Past the Point of No Return (2 lefts and a wrong turn from easy street)

Now for the geeky post!

* I finished Mirage of Blaze book 40 about 3 weeks ago and kept meaning to post about it but never working through the inertia. ( Spoilers for the ending of Mirage of Blaze )

* Speaking of writing, insaneidiot is now friended by 199 journals. I feel like I ought to do something if it hits 200, but... well, for a start, what would I do that I don't already do? Like, probably the thing that the greatest majority would appreciate is more boyband!X, but I'm writing that ANYWAY.

Or I would be if my ability to write hadn't fled for the hills, that is, which would be the other problem; it's a little unrealistic to go around trying to think of something grand and spectacular for hitting the 200 mark when I'm TOTALLY UNPRODUCTIVE and really, it's just not going to happen.

Oh well.

(On that topic, you've probably all reached the conclusion by now that I am not doing Christmas fics this year, which is correct. The combination of insane busyness and writer's block is just not terribly conducive; I've barely written anything this year. In fact I still haven't finished LAST year's Christmas fics, SO. I might try to do something to make up for it at some point next year, however, depending.)

* After I finished Mirage of Blaze, I was a little lost for what to do with myself. Then I went on a BL manga binge, which somehow led to a  shoujo manga binge during which I read Koukou Debut (I'd read half of it before but didn't remember so went from the start), Perfect Girl Evolution, and most notably, all 130 available chapters of Skip Beat! in two days. Considering these chapters are like, 40 pages long? It was impressive. There wasn't a lot of sleep. In fact, there wasn't ANY sleep on Sunday night; I took a half hour nap before class and crawled my way through the day. I'm actually pretty impressed at my survival through that. Anyway, I love Skip Beat! with burning passion, enough to get through the inertia that's been plaguing me with watching things (seriously, I hadn't watched ANYTHING, and I mean ANYTHING, since mid August) to watch the anime, which is also shaping up to be awesome so far. I approve of the voice acting and pacing and animation. *thumbs up* But yeah, Skip Beat!, highly recommend, I want more manga right nooooow.

* Once I got somewhat back into the watching things groove, I also watched the first three episodes of Ryuusei no Kizuna. I am not entirely sold; I kind of like it, but maybe it's not just the kind of thing I'm looking for right now. Actually I suspect my hormones of playing a large role in this whole romance fest. But anyway, RnK. Not entirely sold on the themesong, the theme for Maou was heaps better and also heaps more suitable to the theme. Do like the acting. Not sure about the characters or the plot yet, though. I really need to watch more of it to form a more concrete impression, but I got distracted from it. I think I'll wait until I'm more in the mood for something along those lines. Or until I have my couches and big tv again. It's easier to feel motivated under those circumstances, really. XD

* Haven't watched Tales of the Abyss yet. I really want to, although of course it's not ALL awesomeness and some of what Becky has said about it makes me a little wary. Still, the overall verdict seems to be very much positive and I'm totally looking forward to it. I couldn't find a streamed version that wasn't TERRIBLE quality, though, and I'm no longer feeling the immediate NEED IT RIGHT NOW OMG urge I was feeling before. Also, I am wary that it will give me ideas for fics when I am incapable of doing anything about them, which is frustrating like nothing else. <<

* What I DID watch, and love the hell out of, was Coffee Prince. It was really weird for me watching a K-drama at first-- trying to figure out what all the forms of address meant, the simple fact that I couldn't understand the language and that the tone and rhythm were all so different to Japanese, the cultural differences and phrasing differences-- which I was subconsciously comparing to Japan rather than Australia, since the drama form is such a similar media but then is really different in certain other ways. But it was so, SO satisfying and I'm really glad I sat down and watched it. Talk about OTPs, you guys, I could not stop grinning and making cooing noises throughout the last, like, four episodes or so. *goo* Plus, the makeouts were seriously hot. You don't often get that out of dramas. In fact, you sometimes don't even get a single kiss, let alone hot makeouts and obvious chemistry. A++++! I went through the whole thing really rather quickly, considering it was like 17 hours long.

Only, okay, that's kind of a lie, because the file naming was completely messed up and I accidentally watched episode 10 instead of episode 7 without realising until like halfway (and even halfway I thought it was ep 8). And then I had to know what happened next, and I managed to piece together what happened in the eps I missed, so I still haven't seen 7-9. Whooooooops.

Anyway, in conclusion, I love both Eun Chan and Han Kyul to pieces and I super OTP fangirl them. <3333

Also, this reminded me of my desire to start learning other Asian languages after I finish my degree. Primarily, Mandarin and Korean. *contemplates this fact*

* One thing I have not watched and was not intending to watch because Robin Hood was physically painful to watch by about episode three is MERLIN. I first heard of it when someone recced fic on my flist that, out of curiosity, I read and was totally charmed by. Then suddenly MERLIN was everywhere, and I became increasingly more enamoured of the fic but still not totally sold on the idea of watching it (like, I manage Smallville fandom just fine without needing to put myself through the pain of actually WATCHING it)... but then I found this, and article both hilarious and also fairly convincingly in favour of the dark side: http://community.livejournal.com/merlinbbc/55898.html 

For srs, dudes are made of awesome.

On the opposite end of the scale, however, I've been reading SGA fic again and finally gave up trying to avoid spoilers for S5 since I'm so lazy about WATCHING the damn thing. And fic continues to be awesome, but I am if anything less inclined to watch if my only reward is going to be that love triangle mess and Ronon being mean to Rodney. I like Ronon. I like team. I don't want Ronon being a douche and having canon mess with the fanon of super team bonds yay. D:

* On the gaming front, you can really tell it's coming up on Christmas, because there has been an absolutely INSANE explosion of new and shiny looking games coming out lately, especially for DS. My PSP has been a little on hold recently, initially because stupid Squeenix haven't sent me the PSP case I spent my member points on like THREE WEEKS ago (did they give up in the face of my non-kanjified name or what? there's certainly nothing wrong with my address, I get stuff sent here all the time!) but also just because there's SO MUCH on the DS lately. Cid and Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon: Labyrinthe of Forgotten Time is super cute and it takes a bit more to win me over with mysterious dungeon games, generally, but I really like it. The Dragon Ball game is kind of addictive. Haven't played the Soul Eater game, but it looks good. There's also a game called Avalon Code which is apparently made by a team involved in the remakes of FFIII and IV, although not made by Squeenix. It looks super cute; I've only really watched the opening, but could be fun. There's also Valkyrie Profile DS, which is another game that's not a genre I'm usually that into but Square have managed to sell to me-- I've never played any of the VP games before, I wasn't that excited by seeing it on the SE website, but when I saw the promo for it at TGS I thought it looked kind of awesome and was worth trying out. I was playing the opening on the train yesterday, and I have to say, so far I really enjoy it. Strategy RPGs are usually not my thing, although I've been known to play them on occasion depending on the content, but I actually found the battle at the beginning heaps of fun.

Then, of course, CHRONO TRIGGER DS (!!!!! yes it deserves the exclamation marks) is coming out next Thursday (Omg, Chrono Trigger. <3) and Chocobo Fables 2 (or rather Chocobo to Mahou no Ehon: Majyo to Shoujo to Itsutsu no Yuusha) comes out next month, two days before my birthday. As for the PSP, Final Fantasy Dissidia, which I sway to and fro on but am tipping more towards "in favour" with the TGS promo video, comes out on Christmas Eve. So, lots to keep me busy. Too much, one might say, sometimes I get overwhelmed by all the sheer possibility. (But they're all so AWESOME!)

And on that note, I am done. Phew.