insaneneko

Oh my, it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted. I got a new job last year, and it just ruined the second half of it. It’s amazing how stressful things have been. I guess I was complacent in my old job, but now I’m doing new things and it’s kinda crazy. In any case, I will try to post more if only to document my fandom obsessions.

It’s depressing when your RL friends don’t share the same fandoms. :P

In any case, right this minute I’m obsessed with reading Free! fanfics. I finally caught up with the second season and had to go look for fics to see how people dealt with all that fan service. It looks like Makoto/Haru and Rei/Nagisa are super popular, which is to be expected. The one pairing I’m surprised to see (but really shouldn’t be) is Rin/Ai. Since I found Ai’s character rather blah, I haven’t read any fics with that pairing. They’ve been fine as secondary pairings, though. I don’t think I could read primarily Rei/Nagisa. They are both characters I think of as spices. A little is good, too much is…too much. Especially since they both seem so…flaming. Even in that anime, they seem spectacularly so.

So, the pairing I’ve mostly read is Makoto/Haru. It’s the one that I like the best and found the most natural. My favorite fics so far:

How to Train Your Human by nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare, a merman/fireman AU (there are a lot of mermen AUs in this fandom, but then….fanservice ending themes will do that) that is just plain awesome. Haru is a merman who has been caught and experimented upon until he is rescued by Makoto the fireman. It’s a long, meaty, hilarious, sweet story. The science is utterly ridiculous, the twists and turns are also ridiculous, the angst buttons are pushed pretty darn hard at times, but the core of it is just pure awesome. Haru as alien trying to understand humans is pure comedy gold, and the rest of the cast as Makoto’s friends who help him out are great.

How to Read Your Best Friend by themorninglark is a MakoHaru is so sweet it teeters on saccharine, but it amazingly stays on the right side. It’s a how they get together fic. Haru is so dorky and Makoto is the perfect best friends from forever. Short and sweet. Nagisa plays the catalyst in just the way I like him used.

sometimes i think the stupidest things by sparklecringe is another how they get together fic, but this one is longer and way more explicit. Also features dorky Haru and Makoto as the perfect best friend. Nagisa really shines in this one, even though…just…so…flaming. But the way he helps the two out as they flail into the relationship they were meant to have is great.

In a change of pace, I really liked this short Sousuke/Haru fic: 1.34% Au by lonelyantics. It’s a post-series fic that is short and fun. I don’t really like Sousuke in the anime, but I kinda like this version and how he interacts with Haru.

There are more fics I like, I’ll try to post on them soon (before I forget about them).

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For Fall 2014 anime, I ended up watching Mushishi Zoku and Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso. I thought this second half of the second season of Mushishi a bit weak. There were a bunch I was very meh about, while there seemed to be more depressing ones. I prefer poignant, rather than depressing.

I struggled with Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso. I truly disliked how the anime was portraying how Kaori, Tsubaki and Ryouta bullied Kousei and minimized his trauma. But I kept watching because 1) classical music and b) pretty. Luckily, Kousei’s had a breakthrough so I think I’ll be able to enjoy this anime more. It really is so pretty, and I love the rivals who have shown up. I want more of them and less of the other three, frankly. (Especially Kaori. Ugh. She has shades of manic pixy dream girl with the whole pall of death hanging over her and I can't really stand her.)

I think for Spring 2015 I’m really only going to watch Kuroko no Basket season 3. The rest of the lineup has looked quite unappealing so far.

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I came across two lovely piano covers by fireteamtorch piano on youtube:

A/Z, the ending from Aldnoah Zero
Rage On, the opening from the Free!

I like both of the original songs, but the piano versions are so pretty.

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Some random AMVs:

Natsume Yuujinchou

Something Beautiful. Video quality sucks, but the song is pretty and appropriate.

Nyanko Sensei is a MEAN KITTY!. Hilarious.

Echo. Every clip of sad child Natsume set to an appropriately sad song.

Summer Wars

The OZ Network. The Social Network trailer audio done with Summer Wars video.

I've started looking at Japanese fanfics and it really is nice that the dialog is a lot more natural. The things I'm glad I don't see from English fics:

1. Bluenette to mean blue-haired person. WTF is up with that?? I hate these bizarre fan-words. Using "raven" for black-haired person as opposed to a bird also drove me nuts in Naruto fics (as in "the raven looked up").
2. You can't have a work subordinate Kuroko call Akashi "Akashi-kun" (at least, not in Japan). NO.
3. Eating cereal for breakfast. I know it's not uncommon in Japan, but at the same time it's not *that* common. When it's paired with taking a shower in the morning I can't help but think we aren't in Japan anymore.
4. Using "heterochromic" for Akashi's eyes. The word just sticks out like a sore thumb to me.

Haven't found a really great writer or story yet, but I just started looking. I found a couple of decent sites, but the ones I like the most have the smallest number of fics. :P

A funny coincidence: Murasakibara loves "Mauibou" (Umaibou), right? I'd never had any before, but they bought some at work (from *Sam's Club*, of all places) for an event and had extras, so I got to try one (or two or three...)! It was the corn potage flavor. The salt and sweet flavors are well balanced with the crunch factor, making me want to buy my own huge pack of Umaibou to gorge myself on. Too bad I don't burn crazy amounts of calories by just existing, like Murasakibara.

I’m in love with AUs where the GoM go to different schools than canon*. Two I’ve read:

Toutouvers by Lys ap Adin has Aomine coming back from the brink of despair/apathy and Kuroko not. The two of them and Momoi go to Toutou, but Kuroko doesn’t join the basketball team. Aomine has to apologize for the past and try to get Kuroko to come back to the basketball he loves. The first two fics run through to the end of the Winter Cup, the rest are Imayoshi/Momoi fics. I loved the first two. Imayoshi is so much fun, and the way he and Momoi scheme and plan to get Kuroko and Aomine back together and to win their games is fun. The dynamic between the three ex-Teikou kids is so wonderfully complex. I like the Imayoshi/Momoi pairing as presented here, just wished the author stuck to the basketball or had more Aomine and Kuroko rather than focusing on the pairing in the later stories.

In contrast is The Moment to Arise by Branch, in which the same three ex-Teikou kids go to Seirin instead. Seirin’s system doesn’t coddle Aomine’s apathy, and Kuroko works to get Aomine to play the way he used to. Kagami is on the team (he was at *Seiho* in the other one!!!) and the dynamic between him and Kuroko and Aomine is fantastic. I really appreciate Kagami in fanfics. He’s not twisted and is a nice guy. Brash (as required as someone who grew up in America?) but not an asshole. In any case, he makes a very nice contrast to Aomine.

I want more!

I also mostly enjoyed Miracles by half_sleeping, in which the GoM (and some random other characters) are girls but play boys basketball (better than any boy, natch). I particularly like Midorima as a girl. There’s something about the prissiness of that character that works so well. Also, Kise. Because she sparkles even more as a girl. Sadly, I wasn’t that enamored by Aomine or Akashi or Kuroko** as girls in this fix, and I wasn’t that interested in the romances of each girl. Oddly, the only one I liked was Midorima/Takao.


*It’s like the Cloud time travels back to Shinra trooper/cadet days fics. Can’t. Get. Enough.

** Except for the moment when Riko tells her to take off her shirt in the beginning, not realizing she's a girl, and people freak out when they do realize she is one.

Still watching anime.

First off, am loving Gingitsune. It’s a heart-warming slice-of-life story about a girl who is the heir to a shrine and thus can see the heralds that serve at shrines. Her herald is Gintaro (voiced by Miki XD), his partner ditched a long time ago. As I’ve read in reviews online, this anime is not for the cynical. It wears its heart on its sleeve and that heart is warm and fuzzy. Sometimes it’s a bit too warm and fuzzy, but I like the characters enough that I’m willing to go along for the ride. The main girl is balanced by a boy who is also an heir to a shrine but is very closed-off. He comes to live with the girl and her father along with one the heralds from his shrine. His herald is such a little brat, but oh man have I warmed to the little thing. Immature and loud, but loves very fiercely. ^^;

I’ve also caught up with Kuroko no Basket. I fall in and out of sports manga because the games tend to go on *forever*. Watched the DVD extra episode 22.5 about the intermediate school years before most of the Generation of Miracles (my god that name is so stupid, especially when the GoM guys use the term themselves) became bastards and it was so adorable.

I started looking for fics on AO3, but the slashy stuff wasn’t that good (and I'm not sure I believe in most of the pairings) and the gen stuff was few and far between. I did find one Aomine/Kuroko fic that made me laugh and laugh, Declarations of Love in a Time of Social Media by Lys ap Adin. As far as I can tell (I’ve only watched the anime, haven’t read any of the manga) it’s a bit OOC on a lot of the characters, but the tweets are hilarious. Kise and Momoi are the best, and the ending is adorable. An excerpt:

“Aomine Daiki @awesomine

@statsuki what do you mean this wasnt what you had in mind?

Momoi Satsuki @statsuki

DAI-CHAN NO. #DaiChanNo

Aomine Daiki @awesomine

well fuck”

Another adorable and short drabble I came across was Under the Sea by Kaelin. It tickled me because it’s a mermaid parody with Aomine as a crab/lobster/something with claws and Midorima as a flounder. So cute!

I need to spend some quality looking for fics, but right now I totally can’t. Work and the holidays gets in the way of fandom… *sighs*

I also started watching Natsume Yuujinchou because someone who really liked Gingitsune kept mentioning NY and how awesome it was. I saw the first two episodes and I’m okay with it. I will keep watching to see if it’ll suck me in.

In non-anime things, I binge-listened to Welcome to Night Vale, a podcast about a surreal place called Night Vale. I can’t even begin to describe the show, but it seems to be pretty popular (in podcast circles) because I’ve heard about it on a number of different podcasts. The first time I heard of it was on the Grammar Girl podcast when she talked about the use of the negative statement that actually makes come to the very opposite conclusion.

Need to get to work, so will just post this thing even though I have more "things I'm into right now." :P