drop ★ pop ★ candy

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When 2020 was looming, I posted an entry about the media that had made a real impact on me in the 2010s. I had fun with this, but it's hard to narrow things down across an entire decade! Maybe I should start doing these media roundups more frequently? Every half-decade, perhaps?

Oh, hey, it's 2025.

In alphabetical order, here are ten canons from the last five years that I think I'm going to remember! Note that this is media I originally experienced between 2020 and 2024, rather than necessarily being media that was originally released in that period.


1. Celeste. One of my absolute favourite games. Great music, charming characters, satisfying gameplay. It's tough, but I rarely found it frustrating, and I was delighted to realise how much I'd improved when I went back to replay from the beginning. Playing Celeste is a lot like playing the piano, learning the right pattern and timing of button presses through repetition until you can run smoothly through a level. I'll often find myself replaying Celeste levels when I've got a little time and nothing else is grabbing me, in the same way I'll often take a moment to sit at the piano and play a few pieces I know by heart.

2. The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. The relationship between these siblings is just so awful and intimate and fascinating; I can't get enough of it. I want to swim around in all this hideous codependency. When I first drafted this list at the start of the year, I noted, There's a chance I'm being too hasty with this one; I discovered it right before 2024 ended, so I haven't had time to be sure it's going to be a lasting interest. But, having had my mind obliterated by the latest chapter, I can now say with confidence that I am never going to stop thinking about this horrible game.

3. Lost. What an experience! I love it when characters are stranded together and forced to bond under high pressure, and this is an absolutely stellar example. Went in some wild directions, too; I said 'what the fuck' so many times while watching this show. Jack Shephard is a wreck of a man in a way that I find fascinating.

4. Omori. This game fucked me up. A lot of it is fun and charming! And then there are the parts that severely messed with my head. Two separate aspects gave me trouble sleeping. Some really interesting uses of gameplay, including one of the best-executed plot reveals I've ever seen.

5. Person of Interest. In a lot of case-of-the-week shows, the case itself is the least interesting part for me. In Person of Interest, I found the individual weekly cases absolutely gripping. The fact that the murders they're investigating haven't happened yet gives each case a living main character, usually the would-be victim, which makes them so much more fun to watch. I really enjoy Reese as a character, too.

6. Persona 5. I picked up Persona 5 in lockdown, when it was heavily discounted. I'd heard good things about the Persona series, but I'd always been intimidated by how long and complicated the games sounded. Still, it was 2020, and I wasn't able to leave the house, so it seemed like the right time for a hundred-hour RPG. It was an incredible decision. What a stylish, fun game! What great kids! I played it non-stop for a month and a half and had an absolute blast.

7. Persona 4. I was a little concerned about going back to Persona 4 after playing 5. I'd loved Persona 5 so much; what if the previous game was a disappointment? But I ended up loving Persona 4 just as passionately, largely because of Yosuke; he's a good-hearted but slightly shitty disaster of a teenage boy who's helplessly in love with the protagonist, and I find him endlessly endearing.

8. Severance. I've always been compelled by stories about weird things happening to people's memories, and by stories about people developing intense relationships while isolated together, so Severance is essentially the perfect canon for me. By a long way, it's the most gripping show I've ever watched. I'm so nervous when I sit down for a new episode; I never know what to expect!

9. Taskmaster. What a show. It makes me laugh like nothing else. The way it keeps a single set of contestants for each series adds a lot to the experience; you really get to know the contestants and their approaches to these ridiculous tasks over the course of a series. The New Zealand and Australian versions are just as great to watch; Greg Davies remains an unparalleled Taskmaster, but, if I'm honest, Paul Williams is my favourite assistant.

Wait, that's only nine! Okay, I'm going to add a tenth, but this is definitely cheating:

10. Death Note. I absolutely did not first experience Death Note between 2020 and 2024; I've enjoyed it since 2008! But I feel it sort of fits in my 'canons of the last five years' post because I got back into it in 2023 in a way I'd never been into it before. I watched the stage musical, absolutely lost my mind and spent months thinking about nothing but Light Yagami. Let's say the tenth canon here is Death Note: The Musical.

Honourable mention to The Quarry for the burst of intense ficwriting it inspired in me! I wasn't that drawn in by the canon itself, but the potential in Travis and Laura's relationship really grabbed me by the throat.

EDIT: WAIT, I just thought of a legitimate number ten!

10-2: Die Hard. We were locked down for Christmas in 2020, and I was sorry that I couldn't visit my family, but the upside was that I joined in my housemates' Christmas tradition of watching Die Hard. This film was such a delightful surprise for me! I went in expecting a badass, stoic action hero; I got a desperate, terrified mess. I found John McClane's suffering so compelling. What a blast.

I have to go to PT today. I should be resting because of this damn cold.

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I have a really bad cold, I must have caught it at the con, there were about a zillion people there. I don't think it's covid. I had to drag myself out of the house to get groceries including cold pills, the only kind they had at the store was some kind I never heard of. They were also out of some things I wanted, including dental floss but I'm too tired to go to other stores. I hope they work. I have to do laundry too, I am currently taking a breather and cooking lunch. Apart from this cold I'm in a good mood.

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I picked up these two CDs at the CD exchange a while back (when I got that Dream Theater album) but now I'm gonna review them. Tl;dr my music sniffing nose did it's job this time. I've picked up a few duds by just buying used CDs completely blind but I guess judging music by it's cover works well enough.

First CD is Prorok Ilja by Patriarch. It turns out this is kind of a group I have already heard. Many years ago for a fandom gift box someone recommended to me the band Batushka, which I enjoyed a lot, and this group is some sort of splinter group that happened after a rights fight. The tone is the same. Orthodox church vibes slathered in black metal and noise. This has been my play on repeat car CD since I got it.

The other CD I got I lost, and I don't remember the name of the band, so I guess I'll have to come back to that when it surfaces.

I've been reading a lot of Arcane fic, though the frantic pace at which I'm doing this has started to slow down a little, so I'm working on something of a "rec" list. It's more of a review list because some of the fic I've enjoyed I've enjoyed despite some rather significant issues, sometimes even with basic SPAG, but imo while it's certainly rude to give an unsolicited critique to an author, the personal journal is fair game.

And I have picked up another batch of snacks from the Eastern European shop. And, good news, the wall of snacks actually has a back side, so there are double the snacks that I originally thought! The bad news is I forgot entirely which ones I had gotten, or which ones I liked or didn't like. I stuck to the newly discovered back wall to prevent dupes.

Today I tried Gulliver from AVK. I didn't notice when I grabbed it, but it's a vegan chocolate bar, which on  AVK's website says was developed well before veganism was popular. So it's a hipster vegan bar. It was also twice as big as all the other snacks, and is part of the "wafer covered in chocolate" family. Inside the wafer there is more chocolate, like a mouse, so this was a very rich candy and the 6" bar was more than enough for me. To likely no one's surprise, the quality of the chocolate is significantly better than our counter options here in the US.

I also tried a chocolate flavor frozen cheese curd snack. I think I liked it more than the orange even though the orange was good. It was chocolatey but not too rich or sweet. I'm becoming a real convert to these things, but I don't think they're easy to find without a specialty grocery like this nearby.
 

I had so much fun at the My Little Pony convention! Lots of laughs, lots of partying, lots of food, looked at interesting swag. it was a great opportunity to get to know the two friends who invited me better and they are both super super nice and generous. Saw some amazing costumes. my friends gave me a couple of plushies. I swam 16 laps in the pool (first time I had my leg scar exposed in public which I was nervous about but nobody seemed to care or notice). First time I ever played Rock Band and I sang Freebird. I know that has fuck all to do with ponies but it was cool and I went over well. I'm super tired right now, did not sleep well over the weekend but it was worth it

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I finished Transient Gundam (who is quite beautiful, but ugh, I did not do well with the clear-blue plastic; it scarred in weird unexpected ways) and want help picking my next build.

...while I also go through All My Paint because I might get to an actual hobby store next weekend where I can theoretically buy more paint/replace any bad paint. It's so much easier to buy paint in person than try to figure out color swatches on a monitor. ^^;;

I still have some other stuff to sort through, and I think a few other repair projects lingering, I am slowly but surely getting the desk and surrounding area sorted out for the first time in far too many years.

To have clean desks...



*non-custom
**this may be partly built or questionable; I have a couple of UC MGs I got very cheap because someone had started and not finished at least one of them
***I forgot to note that GN Archer is also not the custom-colors I have planned for one to make it into Abulhool

I am totally going to end up getting an airbrush if it ever warms up and stays warmed up.

Technically it's Saturday where I live, but I assume it's Friday in some part of the world 🤷🏻‍♀️ this is also my first time answering thefridayfive questions despite not having a partner except in my dreams 💭

1. Who was your first crush?
The Professor from Powerpuff Girls. I may have daddy issues 🤷🏻‍♀️ I also experienced my first turnoff/ick through Cartoon Network when I saw Johnny Bravo and thought he was the sort of guy I want to avoid 😆

2. Are you an introvert or an extrovert?
An introvert because I need regular socialising but I also need to recover after socialising. A certain amount of socialising with people I like energises me. Socialising with people I don't really click with drains me no matter the duration.

3. What is your favorite non-sexual thing you like to do with the love of your life?
Going by my favourite k-drama tropes, I like (or fantasise about) being taken care of while I'm on my period. I once wrote a fic about that actually.

4. What is one quirky habit your partner does that either annoys you or makes you grin?
My imaginary boyfriend gets baseline jealous of my k-pop boys 😆

5. Do you believe in monogamous relationships?
It's an individual preference. I believe sometimes it's an intellectual and emotional choice, because you're a relationship anarchist or not, while other times it's your sexuality and just the way you are, polyamorous or not.

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It's absolutely horrible fanfiction time!

If anyone prefers to read on AO3, I should mention that you won't currently find this on my AO3 account, because I've posted it anonymously for now; it's over here.

I've chosen to post this anonymously at first because, uh, I was recently interviewed about fanfiction for a newspaper article. I don't know whether I'll actually end up getting mentioned in the final article, but, if I am, I don't want unsuspecting newspaper readers to wander over to my AO3 account and discover this as the most recent fic on it; it's a little intense!

Particularly sharp-eyed readers may note that I've given the first warden a gun, when only the second warden had one in canon. This is because I can do what I want and you can't stop me.


Title: we're not going to do better next time
Fandom: The Coffin of Andy and Leyley
Rating: 16
Pairing: Andrew/Ashley
Wordcount: 2,700
Summary: Andrew is caught in a time loop. Infinite chances to get this right. It doesn't help.
Warnings: Sibling incest, (temporary) suicide, abuse, allusions to sexual assault, generally kind of fucked up.


( we're not going to do better next time )

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(three days of unposted updates again, whoops)

Have had a lot of mail coming in. ^^;; A couple of things were KS/pre-orders that just happened to roll in at the same time as 'must buy all the model kits', but now my living room looks like shipping and receiving. ^^;;

(I am watching a lot of small stores get royally fucked by the tariffs, especially nerd stores and other hobby-related ventures. Just, this sucks not only as a customer but just a person who is genuinely glad that being a nerd selling stuff to other nerds exists as a career choice and would like that to continue.)

Maybe over the weekend I can catch up on some hobby posts? At the rate the weather is going (wtf is the weather doing?), cemetery zine is definitely going to be a #0 with previous years ramblings and photos. On the one hand, alas, but on the other this is fine and maybe a good starting point.

Gundam G Generation Eternal finally released! I smashed through what I could and will attempt to figure out how to pace myself shortly. There are some pretty firm resource walls and no real reason to blast through things other than being ready for the upcoming Astray event.

( writing meme )

Yayyyyyyyy! I got invited to the last Bay area brony convention for the weekend! I'm leaving tomorrow night!

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Community Thursday challenge: every Thursday, try to make an effort to engage with a community on Dreamwidth, whether that's posting, commenting, promoting, etc.

---

Over the last week...

Posted and commented on bnha_fans! Vigilantes anime watch-along continues :D

Signal boosts:

• newcomers may get busy again as more Tumblr people consider migrating (I understand there were more layoffs and the skeleton crew is now extra-skeleton). If you like helping folks settle in, consider keeping an eye on the comm! Saw crossposts on the the_great_tumblr_purge as well, which may or may not pick up again.

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And before I begin, this is where I beg you to join Fable (and give you a cool invite code that gives us both $$ for one of their interactive ebooks). Fable is AWESOME! ❤️



( March 2025 ) And that was my March. How about you all?

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Cranking up the Beatles because one of my neighbors put Whitney Houston on.

The most dangerous thought a person can possibly have is, 'Huh, I feel like a lot of Softer World comics would fit this character dynamic.'

I was absolutely correct to have this thought about Andrew and Ashley Graves from The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. I just failed to anticipate the consequences.



Below the cut: eight more of these, with spoilers for episode three (Decay route). As with anything I post about The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, heads-up for hideously unhealthy relationship dynamics and heavy incestuous themes.


( The Coffin of Andy and Leyley comics, inspired by A Softer World. )


I've made ten of these things in the last four days. I'm going to try to at least take a break. If I don't stop at ten, when am I going to stop?

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I had a fairly nice day yesterday except for a couple of fuckups with the buses. That was the second day in a row a bus refused to pick me up. Also the bus that wouldn't pick me up took a VERY long time to show up and one of the buses coming back from the library was extremely crowded.
I had tea and carrot cake at my favorite cafe and then hung out at the library for most of the afternoon and then got some groceries at Trader Joe. I have birria and tortillas and rice and tomatoes and I'm going to cook a burrito for lunch before I go to physical therapy this afternoon.

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L. couldn't get together with me today because they are having major probs with their computer and have to hang around their house getting that taken care of but we had a nice long phone conversation just now. Later I'm going to go to my favorite cafe and then the library. I haven't hung out at the library in a long time.

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I've written 40k words of Project Fang! In celebration of this milestone, I treated myself and bought my author logo! I would've had to get an author logo eventually and I'm happy to tick that off the to-do list. I'm spacing out the purchases for authorial purposes, such as the book cover design, formatting software, etc. so I would've bought the logo at some point. But it feels good to do it as a reward or celebratory gift to myself.

Here's my logo! It's a pink watercolour key with my author name, Mynah Clement, and my tagline: 'Hopeful, relationship-driven fantasy books.'

I love it! I wanted my logo to have pink and purple in it, and initially I wanted butterflies, a bit like Stephanie Burgis's logo. But this one with the watercolour key is not similar to another one I saw or took inspiration from, so it feels truly mine. It's a premade logo, so it was affordable for me. The key reminds me of how things click into place as I keep writing even if they didn't before, so it's like a charm, warding off writer's block. The tagline is the best way I can think of to describe my books, and my approach to writing them. So there was some tweaking of the sample version of the logo's text placements to make it fit.

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I bought a couple of things from a small gunpla shop and the order confirmation included a link to their discord server. I've been in gunpla/gundam discords before and ran screaming, but I joined anyway and so far it is very chill, they love Providence and Daggers, and I horrified them with my backlog.

Sentai Filmworks Spring Anime Sale, til the 20th iirc. I think I'm good for the moment and need to work on my backlog more. (I mean, I am, but-)

Apparently Hakuouki SSL is getting an English release, which is exciting. I don't think it has an exact date, though, so I'm just going to have to keep it in the back of my mind for later in the year.

I actually wrote and posted a drabble. It's not much, but it's something. Worked a bit on zine stuff. Maybe I can do a bit more later.

Also worked on cleaning in the dining room. I think getting rid of a few more plants will help out A Lot. I'm also going to take a bucket of sand and a bunch of incense out to the garage to burn while working out there. If it ever warms up, I mean, which it hasn't.

Going back to the movies again today, this time to meet a different friend and watch Harold and Maude, a movie I love and haven't seen in a long time and never on the big screen. Some of the cemetery scenes in that movie were filmed at a cemetery right down the street from where I live.

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Looking forward to meeting a friend of mine at the movies this afternoon, we're going to see the musical version of Little Shop of Horrors! I'm wearing my red jacket with the embroidered Chinese dragons on it because it's the closest thing I have to those sexy green dresses with the Chinese dragons on them that the chorus wears in that one scene.

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I've now finished all that exists so far of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley! This entry contains spoilers up to the 'Shots and Such' ending in the new chapter (Decay episode three).


( Notes on The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. )


IN CONCLUSION: holy shit. I already loved this game, and the new chapter exceeded my expectations in every way imaginable. What an absolute treasure trove of fucked-up character dynamics.

I’ve been having so much fun with that book/lists meme that has been going around, and last night I finally finished one of my own! …And then promptly went on to make a second one that same night. And then started a third one that I haven’t finished yet, whoops.

First: 100 Books That Impacted Me In Some Shape Or Form! Deliberately excluding manga/graphic novels because I feel like that could be a whole list on its own.

I spent so much time fiddling with this list, debating on what it means for a book to be impactful, where exactly the difference between “impactful” and “enjoyed” lies, and where any particular book I chose would fall on that scale… do not ask how many hours I poured into this, lol. (And then, of course, after forcing myself to stop thinking about it and just post it, I immediately thought of like 5 more books that really should have been on this list! Isn’t that how it goes.)

After making that list (and sharing it with some people), I started thinking about making a list for games I’ve played as well. Since I do much less gaming than reading, I figured I’d make it easier for myself and aim for 50 games instead. So I opened up my backloggery, began making my way through, and… ended up with 75+ games without even really trying asdfghjkl; haha.

And thus: 100 Games Beloved By Me, featuring many visual novels and indie games, because I am who I am. I had to add so many of these to the database… But also plenty of jrpgs, because, again, I am who I am and I love what I love, haha. <3

All of these are games I really enjoyed at the time I played them; I make no promises about how they hold up now.

I would really love to hear how much overlap we have on either or both of these lists! As well as any more specific thoughts you might have on the books and games featured there <3

(As mentioned above, I have started a third list—for beloved/formative manga reads—though it’s slower going due to the amount of fan translations I read as a teenager that I no longer remember titles for… If I ever do finish it, I’ll share here! Also contemplating making another list for anime… but that will also have to wait.)

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Since I am avoiding a deadline at the moment I spent all night making up a random list of 100 items of formative media modeled after queenlua 's list of 100 books. I started out with books, but hitting 100 titles that really had a notable impact on me was impossible, largely because my memory is not strong enough for me to recall enough of them and also because I read a lot of schlock that doesn't linger. So instead it's Books, Movies, TV, and Games (and 3 bands).

This list is here. Looking it over it's a whacky mix of stuff that grabbed me at an early age but never would have otherwise made a dent (most of the movies) or stuff that really changed my brain one way or another. There are a few books on there that suck ass but my reading them still resulted in a permanent change in brain chemistry, so they stand with the rest. I also tried to stick to a single instance within a group. So, not every Ghibli film, not every Blizzard game, etc., just representative or particularly notable titles.

If you decide to join me in wasting some time let me know how many you matched with and if there's stuff you have strong opinions about or find intriguing.

I'm sure when I wake up tomorrow I'm going to think, "Why is X not on the list?!"

ETA:

I did in fact realize there were two things that absolutely should have been on the list.

The first is Anne Fausto-Sterling's Myths of Gender, which had a massive effect on my understanding of society's understanding of gender. The other is Language in Thought and Action by Hayakawa, which first got me into linguistics and probably turned me into a total sophomoric ass sometimes re. semantics.

Not much going on here now. I watched the Peter Jackson King Kong again yesterday, what a wild movie!
Anybody reading this, I would advise staying off TV tropes for a while, there's something wrong with it. The pages keep going blank or showing very suspicious looking pop ups which look like malware.

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It has been two months since the solar paneling was put in and not only is my electric bill not any lower, it's slightly higher. And this is partly during the time period when my computer was not working so it can't have been due to higher power usages.