So for the past month and a half I've been waiting for my landlord to patch some holes in my ceiling from when they did pipe work, and because they kept saying "soon" I've been putting off doing any large-scale cleaning of my apartment and now I've found myself living in a giant mess. Like, some of it is clutter, but since I made an effort to move stuff into corners to keep it out of the way of "construction", the mess itself is more disorganization and a LOT of dust. I've gotten assurances that the work won't be done this week (because I'll be away at Katsucon this weekend) but I'm really going to get on their case to get it done when I get back because I want to clean and also go through my things to decide if there's anything I want to get rid of or regulate to storage in my parents' attic. (And since my parents are helping I need to comb through my apartment and hide all my pornography in my car lmao).

I saw Weathering With You on Friday and Birds of Prey last night and I really, really loved both of them! I hadn't been to the movies in about a month because it didn't work with my schedule, and I'm glad I figured out a way where I can go after work and still be home in time for my workout. I highly recommend both films, and they were both visual feasts that offered interesting story and characters. I'm kind of bummed I missed out of Weathering With You's IMAX run because I was sick, but even on a normal screen it was gorgeous. And Birds of Prey is easily the best looking DCEU film even though I think it has the smallest budget (except for maybe Shazam!?).

I don't have much more to say about this season of Doctor Who other than I am enjoying it. The only complete dud this season was "Orphan 55" vs. series 11 which had... a lot of duds, so a season with a couple of greats but mostly pretty goods is a definite win. The character writing has also noticeably improved. I just hope that they stick the landing with the two part finale in a couple of weeks, especially since they're wading around in the waters of the franchise's foundations.

As mentioned above, this weekend I will be going to Katsucon in DC (well, National Harbor MD) again this year, and I'm really looking forward to it even though I think this has the fewest number of friends attending yet. I wish it was easier to travel to, because I've found I tend to enjoy this con (and the venue) more than Anime Boston - which is the one all my friends attend, and will so this year. I'm just going to do reskins of my Ichimatsu cosplay though I'd like to make an actual new cosplay at some point.

Also, the heat in my office is super broken so I've been sitting in an 82 degree oven for the better part of a month and my skin feels awful and I desperately need to shave, and then shampoo my whole head when I get home today. It's been raining so I can't even pop outside to even things out temperature-wise. This vacation can't come soon enough!

I haven't posted in a while, mostly because there isn't all that much to talk about. Mostly, I've fallen back into Anime in a big way. As of this morning, I've watched 180 episodes of it in 2020 so far. On Twitter I've been keeping a running tab of the shows I've finished/caught up on, and the tally so far includes Ascendance of a Bookworm, Golden Kamuy, Fruits Basket, Attack on Titan, Sword Art Online, Banana Fish, and Given, and this week I've been making my way through Dr. Stone. It's been actual years since I've consumed it in this volume where I didn't have to schedule it and make myself watch it. There's an element of it this time around as I make a point to watch it while exercising, but it doesn't feel like I'm making myself do it as a chore. I'm really excited to knock out some shows I've been putting off for actual years. I've yet to see Weathering with You though, which is a massive personal failure on all fronts tbh.

I've tapered back on picking up new live action shows for the most part, but I have been slowly binging the new season of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and keeping up week-to-week with my usual shows like Doctor Who, Supernatural, Legacies, and The Good Place. Doctor Who in particular has been a journey this season as it's ranged from the mediocre (Orphan 55) to the fantastic (Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror) to the "they're throwing so much stuff at us I can't keep up (Fugitive of the Judoon). I think this'll be a pretty definitive season for the Thirteenth Doctor's era, and I'm really excited to see how it all ultimately shakes out. I have my theories but I'm not married or beholden to them in a way that could really disappoint me, but I am holding out a sliver of hope that this could be setting the stage for the circumstances that the Valeyard emerges from (even though I haven't gotten to the Sixth Doctor yet, I have a cursory understanding of that lore). I also think if we're ever going to get another season of a spinoff I will not name here, it'll be announced within the next couple of months. Because actors age and there are only so many opportunities in this franchise that sometimes feels like a ticking clock.

As an aside, I started watching The Outpost as well on a whim. It's one of those syndicated fantasy shows produced for international audiences and hidden away somewhere obscure in American broadcasting - in this case, summers on The CW. I'd always been kind of curious about it since the premise seemed kind of fun, and I have to say I've really been enjoying it. I'd been a while since I indulged in low budget scifi/fantasy outside of Doctor Who, and it kind of makes me feel nostalgic. It also really makes me want to play Dungeons and Dragons again, since it kind of has the vibe of a lovingly created solo campaign. There's definitely a layer of cheese, but none of the actors feel like they're above it and the enthusiasm really translates on screen. I'm only pissed I got into it right as the CW seems to have yanked the free streams of season 2 off their website, which means I'm probably going to have to pay money to watch it on Amazon Prime (which is where I've been watching the first season for free through IMDb TV).

I haven't done any writing this month, and I'm content to take a break for a little while longer to fully recharge. I've been making my way through Sword of Destiny, the second short story collection for The Witcher, at a slower pace than I would like since I really want to watch the show. Hopefully I'll be able to have it done this week and I'll have watched it before I'm surrounded by other nerds at Katsucon. (And speaking of cons, I found this nifty website tool where I've been able to catalog every con I've ever attended, which is super neat and useful.)

But yeah, I've been able to keep myself busy that's been pretty effective in starving off bad vibes from a certain franchise fall-out and the dreariness of winter. Hoping I can keep this energy going for February as well.

So I just got home from ColossalCon East. The first day of the trip I started to write an entry but only got as far as:

Heading off for a weekend of being drunk in a hot tub soon. Last hurrah of summer so of course I accidentally left the box filled with liquor at home and now we're gonna need to buy some more.

I had a lot of fun at this con last year so I'm really excited, but will all the... uh... mess surrounding the people running it now I very much doubt I'll be attending in the future, so I need to make the most of it now while I have the chance.

Suffice to say, I did not make the most of it (RIP) but I still had fun all the same. Thursday and Friday were an absolute blast, but by Saturday I had gone too hard and spent the entire day in bed in the hotel room, and a couple of my friends got sick that day as well. Doubly annoyed because I talked to a cute guy on a dating app but the conversation died when I slipped into unconsciousness again.

So right now I'm watching the Doctor Who serial The Green Death and lamenting over how much weight I've gained on this trip, but tomorrow I begin celebrating fall in all earnestness, including resuming my watch of all the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street movies. I'm also gonna try to start writing some daily drabbles both for Doctor Who and hopefully some other fandoms as well. I'm also hoping I can actually generate some seasonal fic this year, since I particularly like writing autumn-set pieces but have rarely finished them.

Also, this entry's icon is Sousuke because it was my boi's birthday on Saturday 9/14 and I actually remembered this year!

So last week I went to Anime Expo. I didn't get to go to all the panels I wanted to, mostly because a lot of them overlapped and the lines to get into everything were obscene, but I still had a good time. And a lot of it boiled down to the fact that I lucked out with the events I did get into, and I didn't put too much pressure on myself to do anything specific.

( gay nerd shit under the cut )

So I didn't get to see Alita last Wednesday like I originally planned. I went to the theater and watched 20 minutes of previews before the projector shut off because, as it turns out, they didn't actually set up the movie in the film reel. After a false start where they started the movie IN THE MIDDLE I gave up and left, asking for a refund. As I was leaving an employee said that they fixed the issue but at that point I had already missed the first few minutes so like??? No????

Oh and the next day I drove nearly six hours to DC for Katsucon.

( It's technically in Maryland but I feel like that's splitting hairs )

It's been a while since I've made a normal journal entry update, since I've mostly been playing catch-up on tv and sleeping so there hasn't been much to report. However, this coming weekend I'll be attending Katsucon near Washington, D.C. so hopefully I'll have some fun stories to tell. I'm also excited to see some of my friends for the first time in a while!

While I'm on the topic, this is my current schedule for Conventions I'll be attending this year:

- Katsucon - February 14-17 in National Harbor, MD
- Anime Boston - April 19-21 in Boston, MA
- Anime Expo - July 3-7 in Los Angeles, CA
- ConnectiCon - July 13 in Hartford, CT
- Flame Con - August 17 in Manhattan, NY (tentative)
- ColossalCon East - September 13-15 in Pocono Mtns, PA
- Anime NYC - November 15-17 in Manhattan, NY (tentative)

The past couple of years I've been having a pseudo-quarter life crisis since I'm currently 27 and will be turning 28 in June, so I wanna do as many fun activities like going to conventions as I can while I'm still an age where it is still widely socially acceptable.

On the TV front, I've started watching GLOW, You, and the third season of One Day at a Time. I'm currently working my way through the final season of A Series of Unfortunate Events and playing catchup with the Pokemon Sun & Moon anime, the latter two I'm hoping to have done by the time I go on my trip this weekend. A lot of my normal season shows are also gonna be on hiatus for the next couple of weeks at the very least - idk why, since at one point February was a sweeps month - but I'm grateful as this means I get some breathing room and hopefully have time to be looser with my viewing habits and what I do with my time when I'm at home.

Also, this Wednesday I'll be attending a screening of the Alita: Battle Angel film, and if I have time before I leave on my trip the next morning I'll report back here!