Journey into Mystery

It's been a while... ahem.

I think I've been more active in Plurk and Tumblr than here in the journals out of laziness. Plus, this month was a total festival of spammers in almost every post in every LJ community I've ever made, so that really threw me off.

I'll try to be more active. However, I'm going to try to think of the DW mirror as the main one from now on. Because of how gross LJ is (and will be) right now, I'll still crosspost and read my flist because of the comms and few people who aren't on DW; other than that, it's really hard for me to keep thinking about Livejournal as something serious anymore.

Anyway, I'm also:
→ taotrooper @ Plurk (there are a lot of Spanish posts because most of my friends there are my RP buddies.)
→ taotrooper @ Tumblr. That's the main one. I also have two fandom-centric blogs:
→→ celestialbrush (Okami)
→→ journey-into-mystery (Thor comics but mostly -obviously- Journey into Mystery)

I got really into the JiM fandom this year, which hangs out mostly at Tumblr. Hell, even the writer got really into the Tumblr JiM fandom and makes our lives miserable out of the pages. It's curious that there are fandoms now where the main thing is happening over there, while there's little to no presence on LJ/DW or AO3/FFnet/dA/Pixiv. Ghost Trick fandom was also like that, a lot of anime series and games and cartoons too. It seems, for obscure stories or little fandoms/subfandoms, it's just easier to hang around the tags and find coherent people there. Meanwhile, the huge fandoms are usually stupider on Tumblr. Just to keep in-topic, the comic!Loki fans (in either reincarnation, although I mostly chilled with the Kid Loki peeps) are most times much cooler than the majority of Hiddleston!Loki fanbrats on Tumblr (which tend to be noisy and sometimes cray-cray.) And you can say that about most fandoms that are big on Tumblr. And then there's the Percy Jackson fandom who isn't that huge but it's just mostly repulsive. So yeah... I think Tumblr fandoms works better, weirdly, with little stuff. I wish this wasn't the case because it's almost impossible to befriend and talk to these people normally in that site.

Anyway, some short reviews of stuff I've read and watched this Autumn.

( Journey into Mystery, Doctor Who, The Mark of Athena, Wreck-it Ralph, Brave )

I'm really liking the first episode of Persona 4. It is really rushed and it probably gives a different vibe to non-gamer people, but you know what? It was still lots of fun, fairly faithful, and props to the animators for making this many visual references to the gameplay. Besides, if they had gone on and on about the school life before the first TV excursion, that episode would've been boring as fuck. Cutting just after Tutorial Fight was perfect from a narrative point of view. I do worry that the characters will stay too shallow if they run too much to get the plot done, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt as it's just the intro episode.

Also, I never found game!MC or Souji physically attractive, but Yu? DAYUM SON.

But nevermind that, because yesterday I finished Son of Neptune. I loved it ♥ I puked rainbows. I didn't hate Camp Jupiter at all; the differences were fascinating, and the fact it's not just direct children of demigods is also pretty cool. I loved the new characters (Reyna, Hazel, Frank, Ella, Hylla, Arion, etc. Even if Octavian was a douche, he was interesting.) I loved the returning faces from PJO too. It was nice to have Percy back in the narrative and I'm glad he didn't steal the spotlight from the other two main characters. Honestly, I didn't find any of them a canon Sue. It's true that Riordan is making the Seven exponentially more and more speshul snowflakes, but I think that's the point? This is a gigantic (durr hurr) quest, they need extraordinary people with really freaky abilities and weapons. If anything, I think Jason is looking blander and blander as we meet more characters. Percy was still very Percy, so it's not the amnesia dulling him. And while Frank and Hazel's powers were as overhyped and underused compared to, say, Piper and Leo's, at least their personalities were very endearing and well shaped.

And while I did curse because of the cliffhanger, it was for the wrong reasons. As I'm not a huge Percy/Annabeth shipper (I just didn't ship anything with kids until this book), I don't give a shit if Riordan trolled people re: Percabeth (actually, let me look for the popcorn and drink the salty tears of the fandom). No, I wanted to see both trios meeting at last, especially Leo's reaction to the looks on Hazel/Percy/Frank's faces! Man, this is going to be sooooo awkward.

Something I've been thinking because I'm currently rereading The Lost Hero. ( Only a spoiler for the first chapters )

I think I've survived to at least 3 possible apocalypses in my lifetime. Bring it on, end of Mayan calendar! I dare you!

I had a fun Saturday last weekend. My brothers and I went to the local anime con. It's nothing extraordinary and the name is so embarrassing (really, Expotaku?!) but this year it was a large improvement compared to last year's. More people, more shops, more variety on cosplays, more events, more geekdom. I also tried Street Fighter on 3DS (the 3D actually looks okay, but I go cross-eyed XD) and archery (and I was TERRIBLE!).

Of course, more shops = compulsive buying like a boss.

→ two Suzumiya Haruhi novels, now I'm only missing one from the relased here
→ Yokai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide by Hiroko Yoda and Matt Alt (I'm madly in love with this book, you guys, it is witty and visually appealing)
→ Captain Herlock: The Endless Odyssey DVD boxset
→ three pins: the FMA cross-and-snake symbol, a pokéball, trollface
→ some fanart postcards for charity
→ a Fullmetal Alchemist T-shirt with Ed and Al which I'm still waiting to see if it shrinks in the drier (it was the smallest man size and I'm a petit woman but I dun curr)
→ a box of strawberry Pocky (tasted good, but wasn't as delicious as I thought)
→ a Boo Buddy-shaped rubber ball keychain (best thing I bought)
→ three cellphone charms: a red koopa shell, a Totodile, a Piplup
→ two Pokémon plushies: a Darumaka and a Sandile. Totally overpriced but I couldn't let them rot in a sea of kawaii blobs. The ones on my team are fierce.

As for my brothers, Ale spent his money on four new video games, but he's not playing them yet. Danny actually bought a fancy State Alchemist watch. As much as an asshole he is and as different as he is from me, I love that he likes FMA (he watched Brotherhood but one day I'll convince him to read the manga). The most amazing thing is that his favorite character is Alex Louis Armstrong. Goes to show that you can love a character who's the opposite of yourself!

Then I spent two days of extreme pain from carrying weight and wielding a bow. And that day of the month. And emotional exhaustion. Sunday sucked as much as Saturday ruled.

Oh, and my copy of Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero came on the mail today. Finally! Also, that bastard of a book is huge like a J.K. Rowling novel. Reading it on ebook first, I didn't realize how verbose Riordan has become.

associate me!

I'm taking a break from spoiler mongering Okamiden. Yeah. I'll spoiler monger The Lost Hero instead! Well, not all of it, I just want to know who the new kids' parents are so I skimmed through a PJO wiki. I had my suspicions after pondering a lot about it and rereading the two online chapters. By the way, I turned out to be OH LOL SO RIGHT.

( Let me elaborate. Spoilers about that regard. )

That's it. Don't spoil me further about the book, I just wanted to know those three things and now I do.

For lalita_b, top favorite female characters in books.

( My god, it's full of plot fetishes )

So, I finally finished Percy Jackson and the Flashback Fest. Er, I mean, Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian. I shall describe it as

INTENSE

I've really enjoyed this book series, and the last installment was satisfying. Lots of action, lots of sadness, lots of win. I spoiled myself about the twist in the prophecy, but I liked how it went. The only thing is, I could do without all that Achilles emulation, but then again this book's theme sort of was LOL TROY.

One day I'll make a larger post about the series itself.

So, monthly shopping~ I told myself not to burn all my money on comics/books and none of it in video games. I ended up looking at the DVD section, so I got the second season of Dead Like Me. There was a promotion of shitty cheap editions, 4 for 20 euros, but since it's been going since new year's there wasn't much to get. Two movies were random picks for pretty people in it*: The Departed (which is apparently fucking good) and Troy (which is known to be hilariously bad, I'm all for mocking). The other two I really wanted to buy, and they're two of the feeeew Burton films I remember fondly: Beetlejuice and Mars Attack.

Oh, and I also got the fourth Percy Jackson novel and the second Ocarina of Time manga, which together with the DLM boxset are things I truly needed in my life.



* I assure you, my inner sixteen-year-old is ironically cackling at me. Fuck you.

Bought today:
- Textbooks for the language courses
- Pocket dictionaries; one English, one German
- "Witches Abroad", Terry Pratchett
- "The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson 2)", Rick Riordan

Either way, the German textbook looks so... cryptic, because everything is in German. *pokes* I guess I'll have to study/translate at least a couple of pages beforehand, just in case the teacher doesn't explain a thing either.

And I'll try to memorize how to pronounce letters, too. I feel like a dork when trying to read it aloud.

ALSO: I refused to touch the Gamecube today. That son of a bitch gave me this headache and I couldn't sleep well tonight. Oh, as soon as I get through, I'm so going to level up like crazy ;_;