heavenly_pearl | Entries tagged with holiday

Hopefully 2021 will be a lot better than 2020.

Anyway, here's the traditional look back on the fanfics I wrote. I'm just going to link to my Tumblr.

2020 Fanfic In Review

Fanfic End of the Year Asks

And from Twitter:

Current Mood: hopeful

...and Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it! I hope you had a wonderful day.

I don't think I ever got around to posting my tree this year, so here it is:

I mentioned my goal was to eventually have a tree of mostly skate ornaments and my family decided to run with it, gifting me not only with some new ornaments, but some other skating-related decor!

Other things I got this year: clothes, several pairs of slipper socks, a Christmas mug, the new Celine Dion CD, Stella Color wedding figurines of Usagi, Rei, and Ami (I'll post a pic during my next Merchandise Round-up), the limited edition Blu-Ray set of the first part of the Fruits Basket remake, and a bunch of other anime DVDs/Blu-Rays from Sentai Filmworks's awesome Black Friday sale. (Season 1 & 2 Haikyu! DVD sets, The World Is Still Beautiful DVD set, Clannad: The Motion Picture DVD, Love Stage Blu-Ray set, Hataraki Man Blu-Ray set, Hitorijime 'My Hero' Blu-Ray set, Land of the Lustrous Blu-Ray set, Dive!! Blu-Ray set, and Princess Principal Blu-Ray set -- mostly blind buys! But at the prices they were going for, not much of a risk.)

Current Mood: good
Current Music: Adeste Fideles

...but Merry Christmas to everybody who celebrates it!

It was a nice Christmas. We did things a little differently this year. Usually we do most of our celebrating on Christmas Eve, but this year, we went to my sister's house on the 24th, saving presents and dinner for today. My sister and her family got me the new Sailor Moon Monopoly game and a Sailor Moon coloring book, while my parents gave me some clothes, a pretty vanity set, a decorative skate figure (similar to the one you can see in my tree pic from a couple of entries ago, which I got for my birthday), some anime DVDs (which Mom bought from me from my Sentai order last month), candy, and a little cash.

The best gift, though, wasn't even mine! My mom's iPad started acting weird a couple of days ago, pretty much rendering it unusual. (She broke the screen a year or so ago but had been able to use it just fine until now.) She was pretty upset about it, but my sister and her husband surprised her by buying her a new one last minute as her Christmas gift. She was so shocked! It was awesome. And I was pretty happy, too, because I had gotten her an iTunes card, so my gift didn't end up as a waste after all!

Current Mood: good

Here's my Christmas tree for this year!

And...here's an early Christmas present!

The Longest Night (also posted at AO3)

This is the "missing" chapter of Spirit of Fire I mentioned I was working on, taking place immediately after Chapter Two. I'm not entirely happy with it to be honest, but I'm not sure how many people are even interested in these extra SOF stories after so many years, so I guess it's good enough. Now that I got it out of my system, I can get back to work on finishing Friends With Benefits.

(BTW, I actually just finished another story...but I'm going to keep it a surprise for now. All I'll say is that it's not a Sailor Moon or a Kaleido Star fic, but it is for a fandom I've written for previously. I still have a little more polishing to do on it, but I'll get it posted some time next week, probably.)

Current Mood: groggy

Guys, Sentai Filmwork's Pre-Black Friday sale is RIDICULOUS! Especially if you're like me and don't really care if you buy DVD or Blu-Ray as long as it is cheap. The prices are so good that I actually blind bought some series, which I almost never do, but, hey, when everything is so cheap, it's hard to reach the $75 minimum for free shipping! I figure if it turns out I don't like them, I can just resell them on eBay.

Anyway, this is what I ordered:

Chihayafuru Complete Collection DVD
Chihayafuru Season 2 Complete Collection DVD
CLAMP School Detectives Complete Collection DVD
Girlish Number Complete Collection Blu-Ray (This was the most expensive thing I bought, and it was still only $7.99!)
Living For The Day After Tomorrow Complete Collection DVD (Blind buy)
Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions Complete Collection DVD (Half blind buy -- I actually just started watching it on Crunchyroll, but since I'm already in love with it, I decided I might as well just buy it. Hopefully, the rest is as good as the beginning!)
Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions - Heart Throb - Complete Collection DVD (Blind buy)
Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun Complete Collection DVD
Natsuyuki Rendezvous Complete Collection DVD
One Week Friends Complete Collection DVD
Psychic Detective Yakumo Complete Collection DVD (Blind buy)
Taisho Baseball Girls Complete Collection DVD (Blind buy)
Tanaka-kun is Always Listless Complete Collection DVD
Watamote: No Matter How I Look At It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular Complete Collection DVD (Blind buy)

Fourteen sets for about $82 (once tax was included)! See, ridiculous.

Oh, while I'm thinking about it, it's almost time to send out Christmas/holiday cards, so if you want to receive a card from me or if you have moved since last year, you can either PM me or comment to this entry with your address. Comments will be screened.

Current Mood: excited

It's been a while since I've talked about new Sailor Moon merchandise I've bought, so here's what I've added to my collection since November.

This is probably my favorite new buy: a Proplica Moon Chalice! I've been wanting and wanting and WANTING something from the Proplica line, but everything is just so incredibly expensive, so when I found this baby on eBay for around $50, I had to get it. Regular price is more like $100, so a very good deal. Unfortunately, it needs a special type of battery to light up. I didn't really see much of a point in buying one just to light it up once or twice, so I just found a YouTube video that shows what it does. Good enough!

( Read more... )

Current Mood: dorky

I hope yours turned out better than mine, because mine was kinda crappy...and I mean that literally. The night before Christmas Eve, I got sick with diarrhea and vomiting (on top of it being that time of the month), so we ended up having to cancel our usual celebration with my sister and her family. (They're coming over Wednesday instead.) I'm feeling better today, but, yeah, so not fun.

We did open presents today. My gifts were mostly clothes, but I did get some cash, a Sailor Uranus Tamashii Buddy, a gashapon Kaleidomoon Scope wand (which I already have, so I'll be selling it on eBay), a Sailor Pluto wall scroll, your name. DVD, and best of all...a Bluray player! Yes, I'm finally joining the 21st century. I figured it was about time to upgrade when Sentai Filmworks announced that they are planning to stop producing DVDs. To be honest, I'll probably still continue buying DVDs for as long as possible since anime DVDs are usually way cheaper than Blurays, and y'all know how much I like saving money, but it'll be nice to have when the time comes. (And I'll finally be able to watch the extras that come on the Viz Sailor Moon Blurays I have, which reminds me that I need to pre-order the first SuperS set with some of my Christmas money.)

Current Mood: okay

First, since it's almost Christmas, here's a pic of my bedroom tree, which is kinda Sailor Moon/Yuri on Ice inspired. Obviously, you can see the SM Petit Charas and the YOI Funko Pops under the tree, but I also used skate and "Silver Crystal" ornaments! The second pic shows one of the crystals better since they're pretty small and hard to see.

I also finally got around to watching Le Movement Final, the last Sera Myu, and it was really good! I was a little worried I might not like it because I'm just not a huge fan of the Stars arc in the manga, but while the show did stick pretty close to the manga, I thought it worked better in a more condensed form.

( Spoilers below! )

Current Mood: geeky
Current Music: O Come All Ye Faithful - Josh Groban

Happy belated Thanksgiving!

It's that time again, so if you've moved since last year or want to be added to my holiday card list, comment or message me with your address. Comments on this post will be screened.

Also, if you're an anime fan (or have one on your list), I recommend checking out the Black Friday sale at Sentai Filmworks's website. Super cheap prices! I ordered DVD sets of Another, Allison & Lillia, Bodacious Space Pirates, Flying Witch, Kids on the Slope, and Chivalry of a Failed Knight , all for about $80!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I celebrated by buying a gift for myself: the Chibiusa and Pegasus Chouette figure I've been drooling over! I wanted to buy it from Crunchyroll, which looks to have it already in stock, but for some weird reason, they kept saying my credit card information was wrong even though it wasn't. I finally gave up and just pre-ordered it from Amazon instead (same price anyway). I'll have to wait until the end of March to get it, but, oh, well. I also ordered both Sailor Moon Crystal DVD sets -- Amazon has the first set on sale for just under $20! -- and a couple of gifts for my nephew's birthday in March. Can't believe he's almost three already!

Current Mood: good

And I got one!

The best part is that most of those presents were total surprises. I knew I was getting the Sailor Moon S boxset, the Princess Serenity figure, and some of the Funko Pop figures, but I didn't expect any of the rest of it. Missing from the picture are three really cute Sailor Moon T-shirts. (Oh, and the SuperS Edition Petit Chara set with itty-bitty Helios! That, unfortunately, didn't arrive in time for Christmas. It was supposed to be released at the end of November, but I guess there was a delay or something. Right Stuf just sent it off a couple of days ago, so it should get here sometime next week.) For some reason, I got two of the same tumblers and keychains, but, oh, well, I guess I'll just sell the extras on eBay.

Other presents:

( The loot )

Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Hope it's a good one.

Current Mood: happy

Long time, no post! I was actually hoping to have the final chapter of Melting Ice up today, but that didn't happen. Good news is, I think I'm starting to get out of the writer's block I've been having on that chapter, so I hope it won't be too long before it's finished. *crosses fingers*

To give this post a little more substance, here's an Alphabet Meme taken from

sophiap. Comment with up to three letters at a time and I'll answer them!

A - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.
B - A pairing–platonic, romantic or sexual–that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.
C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.
D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.
E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?
F - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom?
G - Have you ever had an OTP? If so, do you remember your first one? Who was in it?
H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?
I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?
J - Name a fandom you didn’t think about until you saw it all over Tumblr. (You don’t have to care about it or follow it; it just has to be something that Tumblr made you aware of.)
K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?
L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves. (Characters you’re neutral about are fair game, as are characters you merely dislike. Characters that you absolutely loathe with the fire of ten thousand suns are exempt, as there is no point in giving yourself an aneurysm over a character that you hate.)
M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.
N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).
O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?
P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).
Q - A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.
R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?
S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon
T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?
U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.
V - Which character do you relate to most?
W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.
X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.
Y - What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?
Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go!

Current Mood: loved

I just wanted to show off some really cool Sailor Moon stuff I recently bought from eBay (all from the same seller) that came in today. (Don't mind the glitter... That's where my Christmas tree was, and I haven't gotten around to cleaning it up yet. They're not going to stay there anyway.)

Pretty awesome, right? I'm especially in love with the Super Sailor Moon karaoke machine, circa probably the mid-90s. I had to pay close to $50 for her, but it was definitely worth it. She'd never really been taken out of the box, so she was still in working order. When you press her brooch, it plays an instrumental version of Moonlight Densetsu that you can sing along with. What's funny is that I first came across her on this French Sailor Moon collection site a couple of weeks ago and instantly fell in love, but figured I would never find one for sale. So imagine how happy I was when one actually did show up on eBay -- and at a fairly reasonable price to boot! The other three items are a Pluto magnet, a Pluto cell phone strap, and another fun item: a SuperS jigsaw puzzle/dry erase board, all from the 90s as well, I believe. Definitely old merchandise, but in great condition.

( Close-up pics )

In other exciting news, I won a $25 gift certificate to Right Stuf, thanks to the Christmas giveaway over at one of my favorite manga review sites, Manga Test Drive. Would have been nice to have during their Christmas sale, but I'm sure I won't have any trouble finding something else to spend it on!

Current Mood: excited

(The tree in my bedroom)

Hope everybody who celebrates it has a wonderful holiday! As usual, we did most of our celebrating yesterday. It was a great day, with lots of yummy food and good company! It was also the first Christmas that my nephew kinda got what was going on, which was fun, although he got bored after opening the first few presents and just wanted to play with all his new toys. *laughs* As for me, I got:

( Presents )

Christmas also means Right Stuf's annual Christmas sale. So far I've bought:

Ceres: Celestial Legend DVD boxset
Aria The Animation DVD litebox
Aria The Natural Part 1 & 2 DVD litebox
The Familiar of Zero Seasons 2 & 3
Space Brothers Collection 1, 2, 6

I also plan to order Season 4 of The Familiar of Zero and Collections 3 & 4 of Space Brothers, but I think I'm going to hold off on those until the very last day of the sale, just in case they put up a Mega Deal I might want. BTW, Space Brothers is amazing! I've just streamed the first 26 episodes, but I fell in love with it almost right from the start, so when I saw the sets on sale, I decided to stop streaming and just buy it. (Unfortunately, I missed the Mega Deal on Collection 5, but I'll pick it up eventually.)

Current Mood: good

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans reading this!

Current Mood: contemplative

Right Stuf has already started their annual holiday sale? And it doesn't seem like the sale listings will be limited to the usual twelve days?

Man, they're trying to make me go bankrupt, aren't they? Well, at least the first day doesn't have anything I particularly want, but I'm sure that'll change as the weeks go on... (And let's just ignore the fact that I haven't even finished watching all the stuff I bought last year yet.)

Current Mood: nerdy

Anybody have a spare $1500 laying around that they'd be willing to give me? My birthday IS coming up next week, after all... No? Darn!

But just check out this eBay listing: Stallion Reve, Pegasus Plush, and a SuperS henshin wand! Those first two things are pretty much my Holy Grails -- not be confused with the Holy Grail that of such importance to S/Ifinity -- of Sailor Moon merchandise collecting, and the henshin wand is pretty spiffy, too. Argh, I want them so, so much! *sigh* Oh, well...

In happier news, I finally sold off all my extra Petit Chara figures. Whoo! Now just need to find a Sailor Jupiter and Tuxedo Mask to complete my collection. Those really do seem to be the rare ones. (Well, there is one Jupiter currently for sale, but I don't want to pay $15 for her if I don't absolutely have to. Edit: Went ahead and bought her anyway. With a combined shipping discount and a buy-3-items-get-$3.00-off deal from the seller, the price was more along the lines I was willing to pay. And I got two more items for my Pluto collection!) Might have to resort to buying some more blind boxes and hoping for a lucky find. BTW, whoever came up with the concept of blind boxes is EVIL. True, an absolute genius, but still evil.

I still have a bunch of other things for sale, too, which you can find here. Of particular note for Sailor Moon fans are the animated musical Luna that came out in the 90s (still works!) and a bunch of cards that were sold from vending machines at Toys R Us back in the day as well. There are also a bunch of DVDs that I'm selling on behalf of my mother. She's a huge horror buff, so there's tons of scary movie on there (including a whole boxful I haven't even listed yet). Probably too late to buy any and get them in time for Halloween, but still might be worth a look if you like that sort of stuff.

Current Mood: grumpy

My sister shared this funny comic on my Facebook wall this morning. I thought y'all might get a kick out of it!

Here's a link to the original post if you'd like to share on your Facebook, too.

Current Mood: amused

Yay, the Yona of the Dawn (Akatsuki no Yona) manga has been licensed by Viz! I figured it was only a matter of time due to the success of the anime, but, wow, it's already up to nineteen volumes and still on-going? I didn't realize it was that long. Everyone's Getting Married also looks rather promising, being another josei title they'll be printing under the Shojo Beat banner. More josei is always welcome!

The summer anime season has (mostly) ended, so here's some final thoughts on the shows I watched:

My Love Story!! - Yep, I think this is another series that earns a Masterpiece ranking. I loved pretty much every single second of it. I still think that Rinko could have gotten a little more development, but she was fleshed out enough in the second half to satisfy me. Plus, it's just a really, really, really cute show!

Snow White With The Red Hair - For the past few seasons, there has usually been one really stand-out shoujo series (Akatsuki no Yona, My Love Story!!), and Snow White With The Red Hair is this season's. Shirayuki is a fantastic lead, and the romance between her and Prince Zen is really sweet and respectful. It also looks gorgeous as well. My one complaint is that there doesn't really seem much of an overreaching storyline so far, but that's okay. I'm looking forward to the next season anyway.

Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers - You know, when I first read a summary of this series, I thought the whole "seventh Brave" thing was just a hook to get people interested. I figured that the identity of the seventh Brave would be figured out around the half-way point of the show, then they would continue on to fight the Demon Lord, with the traitor sometimes getting in the way.

But actually, the ENTIRE show is devoted to the mystery of the seventh Brave and they never get the chance to fight the Demon Lord at all! (At least this season. It's based on a series of light novels and ends in way that pretty much demands a continuation.)

I was kinda annoyed by that, actually, since the mystery just seemed to drag on and on and on to the point that by the end I didn't really care who the traitor was anymore.

Heroic Legend of Arslan - A fairly average war story anime. I enjoyed watching it -- and I'll definitely be back for the upcoming new season that was just announced -- but there's nothing really memorable about it, except for the ending song "One Light", which is absolutely gorgeous.

To-Love-Ru Darkness - Lots and lots of fanservice, skirting the line of outright porn. What else is there really to say about it? (But it was still pretty fun to watch, if only to see how far they could push things.)

Hetalia: The World Twinkle - Again, not much to mention. If you enjoyed the other seasons of anthropomophized countries being cute together, then you'll enjoy this season.

As for what I plan to watch in the new season... Well, there's a new season of Diabolik Lovers for some reason. I don't really WANT to watch it, but my sense of completeness will probably make me anyway. (I can at least hope the lead heroine might have grown a bit of a backbone...but she probably hasn't. Or maybe they'll add a nice, non-murderous romantic interest for her? ... Probably not.) At least a vampire anime is suitably Halloween-y, which I enjoy in October.

Other than that, I'd like to check out Beautiful Bones - Sakurako's Investigation -, The Perfect Insider, and Dance with Devils (an anime musical!) -- all also suitably Halloween-y. One-Punch Man isn't Halloween-y at all but seems to be getting a lot of early buzz, so I might check it out. Starmyu also kinda interests me, being about a bunch of hot guys trying to become an idol group, but Dance with Devils seems the more interesting "singing bishies" show, so I may skip it during simulcast and wait to watch it some other time. And I actually would like to watch the second season of Noragami, but I haven't watched the first season yet and for some reason Hulu has all of the dub episodes yet only two of the subtitled episodes. (Usually it's the other way around!) I'd really prefer to watch the subtitled version first, so I'm not sure what to do about that.

Current Mood: hungry

Happy New Year!

Let's hope I can finally, finally, FINALLY finish Melting Ice this year. Gah, it feels like I've been writing that story for a decade now...

And now that the Fall anime season is ending, I hope to have a final review of the shows I watched posted sometime next week, after I finish watching a last few episodes, so look forward to that!

Current Mood: cold

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Sweet Dreams

Entries tagged with holiday

Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays

It's almost over...

More SOF

Sale!

Merchandise Round-up!

Merry Christmas

Le Movement Final

Better late...

Love Day

I'm dreaming of a Sailor Moon Christmas...

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Belated 2016!

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving

Oh, no

WANT!

Haha!

Manga news and Summer 2015 Anime Review

2015