Major project at work that has been sucking every last bit of my brain energy for over a month is FINALLY OVER and I can feel my creativity be able to come back.

This was one of the more challenging things I think I've ever done and I would put the amount of work I had to do for this project up there with something like thesis writing in terms of both time and brainpower needed to pull it off. I wish I could talk more about it but I try to keep my work life out of my social spaces.

But suffice to say I completed something as essentially a project manager, SME, AND lead writer. It was intense.

Then, of course, because this is how we always do, I immediately followed that up by getting sick as a dog.

This is probably the worst cold I have had since before the start of Covid, though it at least seems to be running it's course fairly quickly?

While my chronic illness stuff can rear it's head at any point and give me a terrible day, my normal like "how often do you get sick" is actually fairly light-- with the NOTABLE exception of the Fall of 2019 when, ironically, just pre-pandemic, I was literally sick for about 5 months straight with some kind of respiratory illness.

But usually BOY OH BOY when I get sick do I go completely down for the count, and this has been no exception to that.

However, I've now had two days in a row where I've felt better than the day before both days, so I'm HOPING that I'm coming out of this, and my brain definitely feels like it's waking back up, so I don't want to make promises but I am VERY HOPEFUL about there being tags.

I have missed RPing SO MUCH and have hated that I just couldn't... and then to lose another week to being sick on top of that.

In the meantime, though, I finally watched Sailor Moon Crystal/Eternal, which was pretty good. I'm not sure if it's how I would gateway someone new into Sailor Moon or not, but I really enjoyed it a LOT.

It was also great because I (about to date myself) watched the majority of the original series Sailor Moon on super duper bootlegged CDs in college. Not DVDs. CDs.

They were burned from napster and then put up on the college intranet because copy protection at college wasn't a thing yet.

But that was also the only way you could GET things like that unless you wanted a bootleg VHS tape. Anyway, I'm old but I watched Sailor Moon when I was VERY sick in college at one point and it felt kind of cool to watch it again while very sick at home as an older person.

Well, I can at least rest assured that the sound on this new one won't be so painful.

Favorite changes are: literally everything about Mamoru and also it being pretty explicit about Uranus being non-binary.

Hahahahaha, right?

The English dub was bad, yes, but the Japanese track was so poorly mastered and so shrill that it literally hurt to listen to.

I've got a soft spot for the English dub-- I really think it was mostly the translation that was terrible and as far as the voices go it wasn't all that bad... for the most part. Their walla and minor character VA stuff was SO SO BAD THO

Then I also ended up seeing The Green Knight, which I am not going to talk about at length but which I was very ambiguous about.

I don't think I liked it? I think there were some objective issues with pacing and delivery of information that definitely keep it from being on any kind of top list for me and some places where it seemed to do things a certain way to just like "be an indie movie" rather than because they were the right cinematic choice, if that makes sense?

I left feeling deeply unsatisfied and perturbed and I feel deeply unsatisfied and perturbed every time I think about it.

... but then it has also lived rent-free in my head since I saw it and I've already written one fanfic?

Side note: I have also started watching Violet Evergarden. Only a few episodes in, but so far I'm finding it a little saccharine but I'm enjoying it overall. I don't know if I were watching it any other way but to go to sleep while not feeling super great that I would like, but it's been great for that.

That was a little incomprehensible, but I think the sentiment comes across.

AND THEN THERE'S THIS ASSHOLE. /points at Heaven's Official Blessing

How dare something this hyped up by everyone be this good?

I'm mostly joking, but I do generally find that if something is part of a sudden surge of people all liking it in the RP community that it's something I don't actually want to touch with a ten foot pole.

I hope that doesn't come off as super elitist because it's less about like "oh, everyone likes this so it must be trash" and more about getting burned by popular opinion time and time again over years and years of RPing and genuinely not enjoying the things everyone else seems to be into.

I really thought HOB was going to be another one of those things for me, where whatever everyone was screaming about wasn't going to be impressive to me and I was going to be bored... and I'm not entirely sure that's not at least a little true?

I have to go sideways for this one for one moment.

My mom is a full-fledged, would be card-carrying if they handed out cards, tea-aboo. She loves everything British to a point that's a little ridiculous but I love her for it.

And she doesn't like true crime stuff very much, but is a huge Agatha Christie fan and loves Sherlock Holmes and stuff like that.

So a genre that keeps popping up for her on her Kindle is "Cozy British Murders" which is one of the most hilarious things in the world to both of us.

But also like... if someone says "Cozy British Murders" in relation to a book or TV genre and you have EVER encountered that genre, you know precisely what that's about.

Like, there's a very specific combination of murder procedural and description of quaint villages and quiet moments and probably someone's dressing gown that you're going to get and like... people are going to die, but nothing's going to really be scary or messy.

I feel a little like HOB is a Chinese supernatural "Cozy British Murders".

Like... this is a horror anime. There's so much blood and gore and action... but it's also really psychological and more about solving the mystery than fighting or killing?

And then holy shit everyone is just like super soft about everything.

I described it to my roommate as "Okay, so like, if Yami no Matsuei and Mushishi had a baby, and that baby was the sweetest child on the planet"

Anyway, I love it and I pre-ordered the novel in English and now I'm looking for more of it online so if anyone can assist, please do because I'm obsessed.

Also, while I'm not quite at the point where I'd be wanting to play from it-- because I still have catching up to do elsewhere and my brain is still a potato, I think a future where I pick up someone from there isn't too far off, so also consider this a quiet EMP for the future if you like the show.

(Look, we all know it's going to be Hua Cheng, but play along with me for a bit, ok.)

I still think you would be good at Xie Lian too

They’re both, in separate ways, precisely the kind of characters I gravitate towards playing.