six things.

Tuesday, 7 July 2026 02:55 pm
straightforwardly: a black & white cat twining around a girl's legs; both are outside. (Default)
Over the past few days, I’ve been having one of those moments where I want to post about so many different things that I become paralyzed with indecision about what to tackle first, and then don’t write any posts at all. So, in the interests of clearing out as many of the links and notes in my “dw update” writing document as possible, I’ve decided that I’m just going to tackle all of the “smaller” things I’ve been wanting to post about in this entry, and then figure out things from there with the “bigger” things.

Predictably, most of these things are Scum Villain-related, but not everything!

One. So, I think I’ve mentioned before that I keep a spreadsheet tracking my reading (both original & fic), gaming, watching, etc. I may have also mentioned before that I keep a physical reading/media journal—mostly dedicated to writing down my thoughts about the books I read, but it also contains some tracking spreads and monthly wrap-ups, and at some point I started doing quarterly wrap-ups as well.

One of the things I include in those quarterly wrap-ups is a list of my “most read” (usually top five) fandoms for the past three months, as determined by the number of individual fics read for them. Over the weekend, I was compiling the stats I need for the quarter that just ended, and—well. These were the results:
The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System — 115
The Goes Wrong Show — 14
Pokémon (Main Games) — 12
Radiant Emperor — 11
Fire Emblem Fates — 7
I had to laugh. That drop-off… incredible.

Two. Over the weekend, I finally read the new Scum Villain extra for the first time. My full thoughts on it definitely don’t count as a “smaller” thing—I’m hoping to write a full post dedicated to that at some point, because I definitely have many, many thoughts—but I do want to bring up something related to it, namely, MXTX’s afterword.

Or, more specifically, my discovering that MXTX refers to Scum Villain (the novel) as a “lively little grasshopper”.

I instantly wanted to cry, in the best way. That’s so adorable. And it’s even cuter in context: more beneath the cut )

Three. Related to the above—as someone who loves subtle fannish merch, my first thought upon discovering that MXTX describes Scum Villain as a “little grasshopper” (after, of course, having a meltdown about how cute that is), was—I need art and accessories featuring grasshoppers now. So I immediately went on Etsy, and… found that pickings were rather slim, at least according to my criteria. I ended up narrowing my search to “grasshopper necklace”, but most of what seems to be out there is either cartoony in style or colored in a solid silver or gold, neither of which was what I was wanting.

Along the way, I did come across this gorgeous lunar moth necklace, which is pretty much exactly what I want in terms of both style and color. Just. It’s the wrong insect, lol. (Though still quite pretty... and I do like moths.)

Four. This morning, I came across this Scum Villain fanvid: “Spoken for me” by sapin7 and just have to share it. It does use common character design elements that I dislike (namely, Binghe being given bestial traits), but even so, it’s still very good. The way that the creator matches the images on-screen with the lyrics sent me down such an emotional rollercoaster—I swallowed down so many urges to scream while watching.

Five. The other day, while playing a nonogram-style game on my phone, I was shown this ad for Merge Teahouse. Now, I’m not going to be downloading this game—both because I’ve placed a blanket ban on myself for phone games that incentivize daily logins, and because phone game ads are notorious for not having any real resemblance to the actual game’s vibe and story—but I was very struck at how perfectly calculated this is to appeal to my interests.

We have: a FOX who has taken human form (complete with cute ears and tail!), hurt/comfort with an emphasis on blood, implied pining, devotion won through a past act of kindness that the FL may or may not even remember, a ML who looks hot and cool and powerful but acts pathetic and cute around the FL* (including him taking down their enemies before giving the FL puppy eyes and going on about how ~scared~ he was!!), clear femdom potential, both the FL and ML clearly being competent in battle, the FL using a sword…

I would read that novel, is what I’m saying. I would play that visual novel. I would even consider watching that show. In short, that is the kind of ship I could absolutely lose my mind over, in different circumstances.

(* and yes. It does not escape me that Bingmei also has elements of this character trait. What can I say—I like what I like!)

Six. I’ve had a link to this tumblr post about the nature of fandom sitting around since like March or April of this year, waiting for me to talk about it, and—I don’t know if I have the right words for it right now, but it does resonate with me, and I do want to share it.
straightforwardly: a black & white cat twining around a girl's legs; both are outside. (Default)
Against my will*, while at work yesterday afternoon, I found myself thinking about the rotting flesh thing from Scum Villain. Specifically, I found myself contemplating this scene: beneath the cut )
straightforwardly: a black & white cat twining around a girl's legs; both are outside. (Default)
Last night, I finished my reread of volume 3 of Scum Villain, so it’s time for more reactions! I told myself not to go too overboard with the quotes, but the Holy Mausoleum arc is my favorite arc in the novel (and the other arcs in this volume are also quite high on the list), so it was a struggle to restrain myself… only the fact that I am physically typing out these quotes by hand saved me, lol. beneath the cut )
straightforwardly: a black & white cat twining around a girl's legs; both are outside. (Default)
One of the romances I've managed to unlock in Cute Bite recently was the Lore teacher romance, and while I wasn't particularly interested in Vasilia before— silliness beneath the cut )
straightforwardly: a black & white cat twining around a girl's legs; both are outside. (Default)
Similar to my last post, but focusing on quotes from volume 2 this time! I desperately need to be getting to bed now, so I'll let the rest of this speak for itself. beneath the cut )
straightforwardly: a black & white cat twining around a girl's legs; both are outside. (Default)
Yes, I know I just posted, shhh.

A few quotes that have stood out to me as I’ve been rereading Scum Villain (all from the first volume, unless I say otherwise): beneath the cut )

—I’ve actually been making notes on far more quotes than these, but the rest of those are with the intention of writing potential meta once I finish my full series reread; these are just little things that caught my eye.
straightforwardly: a black & white cat twining around a girl's legs; both are outside. (Default)
I did another playthrough of Cute Bite yesterday, this time aiming for a romance between Saule and the vampiric mistress, and it ended up giving me even more thoughts on that Scum Villain AU I brainstormed the other day. more musing + spoilers for Cute Bite beneath the cut )
straightforwardly: a black & white cat twining around a girl's legs; both are outside. (Default)
► Yesterday, I played through Cute Bite, a game that’s been on my Steam wishlist for a while now. It’s one of those Princess Maker-style raising simulators… with the twist in this one being that you’re raising your vampiric mistress, who has become de-aged and amnesiac after being locked in a coffin for a very long time.

More specifically: said vampiric mistress (default name Buttercup) was locked away by her “father” (the MC’s previous master), who the MC (default name Saule) had been reliant on for her own immortality. So now she has one year to help her new vampiric mistress regain her adult form, because otherwise she won’t have the power to perform the ritual that extends Saule’s life.

It was a pretty cute game, and a fun example of the genre! Nothing groundbreaking, true, but very charming. My first ending involved beneath the cut )

► About an hour into the game, I found myself thinking of my current tendency to turn everything into Scum Villain fic fodder, and thought to myself, “ha, even I can’t turn this into fic for Scum Vi—wait. Bing-ge. Bing-ge being de-aged back to his amnesiac white lotus self and being raised by SQQ… SQQ’s life being dependent on how well he raises Binghe or not… oh no, this actually works way too well.” minor spoilers for Cute Bite beneath the cut )
straightforwardly: a black & white cat twining around a girl's legs; both are outside. (Default)
This is a callout post for one of my worst habits, namely, buying editions of Scum Villains in languages that I can’t read. I was looking at my personal library tracking spreadsheet yesterday evening, and discovered that I own fifteen volumes of Scum Villain across four different languages. Over the weekend, I found this wiki page listing all the different official releases Scum Villain has had globally, and this was arguably a dangerous discovery, as it led to my almost immediately purchasing a version I hadn’t been aware of before then (the 2022 traditional Chinese rerelease)… and eyeing another one I really want (2025 simplified Chinese version)… or maybe more than one asdfghjkl;

But I’m also really excited about getting my hands on the 2022 version! I looked it up on eBay on the same day, and found that someone in my country was auctioning it off for a reasonable price—with the auction ending the next day (Sunday). I set a timer, stalked it very closely, set a truly ridiculous maximum high bid… but no one else bidded on it, so I got it for that reasonable price after all! It’s actually already arrived (yesterday, which is why I was looking at my spreadsheet in the first place… had to log my new acquisition, after all!), and I’m so pleased with it. It’s so pretty!

And, vitally, it was also the “deluxe edition”, according to the ebay listing, which means that it came with a little box of merch—postcards and mini file folders and the like. This is what I was the most excited about, because that makes it so much easier to display the, quite frankly, gorgeous art and character designs from this version!

One of the things included was this plastic block-type thing (idk what it’s actually supposed to be) that had this image on it, and—omg. The cat. THE CAT. This is now canon in my heart. Post-canon Bingqiu ABSOLUTELY get a cute little orange cat as a pet at some point, and absolutely no one can tell me otherwise, lol.

more rambling about the different versions & how I ended up becoming this kind of ridiculous person beneath the cut )

Honestly, the most important part of this entry (and the reason why I started writing this in the first place) is, in fact, Bingqiu and the orange cat that they absolutely now have, with the rest just being my own self-indulgent rambling.
straightforwardly: a black & white cat twining around a girl's legs; both are outside. (Default)
► The other day, I was thinking about how, whenever I’m feeling actively fannish about Scum Villain, I start viewing any other media I engage with not through the lens of “is there fic potential in this” (normal for me), but rather “is there Scum Villain fic potential here”, i.e. I’m mentally rummaging through it for potential inspiration for SV fics. Despite already having more WIPs for that fandom than I’m ever going to finish. Then I started thinking about how I’ve been playing through Phantasy Star II with my brother recently, and realized… it would not actually be that hard to make a Scum Villain AU inspired by it? thoughts on an AU I have zero intentions of writing beneath the cut )

► I was looking at one of my old Scum Villain fic rec lists, and was reminded of The Shortest Hades/Persephone AU Ever Made. It's still one of the funniest fics I’ve ever read, despite being barely over a hundred words; even just seeing the title is enough to make me laugh, remembering. What a punchline <3

► I read the first volume of I’m in Love With the Villainess this week (finished it today), and it was okay? I don’t think I’ll be continuing the series, though I miiiight check out the anime (which was already one of the series on my Crunchyroll watchlist). some brief thoughts beneath the cut )
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I am (once again) having a bit of a Scum Villain moment. (This is the fault of a very excellent fic I picked up, and which I’ll rec at the end of this entry.) I’ve also been listening to Evanescence’s Fallen album quite a bit recently, as one does! And, well, listening to “My Immortal” while thinking about Scum Villain made me realize… it would not be the worst of bingqiu songs? Particularly if it were a duet instead of a solo singer.beneath the cut )

And, as promised above, a fic rec—the fic that has once again sent me falling down this Scum Villain rabbit hole was this one:
forgiveness is beyond our reach (WIP, currently 232K, last updated 2026)
"And what sort of story is Shizun's favorite?" Luo Binghe asks, not really caring about the answer. Luo Binghe's shizun is an air-headed man who hides his inanity behind his fan; surely, whatever it is that Shen Qingqiu deems to read in his free time, it must be something equally ridiculous and superficial. Probably romance, Luo Binghe thinks. Perhaps cultivation adventure stories where the hero always gets the girl and slays evil.

Shen Qingqiu flips his fan open to hide his face. "Revenge stories," he replies.

(AU where Luo Binghe is raised by Tianlang-Jun. When Yue Qingyuan kills his father, Luo Binghe resolves to settle the score.)
I tend to be wary of fics that give Binghe an alternate backstory, because… characterization… but, as it turns out, characterization is what this fic excels at! It has a kind of characterization that invokes the same reaction as very good meta in me, which is to say, I find myself chewing over the interpretation it’s offering, considering where it’s coming from, holding it up against my own interpretations, and debating whether I should reevaluate certain aspects of my understanding of the characters and canon. This is always super satisfying to me! Among other things, it manages to balance Binghe being shaped by the differing circumstances of his backstory while still feeling like Binghe, and also features what might very well be the best Yue Qingyuan characterization I’ve ever come across.
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► I’ve finished Digimon Ghost Game! I’m simultaneously thrilled to have finally completed it, and so so so sad that it’s over. I love this series so much ;_; I have some criticisms with the ending (specifically: certain elements from the last ten minutes of the final episode), but everything up until that point was amazing, and it’s definitely a contender for my all-time favorite Digimon series, fighting it out with my nostalgic affection for Adventure/Adventure 02.

My usual episode-specific reactions/thoughts beneath the cut! beneath the cut )

► About a week or two ago, I found out that a Digimon Ghost Game boxset is being released this fall, and got so excited…! Until I realized that it’s being released in Japan. Meaning, no English subtitles. Still, fingers crossed that it will eventually get an English boxset as well at some point… this is absolutely a series I want to watch and rewatch, without having to shell out for a subscription.

365 | top five meme

Saturday, 16 May 2026 11:51 am
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A meme I saw on tumblr, adjusted for dreamwidth:
Ask me what my top five of anything is, and I will answer!
(In my case, probably unranked, because I am not typically a person who is good at choosing a top favorite anything, haha.)

In that vein, feel very free to request more than one category/list! <3
straightforwardly: a black & white cat twining around a girl's legs; both are outside. (Default)
At work this morning, I was having meta thoughts about Digimon Ghost Game, the main three Digimon’s ultimate forms, the parallels between how each of them evolved to mega for the first time, and what I think those things say about them and their character arcs. beneath the cut )
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Time for more Digimon Ghost Game thoughts! This time for episodes 50-60. Getting so close to the end… I can’t believe I only have seven episodes left. beneath the cut )
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I mentioned in my last entry that I’m reading The Late Lord Byron. I only ever read from my phone/ereader during my commutes/lunch breaks (mostly because I do Not want to be juggling a physical book while on the go), and the Byron book is something I’m reading physically, so I needed another thing to read as well. So this morning, I ended up starting another nonfiction read—not history this time, but something that falls into what I consider the “nature/animals” category—in this case, about modern ecology, nature, and the environment.

…only a few pages in, that book mentioned Lord Byron. I just had to laugh; apparently, I can’t escape him!

(For further context: this is not the first, "Unexpectedly, Lord Byron!" moment I've had this year. I've been haunted by him since at least April. Even on my vacation a few weeks back, I kept running into him... and no, I did not go to England, lol.)
straightforwardly: a black & white cat twining around a girl's legs; both are outside. (Default)
A trio of miscellaneous small things that I’ve been wanting to post about:

► I’ve been attempting to make a sourdough starter! Following these instructions. I think I succeeded? At the very least, it’s bubbly, smelling nice, and rises after feeding, so I’m assuming that means it was a success, haha. I haven’t had a chance to actually use it yet because it hit the “ready to use” stage in the midst of a busy week… but maybe next weekend? I’ve cautiously put it into the fridge for now, so hopefully it’ll all work out. (If anyone has recommendations for recipes, I’m all ears!)

► Because of a certain book + newly released movie adaptation’s recent increase in popularity, I keep finding myself seeing people talking about “eridians” but (initially) misreading it as Eridan… as in Eridan Ampora from Homestuck… imagine that reality, where Eridan Ampora suddenly had a huge surge of popularity in this year of 2026.

(I actually read Homestuck fic* for the first time in who knows how long last week, but the two facts are, as far as I can tell, genuinely unrelated.

* specifically, this series of three fics totalling 40K, which I had fun with! despite one of the main characters focused on being one I don’t particularly care for [Gamzee].)

► I’ve started reading The Late Lord Byron by Doris Langley Moore, which I’m enjoying so far, though it’s odd reading a history about “what happened after Byron died” when I only have a shaky understanding of his life, one mostly formed through references to him in other histories and fictional narratives I’ve consumed. I do find it retroactively amusing that my initial reaction to the opening pages of this book was, “huh, wonder who this Hobhouse person is? never heard of him in relation to Byron before”, because now, even though I’m only two chapters in, I’m pretty certain he would have been devastatingly offended by that.

Anyways, that’s not the reason I wanted to bring this up! The main reason is because, through this book, I’ve discovered an anecdote about Byron that instantly made him 1000% more sympathetic to me: it seems that he had a trio of pet geese! They were originally meant to be fattened up and later served as a meal, but he became so fond of them that they were spared; apparently, they “frequently wandered into Byron’s villa” and were “always kindly received”, and he even made provisions for them to be taken care of while he was abroad. I am very charmed.
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I beat Pokémon Shield! Last weekend, in fact, but for various reasons (work, commute troubles, issues with my hands/wrists that have also been getting in the way of my desire to write fic sobsob) I haven’t had a chance to pull my notes together into an update until now. beneath the cut )
straightforwardly: a black & white cat twining around a girl's legs; both are outside. (Default)
A second entry in one day, mainly because I was watching more Digimon Ghost Game and realized my episode notes were piling up! This time, covering episodes 39-49.

I continue to be, quite frankly, absolutely obsessed. Among other things, I’m continuing to love how so many of the episodes are about exploring different subgenres of horror within the context of Digimon, and how it’s not afraid to go harder than one would expect in regards to those horror elements! It’s so good <3 beneath the cut )

I love this series so much. <3 I can't believe I only have 18 episodes left! I simultaneously want to have all the canon knowledge, but also do not feel ready for the series to end.
straightforwardly: a black & white cat twining around a girl's legs; both are outside. (Default)
I don’t think I’ve ever anticipated the release date of a book like how I’m anticipating the release of the sequel to Long Live Evil. I’m not a “day of release” kind of girl in general, when it comes to my media—I’m often the one kicking back and waiting for the price to drop instead. But with this book, I've preordered it, I have the actual release date memorized, and while it’s not an all-consuming obsession, I have been thinking about it quite a bit over the past few days especially, trying to “plan” my reading of it (as well as, hopefully, yet another reread of the first book in the days before) in a way that’s very much not the norm for me.

This is probably why I ended up dreaming about the book the night before last. beneath the cut )

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