098 ☆

[tinkaton]

➤ It's To Clutch a Razor release day!!! Got my holds on Libby and a physical library copy so we'll see which comes in sooner lmao. I want to re-read When Among Crows before I read the sequel so I should get on that (though it's only a novella so I can definitely read it in a day or two).

➤ Hades II has also been given an official release date! It's coming out of early access September 25th which is Soon TM. I've just been waiting until the full game release to play it so I'm excited. 🥳 I've gotta finish Metaphor: ReFantazio first though, so I won't be getting to it right away, boo. Though that may be more of a struggle than anticipated because my PS5 shut down on me last night in the middle of playing because I think it overheated and I've been too scared to see if it'll turn back on. 😐 So we'll see how pissed I'm about to be.

➤ I've been reading The Summer Hikaru Died manga (finished the first 3 volumes and I've got the next 2 in hand already) and it's really good! It's a slow burn horror with queer coming-of-age themes about a boy in rural Japan who discovers his best friend has died and been replaced by an eldritch entity. The art is really good and I always love a good queerness-as-monstrous metaphor. Definitely going to be trying to keep up with this one as it comes out.

➤ My birthday's coming up soon, and of course my work schedule is all over the place this week lmao I worked Sunday and I'm working this Saturday, but I took some days off in between and a couple next week to give myself a three-day weekend anyway. Nothing major planned, might just try out a new fancy Chinese buffet with my family on one of my days off. I have been buying myself a bunch of stuff under the "it's my birthday month" mantra sjdhfksjhfds I ordered ANOTHER Jayvik zine full bundle so I really have to lay off the zines for a while lmao. (Easier said than done because there's like 50 million Arcane zines coming up please stop tempting me!!) I've also been eyeing a couple Hatsune Miku figurines I really want and they're not even that expensive (about ~25 bucks each) but I've been spending so much money lately and I've got my car inspection coming up too so I'm just bracing to be hit with a surprise big expense. 😑

Comments

[yarnofariadne]

I've also been waiting on full release for Hades II and I'm so excited to finally play it!!

[matsushima]

Ooh, I hadn't heard of The Summer Hikaru Died but I'm going to look it up! I really like the sound of the premise.

[greghousesgf]

Happy birthday! Wish I knew where you were so I could bake you something

[got_quiet]

I'm 4th on the To Clutch a Razer release holds so race you to it lol.

I hope you enjoy Hades II on your totally not burnt to a crisp machine! I cant wait for the plot to move forward.

How successful have those zine releases been? I read some horror stories that make me scared of getting legpulled. Also did you know someone one a book collecting prize because she had a pile of doujinshi lol. She won real money for it. When I heard about it I was like man, I missed my chance.

[ai]

$25 for a figurine is so cheap. I know a lot of these figures are usually prize ones in crane machines, but it is almost always cheaper to buy them outright than try to win them.

(but man I would love to win a figure one day!)

[tinkaton]

I've been trying to keep spoilers somewhat to a minimum haha I've definitely looked at the new art and stuff but have attempted to avoid plot discussions, so I'm excited to finally play too!

[tinkaton]

Now that I've read 5 volumes of it I can say it's definitely worth checking out. An anime just came out (is currently airing? idk) which is what prompted me to finally start the manga now that everyone is talking about it lol. It's kind of a mystery-horror with the two main characters trying to figure out who/what "Hikaru" is and what kind of supernatural weirdness is going on around the village. While also having the specter of Hikaru potentially killing the MC at any moment looming over them. Fun stuff so far!

[tinkaton]

Thank you! That's so sweet of you. ♥

[tinkaton]

I've got the book in my hands!! Hopefully this weekend I can reread When Among Crows and then start To Clutch a Razor... Very excited.

Haha thankfully I'll be getting Hades on Steam so I won't have to worry about the state of my PS5. I did attempt to turn it back on and play some more Metaphor and it worked fine, so fingers crossed that was some weird fluke that never happens again...

I've only ordered those couple of Arcane zines that aren't fulfilled yet, so I can't say about them, but the few self-pub'd books/zines I've backed before in general have all been okay. (Except for one that had a looot of delays but it did eventually end up shipping at least lmao.) I usually try to look through the mod team and see if they've done projects like that before/have sold merch/etc. to get a sense of if they know what they're doing or not. So far I've been lucky!

[tinkaton]

The two I'm looking at are both prize figures so yeah not super huge or fancy or anything, but I do feel a lot better spending 25-30 on a figure rather than 60+ for the serious ones. (Seeing them re-release the anniversary strawberry Miku is so oughhhh 😭 I want her so bad but I could never in a million years justify spending that much on a figure haha.)

Are there a lot of places in the US where you can actually win Japanese figures and stuff in crane machines? I would definitely just rather buy them too lmao I don't mess with spending real money on any luck-based stuff. But it'd be cool to get lucky and win one!