look on my works ye mighty, and despair

We watched the first episode of Yuri!!! on Ice and it was sweet, lots of hero-worship and pretty ice dancing and I know it's going to get more fanservicey (from the look of the next episode preview) but so far it's not as fanbaity as I'd feared.

And now we're watching Bungo Stray Dogs and it stars, amongst others, a very bishie incarnation of the Japanese author Osamu Dazai as a sort of supernatural detective/warrior in an agency of several such. He is introduced trying to drown himself on a whim, and cheerfully speculates on suicide methods and suicide generally. He has a superpower, nulling other superpowers on demand, and his superpower is called No Longer Human. This should give you some idea of the tone of things, I think, especially if you've read No Longer Human or if you know anything about Osamu Dazai at all. I can't tell if I love it or if I've actually found my breaking point for 'Japan, no too far this time' but we're watching the rest now. Pez wants to cosplay from this and specifically for me to cosplay Dazai.

I am sort of tempted. And yet.

(We're pretty sure Akutagawa is in it too, and Tanizaki just showed up. I think this is specifically designed to break my brain.)

2014 was an up-and-down year, like 2013 before it. Breaking it down:

( Work )
( Health )
( Travel )
( Home )
( Music )
( Cosplay )
( Fandom )
( Books/manga/comics )
( Videogames )
( TV/Film/anime )
( Theatre and Ballet )
( Other )

My posting here dropped off sharply, sigh. I was mostly on Tumblr this year, and a little on Facebook and Twitter (I am massively throttling twitter participation and basically don't add people any more; I do not want it to become my primary social outlet because I dislike the length restriction).

But I'll, uh. Try to post here more, again, at least.

Today, I got up before 8am! And then spent those extra waking hours reading P4 fic. Oh well. Our friend Ben came over this afternoon, and we hung out and chatted for a while, then went out for steak. And now we are watching the Dangan Ronpa anime, because Ben may be willing to be Sakura for us sometime.

Pez has been making trousers for Yurick (The Last Story) for most of today. I picked out wigs for my Aya cosplays! Two of them need cutting, and the other needs styling, so I'll do that tomorrow. My lab coat for Dr Neil arrived, also. Progress!

We have a windowbox. We are trying to grow basil and raspberries in it. This may be a tad ambitious (will raspberries even grow in windowboxes? only one way to find out!) and also the box is in a pretty windy location. But we shall make the attempt anyway.

We had our friends Ben and Anthony around to hang out. We went out for a meal at Harvester, they helped us move furniture, and we gave them sewing lessons (mostly just how to thread the sewing machine and wind the bobbin). We also slotted in much silliness around the edges of that. Always wonderful to spend time with them, and now the laser is tucked away in the office and our living room feels like a living room again! It's amazing how much difference it makes. And now we have a bookcase of language books and sewing books where the laser was.

One of the staff in the Sainsbury's near the Harvester spotted my Bakuman PCP t-shirt and made envious, delighted cooing noises over it for a while. Then we fangirled over Attack on Titan too. Hooray for random geeky meetings.

Digi pointed out that Kane-chan is playing Phoenix Wright in a new stage play adaptation. Oh, my word. The nerdy glee I am feeling.

Edit: Oh, also, the Rurouni Kenshin live-action movie (which I loved) is getting two Kyoto-arc sequels. Satō Takeru is back as Kenshin, too. Happy news.

The cats waited until 5am to start their assault this morning. I cannot deal with this broken-up sleep pattern very well, I have to say -- it's making me exhausted -- but I'm getting some interesting dreams out of it all.

I don't have much to post about at the moment, to be honest. I'm playing Persona 4 Golden in brief bursts and that's wonderful (buahaha failing to pick up girls in Okina). The Vita is great for setting aside games when I'm sick of playing and later picking back up exactly where I left off and that's what I need from a game system right now. I'm writing quite a bit; nothing I think will be shareable, but the sort of stuff that helps me sort through things in my head. Pez is making costumes at an impressive clip; suede Attack on Titan jackets are draped over in-progress sparkly Legend of Galactic Heroes jackets on the mannequin, swords and armour are stacked on top of our laser cutter.

We're planning to wear the LoGH costumes on the Cosplay Cruise in July; we figure we might get some nice dramatic windswept shots on deck that way. For Ayacon, it's looking like our costumes'll be Crystal Chronicles, Attack on Titan, and... maybe Persona 4? Pez says she thinks she'd like to be Dojima to my Yu, which would be hilarious. Last Story is off the cards for now; I haven't had any energy to make Therius, and probably a big armour cosplay in a summer con isn't that smart a plan anyway. Or maybe we'll throw Ib costumes together instead. We'll see how it goes.

Today we had lunch in the hotel lounge restaurant; four courses for an absurdly low amount. Delicious food but the staff had been thrown a bit off-balance by having a huge party of locals come in (they'd wanted to eat in the actual restaurant but there wasn't enough room for them, so they were shunted to the hotel lounge). Thankfully Pez and I were both okay with water as a drink for our lunch, since I don't think any of the staff remembered to offer anyone a drinks option. Still, seriously amazing food in interesting combinations is always good. I have now eaten foie gras! I have no principles about food left, according to Pez.

After that we went to wander around Causeway Bay again. We didn't do much of a touristy nature; we basically wandered from music shop (no luck) to anime shop (omg we found a Legend of Galactic Heroes artbook which is so beautiful and shoujo) to stationery shop (...because Pez wants me to bleed money, apparently). We also went up to the Japanese-language bookshop in Sogo (a big department store) and ogled the magazines. Favourite titles there: Megane Begin (for people interested in wearing glasses!), Host Magazine (for people interested in host clubs) and Men's Fudge (...sadly, it's just a fashion magazine). In the evening we collected my new prescription glasses (yay) then we went to Ap Lei Chau with Pez's family to have seafood in one of the government-built market/food-hall places. You buy the catch live downstairs, then you go upstairs and one of the restaurants cooks it for you. We had various seafood, including crab and clam and so on. I was mocked for not wanting to pick out the victims for our meal myself.

Then Pez and her sister and I all went to Lan Kwai Fong, a street in Central that is famous for bars and nightclubs. We went to Stormie's because the name amused us, had cocktails, and heard a rather terrifying amount of American and UK 80s music. Very silly.

Tomorrow evening Pez and I fly back to the UK. It's been a good trip, but goddamn I don't know how we're going to pack everything without hitting the weight limit....

Today was mostly a day of shopping. We had dim sum with Pez's mother and sister in the morning, then we went up to Mong Kok (in Kowloon).

Mong Kok has lots of shops. Our first stop was an Animate, where we bought doujinshis (omg Sanada/Niou) and anime merchandise (mostly things for friends, though I did also get myself a P4 artbook too). Then came the Sino centre, which is composed of many tiny shops filled very tightly with stuff. I bought quite a bit of music there -- we found a store that was closing down, so all the prices were low and then they gave us a half-price discount on top of that too (mostly I bought Saito Kazuyoshi, plus some Exile and Masa -- and would have bought more things if they'd had much else I wanted. I very nearly bought Kimeru and Kato Kazuki CDs given how absurdly cheap they were, too, but managed to restrain myself). Then we found some clothing stores elsewhere in Mong Kok. Hong Kong fashion is in a drapey-asymmetric-layers phase. This means lots of things I really like, oh dear. I bought a jacket and some tops and then we ran away before I spent any more money.

Afterwards we went to Causeway Bay and had delicious ramen before returning to the hotel to have wine and margaritas on the lounge terrace. I think the plan this morning is to go back there and amble around; Pez also wants to go back to Kowloon for camera stuff at some point. The weather's a bit too rainy for us to do too much touristy stuff, but I'm really enjoying HK even so: the food is good, the people are nice and I like the bustle.

We are at kahochan's. Roast chicken is happening. Later there will probably be some sort of strange movie or tv show. Yay for random weekend social-ness.

Edit: Sword Art Online is happening. This plot, I don't even. So much illogic. And yes, we did get to the end of the Arncrad arc and I'm still not very sold on it.

Yay, a lovely day of fabric shopping! We managed to snag coffee with thephoenixboy (and some cosplayer friends of ours who were also fabric shopping) and then we headed into Chinatown for dinner and bubble tea with kedi_kedi. I need to provide Ayla with a couple of stage plays, because they are magnificent and she should experience their fabulousness. We managed to obtain fabrics for Ib, Persona 4 and Attack on Titan, plus some random gold and silver leather. Alas, it's the wrong time of year for cloak fabrics, but I'm sure we'll find something sooner or later.

Now we are at home, and there is tea. And soon, sleep.

Yesterday Pez and I got caught in the sudden storm while out sending off packages. It felt like a summer storm, all sudden onset and then over as fast as it began, bright sunshine before and afterwards. Kind of a nice change for once, though actually I just want spring to settle for a few weeks -- we didn't get a proper autumn, can't we at least have a spring this year?

Pez is reading Shingeki no Kyojin and making enthused noises and cosplay plans. I gather there's an anime that we're going to watch. It looks sort of grim but she keeps rhapsodising about characters being genuinely clever and I'm very on board with that. We also need to catch up on the last series of the Bakuman anime.

I have a growing stack of new-to-me CDs I need to import onto my iPod. It's getting a bit ridiculous. Plus I still have some older CDs of mine sitting neglected and unimported in a storage box under the bed. But I've been too lazy to re-set-up my desktop, and there's no CD/DVD drive on this laptop. Seriously, of all the deadly sins, sloth is clearly the one that dominates my life.

(I spent a lot of yesterday evening watching live-action Ouran High School Host Club episodes, and I have comments but I figure my friendslist could do with a brief break from all the Japanese-live-action reviewing. I might as well just review the whole series once I'm done with it, anyway.)

More TV-watchings over here! Finding reliable streaming sites is dangerous -- so many shinies.

We watched a couple of episodes of Itsuka Hi no Ataru Basho de, which is a j-drama about two female ex-convicts. I'd heard good things and a female-led drama sounded like a nice change but... no, this was actually pretty dreadful. One-dimensional characters, weird leaps of illogic, over-acting and plotlines that just dragged. Oh well.

Meanwhile I watched another couple of episodes of the Persona 4 anime. I think my feelings for the P4 characters falls into the 'unreasonable affection I can't explain' category now; I'm having a blast watching this even though I've seen the entire plotline twice over in the past couple of months. The animation seems to be improving, or else I'm just getting used to it.

maratai has been recommending Sungkyungkwan Scandal, which is a K-drama about university students in the late Josean Era. I know almost nothing about Korean history, but it sounds interesting anyway -- we might give it a try later this week.

Costume photos from the weekend are up: Trunks (Dragonball Z), Togami (Dangan Ronpa) and Tsukimiya (Utapuri). They were all lots of fun to wear, but Tsukimiya was probably the most fun of all -- channelling my inner j-idol is always amusing, and my makeup means I look sparkly and kawaii in all the pictures.

I think Pez and I have a low-grade version of the post-con lurgy that seems to be going around -- she's exhausted and I feel like I'm really dehydrated all the time. Still, the sunshine is making me feel a lot happier generally.

And I am watching Ute Lemper singing on Sky Arts, with much in the way of unsubtitledness. The ad-libs in French and German I can generally follow (she's mostly flirting with the audience or telling anecdotes), but her singing style occasionally dips into being so growly that I lose half the words to 'rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr' if it's in French, and it takes a moment even in English to work out some words. Still fabulous, even so.

Today we have mostly watched more Bakuman. Yesterday we watched a lot of Kuroshitsuji. I have also read a bunch of HP fic, read through a bunch of Remembering Kanji, and tried to work out exactly how out-of-practise I am at German and Welsh (thinking in German for me tends to slide into Welsh when I can't bring a German word to mind, annoyingly).

And now I need to go remind myself how to make welt pockets.

Epic Mickey so far: augh, aiming at the screen while running and jumping is hard. I am not too dreadful at 3D platformers, but combining it with the need to point at things seems to throw my brain completely off.

We watched one episode of Kuroko no Basuke last night - I've read a fair chunk of the manga, so it was really interesting seeing how they handled the same content in the anime (answer: really well. There's a LOT of information and back-story in that opening episode). I'll see if I can convince Pez to watch more later.

And finally, we put up our art from kedi_kedi yesterday! It's gorgeous. Picture behind the cut.
( cut to save people's lj feeds )

Last year's plans for the year post was as interesting to me at the end of this year as the one from the year before was that time around, so I'm doing it once more!

( books and manga )
( videogames and other games )
( music )
( tv )
( film )
( cons, events, travelling )
( cosplay )
( other )

Overall plans: 2012 was pretty wonderful--I got married to a wonderful woman in a gorgeous ceremony surrounded by loved ones, I quit a stressful and tiring job in favour of something I am enjoying far more, I read and I exercised and I danced and I learned and I found new fandoms to adore and I hung out with awesome people. I want more of the awesome next year, please. I'd like to try to lose some more weight (sensibly). Otherwise, mostly, I want to hone my existing skills: I want to get better at making things, at writing and at dancing and at languages.

(I am still so obsessed with this show omg. All the characters are interesting to read fic about!)

Fics for this show are often set post-series or assume full knowledge, so there are spoilers in the fics below. None of them are (as far as I recall) high in smut or violence.

Also, as a general observation: most of the fic I've encountered for Princess Tutu has been of a standard that is *at least* readable, and often actively good - hence the length of this list. And there's a fair amount of metafiction to be found, which makes me giddy. Totally worth poking around various sites. Good fanart out there, too.

( Multi-chapter fic )
( One-shots )

It has been a long, busy year. Let's break it down a bit.

( Work )
( Travel )
( Home )
( Music )
( Cosplay )
( Fandom )
( Books/manga/comics )
( TV/Film/anime )

Other: there was a lot of sadness in the lives of my friends and family, and I've felt somewhat at a loss at how to react; platitudes don't seem enough. I hope 2012 is a better year for everyone.

And most important of all to me in 2011: Pez and I got engaged. Which has been sort of a primary focus since the end of October. We've found a venue (a little country manor place, which means the catering is also mostly sorted) and set a date (next October) and arranged an appointment to give Notice Of Civil Partnership. We've also arranged a photographer and worked out what we want to wear and what sort of thing we'd like on the tables at the reception. I expect it to eat much of my attention next year, also, shockingly. I think I can live with that, though.

Today we were mugged by a 3-for-2 fabric remnant sale. Oops. At least we did manage to restrict ourselves to just three pieces--including a fabulous couple of metres of tweed which I shall make some trousers out of. *nod*

In the ever-increasing costume frenzy: Guybrush's coat only needs a bit of bias binding around the base, and then the lining re-attaching inside. Woohoo! And I made purple velvet harem pants for Edgar (which I need to hem and add an elasticated waistband to). They are ludicrous, and will be worn tucked into white cowboy boots. Oh, cosplay.

Aside from that, life has been much the same as usual. We've been watching Code Geass recently - we're a few episodes into season 2 now. It's... awesome, if immensely complicated. And full of gorgeous outfits. So much in the way of military prettiness!

And my main work project finally went live (after, ugh, 7 months) and is performing well. Yay. My next major project (after the bedding-in live period for the last one) is much more chat-oriented, and should be a welcome change of pace.

Okay, time to split these into categories:

( books )
( videogames )
( music )
( tv )
( film )
( cons, events, travelling )
( cosplay )

Overall plans: mostly I would like to spend less money, but fabric, furniture and travel is probably going to eat into a lot of my disposable income in the near future. On the other hand, I shouldn't be moving again in the near future, and major dental work shouldn't be such a huge financial cost if it does crop up this year.

I'd also like to spend more time with friends; I've been a bit crap about keeping up with people. We'll see how that works out.

- Working from 'home' (aka Pez's place) today. It is a very nice way to work (tea! cat! being able to watch the opening of parliament on TV!) but I'm being a bit distracted by the large quantity of shiny objects which are being unpacked all over the living room floor. The world domination plans continue apace.

- We are dressing up as David Cameron and Nick Clegg for the MCM Expo on Sunday, because 1) the BBC provided convenient cut-out mask templates and 2) political satire and cosplay are things that might be fun to mix once in a while.

- So now I have seen all of Revolutionary Girl Utena! The series, at least (the movie is here, also, for future watching). And it was deeply odd (as I'd been warned), but very pretty and entirely worth watching.

- I bought a shirt with a wing collar (from the same charity shop that I bought the dress jacket and cape from a while ago! I approve greatly of that charity shop). This probably means I need to find a reason to wear all these formal clothes I seem to be accumulating, really.