xparrot | Entries tagged with squee

Well, that finale made us SQUEEEEEE. Out loud. Our poor traumatized cats.

joonscribble called it last month and we were hoping, but I still can't believe that they actually did it!!! When the guy said "she", OH but we shrieked!

This totally makes up for BBC Sherlock's handling of Irene. So perfect~! Not only does it mean that Irene can remain The Woman and fundamental to Sherlock without at all interfering with Watson's absolute significance - but Irene did it, she defeated Holmes, completely. It was Joan who defeated her.

(For now. Her lawyer may have a difficult case, but given their client, they are going to be very, very motivated. Or else Irene might just decide to do her time and run her operation from a nice safe prison cell, like any good mastermind...)

(OH though, how much more do I want Watson to do Reichenbach instead of Holmes? It's so perfectly set up for it, since Moriarty is going to have a different target now...though as

cesperanza pointed out, as it turns out she's already put Sherlock through the grief that Holmes traditionally subjects Watson to...)

Also, HE NAMED A BEE AFTER HER, AWWWWWW. Holmes & Watson forever & ever & ever <333

So right now is a great time for platonic m/f friendship on TV, much to my joy!

In the last couple weeks we watched all that's out of Elementary - highly recommended! It does a lot of remarkable things effortlessly and unselfconsciously. Lucy Liu's Joan Watson is amazing and awesome, not the least of which for being a relatable, recognizable human being who also happens to be an Asian-American woman. While when the show was first announced I was disappointed by the changes they'd made to Watson's character (ex-doctor and not ex-military), in the context of the show and the version of Sherlock Holmes they're telling, it makes sense. And she is still absolutely Watson, long-suffering and loyal, if a bit snarkier about it than some.

But then that's par for the course - one of the things that makes Elementary's Sherlock so great is because everyone actually calls him on his shit. And he actually listens (sometimes, to some people), and he tries (even if he doesn't always succeed). ( More squee, no spoilers to speak of )

We've also started watching SyFy's Warehouse 13, and while that isn't what I'd call good TV - oh my god it is so frigging cute it's almost painful. It's not for everyone - it's corny and shallow and obvious, but if you like cute made-family teams being cute together while dealing with unabashedly implausible scifi artifacts, you owe it to yourself to watch this show.

It does have a couple other points to recommend it. Not only does it have more major female characters than male for a good part of the show, but the central partnership is a male and a female agent, both young and white and attractive, who bicker but love working together and love each other and have ABSOLUTELY ZERO UST. Their relationship is sibling-esque all the way without any hint of romance; they're genuinely happy and supportive for their partner whenever they find romance elsewhere. Meanwhile to make up for the lack of sexual chemistry there, it is positively bubbling between the female agent and H.G. Wells. Who is a (canonically bi) woman. Played by the preternaturally gorgeous Jaime Murray of Hustle. (She's also kind of an arch-villain, sometimes, depending, which tension only ups the femslashiness (very deliberate femslash; at her introduction she was briefly paired with Pete, but since then it's Myka who she has all the intense interactions with.))(And while I don't think that 'ship has actually gone canon, H.G./Myka is the most popular pairing in the fandom by an order of magnitude...)

But mostly it's just adorable action-comedy with lots of hugs and goofy scifi peril to the characters in every episode (I swear, every single ep has at least a moment of h/c or worry with someone). It reminds me more of SFC's old Invisible Man than perhaps any other show I can think of; it's a show that knows exactly what it is, and is very happy to be that, with no ambitions to take itself more seriously. And since I adored I-man, and am a sucker for cute teamy h/c, yeah, am enjoying the heck out of W13!

I was going to read The Hunger Games (it's been on my list - by which I mean my bedroom floor) for months now - but then I remembered my uncle had lent me the Percy Jackson books so I figured I should read those first (they're reasonably fun and do some cute things with Greek myth, but halfway through the 3rd book I can't say I'd recommend them, the stories are on the repetitive side and the characters haven't grabbed me) and then I remembered that the last Artemis Fowl book was supposed to be in the works.

I looked it up and lo! It came out last year! So, since I couldn't wait for shipping, that became my first actual purchase for my Kindle (my collection is pretty much entirely fanfic and public domain books) and gave me a delightful afternoon's reading. Overall, loved it as much as I've loved the rest of the series, even if the ending got me a bit. Erm. Tense. (...meaning I probably will have to reread it, as I started speed-reading to find out how it worked out and I tend to miss details when I put the pedal to the floor) The Artemis Fowl series has to be one of the most consistent series I've ever read - while the story and characters change and evolve enough to keep it interesting, it keeps to its core elements from first book to last (and my impression is that the author's voice remains constant, too, though I'd have to go back and reread to be sure. Which I might well do.) Meaning if you don't care for the first book, I wouldn't bother reading the rest. On the other hand if you enjoyed it, yes, buy all the books and buckle up because it's a romping ride all the way through!

Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian continues and concludes the tradition of the series in grand style. And by tradition I mean Eoin Colfer's uncanny ability to write to my personal fiction kinks like he's got a direct line to my id. These books maybe more than any others I regret not existing when I was a kid, because as much as I enjoy them now, they would've been closing on a religious experience to my young un-kink-jaded self. I mean, The Last Guardian has mutual attempted self-sacrifice in a fantastic take on the old sucker-punch scenario, Holly attempting to knock Artemis out to make the world-saving sacrifice herself, only to have Artemis pull a fast one on her anyway and knock her out (you can't blame Holly, it's Artemis!) Do you know how many times I'd have reread that as a small thing? (at least three or four times more than I'm going to reread it now... :D)

Also Artemis and Holly's best-friendery is oh so delicious, and stays firmly as friendship (while not ruling out the possibility for more developing). Plus Artemis's baby brothers are begging for their own sequel series. Which I don't think there are any plans for, though...

Colfer has said he intended for the series to be a trilogy that then he had more ideas for, but he's decided it's time to move on, and I entirely respect his choice to end on a high note. At the same time, if he does happen to get a new idea to pick up on any of the loose threads dangling about that world, I will be be there with bells on!

Just saw it again - if anything it's better a second time! (also we just went out for shawarma for dinner and it was delicious, so thank you for the rec, Tony Stark!)

( nothing but squee & flailing )

Speaking of Loki - TOP SECRET for

tomomichi's eyes only, everyone else can move along, nothing to see here...( Loki theorizing )

The longer I go without posting, the harder it is to remember all the things I've watched and listened to that I wanted to post about, and thus the more I hesitate to make a post at all. So, in the interests of clearing my journal palate, a list in no particular order, chronological, importance, or otherwise:

Watched Thor a few days ago to prepare for the upcoming Avengers movie and rather enjoyed it. Which isn't to say it's good; it's rather a terrible movie and my friends who hated it are quite justified. I liked it anyway! Thor was a big ol' sweetheart (even if regrettably clothed for too much of the movie), Loki was scarcely a respectable trickster but made up for it by being the most woobie woobie who ever woobied (he made s1 SV!Lex look hard-hearted and unsympathetic), the romance was so laughably pastede-on-yay that it hardly even could irritate (why didn't they give him like a month on earth and develop the relationship in a montage? It would've taken all of two minutes and been 100% more believable), and I personally thought Asgard was beautifully designed, very Final Fantasy-esque architecture-what's-architecture-we-have-computers!

Watched the 2 seasons of Lost Girl - hey you guys, you should totally be watching this! It's not a great show but it's fun and cute and most importantly it has Kenzi, who is made of amazing and hilarity and awesome outfits. It reminds me of early Angel: tS in tone and theme except that it's in Toronto instead of LA and Angel is a brooding young succubus instead of a brooding old vampire and doesn't brood as much as she'd like because she has Kenzi, who makes brooding difficult. And there is adorable f-f friendship and f/f romance (and m/f; Bo is bi, but really so, not just kisses-guys-for-love-and-girls-for-titillation.) And m-f friendship as well, and werewolves and sirens and all other manner of wacky fae, and Canadian actor bingo, and an outrageous bodyswap ep. And did I mention Kenzi?

Watched the new Sherlock as it came out but tragically missed that fandom train. I have reasons but I'm honestly not sure if they're why my squee-tickets never arrived, or if it's the lack of squee which makes me critical. Either way, I am sad not to be joining the fun. Le sigh!

Not fanning on Sherlock has not kept me from fanning on the actors, mind, because Martin Freeman is kind of fantastic and I can't wait to see him in The Hobbit, and Benedict Cumberbatch is Benedict Cumberbatch.

Especially because Benedict Cumberbatch is also Martin! I spent rather more time than I expected or preferred on planes and in airports this holiday season (thank you, global warming, for your thoughtful gift of ice, snow, and more ice and snow) which allowed me to listen to all of Cabin Pressure, which is more hysterical than a radio comedy about a charter airline has any right to be. Also more cute and lovable. Plus, Douglas! (Who originated Javert and I really want to know if that's the recording of Les Mis I'm familiar with. Certainly he has the voice for it! Roger Allam and Anthony Head having a relaxed&authoritative pilot-off is a gift to all fangirls...)

Have started watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - only a couple eps in and still getting used to Miki playing Roy Mustang, but looking forward to seeing more!

Finished posting my Ben 10 fic; still have to post the epilogue of Tiger Hunt, if only I can write the last scene...

Still haven't moved over to Dreamwidth though I keep meaning to - have been trying to get all my fic off my journal and onto AO3 before I do, and still need to replace some stories with links, but as of now I believe all my fic is on AO3, from my very first stuff to present day!

So I am 100 pages into Memory!

Recent thoughts, in no particular order and with no regard for coherency:

( spoilers for this and the books before )

Okay now must go read more!

So when that list of SF books went around, I mentioned I'd never read Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan books, upon which someone kindly (evilly) linked me to the free e-book versions. So I popped them on my Kindle and started reading. Really enjoyed Cordelia's stories (insanely awesome (awesomely insane) female character FTW!), and Cordelia & Aral's mature, incredibly supportive romance and relationship (het OTP FTW!) Then I started reading Warrior's Apprentice.

Then I told my brother to read them. And my roommate. And

gnine (that was a week and a half ago. She's finishing Cryoburn as I write this. Have I ever mentioned my sister's marathoning abilities are unbelievable?)

I knew the series was award-winning scifi, and I knew it had to have good characters from the number of fangirls who liked it. I'd also heard tell of h/c (Bujold is totally an h/c fangirl, whether or not she would use the term herself. She's also a whumper - there's quite a bit of 'hmm, the plot seems to be slowing down - time to beat on the hero!' but there's some sweet moments as well.) What no one ever mentioned was how funny the books can be. Some of them moreso than others; the whole series is incredibly manic depressive (just like its hero) - bouncing between hilarious and tragic within a few pages. ...Which, I've come to realize, is pretty much my favorite kind of fiction (see Gintama!) (Not that the Vorkosigan books are parody; they're pretty straight action/hard scifi/mystery. But they keep making me unexpectedly laugh out loud. And that's definitely a good part of how hard I've fallen for them...)

I could go on about how much I adore Miles and his amazing ability to take absolutely anything and run with it (to infinity and beyond, to legend! Also bankruptcy!) and all the snowballing escapades this gift gets him into, and how much I love how he's maybe the only genre hero I've ever read with a really solid, functional, caring relationship with both his parents (so much love for Cordelia & Aral, I don't even. And I love how Miles is so completely their son, Aral's mastery of strategy and Cordelia's unstoppable will in one package seemingly too small to contain it). Not to mention all the Dendarii, and Gregor, and Ivan (Ivan! <333) - but I'm about halfway through Brothers in Arms and it was a terrible place to stop, so I'm going back to reading now.

But thank you, everyone who recced them - and if you haven't read them yet, definitely give them a go!

(Ah, also, I'm reading in chronological order, so please please please no spoilers for Brothers in Arms or even vague references to any books after - I'm pretty much unspoiled and am enjoying not having any clue what's going to happen to Miles next!)

ANDREW HUSSIE YOU INSANE PSYCHOTIC AMAZING BASTARD.

13+ minutes of animation - yeah, that was worth the couple months' wait. Especially since I'm going to have to watch it half a dozen times to grasp what the hell happened (is happening? will happen? was to have happened?)

(~~kitty~~ doggy ears!!!!! ...I might've teared up a bit.)

Have been catching up on the One Piece anime with the bro (and

gnine now that she's here visting). And yeah, the anime is but a weak reflection of the manga (the pacing is usually off since they're stretching the manga as far as it can go, so it takes forever for anything to happen; and the art is all over the place, ranging from decent to hardly watchable - what I wouldn't give for the whole series to look like Strong World) but it's still OP. We're almost through Marineford, which I especially appreciate animated because it got hard to follow in the manga, though yeah, I wish the animation was up to the EPIC. (The scope of that battle is unbelievable; I can't think of anything like it--definitely not in fight shounen, with its usual orderly one-to-one hero and opponent ratio. Maybe some of the cross-series events in American superhero comics? But even those tend not to go down in one place, with so many fighters of insane strength and powers - and that's not even getting into the emotional side, both the personal stories and the world-changing significance of the war.)

I love the way OP shifts gears - the first time it happens is in Arlong Park, when you start to realize that this fun little kid's adventure series has more to it than shiny action and silly antics; and it keeps upping the ante as it goes, changing and expanding and widening its scope, both breadth and depth, while never losing its original heart (or absurdity!) (That's something manga tends to do better anyway. Supernatural started out this small, personal show about two brothers, and then tried to expand into an epic about saving the world, but it couldn't handle the expansion; it never quite succeeds in making you care about the fate of the planet, beyond what that means to the Winchesters and their little family. While as series like Babylon 5 and Avatar: TLA do a fantastic job with epic, universe-spanning stories, but they present as such from the get-go; they're about one-of-a-kind heroes in one-of-a-kind situations, making history. But fight shounen often start small and personal and scale up into saving the universe - Dragonball started out as the story of a girl looking for wish-granting magic balls for lack of anything better to do. OP develops into something more complicated than most, however, between its increasingly huge cast and lack of a single dominant villain to defeat, and with its weird mix of obvious protagonists and antagonists but increasingly complex morality - you usually know who you're supposed to be cheering for, but they're not always on the same side...)

(...and now I want a good Marineford/Ace & Luffy vid to Shinedown's "Diamond Eyes". There's a few OP AMVs to it on youtube already (it's hard not to see it, with the refrain of "the story is just beginning/I say goodbye to my weakness/so long to the regret/and now I see the world through diamond eyes"), but nothing quite like what I'm picturing. Does anyone have any recs for OP AMVs? Especially in the mood for action - would love something as fantastic as ManyLemon's Sail On with later footage.)

The last week was pretty spectacular -

gnine was here, because

naye and

friendshipper were also coming to town, and we gathered together for several days of wild fangirling and squee and general hijinx. So much fun, I can't even say! (Even if

skuldchan sadly couldn't make it, so we missed the opportunity to tease her and

naye about being overly adorable)(okay, we got in a little teasing anyway, because seriously, adooooorable! XD) (And

friendshipper's husband happened to hit it off with my bro; they spent most of the time jabbering in computer-geek lingo at least as incomprehensible as our fangirling and playing Go.) So yes, definitely have to do it again sometime!!

There was White Collar squee, and Highlander DVD extras (multiple takes of the Comes a Horseman car confrontation are all the more interesting when

gnine & I still have the original scene memorized. Eheheh.) We also inflicted a bit of Gintama on

friendshipper (she laughed! Though we didn't get to either the drama or the real crack...next time!) And she in turn subjected us to Sanctuary: The Tesla Edition (on the one hand, omg such a bad show; the writing makes SGA look like...well, not Shakespeare, but Star Trek, at least? OTOH, Tesla is indeed made of snarky swishy vampiric awesome. Plus Amanda Tapping! And Chris Heyerdahl! And Peter Wingfield!! I would so be watching the show anyway if it were all about them and less about pretty young people who can't act.)

Now I have to settle back into regular life. ...And catch up on the last Homestuck update. (in which OMG ( spoilers!! )

As threatened! And because I can't be the only one who's been noticing the growing number of fic on AO3 and wondering what was up with that (I got it confused with Homestar Runner for a good couple months there...) and then if/when you do look it up, you end up on MSPaint Adventures baffled (or possibly worse, the MSPA Wiki, which in my experience is terrifying to the uninitiated.)(And then I spent two hours on it last night when I ran out of new pages...)

The brief explanation: [mostly spoiler-free, provided you don't click the links; I mention a few future things but trust me, there's a lot going on and I'm not giving any of the surprises away.] Homestuck is the latest and longest-running story on MSPA (unrelated to previous adventures, none of which I've read.) It's nominally a webcomic, insofar as you have to call it something; it might be easier to think of it as a detailed walk-through to an illustrated text adventure game that doesn't actually exist. It's not particularly interactive (with the exception of a few fun little RPG-style flash mini-games); it's not a game but an unusual narrative device, with the story being told mostly through text-adventure style descriptions and commands, and chat logs.

( This got long, so I'm cutting to spare you. )

So, that's Homestuck. If you're still not sure, I'd suggest going to the beginning and starting to read. The opening is mostly nonsense; the story takes a bit to get going, and you can skim until you get to the first chat logs. I'd recommend going through to the end of Act 1 before you really decide how you feel - that's only a fraction of the full work, but it'll give you a decent impression. (Oh, and I'd try looking at it in different browsers, or else turning off fonts - for some reason the primary fixed-width text is bolded weird and hard for me to read in Firefox, but looks fine in Chrome.)

Okay, in some short time from now I will make an honest attempt to pimp Homestuck, because I think actually quite a lot of you might enjoy it for a variety of reasons. But that will wait until I'm entirely caught up, which I'm not yet, because Act 5 is looooooong. (also that this page made me laugh hysterically for a minute straight says things about my sense of humor, none of them complimentry.)

Right now I just have to mention that at present, a good 50% of my Homestuck reading experience is me going (sometimes aloud):

OH KARKAT I LOVE YOU!!!

WAIT WHYYYYY DO I LOVE YOU WHEN YOU ARE SUCH AN OBNOXIOUS OBSCENE PATHETIC LITTLE TROLL AND HOW COULD YOU SAY THAT TO HIM/HER AND I'VE CHANGED MY MIND, I DON'T ACTUALLY LIKE YOU AT ALL BECAUSE YOU ARE SUCH AN OBNOXIOUS OBSCENE AND SO, SO, SO, PATHETIC AND CONFUSED AND DAMAGED LITTLE...

...

...WAAAH KARKAT I LOVE YOU!!!

Gintama 211, second ep into the Kabuki-chou arc, and DAMN. I love this series because of, not in spite of, all its crack - but that once a year or so when it drops the comedy and gets its fight shounen on....yowza. The hiatus didn't change that any. And they were clearly saving their budget for this one, too, because it looks gorgeous:

( a bit of spoilery illustrated squee. warnings: have I mentioned recently how I love Gin-san way more than I really ought to? and also how I love seeing my favorites in pain? )

Having now read through ch.597:

( Marineford arc & aftermath - reactions, squee, etc. And massive spoilers. )

Also I've been watching the anime's Water 7 with the bro (he's never gotten around to reading the manga, so the anime is mostly how he gets his OP) - and even though the animation quality is sub-par compared to Oda's gorgeous art, and they stretch out the fights and the gags and everything else shamelessly (LOLOL how just about every trick of animating manga that Gintama makes fun of is played totally straight in OP), the story's still fantastic and the seiyuu are amazing (Tanaka Mayumi as Luffy, oh my god. And Yamaguchi Kappei damn near rips his own heart out.) and the "Oitsumerareta" BGM ("Cornered", a.k.a the "You do NOT hurt Monkey D. Luffy's nakama" theme) still makes me want to cheer. (and rewatch Arlong Park. I want to find someone to show the show to...that's the one advantage of OP not being the most popular series over here; there's still people you can share it with, and it's fun to watch someone be captivated for the first time...)

So you know how there are some things that become super popular, and you can't quite figure out why? Not even the someone-probably-sold-their-soul mysteries like Twilight, but something like Harry Potter, which is largely a great, fun series that I'd have happily recommended to people, but I don't quite get how it became a world-wide phenomenon, as opposed to, say, something by Diana Wynne Jones.

One Piece is currently the best-selling manga series of all time in Japan (most of the new volumes are coming out and promptly breaking sale records that were set only a short time before by previous volumes) and you know what? I don't have any questions about that whatsoever.

Which is to say, yeah, Oda Eiichirou still owns my fangirl soul.

The continuity alone makes me swoon. You like continuity? Oda plays the long game. As in, something happens in chapter 1 (Shanks's haki) that doesn't really come up again until chapter 434 - around the time the series was celebrating its tenth anniversary. And it's not explained for more than 50 chapters after that. And the thing is, this isn't an annoying tease as it might sound like, because when you first read it you don't realize it's a plot point - but when the reveal finally happens, you can go back and immediately realize, OH, that's what that was about! Rereading the series is all the more fun when there are so many little details that you pick up on, knowing their significance later, and there's practically nothing that's jarring, that seems out-of-place or contrary to later happenings.

I was calling OP one of my favorite series before it even got to what is now my favorite arc in the series - and yup, having just finished Water 7 (my first time reading it straight through, rather than week-by-week as it came out) it's still my fave. Will have to see what I think when I've totally caught up, but the Water 7/CP9 saga, with its multiple intersecting and overlapping plot & char arcs, is the storytelling equivalent of tossing half a dozen wild badgers into the air and then juggling them without so much as getting your finger nipped. It's almost breathtaking. (When it's not making you screech with hysterical laughter or sob like a baby...)

( a bit more wild squee, spoilerific through the end of Water 7 but not beyond )

There are about a thousand more reasons I could go into about how I love Oda's writing - like how doesn't sell anyone short; putting aside the at-this-point-literal cast of thousands, the series is up to 9 main characters, and barring one exceptional plot arc, they're always a major part of the story; if any of them happens to be your favorite, I don't think you'd feel shorted. He's nearly as good with the relationships within those chars (and outside them) - with so many possibilities, there are some that have barely (so far) been explored, but they're almost certain to be eventually, while at the same time he doesn't forget the relationships that were established at the very beginning of the series. And that's not even mentioning my adoration for his art.

What it comes down to is, yup, still one of my favorite stories of all times - maybe my very favorite, depending on how it turns out in the end? - and totally worthy of its best-selling title. When it comes to shounen manga, at least, you can't get better than this.

Have seen the first 6 eps of Tiger & Bunny with the bro - mucho enjoyment but then we're both weak to superheroes. It's not really a superhero parody so much as a straight superhero show that happens to fall on the sillier end of the spectrum, though it seems to be slowly sliding to the more serious side, as they do. And may answer the age-old question: if Bruce Wayne and Darkwing Duck were forced by their corporate sponsors to become partners, who would snap and kill the other first? Seiyuu bonus: +30 in sexiness for Hirata Hiroaki (mmmm) and +42 in brain breakage for my beloved Tsuda Kenjirou as the flaming-in-every-meaning-of-the-word Fire Emblem (?!!?!?!?111!!?!)

In other superhero news, Peter David wrote the last ep of Ben 10, which was a not-really-disguised-at-all anti-Gitmo ep. No really. (Apparently it was mostly Dwayne McDuffie's idea, though he wasn't the writer. Not at all surprising, but damn, it makes his loss hurt that much more.) (Also it aired on Friday 4/29, interesting timing to say the least). Torn between OMGLOLWHUT at political soapboxing on a ridiculous kid's cartoon and crying honest tears of rage because seriously, if you can reduce the moral complexity of a situation to the black&white ethics of a superhero world in 20 minutes, it's not that fucking complex.

Am up to Skypiea in One Piece reread (or not re- in this case because for various reasons I've never read or watched about half of Skypiea) and love this series so, so much. I think my only real criticism of it (other than the lack of nakama-hugs, siiigh) is that the shounen fights sometimes get a little long - which is an aberration for me because I love fight shounen battles (though more animated than in manga, where sometimes I have trouble following the action), but with OP I'm always so anxious to get back to the plots and characters that sometimes I'll start tapping my foot. Still is my favorite manga ever.

Also I've said it before but I love Odacchi's female chars THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIxa million-IIIS much. ( squeeing about the lovely ladies of OP, a little spoilery through Arabasta )

In non-animated news, regarding the latest ep of NCIS (8x23) - haven't been watching most of this season but

gnine recced this ep to me for a specific reason, namely OT4 FOREVER AND ALWAYS ZOMG: a 4-way hug!!!! <3333 That's it, the show could end now and I'd be happy~... (also in the previous ep, Ziva calling McGee "not just any partner" AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Also, mostly for my own reference, I have still been watching SPN (AHAHAHAHAH the only thing right about this show is HOW WRONG IN EVERY WAY it is. Not content with having killed off almost every recurring female char they've ever had, now they're going back and rekilling women they've killed before, and bringing back cool one-shot female chars to kill - oh, Amber Benson, whyyyyy?)

...That being said, I would so watch the Castiel &Crowley show. It's like the Odd Couple! With more blood and sex! (Okay, that last might be wishful thinking, but then again, with this show's crack count, who knows?)

And

gnine & I will be watching SV's finale this Friday...Lex is back, we have no choice. Pity us!

New Gintama - waaaaaai~~~! Absolutely as awesome as I expected it to be, if not more, since they went ahead and started with the 2 years later arc!! Which makes sense but I didn't see it coming, and yeah, it's as hysterical as I knew it would be. Especially Shinpachi's scream (gif courtesy of

nemissa) which, I won't lie, was what I was most looking forward to seeing animated from this arc (that and Okita, which will come next week - can't wait~!)

In the last week I also went and reread/read the whole Saiyuki manga series (I'd never read the second half of Gaiden or Reload) and oh man, it's such ridiculous, angstastic, at times nonsensical, unabashed emo-porn - and it's still one of my favorite series of all time. Minekura's art (and all her boys) are gorgeous and her characters and stories push so many buttons of mine. Nothing brings the h/c quite like Saiyuki, and their particular flavor of always-at-odds-and-pretending-not-to-care-about-each-other-although-in-truth-we-really-really-do is about as perfectly tuned to my own tastes for that kink as anything I've ever seen.

( Squee!! a bit spoilery )

Wasn't there a Gaiden OAV? Should go hunt that up...(Though I vaguely fear watching the anime, when Hakkai now will sound like Zura ^^;)

(And now I've gone and tracked down a translation of the actual Journey to the West, since it's a little odd that Saiyuki's the only version I'm really familiar with...roughly akin to Men in Tights being one's only knowledge of Robin Hood, or Merlin being your primary experience of Arthurian legend.)

Having caught up with the manga, I have to say that while it goes off course now & again (in the standard fight shounen way of occasionally losing track of plot threads and hopping haphazardly between char arcs), the latest chapter (84) makes up for it by having Stein fighting a temporarily insane Soul while being glomped by two teenage girls. Stein's face!! XDXDXDXD (that there's kind of plot reasons just makes it as ridiculous as it is crazy adorable. ^^)(Also must love Kim's "this way I get to hug the professor!)

So in my continuing saga of catching up on all the animanga I've missed (in which for some reason I keep avoiding the most popular things like OP and FMA - even though I know I love them! - to persist in reading/watching stuff nobody on my flist knows...wtf fangirl self?) I'm now reading the Soul Eater manga. I watched the anime back when it was originally airing and quite enjoyed it - it's pretty generic fight shounen, which is my kryptonite anyway, plus it's got a female protagonist and equal gender distribution of the nakama, which is very nice - up until the point where it deviated from the manga, upon which as so many anime do it went off the rails into nonsense, and ended with one of the most annoyingly disappointing conclusions of any anime I've ever seen.

Am quite enjoying the manga now - for the most part the anime was a faithful adaption, though it cut much of the really blatant and ridiculous fanservice (even for a shounen, the T&A is random - main heroine Maka isn't sexed up so much; it's mostly background chars, with ecchi cat-fights and shower scenes and panty shots and such. The mangaka apprenticed under Ayamine of GetBackers, which explains some of it, though he's not nearly as equal opportunity as Ayamine; Soul Eater (tragically) does not thus far feature the main boy kissing another boy, as part of a magic spell or anything else.) Once you page through those bits, though, it's a fun ride, and now that I'm past where the anime got to it, I'm glad to see that the manga keeps on being entertaining, providing one's recommended daily allowance of all the fight shounen staples, courage and friendship (lots of platonic het friendship! <333) and rivalry and all that good stuff.

There's also Professor Stein, who continues to be my favorite char in of spite, um, practically everything, starting with the giant bolt through his brain and ending with the part where he's a kind of sociopathic sadist...but he's feeling much better? Well, no, actually he's not, but that's part of his charm; chars struggling with insanity are something of a fiction trope kink for me (see also: every shounen series in the history of ever).

The thing about Stein is...Soul Eater is basically riffing on Harry Potter, a bunch of supernaturally gifted teens being educated at an elite academy run by a crazy-powerful wizard/death god who usually maintains the facade of a doddering old goof. And Stein is the Snape of the school, down to being an old classmate of the hero(ine)'s father. (Okay, Stein did the ~~dissection~~ bullying more than being bullied, but...) Except that everyone in Shibusen actually cares about Stein in spite of his dark-side tendencies, and fights to save him from himself even as he's fighting to save all of them, and okay, yes, I wish Harry Potter had done better by Snape, but Soul Eater is making up for it, at least so far (still have a few volumes to go and it's ongoing, so who knows how it'll end, but fight shounen do have their formulas, so...)

(Btw, if anyone knows of any Stein-centric fic/dj about the 'net, please to be linking...?)

Just finished watching Durarara!! and quite enjoyed it! And we watched Baccano! before that and I quite loved that one, too. One of the nice things about not being into anime for a few years is when you come back to it, there's a lot of great series to watch!

I'll probably have a bit more to squee about both of these; for now I 'll just say that I highly recommend them both (especially to those on my flist who have seen a bit of anime and are looking for more to watch.) They're basically unrelated series but they kind of come as a set, both being based on light novel series by the same author, and with thematic elements in common - massive casts of fantastic and crazy (some inhuman, and some with superpowers, though not necessarily the same) characters whose lives intersect in intriguing and often unexpected ways. And they're both wildly fun and compelling entertainment.

Baccano! is the anime you would get if you crossed The Sting with Fullmetal Alchemist and then had it directed by the bastard lovechild of Quentin Tarantino & Guy Ritchie. There's 1930s gangsters (complete with some of the most ridiculous Engrish names you will ever see - there's a character named Jacuzzi Splot. And a train called the Flying Pussyfoot) and ultraviolence and immortality. And awesome. Lots & lots & lots of awesome. It's also notable for having one of the more chronologically complex narratives I've ever watched (the story unspools simultaneously along three different timelines, with flashbacks and changing POVs on all) - once you get into the rhythm of it it's not as hard to follow as it sounds, but the first four episodes are a lot of HUH WAIT WHO'S THAT AGAIN WHEN ARE WE NOW??

A few spoilery, squeeful, & entirely nonsensical comments below ( the cut - DO NOT READ if you haven't seen the show; seriously, this one you don't want spoiled )

Durarara!! is somewhat less off-the-walls cracktastic than Baccano!, slower paced and with less clear direction in plot, but the chars are just as compelling and the animation is gorgeous. (I'm so curious to read the books it's based on because I am trying to figure out how it works in print; much of the series is so astonishingly visual...) DRRR is also easier to follow than Baccano is at first (it helps that the char designs are more distinctive; with Baccano we kept mixing up chars. Well, makes sense - in Baccano nearly all the chars are Caucasian, and so they all look somewhat alike; while as in DRRR they're nearly all Japanese, so...) It's set in modern-day Ikebukuro in Tokyo, and the chars are an eclectic mix of schoolkids and gang members and amnesiac motorcycle-riding headless horsewomen.

(Plus it's got Shizuo & Izaya, who are kind of Ikebukuro's Ban & Ginji. That is, if Ban & Ginji's IQs were switched and Ginji didn't have electric powers but was EVIL with a capital EEEEEEEE~~~ and Ban spent most of his time genuinely wanting to kill Ginji for Very Good Reasons (mostly that capital-E-Evil thing).

But they'd understand each other! ...Well, no, they wouldn't, and they'd probably all hate each other, but the point is that I want to see Shizu-chan and Ban-chan meet. ...and likely try to kill each other. But then they could all go and kill Izaya! And go out for Russian sushi afterwards :P)

(My biggest problem with DRRR!! is that there was Not Enough Heiwajima Shizuo.)

A few more spoilery comments ( below this cut - and yeah, again DO NOT READ if you haven't seen; you don't want this one spoiled, either! )

...Wait, I seem to have said a lot here after all. Heh. My point is - SQUEE~!

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X Never Marks the Spot

excavations of a fangirl mind

Entries tagged with squee

on Elementary

on platonic m/f and fun TV

on kids' lit

on Avengers, redux

on the state of fanning

more on Vorkosigans

on Vorkosigans

on Homestuck (you didn't really think I was off that yet, did you?)

on pirates

on fanning & friends

on trying to pimp Homestuck

on Karkat

on Gintama'

more One Piece squee

a (fannish) love that lasts

on superheroes, super girls, and OT4s

on Gintama and Saiyuki

on Soul Eater, addendum

on Soul Eater (& the Harry Potter connection)

on Baccano! & DRRR!!