Cher (TW)

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 04:04:34 GMT

I love how much the character 酒 looks like, wow, look at this bottle of stuff, like it's putting spirit fingers around a bottle of booze

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A ritualistic space where movement replaces language

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 07:54:56 GMT

Things I have watched since last post (I am basically an anime watching machine right now):

• Sasaki and Miyano, a high school set BL about Miyano, a boy who likes reading BL manga but is sure he's totally straight, and Sasaki, his dreamy sempai who thought he was straight until he met Miyano and is now borrowing BL manga from him to read and trying to be cool about his gigantic crush. This is a pretty cute anime, TBH. Miyano is so worried all the boys at their all boys school will not be cool with Sasaki now that he's reading BL, and constantly worried about exchanging books on the sly, and struggles to believe he's now sharing an interest with him!!1! Meanwhile, Sasaki is constantly going through the deepest erotic torment over the most innocuous nonsense.

There's this whole arc after Sasaki confesses his feelings where Miyano wants time to figure out his own, but once he finally figures them out things keep getting in the way of his return confession!! It wasn't too dragged out, so I found it kind of charming, and I appreciate that this is a story where the teens get to be horny but the focus of their feelings is actually based on a shared interest and the friendship they've formed.

• To the end of season 2 of Kimi ni Todoke, and given what I've heard of season 3 sounds frustrating, season 2 seems like a good end. They're together, yay! Let's not look beyond that. There are cute things about this, and I do like how much focus is put on the friendships Sawako forms. But also the misunderstandings drag on just that bit too long (the bit where they both confess they like each other but somehow both still feel rejected is excruciating), and it really does remind me of the things that annoy me about shoujo romance.

• Season 2 of Hana Kimi came back and dropped the first two episodes, so I watched and enjoyed those. The OP and ED are so much better than last season's. I appreciate that this adaptation goes through the events of the manga at a fast clip, so it feels like things are actually happening.

• Currently watching The Betrayal Knows My Name, which is such a style of anime that isn't made any more, and I'm having a great time. All the rose and bloody thorns and chains images in the OP, A+ Everything is cool hair and sad superpowers dark fantasy and nothing hurts.

I also read all of:

• Given by Natsuki Kizu, to see how different it felt from the anime. There are some interesting differences, some of them just by the nature of the format, I think. Uenoyama's sister doesn't get any more depth of characterisation in the manga, but it feels more natural in this format, whereas in the anime it felt like she ever needed to be properly expanded or excised from the story. The awkward encounter between Akihiko and Haruki doesn't feel as non-consensual in the manga, which is interesting, because it definitely felt non-consensual in Given: the Movie. Though it may just be the translation I read? Either way it's good that Akihiko spends so much time afterward trying to get his shit together to make amends & etc. I do feel like the anime having actual music (that I really enjoy) adds a lot to the story, but that's natural given it's about bands and the love of music. It turns out I hate the get together between Hiragi and Shizasumi equal amounts in either version, because it basically involves Shizasumi pressuring him into sex. In the anime, though, when Shizasumi says he thought Hiragi was in love with Yuki it felt like it came out of left field, because Hiragi seemed to have paid more attention to Mafuyu, whereas in the manga I at least get how Shizasumi believes it.

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Tue, 30 Jun 2026 09:35:34 GMT

As promised, talking about Bleach. I finally finished the previous season on Monday last week 🤣 just in time for the first three episodes of the final season to come out at the cinema! So I went on Friday night. It's very much just three episodes cut together and not at all like a movie, and I don't feel like it was sharpened enough for the big screen 😂 but it was nice to see, and they played a Q&A between Kubo Tite and the anime directors after.

Getting what I dislike out of the way first... mute naked catgirl Yoruichi infuriates me just as much in the anime as it did in the manga. Ugh.

But I really did enjoy the rest. The fight scenes are so fun. I loved every time Ishida made reference to what Ichigo would do ♥ Byakuya and Hitsugaya's banter was just as fun animated as it was in the manga, and they and Zaraki fighting the big guy is delightful in what I got to see of it. I love Orihime and Ichigo fighting against Yhwach together. The animation actually does a lot to make that fight feel more exciting.

Oh, man, I'm having a lot of thoughts about Urahara. The anime expands on his big fight and it looks so cool. And also really brings home how similar he and Mayuri are, in that they're mad scientists who do equally mad things to themselves. They are their own Frankenstein's monsters.

To be honest, I think one of my favourite things was hearing people's reactions to the scenes in the cinema. I've been into Bleach since the beginning; therefore I am not young. But there was a young man (I wanted to say kid, but given I assume he was 20 years younger than me that still means an adult hahaha) next to me who was having a great time, gasping at all the right bits, and it was just so much fun to hear these episodes appreciated by a crowd. It was nice to laugh at the same parts that I laughed at in the manga and get to hear people laugh with me.

The Q&A was fun to watch. Kubo Tite really knows how to accessorise, which is not a surprise. I've seen people compare how great he looks now compared to how he looked towards the end of the manga run, and yeah, it's not a surprise that a well rested millionaire looks great but he looked like garbage when he was destroying his health to make Shonen Jump's deadlines.

The two main things I took from the Q&A are this:
1) Kubo Tite wears fun patterned socks!
2) Kubo Tite is a micro-managing control freak, when allowed to be, who sometimes started storyboarding scenes for the anime without asking anyone on the anime team first...

Of those two things, only the socks are a surprise.

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Mon, 29 Jun 2026 08:29:48 GMT

I have watched so much (mostly) anime in the last week. I got partway through a boring Gintama arc and decided I'd watched way too many shonen battle series recently and should watch something entirely different. So I got through, in no particular order:

Honey Lemon Soda: You know those shojo stories that are about a normal, plain Japanese girl who is isolated from her peers, and then she meets a cute boy, and this kicks off a series of events that lead to her developing social skills, making friends, and falling in love? This is one of them. It's okay. I enjoyed it well enough. Some of the animation does some really cool things, and there's some great stuff. The friends Ishimori makes are great, and I appreciate how much of this focuses on realistic teenage friendships. There's an arc where Ishimori befriends her love interest's ex who still has feelings for him, and they have a genuinely supportive friendship, which feels rare in fiction but actually truer to my high school experience.

It feels a little fast at the beginning and a little slow at other times, and the main character cries a bit too much for my taste, but she is 15 and recovering from being bullied in middle school, & etc. The love interest is a bit of a dickhead, so I was mostly like ?? that's your taste, girl?? He's not the worst or anything, he does encourage her most of the time, but he's just enough of a dickhead that I was like... what's the appeal... half the time. Only 12 episodes.

(Come to think of it, My Dress Up Darling is just the gender switched version of that type of story but for the seinen audience, and with the main characters actually having a shared interest.)

7 episodes of Kimi no Todoke, which is the same kind of thing, except the quirk is that people compare the main female character to Sadako from the ring and treat her like she's creepy. The visual style makes it so obvious the manga started in the mid 00s (oh my gosh, the clothing), and it is charming, and I might have shed a tear, but after Honey Lemon Soda and 7 episodes of this I hit my limit of crying and not being able to talk about what you feel for a while. I would say this is better than Honey Lemon Soda, though.

The Cherry Magic anime, for a change of pace and to watch a story about adults, which does something the live action didn't do: kissing scenes. And the kissing scenes are good. I laughed out loud and was charmed, although I will say the animation isn't always all that good. I mean, the animation isn't Isekai Office Worker levels of bad, though I love Isekai Office Worker on a deep soul level so clearly that's not a problem.

Skip and Loafer is a story about from the countryside who moves to Tokyo to attend high school as the first step in her many step plan to becoming a politician who can help the rapidly emptying out countryside, and then she meets a cute boy, and this kicks off a series of events that leads to her making lots of friends & etc. etc. etc. The anime ends before anyone gets to be in love, though I hear they fall in love in the manga. I will say that this has a higher level of depth and characterisation, but the manga ran in a seinen magazine so was actually aimed at adults. The animation is smooth as hell. I also really appreciated the depiction of high school friendships in this one.

Yes, No, or Maybe? is a 50 minute BL anime film that I found pretty entertaining right up until the sex scene at the end ruined it by being kind of rapey. I'm just not here for ignoring someone's no in sex in romance fiction in the 2020s.

Given is a beautifully animated BL about a band, composed of a season of anime and three different films which crunchyroll has not put in the correct order (when the season of the show ends it automatically starts the last film, and you have to go looking for the previous two). It's so pretty. This is so much about forming a band, loving music, dealing with grief, figuring out your life. The characters feel a lot more real and mature than I was expecting, even the 17 year olds, but apparently the manga ran in a Josei magazine... I do love that Mafuyu is never expected to stop loving his dead ex, even as he falls for Uenoyama, and it's just as much about falling in love with music. Dealing with grief is basically my favourite theme, so I really enjoyed this.

I might try to track down the manga, to see whether some of the emotional arcs feel more complete to me in that (they're not lacking in the anime, but I do wonder if the manga hits harder in that regard). The anime does have the plus point that the music is actually really good, starting from the opening theme song which meant I knew I was in good hands from the beginning. As a music lover this really worked for me.

Season 1 of You and I Are Polar Opposites, just in time for season 2 to start next week. This is a high school romance (based on a manga from Shonen Jump+ apparently, given I seem to be noting the origins of everything this post), but unlike the others I watched this week, the characters get together in the first episode and the series is about navigating their relationship and all the friendships around them from there. This is actually really cute. Probably the best depiction of high school friendships and how much people get up in each other's business of any I watched this week, and it's so funny and charming. The main female character, Suzuki, is outgoing and flashy and adorable, and her boyfriend Tani is a quiet glasses wearing introvert, and it's a fun contrast because they like their differences so much and are really charmed by each other. I'm so excited for season 2 in July.

Also OH MY GOD THE LORD OF MYSTERIES TAROT CLUB OVAS CAME OUT AND THEY ARE SO COOL. I can't talk about how cool they are without spoilers that make no sense if you're not already watching, but omg, Azik ♥ ♥ Klein ♥ Derrick is so sweet in spite of basically growing up in Silent Hill and aaaah Audrey and Alger almost meeting and aaaaah

Also, I watched the first few episodes of the last season of Bleach at the movies, but more on that later, this entry is long enough as it is.

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The rare book reading update

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 04:28:30 GMT

DNF: I've officially given up on Hooked by Asako Yuzuki, because it didn't hook me. I think the serial killer stuff really added to what I found compelling about Butter, but this one just didn't quite grab me. I've passed it on to a friend, though, so hopefully she'll enjoy it more.

Finished: Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum, translated by Shanna Tan - A divorcee opens a bookshop, and builds a life and community there. Not deep, but I liked it! It's very slice of life and often kind of shallow, but that can be nice in its own way. Yeongju makes friends, hires employees, tries to figure out how to keep the bookshop running long term.

I like the passage, "It was part of the balance of life -- a person's dream coming true could mean the collapse of someone else's life. He was sure that he and the real estate agent would never stand on the same side of destiny." - p66 I also like how the story dealt with Sungwoo's feelings, ( Read more... ) It's pleasantly sensible and non-dramatic.

Too many clunky adverbs in the translation, though.

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Sun, 21 Jun 2026 01:10:46 GMT

Attempts at the great Gundam watch through continue:

I watched the F91 movie, which is much much better than people make it out to be. It's not without flaw, certainly, but it gets going fast, and I like how it depicts the chaos of the battleground and the chaos of people on the ground attempting to flee when a battle intrudes on their quiet suburban area. The battles are exciting, and it feels like there's texture to the world.

I attempted to watch 0083 Stardust Memory, which does seem like a pretty entertaining show, but unfortunately the only version I have access to is a terrible English dub on YouTube. I just cannot stand the dubbing, so I've abandoned it for now. If I ever find a version with the original voice track I'll give it another go, because I liked how lived in the environment felt. Textured in the way of the best Gundam.

I then skipped forward and watched the Gundam Hathaway movie from 2021, which is sleek and shiny even in the bits depicting scummier areas, and feels lacking in texture or depth. It's obviously trying to re-do the Char-Lalah-Amuro triangle but modern with Hathaway, Kenneth and Gigi, but the characters are lacking in enough depth to get me to care about/believe in their actions, and the fight scenes are mostly boring. There is an interesting bit with characters trying to run from a mobile suit battle happening in a city, but that's about it, tbh. It's hard to like either the earth Feds or the terrorists who want to forcibly relocate everyone on the planet, especially because they're all too privileged. idk why people love this movie so much.

In non-Gundam news, the last episode of Go For It Nakamura-kun!! aired this week, and it was bittersweet and charming and lovely. Overall, it's been a delightful series to watch, at turns funny and sad, capturing the cringy-ness of 15 year olds and the sadness of having a crush and being the only person you know is gay.

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Thu, 11 Jun 2026 01:11:49 GMT

Having a head injury is so tiring. I feel better today at least, but yesterday my head and eye were at a solid 2/10 of pain all day long (which might not sound like much, but my eye felt gritty and like it wasn't fixed in my head right, and it was unpleasant). Luckily, today I have enough energy to work, which is good given I need to do payroll... The guy giving my CT scan seemed impressed at my having no metal to remove from my body whatsoever and my brain was instantly like 'I am getting a good grade in being prepared for a CT scan, which is normal to want' & etc. etc.

Definitely wasn't up to watching TV or reading yesterday. I got out of bed to do a load of washing, and in the hour that took to wash & for me to put it on the line I got so tired I had to go back to bed.

Here's what I was watching before I managed to bang my head and eye on my bedside table at 7am on a Wednesday: so much JJK. I watched the first two seasons, the 0 movie and the Hidden Inventory movie. It took a while for me to get into season 1 - the first episode is unpleasantly male gazey, and it felt very derivative of other shonen at a point when I've been reading and watching too much shonen - but once I pushed through it got better, and the Shibuya Incident stuff in season two taking the wild swings of killing off most of the cast and destroying Tokyo really did improve the story. Also, oh, Nanami, so sexy ♥

I'm hoping getting through it will help me pick up more pinch hits for the multifandom fic exchange circuit, which is why I pushed through season 1 in the first place, but I am at least enjoying it now.

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Mon, 08 Jun 2026 05:11:07 GMT

I just finished watching the old D.Gray-Man anime, and honestly my main thought is amusement at how much the outfits look like club outfits. Allen going to deal with some akuma on the way to the rave. That and feeling that Allen, Lenalee and Ravi (and possibly also Kanda) should all kiss, while Komui turns into a cartoon about it.

This knocks out one more thing from my crunchyroll backlog, which is nice.

Read recently: Bookstore Girls by Kei Aono - Two women working at a Japanese bookstore deal with Japanese sexism, and spend half the book taking out their resentment on each other. The cover copy asks "Can two very different women put aside their differences to save the bookstore they love?" and I was doubtful, tbh. I ended up liking the book by the end (it's not bad at the beginning, just depressing in its depiction of workplace and domestic sexism).

spoilers

They do end up being able to put aside their differences, which I like, but if you've read a contemporary Japanese novel before you will not be surprised to learn they don't manage to save the bookstore.

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Thu, 28 May 2026 00:16:41 GMT

I started watching Champignon Witch because I heard good things about it, and there was something compelling about it in spite of the tonal weirdness, but I just finished episode 8 and the kid Luna is raising is now in love with her and NOPE NOPE NOPE. Not looking for the Bunny Drop experience. Someone on FFA said they knew the kid was a love interest as soon as he became the narrator, so I do feel like I should have seen it coming, but either way I'm dropping that one with a vengeance.

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April fic stats meme now in May apparently

Wed, 27 May 2026 10:38:59 GMT

Fic stats meme:

I normally do this in April, but I completely forgot last month.

Top five stories by hits
Discovery (12,024 words) Ace Attorney - Phoenix/Edgeworth - 10,419 hits
One, Two, Three (8,758 words) Mysterious Lotus Casebook - Di Feisheng/Li Lianhua/Fang Duobing - 3,933 hits
Visit (1,792 words) Harry Potter - Harry/Hermione - 3,595 hits
Lonely Rivers Run to the Sea (4,605 words) Mysterious Lotus Casebook - Fang Duobing/Li Lianhua - 3,320 hits
Infinite Jest and Wisdom (975 words) DC Comics - The Joker/The Riddler - 2,471 hits

That MLC threesome fic has skipped up to second place, wow! The power of porn, I guess.

TBH, I have been considering deleting my HP fic from AO3, and if I did number 5 would be Thousand Autumns fic I wrote for an exchange last year.

Top five stories by kudos
Discovery (12,024 words) Ace Attorney - Phoenix/Edgeworth - 978 kudos
Lonely Rivers Run to the Sea (4,605 words) Mysterious Lotus Casebook - Fang Duobing/Li Lianhua - 401 kudos
One, Two, Three (8,758 words) Mysterious Lotus Casebook - Di Feisheng/Li Lianhua/Fang Duobing - 374 kudos
The Mission (1,499 words) Naruto - Sakura/Lee - 241 kudos
Everyday Life With a Menace of a Man (1,416 words) Thousand Autumns - Yan Wushi/Shen Qiao - 241 kudos

Discovery has gone up literally 50 kudos since last year, LOL, how. That fic is 11 years old! I'm honestly kind of impressed now. I'm also shocked at how well that Thousand Autumns fic has done, finally unseating Bleach fic I wrote in the late 2010s from the fifth position. I'm surprised, because I don't think it's one of my better written exchange fics, but I must have captured something believable about the pairing and there must be a lot of thirst for that pairing right now.

Top fic stories by bookmarks
Discovery (12,024 words) Ace Attorney - Phoenix/Edgeworth - 272 bookmarks
Lonely Rivers Run to the Sea (4,605 words) Mysterious Lotus Casebook - Fang Duobing/Li Lianhua - 119 bookmarks
One, Two, Three (8,758 words) Mysterious Lotus Casebook - Di Feisheng/Li Lianhua/Fang Duobing - 116 bookmarks
Everyday Life With a Menace of a Man (1,416 words) Thousand Autumns - Yan Wushi/Shen Qiao - 41 bookmarks
What Comes After (1,712 words) Bleach - Byakuya/Kenpachi, Yumichika/Ikkaku - 34 bookmarks

The Ace Attorney fic got another 30 bookmarks since last year! Also, wild how well that Thousand Autumns fic has done in literally a year. I feel like that fandom is small, but the people know what they want.

Top five stories by comment threads
Discovery (12,024 words) Ace Attorney - Phoenix/Edgeworth - 59 comment threads
Lonely Rivers Run to the Sea (4,605 words) Mysterious Lotus Casebook - Fang Duobing/Li Lianhua - 30 comment threads
Third Option (355 words) Legend of Fei - Li Yan/Yang Jin/Ying Hecong - 19 comment threads
One, Two, Three (8,758 words) Mysterious Lotus Casebook - Di Feisheng/Li Lianhua/Fang Duobing - 17 comment threads
Little Waves (12,982 words) Mysterious Lotus Casebook - Di Feisheng/Fang Duobing/Li Lianhua - 15 comment threads

The Ace Attorney fic gained another 12 comment threads in the last year!!! Crazy business. For the most part everything else there is very stable; I have not received a lot of fic comments overall in the last year. I'm kind of intrigued by how in the long run Little Waves, which is about an mpreg abortion (among other things) in a wuxia world, has slowly accumulated comments. Within the first week of posting that fic I assumed it had totally bombed, but slowly it found an audience, and I'm really glad of it. I felt like I tried different and interesting things in it, and TBH the Fang Duobing/Di Feisheng sex scene has a tone that I think makes it some of my best/most mature work.

General thoughts
You know, sometimes I think I should get into a megafandom or something so I can get some sweet sweet megafandom kudos and unseat some of my older fic, but then I see how batshit the megafandoms of the past year are and I'm like... nah, I'm good. I do feel like my more popular fic is increasingly dominated by M/M now and, idk, it's weird. Maybe I should get into an F/F megafandom 😂

Top 3s for the last couple of years under the cut:
( Read more... )

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My week in anime

Sun, 24 May 2026 02:49:07 GMT

More anime watching:

• I gave Snowball Earth an episode, because people have talked it up, but it's just not for me. I didn't vibe with the tone, I think? I thought I would like it, given how much I like both Kaiju no 8 and various Gundam series, but it was just a mismatch.

• This week I watched the entirety of Zenshu, a 12 episode series from last year about an animator falling into the world of her favourite depressing children's film after she eats seafood that's gone off. I can see why this is so well regarded. It's so pretty and a lot of thought has been put into the story. I love the magical girl transformation sequence for when she sits down at her desk to draw! The kids fantasy movie she falls into visually feels very influenced by 80s animation (some parts are a clear shout out to He Man, for example), but also given it's a rocks fall, everyone dies scenario you can see why in universe it was not successful, LOL. This is such a love letter to fix-it-fic and self insert romance, LOL. There are parts that didn't work for me quite as well, but it was overall delightful. I think my favourite was Destiny deciding she was going to get super buff.

• 7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy is fun, though a bit too neat for my tastes. Rishe's life is not actually carefree, and by the ending they are not actually married yet, but I did enjoy the tension created from her getting engaged to the guy who killed her in a previous life and started the war that got her killed in all the previous lives. The re-living the five years from being dumped by a previous fiance to her death repeatedly mostly means she's levelled up in skills and stats; I did kind of want more from her previous lives woven into the story. But it's a fun bit of fluff. Her outfits are mostly hideous, in an amazing way. There's various handsome men who come into her life to be interesting and handsome, and that's enjoyable.

• I'm finding the pattern with episodes of Go For It, Nakamura-kun!! is that the episodes that people tell me draw more heavily on the manga are a lot funnier. In terms of laughs it's sort of uneven for me, but always cute. The episode that made me laugh the hardest is two weeks ago with the closer friendship battle and the creepy clothes sniffing. It's so cringe in the most delightfully awkward teenage way, and the art is so lovely. Though my actual favourite bit from any episode is Nakamura and Hirose becoming officially friends in Yokohama Chinatown, which is just so sweet.

• I'm also keeping up with Marriagetoxin, though I don't know that I have a lot to say about it. Lovingly animated. I'm looking forward to continuing to ignore all the discourse.

• Witch Hat Atelier is pretty and enjoyable, but I'm also finding the increasing hype and the fandom around it super annoying. I would like manga fans to be less aggressively trying to spoil anime watchers, I would like the people obsessed with the discourse around it to stop telling me about it, I would like the people who think it should be gatekept for political reasons to STFU about that...

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Thu, 21 May 2026 00:58:22 GMT

I watched all 18 episodes of Moonrise, an anime on Netflix, this week, and this could have been so good if it was good! But it was not good. Imagine if this had any solid narrative focus whatsoever?! Imagine if this put focus on the actually interesting things about the story?! It's about Jack, a rich kid who has been blamed for a terrorist attack, who gets forced into the military while a suspect and has to go to the moon with a bunch of other people to investigate things, and also his tragic backstory in a lab with a childhood friend he's never forgotten, and also...

Well, anyway, I liked Salamandra, she's so dreamy. More super strong buff ladies in everything, please. And the relationship between Phil and Jack was interesting whenever it got any screen time whatsoever.

But all the jokes were bad and there were so many of them. There were too many characters. And like, it's a space opera with a superpowerful AI that everyone follows and also everyone on the moon is oppressed and also there's genetic screening that decides what jobs people should do and also prisoners are made to work in the army and also there are genetically engineered people with cool space powers and also there's some sort of space jellyfish thing and characters constantly playing a pokemon go ripoff, and it's like... that's too much. Put some back.

Also, the ship tease with Rhys, a woman who even when times were good constantly nagged Jack and didn't respect him, was just tedious.

I guess as far as Gundam/GITS knock offs go it's not the worst I've seen? The flashback to Phil cutting off his arm and grafting it onto Jack's bloody stump was so so good, imagine if their relationship and Jack realising that Earth was the bad guys had been the actual focus of the story, it could have been good!

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Kaiju no. 8 fic

Wed, 20 May 2026 04:03:07 GMT

Fist Bumps and Hook Ups (2466 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 怪獣８号 | Kaiju No. 8 (Anime)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Izumo Haruichi/Kaguragi Aoi
Characters: Izumo Haruichi, Kaguragi Aoi (Kaiju No. 8)
Additional Tags: First Time, Getting Together, Missing Scene, Teammates to Lovers, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, During Canon, Nonnies Made Me Do It
Summary:

Haruichi hangs out with Aoi and slowly trips his way into a relationship.

Expanded from this ficlet I wrote last year.

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Sun, 17 May 2026 00:57:13 GMT

I finally finished my Yu Yu Hakusho rewatch:

- Yikes, the sexism. It's pretty bad. Yuusuke groping Keiko and flipping her skirt up in public early on is pretty awful.

- My other main takeaway is that everyone wants to kiss Yuusuke. Kurama definitely wants to kiss Yuusuke. Hiei maybe wants to roll around shirtless in the dirt with Yuusuke. Kuwabara wants to make sweet passionate bro love to Yuusuke and pretend he's still straight afterward. Everyone in the last arc all ooh he gets my blood fired up. Yeah, I'll bet.

Anyway, I don't actually ship anything, but I do think Kuwabara's crush on Yukina is pretty cute.

The first time I watched I didn't get why Kurama/Hiei was popular at all, and this time I saw it a little, but I still think they're only mildly shippy, but Kurama is definitely shippier with Yuusuke, and probably even more shippy with Kuwabara than with Hiei.

- LMAO, Kurama getting mistaken for Kuwabara's girlfriend.

- That Hong Kong action cinema influence is so obvious.

- So much of this is that Japanese anxiety about juvenile delinquents that was all over stuff in the 90s and early 00s and that you don't really see in new series. Also, anime just doesn't look like this anymore, so it's not really a surprise it's not as popular as it used to be.

I do think the Dark Tournament doesn't actually get interesting until the semi-finals and there's a lot of dull bits I hadn't remembered. That's probably why newer viewers are underwhelmed by what is always hyped up as the ~best tournament arc ever~. It's okay. Kurama v Karasu is still pretty good, and there's a bunch of great stuff at the end.

- Kurama is still my favourite, just like the first time I watched, but I would say Botan is my second fave now.

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Mon, 04 May 2026 05:33:48 GMT

The latest dispatches from my deep dive into Prince of Tennis's crazy sequel:

The things Konomi gets wrong about Australia: middle school is not really a thing here, we don't like singing the national anthem that much, and it's certainly not part of Australian culture to bow to each other in apology. OTOH, the Australian team all seem to be cashed up bogans, which is about right. And one of them is called Milky Millman, and I had to pause for a moment to accept that that's the sort of dumb shit name an Australian athlete could end up with.

Other than that:
- the Greek gods are playing in an under-17 tennis competition. I'm serious, the Japan team plays against Zeus
- Art Tennis! Sleep Tennis!
- Normally Prince of Tennis doesn't answer my 'why is this happening' questions, but it actually explains why Ryoma is attempting to play tennis on horseback the next chapter. It doesn't necessarily give a good answer, but it does give an answer
- We must confront the possibility that the French revolution didn't happen in the Prince of Tennis universe

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Prince of Tennis vs Genius 10 OVA

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 23:39:55 GMT

I finished the Genius 10 OVA and, first of all, that was way more Niou than I was expecting. Everyone makes use of Niou's mutant morphing powers! Second, my favourite part was when Ryoma decided he'd had enough with how shitty the training camp was and decided to do something that would get him kicked out.

Every time blond pirate whatshisface went on about how tennis can be fatal I was like . . . you guys know this is not a blood sport, right. This is just tennis. The superpowers aren't the silliest part of Prince of Tennis; the silliest part is when people try to kill each other over the net.

Ryoma's memory problems make me wonder if he has a brain injury?? Though I guess the answer to that is not to think about it too deeply.

I did actually really like what the training camp did with Rikkai - basically by surrounding them with other people and getting them out of their zone of dysfunction, they all started to become less fucked up (except for Jackal I guess who was very busy crying about Marui not playing tennis with him LOL). I also liked Yanagi actively making a step to do that on purpose by making sure Kirihara stayed in the camp and he got to go off and have Data Bros time with Inui, because he's recognised it's good to reconnect with people outside the zone of Rikkai dysfunction

I also like that it removed Tezuka from the story partway through, even though I like Tezuka, because it was interesting to have him out of the story in a way where he wasn't even a looming spectre threatening to return, to see what some of the characters were like without him.

The selection of characters for the U-17 team is not really a group of characters I think will be particularly interesting together, but we'll see when I get to all that, I guess.

comments

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 21:01:01 GMT

The Teen Dream (1149 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Jawbreaker (1999)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Courtney/Liz, Courtney/Fern, Fern Mayo/Liz Purr
Characters: Courtney Shayne, Fern Mayo
Additional Tags: toxic lesbians and mean bisexuals, Missing Scene, Post-Canon, late 90s homophobia, Mild Voyeurism, Dirty Talk
Summary:

Courtney Shayne plays vicious games.

comments

Prince of Tennis fic

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 08:43:40 GMT

Celebration Chance (1029 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Fuji Shuusuke/Kawamura Takashi
Characters: Fuji Shuusuke, Kawamura Takashi, Kikumaru Eiji
Additional Tags: Fluff, post nationals, First Kiss
Summary:

Kawamura is still injured, but Fuji takes a chance on what he wants anyway.

comments

Still yet more Prince of Tennis posting

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 04:25:48 GMT

I finished the Nationals OVAs! They're fun. It's a shame they don't have more time to expand some matches, but also I think some things work better animated than they did for me in the manga. Yukimura v Ryoma seemed so silly to me in the manga, but in the OVAs I'm like, oh, I get it: Yukimura visits his trauma on other people with his tennis style that aims to make people feel like they're being betrayed by their bodies and don't enjoy tennis anymore, so Ryoma defeats him in the psychological battle by still liking tennis. It's not deep, but somehow it works better for me in the OVAs than it did when I speed read through it.

Though I'm a bit sad that the original anime series cannibalised bits of what happened during the Fuji v Niou match for the Fuji v Tezuka match it put in towards the end of the original anime, because it means anime Fuji v Niou seems so much less interestingly weird.

Once again I feel like I don't understand why there isn't tons of fic about Oishi's desperate unrequited feelings for Tezuka. Everyone is weird about Tezuka obvs, but Oishi is the most so.

also lmao, Inui capturing Tezuka smiling on video

Also also, for the most part I think Tezuka's sexuality is leaving everyone on read, but during the yakiniku insanity when Inui was trying to fly mouth first towards Atobe and then Tezuka dakked Inui before he fell on the grill... that seemed more like Tezuka trying to stop Inui from trying it on with his man than anything.

comments

Jennifer's Body fic

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 22:34:59 GMT

Glitter (196 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Jennifer's Body (2009)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jennifer Check/Anita "Needy" Lesnicki
Characters: Jennifer Check, Anita "Needy" Lesnicki
Additional Tags: Resurrection, Short, Nonnies Made Me Do It
Summary:

The 17th time Jennifer resurrects and finds Needy all over again...

First posted here on FFA.

comments

Fandom5k letter

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 09:50:29 GMT

Hello!

I'm thawrecka on AO3, and I'm excited to read whatever you write. If you want to see more about what I like about these canons, or if you want to find more of what I like in fiction feel free to browse here or my tumblr.

If you're the person assigned to me, hi! :D If you're someone else, I also welcome treats.

Requests

( Prince of Tennis )

( Bleach )

( Pet Shop of Horrors )

( Blood River )

( Adventure Time )

comments

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:17:19 GMT

Continuing my anime/manga era:

I got to the end of the season of Isekai Office Worker. It was a lot of fun! I should track down the manga/light novels some day. I love that the power fantasy is such an office worker power fantasy, but also I really enjoyed the fantasy politics and the romantic arc. I also love that the main character looked tired for the entire anime 🤣

I also finished Journal with Witch, a beautiful contemporary slice of life anime about living with grief. I'll have to track down the manga for this one some day, too! It has so much good things to say about gender, and people's relationships to the concept of romance, and parenting, and adult life choices, and loss. I really liked this speech about toxic male social rituals. Also, Makio is a great portrait of the life of a writer!

I got a subscription to the Jump app and immediately read 66 chapters of Dogsred, a shonen manga about a former figure skater who blows up his figure skating career after his mum dies, and then after he and his sister go to live with his granddad decides to join the ice hockey team after an altercation with an ice hockey player, even though he knows nothing about ice hockey. It's weirdly compelling. I wouldn't say that I understand ice hockey any better after reading so many chapters 🤣 but I like Rou's sparkly eyed enthusiasm for learning about ice hockey, and the dumb boy rivalries and complicated team dynamics, and the gritty undersides to its depiction of ice hockey towns in Hokkaido.

Apparently it's by the same guy who did Golden Kamuy, but as I never got far into either the anime or the live action for that I don't know if that's a positive or not...

The first two episodes of Go For It, Nakamura-kun!! came out and are delightful! There's a much meme-d image associated with the manga so I was curious, and the anime is cute and funny and absolutely exquisite to look at. The colours! The backgrounds! The characters are animated in a charmingly cute and retro style that strongly reminds me of Rumiko Takahashi's work. Nakamura fighting for his life to make the most awkward conversation with his crush and talking to his pet octopus about it is adorable.

I'm slowly watching Mushishi at a rate of an episode every one or two days. I didn't get along with the manga or the OVA for some reason, but I was determined to try this series because it sounded like my sort of thing, and luckily I'm enjoying the anime proper. I know people have compared this to Natsume Yuujinchou, but that's more about recovering from the sadness of the world, and this feels more like moving through the darkness of the world. Not that it's all dark -- the mushi wine episode certainly wasn't -- but it definitely feels like it's grounded much more in the adult horrors of the world.

I'm also about halfway through the Nationals OVAs of Prince of Tennis. I've finished the Hyotei matches! They're a lot of fun. I'm kind of sad the OVAS are so short and don't get a chance to expand the matches the way the original anime did; OTOH, the original anime added a lot of nonsense. There's some pseudo mystical basically super powered tennis in these matches, but it still feels like the last hurrah of the real tennis. The series jumps the shark directly after.

I feel like Hyotei vs Seigaku in the Nationals is the point where the character stuff and emotional arcs is at its finest after all that build up, before it gets buried by complete nonsense. Some of the tennis moves are silly, but not so silly they weigh down how fun it is to watch Hyotei and Seigaku play, and I'm invested in both teams and care about their characters. Hiyoshi & Gakuto vs InuKai is so much fun, and Silver Pair vs Golden Pair is a bit silly but also lives or dies based on how invested I am in those character relationships (in this case: very. They're charming kids and their doubles friendships are sweet).

comments

Cher (TW)

A ritualistic space where movement replaces language

The rare book reading update

April fic stats meme now in May apparently

My week in anime

Kaiju no. 8 fic

Prince of Tennis vs Genius 10 OVA

More Prince of Tennis posting

Prince of Tennis fic

Still yet more Prince of Tennis posting

Jennifer's Body fic

Fandom5k letter

More Prince of Tennis posting