked so much I'd want to get it for myself sometime.

Also this month, I stopped by the store one day to confirm which day the RPG event was gonna be this month, and it happened to be the Friday of the weekend they had a big 40% and 50% off one item sale. I looked around the store and noticed they had the whole series of Yu Yu Hakusho on DVD sets. I really loved Yu Yu Hakusho when I was younger, and I'd always consider buying it on DVD whenever I saw it in a store, but it always seemed so expensive. Well, used and on sale, I figured this would be my best chance to finally just buy it, so I bought the whole series over the three days of the sale. :D

Like I said, I really loved YYH, and I watched it on tv when I could, but I ended up missing large parts of like, the last two story arcs, so I was really excited to watch everything through from start to finish. And well, it's been 2 weeks since I started and I've watched pretty much all of it xD I'll probably watch the last episode tomorrow. I'm glad to find that I still love the series a lot and it's fun to be reminded of parts that I hadn't remembered well and learn about the parts I had missed. It's also fun to watch it subtitled since I had watched it dubbed on tv before. I still love Yu Yu Hakusho ♥

I've been watching a lot of movies in 2016, at least a lot more than I normally do, although that's not saying a lot. I've already watched three movies in theaters this year. Three whole movies I've watched in theater this year and I might even watch another one in theater? The three I've seen are Concussion, Deadpool, and Star Trek: Beyond. And yeah, that may not seem like a lot, but the last time I had seen a movie in theaters prior to this year was 2013. Yeah, that's how much I typically am not a movie person.

Early-ish in the year, I heard a lot about Star Wars The Force Awakens and decided to watch it and liked it enough that I decided to watch the rest of the Star Wars movies to get the full story. And now I'm slowly starting to get into Marvel Cinematic Universe. And ngl part of why I'm so interested in MCU is the fandom, or more specifically the shipping. Because I am exactly the kind of shipper who gets into something because a ship in it seems interesting. xD

But part of why I say I'm "slowly" getting into it is because I started to watch some stuff and then talked with my brother and sister-in-law and we decided to watch through what we wanted to see together, but we only tend to meet up about once a month. >_< But now I'm really getting excited and really getting into stuff and can barely wait to watch more. T_T

Maybe what I can learn from this year is that it's a lot easier for me to get into movies when it's a series or a franchise. It's hard for me to get really enthusiastic about it otherwise. ^^;

I guess it's kind of a weird change in my lifestyle after quitting my old horrible grocery store job, but now I'm usually not around when deliveries are typically made. And I typically order enough Japanese CDs/DVDs/magazines/books that I'll have something shipped to me usually 1-2 times per month at least. So I live in an apartment complex and the management office can accept packages for me, fine right? I even signed a piece of paper and everything. Things should work out great!

Except in reality it's like 50/50 whether the packages will actually get delivered or get stuck in limbo. All of the stuff from Japan either comes through Fedex or the postal service. Domestic stuff often comes through UPS, but that's much fewer orders. I've had the least problems with UPS; they'll pretty reliably just leave it at the apartment management office (as long as they're open that day) and leave a notice saying so. I can just pick it up and everything works out. Fedex and the USPS are the ones giving me problems. It's not even a matter of whether a signature is required or not. Like sometimes they'll have someone at the office sign for it, and sometimes, just not deliver it? I guess maybe they have the bad timing of coming when the office is closed, but it also seems like sometimes they come back and try to deliver to the office and sometimes don't?

But still, Fedex always leaves a notice, although sometimes the notices are inaccurate for some reason? One time the COD box was checked even though it wasn't COD, and one time it said "check leasing office" but when I went to the office they said Fedex hadn't even come that day. So weird. But still, they always leave a notice, and if it isn't delivered I can wait and hope it's delivered the next day or use their website to have it sent to the nearest Fedex office and pick it up.

The worst, though, is my local post office. I have never had so many problems so frequently with the post office as I have had here. I can think of only one other time ever before here that the post office has failed me. Like Fedex, sometimes they'll leave it at the office and sometimes they won't, with no apparent rhyme or reason. And like Fedex, they're supposed to leave a notice. Supposed to. It wasn't like this right away, but shortly after I moved here, it sounds like they got a bunch of new trainees in or something and now, actually more often than not, they either don't leave any notice at all or leave it in the wrong box. I won't pick shipping methods without tracking any more, because I can't trust the post office to just never leave any notice and send my orders back to sender without ever contacting me. T_T So I watch the tracking and if I see that they tried to deliver, I'll take the note if I'm lucky, or write down the tracking number and my address if I'm not lucky and go pick it up at the post office the next day.

However, the USPS also has a reschedule delivery option through their tracking, and if it's close to say, a Saturday or day I'll have off from work and can just sit around in my apartment and wait for it, why not use it? Well, I have tried this method three times and three times my local post office has managed to fuck it up. The first time I requested it to be delivered on a Saturday, and I waited around with no ring on my buzzer. I checked my mailbox and saw the mail had already come, and then I checked with the office and they hadn't received it either. So I freak out and go to the post office while they're still open, and the person at the counter is like treating me like I'm being unreasonable at first, but it turns out they filed the package wrong and never sent it out for redelivery. >:< The second time, I scheduled the redelivery on Wednesday for the following Friday because my work was gonna be close that day. Yeah, they tried to deliver it on Thursday instead, and I ended up having to go into the post office to pick it up on Friday anyway. And finally, this past week they tried to deliver something on Friday, I scheduled the redelivery for Saturday, and of course, looking at the tracking, it probably never even went out for delivery. I'll see if there's any movement Monday and hopefully I'll be able to pick it up Monday or Tuesday, but yeah, I'm never using the USPS schedule redelivery option again, at least not while I live here.

I guess this is all to say that I still haven't gotten my copies of Johnny's WEST's new single that I ordered. orz

One thing I really wanted to do after I got an office job is paint my nails more, and I'm working on that! My company's annual holiday party is tomorrow and I painted my nails for it:


Maybe if I paint my nails more and more often it'll get easier to paint them without getting polish all over the surrounding skin ^^; I had bought a few new nail colors and I was holding back on painting my nails even though I was excited about it because I wanted to have it fresh to show off at the holiday party. I also bought top-coat and used it for the first time. I feel like such a beginner when it comes to nails. I'd never used a top-coat before and so it would always start to chip off in a day or two orz. But the top-coat I used made my nails look really finished and polished! I'm also really stretching myself and using an effects top-coat for an accent nail. It was a lot harder to work with than I was expecting! I'm also afraid that the stars will come off the first time I wash my hands or something; I'm so nervous.

I am excited for the holiday party itself, for a chance to hang out with coworkers a little casually (?) and to see them wearing fancy clothes and stuff o(^^)o But I'm also a little worried about it because it's 5 hours long (?!) and that's a long time to spend socializing with people, most of whom I don't really know all that well... I don't understand why it's scheduled for so long. Is there really gonna be so much going on that I won't feel bored or stressed? I'll see. >_<

Pretty much ever since the DVD for A.B.C-Z's Early Summer Concert came out and I watched it, I've been in a big Ebi mood. ♥ Ebi always puts on such great performances and puts so much work into everything they do. It makes me even sadder that they've been kind of neglected. :/ But they still make the best of it and do their own thing and ugh they're so good. T_T But it got kinda bad last night when I was struck with inspiration for Ebi fanfic and couldn't sleep. I stayed up like 3 hours later than I really should have, as if I don't already feel inexplicably sleepy most days and have trouble sticking to my self-set bedtime. ^^; But I guess the good part is that I actually started writing some stuff down, including bits of Fuuma/Fumito fic! I've actually had a plot in mind for a Fuuma/Fumito fic (yeah I ship that and yeah only half of that ship is Ebi, I know) for months now, and it'd be great if I could be struck with inspiration enough to even write a full draft for it xD I also thought of an idea for a HashiTotsu fic, but man...

I feel like I need a fic writing cheerleader/light beta? Sometimes I want a sounding board for my fic ideas and I often feel like I have an idea that I think is really cool only to doubt most of it shortly later. But at the same time I feel like my stuff isn't worth it because I pretty much just write ficlets and drabble-y stuff... Which is just more of me devaluing my own work, huh? :/ But primarily English-speaking Johnny's fandom is small and it gets even smaller when you narrow it down to people who like the same groups and ships you. IDK

I also got my copies of the new JWEST album this week, and I'm really enjoying it! I miss posting thoughts posts about Jpop releases and stuff on here, so I'll try to write a post just about it. For now I'll say that I really like this album for the most part. ^_^

Oops, I dropped the ball on making a monthly post in February >_< I actually feel like I've been having a few creative sparks recently and there's been stuff I wanted to post about, but I just feel like I have no energy lately. T_T And then I went and got sick last weekend. And now I've been trying to write this post for about a week. orz I just need to finish it tonight.

Anyway, one of the things I've been wanting to post about is the jdrama I'm watching this season! I want to post about it every season, but most of the time the season ends and the next begins before I get around to it. orz Today, though, I'll just be talking about my favorite jdrama this season: Mondai no Aru Restaurant! Because I have a lot to say about it ^^;

I feel like in the past year or two I've been seeing more jdrama with feminist themes, and Mondai no Aru Restaurant is one of them. If I were to describe it in one sentence, I'd say it's about a group of women plus one crossdressing gay man starting a restaurant and fighting the patriarchy. xD What sets Mondai no Aru Restaurant apart for me, though, is all the other jdrama I've seen so far with clear, major feminist themes have ended up (in my opinion) dropping the ball on one issue or another or undermining their own messages in some way, but Mondai no Aru has yet to do that. Yeah, so if it continues on has it has been, Mondai no Aru Restaurant will probably be the best jdrama I've ever watched. ^^

Every character, every storyline, every detail, every hint and piece of foreshadowing, every element of this show works together to create an amazing story. I keep thinking about each episode for weeks after it airs, and I'm always looking forward to the upcoming episodes, to learning more about these great characters and to finding out what happens next in their stories. I could go on and on about it, but one episode that really wowed me was the Valentine's Day episode (episode 5). There are always several different stories going along on any given episode, but for the first few episodes seemed to each focus on a different character's story. The Valentine's Day episode (and Valentine's Day did happen in this episode) seemed to focus on one character getting stalked and hit, but ultimately I feel like it's about her learning her own self-worth, learning to cherish herself and her body more and learning to say no. It didn't really hit me until a little after I watched the episode though, how much it meant that they chose to do that for the Valentine's Day episode. Every time the dude who was stalking her did something that would be considered romantic if he was doing it at someone who actually liked him, they just focused on her face and how horrified she looked. They chose to make the Valentine's Day episode about romance going horribly wrong and hurting someone.

But yeah, the story is just super well-constructed. Watching through it, I feel like there are so many places where a simple line or action from a character is just super meaningful because of their pasts, and I feel like there's a lot of worth in rewatching it because there's a ton of hints at future revelations, too.

Okay, one last thing about Mondai no Aru Restaurant that I really love is that it has one of the best if not just the best representation of an LGB character I've seen in a jdrama. Like, yeah Haiji fits some stereotypes but he's not just a stereotype and he's not there to be laughed at. In fact, when other characters make jokes at his expense, he gets upset and calls them out. Also, they seem to have done a good job understanding the differences between sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender presentation, which, wow, is something mainstream pop culture anywhere I know of has trouble understanding, so good job, Mondai no Aru Restaurant.

At an anime/gaming store my brother sometimes goes to, there was a deck-building game that always caught my eye, and Sunday of last week my brother and I finally got someone at the store to demo it for us! The game is Tanto Cuore. A deck-building game about maids. xD (We played with the Vacation expansion for the demo.)

Some random dude in the store walked by us as the employee was setting it up and asked if he could join. We let him, so there were 4 players at the start. It seemed like there was a lot of work the employees needed to do that day and about when we started playing a bunch of people came into the store out of nowhere, so the employee had to step out of the game after we understood the rules. My brother won, but I came in a close second! I really enjoyed the game and decided to buy the original version, but when I get another set, I'll probably want the Vacation expansion, since I liked the mechanics for that and a lot of the maids in that version.

The random dude who joined, us, though... He seemed to be taking a little longer than my brother or I to understand the rules and the game-flow, and yet he kept comparing it to other deck-building games in a way that made it sound like he was complaining about it. -_- And then after we were done and I picked out which version to buy and stand at the register, he was nearby and said stuff like "You should come here more often" and was recommending some other game to me (I wasn't paying enough attention to really hear the name of the game). I was wondering if it was a little mansplain-y, but I'm not sure whether he was directing his comments more towards me or to both my brother and me. *shrugs*

Anyway, overall I felt that it was relatively easy to understand and to get used to the flow of gameplay. It didn't feel overly complicated and the explanation for what each of the cards did was all written fairly clearly on each of the cards. But at the same time there's a lot of possible strategies and you have to combine maid effects well use each of your turns wisely to get a lot of points. So I think it could appeal to a variety of playing styles.

I think compared to other deck-building games though, since it uses a bunch of human characters with names, it adds another layer to it, since you could conceivably think up back stories and personalities for all of them. (Although maybe you could do that with any game? I guess it just depends on what kind of subject matter you like the best.) Or like, it stood out to me because of the cute art and kind of silly subject matter in ways similar games didn't.

I was pretty worried about finding people to play it with (one reason I really wanted to have it demoed before buying it), but I actually got my Dad to play it with my brother and me tonight. He said he enjoyed it, and he actually won. xD

In other recent news, I've been playing a couple of BL visual-novel style games I found for available for smartphones. That's been entertaining. :3

I got Johnny's WEST's first album the week it came out and all and wanted to make a post about it but kept not making the post. But I still really want to post about the album because it's great. So this is a go WEST Yo-i Don! post.

First pictures:
( Cut for pictures )

Second song by song impressions (only covering songs first released on this album):
( long orz )

Last the DVD:
They were the same way in the making video of Ee Ja Nai ka, but I love how much it shows how new and exciting all of this is to them. ♥ And again I constantly get the sense that they're all really close and really comfortable around each other. Ah~ this is why I love making/behind-the-scenes stuff. ♥

Somehow I thought Hama-chan was the cutest throughout. xD Things like not knowing what to do in recording or messing up the title of his favorite song. ^^ Hama-chan's great... and recently it feels like his movements are twice as big as everyone else's when they're performing, so I just end up noticing him and watching him a lot. Akito's still my favorite, though, but Johnny's WEST is very much a group where I like all the members for one thing or another (which is what I like in my groups!).

It's so funny that they only found out what they debut song would be part-way through the shoot for the jacket covers. ^^; But after they found out what the song would be, I don't know if he was joking or serious, but Shige said something like that he thought the debut song would be Konamon and I started thinking about what a Konamon music video wold be like. xD I'm pretty sure it would have be amazing.

The Banzai Yume Mansai video is really pretty and really cool although it was a little hard to follow the vague story they sort of had in the video. ^^ They're really putting a lot of work and effort (and probably money) into Johnny's WEST's music videos so far. It's only the first two videos, still, but they're both really good.

I don't know about them including a dance video for Ee Ja Nai ka, but I guess it'll be useful for anyone who wants to learn the whole dance? although they're not dancing for some parts whatever

I think it was back on... Thursday? that my copies of Legend Story and my copies of ABC Za 2013 digest came.

( Legend Story )

I really really like both music videos. If Ebi ever makes a bad or mediocre music video, I will be shocked. They're always so focused on making great performances, it really comes through to the finished product. ♥ And for Legend Story, they even had fans appear again! In the making, with Tottsu talking about how the staff, like the camera people and the lighting people, all the people they work with actually have it the hardest (and in this case, that included the fans who joined in), how Ebi actually have it the easiest, even if it looks like it's hard on them because they're the ones in front of the camera, and with Ebi greeting the fans and saying that this time, they didn't think of them as "fans" but as "costars" appearing with them, I cried some watching the making. ♥

It was really cool that they used the costumes from the drama for the Bokura no Kotae Here We Go video! Although probably partially because of that, it looked so hot, as in, Tottsu looked like he was sweating through all the dance shots. xD And most of the rest of them, their faces at least all looked a little sweaty from time to time.

I think of the songs from the bonus CD this time, BIG STAR made the biggest impression on me. It was kind of like they were telling the story of A.B.C-Z through the song. ♥

( Johnny's Densetsu )

I gotta say, I'm pretty interested in Johnny's history, but! The story of the Johnny's going to America, meeting famous people, and recording songs isn't a piece of Johnny's history I'm all that interested in... I kinda knew it was a story I wasn't particularly interested in when I bought the DVD though, so I knew Part 1 was something I'd have to endure a little. The song and dance performances were all cool though! And it was pretty fun to see Tottsu play so many different characters. xD

It felt like most of the stuff that got cut to make this a "digest" got cut from Part 2... that, is, the parts I was most interested in. >_< I would've liked to see more about Four Leaves and Shounentai, but alas. (Then again, I am sad if Shounentai is brought up without a performance of Kamen Butoukai. I just really like Kamen Butoukai.) The A.B.C-Z legend part was my favorite part, and seeing the part where they showed Hasshi really struggling to keep up and the other members being strict/harsh with him brought tears to my eyes. But one thing I noticed watching the Ebi Legend part... and one thing I notice watching Ebi things in general is... damn do Hasshi and Tottsu stare at each other a lot! xD Like every time they look at each other, it's a long, meaningful look or something! ♥ HashiTotsu ♥

Anyway, overall I'm glad I bought the ABC Za 2013 DVD because I really enjoyed part two of the musical, and the Ebi medleys. The 5 Rings performance alone probably would have made it worth it.