then there are blackbirds

» Bidding for help_for_ephemere closes on July 21, 21:00 GMT! A handy list of offers with no bids and offers with only one bid can be found here. Go check out the shinies! deepad is offering a spork post which promises to be extremely entertaining, for example, and there are a number of art and crafts type things as well. My offer for icons is here.

In other news:

» wistfuljane has a great Jeremy Lin linkspam!

» Via yifu, check out avatar_ladyfest!

» eid_ka_chand has announced its 2012 fanworks challenge!

» I am SPOILED by DW A:TLA fandom, you guys. Someone made me an APPA HAT! State Dinner is the OTGaang ficlet of my heart!

Other reasons to love white_lotus's Lunar New Year Exchange:
+ a deep delight of the blood- wow, I find bloodbending practice an extremely believable basis for Katara/Zuko now.
+ Ephemera from the Avatar Collection at Republic City University with notes and commentary by the archivists!
+ Primary Sources, aka Sokka and Suki vs. Wan Shi Tong, THE FACEOFF! xD
+ Spa Day is awesome lovely Katara/Toph (with OTGaang in the background ♥)!

» Love meme at dingsi's! Thanks for my thread. ♥

» Check out terajk's Heroes Arrive Last fest!

» The Boy Who Only Lived Twice- I haven't read HP fic in a really long time & I've never read much Harry/Draco, but OMG SERIOUSLY, the way this story plays with all the levels of fucked-up those two are is fantastic.

+ Workin' It Out- dudes, I am not the biggest fan of Adam Lambert, but Adam Lambert + Tumbling earnestfaces = yes please, apparently! Also KIYAMA/MIZUSAWA, BRB STILL FLAILING EVERYWHERE. (Spoilers, obvs.)

Love meme at littlebutfierce's! Thanks to everyone who commented on my thread. ♥

Also, thanks to yesterday's late-night music video exchangery OF DOOM¹, this song has been semi-appropriately stuck in my head all day:



1. *eyes noldo*

(No, I still haven't watched One Piece, though I confess the limiting factors are basically canon volume and the length of my to-watch list.)

In celebration of completing this morning's exam, have some shinies!



Via magnetic_pole:


AND: BEYONCE SONGS RE-IMAGINED AS UNDERGRADUATE THESES IN WOMEN'S AND GENDER STUDIES. I AM DEAD, Y'ALL. DEAD OF AMAZING~~~

Team Darkness: as;dklfskjlf, massive apologies! ;;;; There were a few surprise rounds of work panic this week (having to do, among other things, with my replacement) & I will be busy-ish this weekend, but I will definitely be tackling stuff on our to-do list tonight/tomorrow.

Everybody not Team Darkness: er, check out starlady's X-Men: First Class post (which has links to other reviews)? I am sorry, I will recover time/brain for things of actual interest... eventually... >< &hearts

[For those of you who don't feel like reading about anime flail WITH ALLCAPS, have fun with this Inception fic! Because The Adventures of Yusuf, Best Superhero Ever is MADE OF FABULOUS. ;)]

1. Tiger and Bunny: up to episode 9? I am surprised at myself! Superhero shenanigans are usually not my thing, much less a series about superhero reality TV, but whoever it was on tumblr who coined "Team Dad and Butthurt" got EXACTLY what hooked me in the end, ahahaha!

2. Spice and Wolf: all of it! Not quite sure why I bulled ahead with this one, either, though it was admittedly pretty despite the... quietness. And the quietness is maybe a little odd, come to think of it, considering the entire thing is- a traveling merchant and wolf goddess on what amounts to an endless road trip? I would have expected more mishaps from a WOLF GODDESS WHO ENJOYS GETTING DRUNK AND (LOTS OF) GOOD FOOD, I'm just saying. Also, I have a feeling people who are into economics/marketing might enjoy this more than me, considering the amount of ~supply and demand~ and ~trading tactics~. xD

3. Shounen Onmyouji: almost all of it! Pretty much everybody on this show is MY FAVORITE, which is a marker of the shows I like best, really. ;) Abe no Masahiro is the cutest onmyouji-in-training ever, and Abe no Seimei is THE MOST LOLARIOUS DOTING GRANDPA IN EXISTENCE (not to mention totally the Uncle Iroh of the show), and I am just going to stop before I hit spoiler territory, as;dlfjka;s. &hearts I would have finished the last two eps if I didn't want to be CRYING (MOAR) FOREVER OMG; thankfully sarashina was awesome and saved me with a summary of what is SADLY NOT PICTURED ON THE SHOW. :3 Not-too-spoilery icons to come, once my eyes have stopped crossing from the awesomeness of

4. Samurai 7, which I just finished! Too flaily to talk coherently about this, but- based on Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, futuristic flying mecha, and full of POLITICKING AND REVOLUTIONS?? FUCK YES. :D Another show where pretty much everybody is my favorite, though I admit I have huge soft spots for Kyuzo and Heihachi and also Shichiroji!

There is officially Too Much going on and I'm still trying to finish this write-up, so have some links!

+ wistfuljane put together an awesome 2PM primer! :D
+ This year we have REMIX MADNESS, FUCK YES!!!

3w4dw-spam:
+ Link roundup from livrelibre and a disability-themed roundup from rydra_wong.
+ My (Iku/Doujou, insubordination) Toshokan Sensou prompt was filled over at the anime/manga/manhwa/manhua fest! N'awwww. &hearts
+ Speaking of the fest, ephemere coded up the shiny list of prompts and fills, WHICH EVERYBODY SHOULD GO FORTH AND OGLE. *g*
+ inkstone did an awesome FONSFAQ post for my Filipino folk dances prompt! *\o/*
+ troisroyaumes is hosting a FONSFAQ for manhwa!
+ Some foodie posts: were_duck is looking for vegan recipes, and meloukhia has a What's That Recipe? post! NOM.
+ ephemere did a FONSFAQ for her favorite Filipino musicians!
+ vi drew an adorable comic: Two of a Kind. &hearts

And now that I've run out of exclamation points, a poem:

( The Rune of St. Patrick )

+ such_heights's Female Character Trope Fest is up and running!
+ Via rydra_wong, jmtorres's A DNA TRIPLE HELIX MAKES NO SENSE made me laugh and laugh.
+ azuire posted お知らせ: الإسلام, which seems to be part of the Frequently (Or Not So Frequently) Asked Questions project (dingsi has a masterlist)? In any case, it's a cool project! I'm excited for 3W4DW. :)

Poems for today:

( What My Child Learns of the Sea )

( Oaxaca )

-- Audre Lorde

And now I must disappear again to finish Remix! (Well, that and work, obviously.) o/

Since work and upcoming decisions are doing their best to turn me into a ball of stress and rage, I am going to do what I do best: DISTRACTION VIA ALCOHOL AND SHINY THINGS!! Therefore, some anime series (not Shikabane Hime- I don't know why I keep putting it on hiatus, but I have been watching rather a lot of other things recently!);

» Devil May Cry. Yes, I finished all 12 eps a while ago; yes, I still watched a couple of bits over again. I was in the mood for Dante being a ridiculous failboat, what can I say? Time to track down the videogame outtakes, I guess.

» Nabari no Ou, which I just finished! 26 eps of ninja and hidden world politicking and MIHARU'S EVIL DEADPAN OF DOOM. (... I might have a Thing for sneaky-manipulative-bastard kidlet protagonists, shut up. xD) This is one of those series where EVERYBODY is my favorite. &hearts

» Sarai-ya Goyou/House of Five Leaves! 12 eps, if my google-fu didn't fail me, though the last one doesn't seem to be a logical finishing point. This is quiet and gorgeous and all sorts of interesting shades of moral ambiguity. Also, timid samurai protag who keeps getting laid off due to his personality issues! That's a new one to me. :3

» Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler. Sebastian/Ciel just hits SO MANY BUTTONS (although to be honest, Godchild hits them a lot harder in some ways); also, I will never get tired of watching that scene where Sebastian is absolutely badass with kitchen cutlery. xD

» Bits & bats: I've also been watching some Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom and Samurai 7 here and there. The first one piques my interest a bit more than the second (spy/assassin shenanigans are eye-catching!), but that might just be because it's hard for me to follow the politicking in Samurai 7 when I'm catching random eps instead of going in order.

What shiny things have you guys been watching recently?

Clearing out some tabs again;

+ @ deadbro: The Hunger Games: Racially Ambiguous? Perhaps Not.
+ Interesting links from la_vie_noire!
+ glvalentine's review of Red Riding Hood (via I think marina? or possibly inkstone) = DEATH BY LULZ.
+ 起狮, 行礼 (Rising Lion—The Lion Bows) by Zen Cho! GHOSTBUSTING LION-DANCERS FTW *\o/*

In other news, I have been watching some (more) Devil May Cry recently, and now the intro song has been stuck in my head for two weeks. Apparently I really do need to rethink my genre preferences, if horror and/or Things with Demons and Other Monsters of Interest* are going to be a continuing theme with me!

*Qualifier because... I really don't know what the appropriate category for "Dante fights demons and also eats pizza and strawberry sundaes and is generally grumpy and ridiculous" is, but it's not horror to me! xD