.: so comes snow after fire :.

Oh what a day, I recieved all the orders I did in July. Which is weird, because they're from different sites, on different dates, and one of them was even supposed to be a birthday gift for myself (so, you know, next month), but apparently the stars are in position or whatever, because my room looks like Santa Claus just paid me a visit. \o/



First, the birthday gift. It's an amazing Avengers skirt I bought on Etsy. It's custom-made, so I had to give them my measurements, and I thought it would take them a lot longer to make it and ship it. And yet, here it is. The quality is great, better than I hoped. It's very soft, comfy, and the red ribbon is actually a belt, so it fits perfectly. And the best part is that with the appropriate stockings I can wear it in the winter too!



Then, the other two packages. My new S.H.I.E.L.D. bag from Etsy (the same seller who did the I Am Sherlocked minibag, she's so talented), The Art Of Marvel artbooks (a note on artbooks: when we first got into the anime/manga fandom, Mom and I started collecting every artbook we could get our hands on. We bought the first one two days before my first surgery, that was painful as hell but went fine, so we had this inside joke that artbooks brought us good luck. Plus we loved them. So now that I found out there are artbooks of Marvel movies, I wanted to buy them all, but they were quite pricey. Then a fanfic writer I follow on tumblr told me there was this special edition, which costed one third of the collective price for all four artbooks, and I obviously got it straight away), the Kingdom Hearts 3D official guide (which looks exactly like the first Kingdom Hearts guide, cue trip down Memory Lane), the second Cabin Pressure boxset (YYEEESSSSS! Best summer ever!), Carry The Fire by Delta Rae and Rock Swings by Paul Anka.



The artbooks came with a poster. An amazing, gigantic poster that made me squee in delight and do a little dance all around. I have a couple of ideas about where to hang it, although I'm an older and wiser Emperor now (and if you got that reference, I must hug you), and I'm going to put it in a frame first. I have two other things I have to frame before hanging them on the walls, and I'm waiting for the end of the summer to do it. That's because the shop is on the other side of town, I'd have to go there on foot carrying a bag with precious, fragile prints, and I'm too lazy to do it in this heat.

You can also see the S.H.I.E.L.D. necklace I bought along with the bag, it has the acronym on one side, the logo on the other.



Close-up of the Cabin Pressure boxset. I'm worried as it doesn't have the Christmas special, it ends with Limerick. I wonder if they're going to put it in the third boxset, although it wouldn't make much sense. I just hope they didn't cut it out entirely, because it's one of my favourites. Crossing my fingers here. This time the booklet is written by Douglas, we have the Hey Chief notes, a few lists (dwarves, sins, etc), a few phone numbers from various women, a Hangman game that looks suspiciusly like a grumpy Martin, and pictures of cheeses.

And yesterday I had an amazing night of sleep. I was wearing ear plugs, as the neighbour upstairs is very noisy when getting ready for bed, and has an annoying smoker cough, but the other times I used them I woke up around 1 am and took them off. This time I fell into a deep sleep, and woke up all nice and cozy just before the alarm went off, and it was so refreshing. Hurrah for ear plugs and for my uncle who told me to buy them! *_______*

Another hot, unbearably hot day. What the hell. Tati is here, so it was a great day anyway, but holy crap, will I be happy when this summer is over. Plus that would mean my birthday is coming, so there's that too. :D

As promised, pictures of what we bought today! It's a Nintendo 3DS XL, which is stupidly big, really enormous and far bigger than necessary (actually it's great, but I just had to do that). We gave back her old Nintendo DS and a couple of games, and bought the red one. As soon as it was on, we played a bit of Kingdom Hearts 3D, re-watched our favourite scenes, and the video quality is stunning. ♥



We still haven't named it. Since it's red I suggested Axel or Lea, but that's already her iPod's name, so the jury is still out on that one. My iPod's name is G-ERTI, by the way.





Sherlock here helps us understand how big this console is. It's like two PSPs one on top of the other.

Something adorable happened this morning. I was getting dressed, and she was in the living room waiting for me, and looking at my dvd collection. She called for me, and started asking me "if the actors in this show are still alive today". She was pointing at my Life on Mars boxsets, and as soon as she said it she realized her mistake, and started laughing. She told me they looked so real and so seventies on the covers that she hadn't realized it was that show with John Simm. She thought it was a tv show from the seventies I hadn't told her about. I thought it was so adorable, and such a lovely compliment to the show, that it had to be immortalized here. *_________*

We also tried the Loki tea, but iced. I made two cups, let them rest one hour, then put them in the fridge. Then we drank it with chocolate cookies, while watching Fantasia in the living room. It was good as hot tea, but it's superb as iced tea. We giggled all the way, these teas are so tasty and so related to their characters, it's amazing.

Last but not least, I just recieved an email from ReaperSun, my Wreck fanbook was shipped. I can't wait! My Sherlock bookshelf is growing! \o/

Yesterday Tati and I finished Kingdom Hearts 3D! It was the first time we finished a game together, what a wonderful experience! We cried, we laughed, we jumped on our seats. Beautiful, beautiful game. We're the first in our circle of friends to finish it, so we'll have to wait before we can discuss all the new plot points with anybody else. Well, in the meanwhile, there's secret bosses and secret weapons to fill our time. \o/

And big news, there are going to be three Hobbit movies instead of two. I wonder how many hours of film they actually have, they must have done every scene from the book. Not complaining, just in awe. ♥

I'm almost finished with my Grimm marathon. It reminds me a lot of the first season of Supernatural, I'm getting all nostalgic while watching a show for the first time, it's weird. Anyway, so far I love it, and I'm just in time for the start of the second season, in two weeks. No hiatus for me, yes!

Monday is definitely my new favourite day of the week. Yesterday I spent the whole day with Tati, mostly playing Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance together. We arrived at the Symphony of Sorcery world, and let me tell you, the game would be worth its price even for that world alone. It's the world of Fantasia, the Disney movie, and you get to walk through highly detailed landscapes from the Centaurs sequence (Symphony #6 by Beethoven) and the Nutcraker Suite scene. While you fight, the original suites play in the background, all the way from start to end, and the keyblades make violin sounds. While climbing a tree in the scene with the Autumn Fairies, Riku's footsteps played actual notes on the leaves. At one point Sora had to run through the stormy greek country, avoiding Zeus' lightning, towards the director's stand where he could bring the sun back.

We both agreed this is the most beautiful Kingdom Hearts world since Hollow Bastion. We're both in love with the original Fantasia movie, we know it by heart, and we both adore Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. Needless to say, we were teary-eyed throughout that whole world. 10/10 from us to this game, and we haven't even finished it yet!

This morning I watched Teen Wolf 2x09 while having breakfast. Watch Teen Wolf, they said. It's fun and lighthearted, they said. During that scene with Stiles and his dad I got actual tears in my eyes. When did this show get so compelling and beautiful? And it's so LGTB-friendly, I want to hug the whole cast and writers and producers. ♥



Halfway through, the mailman rang, and it was another package from the USA, way ahead on schedule. It usually takes a month for anything to get here from the States, I wonder what happened. Anyway, it was these two beautiful guys:


Why yes, it's Sherlock and John, with the skull and John's laptop too. They are made of felt, and have little buttons for eyes, and they're so sweet and soft and adorable I instantly reverted to a six-year-old girl, cooing and squeeing. Just look at them! *________*

Bonus picture, because if I have my camera in hand I have to take bonus pictures, my very personal tea cupboard:


Look at them! So pretty and tasty, yessshhh. There's chamomile, green tea and herbal tea in the boxes in the background, you never know.

Tomorrow I'll have to go to the doctor because I had miscalculated, I finished my pills and I thought I had another box left. Which I didn't, and I blame it on the heat messing up with my brain, because I usually never get it wrong. I'm not really looking forward to spending two hours in my doctor's waiting room, but I'm happy at the idea of getting to talk with him sooner than I thought. ^^

So, yesterday I refreshed a certain page on Storenvy every five minutes for a hour and a half, and I was rewarded, because I'm one of the lucky few who managed to buy Reaper Sun's Wreck, her Sherlock fanbook! Go me! It got sold out in under two minutes, what the hell. The last time I did something like that I was trying to buy tickets for Avatar. Wow.

About Kingdom Hearts 3D, I'm currently in The Grid. I managed to burst into tears ten seconds into the game, new personal record. Simple and Clean is my kryptonite, let's face it. The gameplay is brilliant, they took Birth By Sleep and adapted it to the DS, and it has Spirits. They're sort of like Pokemon that you create out of dream pieces, and they follow you around and fight with you, and you can tickle and pet them and play with them, and it's insanely addictive. And you can name them. So far I have Sherlock, John, Moriarty (a crazy-ass clown that only had a 30% rate of appearing, fitting), and Capsicle, Tony, Natasha, Hawkeye, Thor, Bruce, Coulson and Loki. Bruce is a delicate flower. As in, a literal blushing delicate flower. I swear, this game is blowing my mind. XD

Spirits aside, it is a gripping, fascinating story. I'm a bit worried, though, because I have this feeling it's going to end in tears even more than BBS, so I feel like I'm running around with this ominous cloud hanging over my beloved characters. Uhm.

Real life news, if all goes according to plan, my aunt should be able to drop by in two weeks, more or less. With her mom's accident and everything she last came here last February. Trepidation is a good word for what I'm feeling right now.

I'm putting off doing something I should do (it involves papers and getting all of mom's documents out, and I've been postponing it since forever) and I'm dead set on doing it today so that I won't ever have to think about it ever again, and to put me in a cheerful mood, so that I won't throw everything out of the window or, I don't know, set the house on fire, I grabbed my camera and took pictures of the latest things I bought. So there.

An explanation first. Every year at the Disney Store they sell a customized snow globe for christmas. It's a tradition of mine to buy one every year, and put it by the tv. I love them. And I got my cousin into doing it too, although my aunt doesn't seem to like this traditon that much. Anyway! Yesterday I went to see if they already had them, and I found this amazing Jack Skellington one, with the Sandy Claws costume and the flying coffin and everything. It's perfect. Although when my therapist saw it she kinda turned green and tried to ask me why the coffin. It's so beautiful, that's why the coffin!



C'mon, they're adorable! *_____*

Also, I re-arranged my action figures, so now I have all the Kingdom Hearts ones on the shelf on top of my computer. They're so beautiful, the details are amazing, and now there really is no doubt about which game is my favourite one.



And Balthier, and Clare, I know. And Axel got cut off from the picture, poor guy is in the left corner. And I do need to get my dvds in some order, there are tv series among my manga, it makes no sense.

( Close-ups and ramblings under the cut! )

Ok, now it's definitely time to get down and do that stupid census thing. Maybe I should put on some classical music to relax some more, before I start swearing and set the keyboard on fire. Mmmmh.

I'm having problems with Itunes again. It deleted everything on my Ipod twice, and that's three times in two weeks. So now I'm re-creating all my playlists, re-editing all the artwork on photoshop, and I swear to god if it does that again I'm going to do an exorcism.

On other news, Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded is pretty addictive. Considering I hate platform sequences (god, how much I hate them) it took me only two tries to defeat the final boss on Traverse Town, and now I'm in Wonderland. Still my least favourite Disney world, but it brings back so many memories.

I'm having problems with Itunes again. It deleted everything on my Ipod twice, and that's three times in two weeks. So now I'm re-creating all my playlists, re-editing all the artwork on photoshop, and I swear to god if it does that again I'm going to do an exorcism.

On other news, Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded is pretty addictive. Considering I hate platform sequences (god, how much I hate them) it took me only two tries to defeat the final boss on Traverse Town, and now I'm in Wonderland. Still my least favourite Disney world, but it brings back so many memories.

The sun is here! At last! It's been so long since the last sunny day that this morning I woke up, went to the kitchen to have breakfast, and start wondering if I had left the lights on because the room was so bright. Yes, it was the dawn. I'm turning into a vampire, I tell you.

By 9 am, my friend was here, and she did my nails, and they're so short, and pretty and black and white with flowers and lace and little glittering rocks, god, I love them. She's so good! Now I can play on my Nintendo, so I did a good hour of levelling up in Traverse Town on Kingdom Hearts Re: Coded, and it's so nostalgic being there. But I miss Donald and Goofy!

My computer is also acting crazy. It shut down a couple of times, loaded the wrong wallpaper, and didn't give an error sign so I don't know which code error is happening. I ran a couple of cleaning programs, and now it seems it's working again. Let's hope so. I was planning on re-watching Leverage from the beginning, but it got so crazy I'll turn it off as soon as I post this entry and let it, I don't know, cool down? Repent? I wonder if I should buy an external hard-drive, just in case. I could call it Hardison.

While writing this entry I recieved a phonecall from a distante relative, called Nella. Just to be clear, there are at least ten different Nellas among my relatives, and I just couldn't remember which one was this one. Still, she was adorable! So sweet, and loving! How can I have such an adorable relative, and don't know anything about her? I'll call my aunt and investigate more.

Let's start with something ridicolous: I just bought Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded, and I can't play it because of my wonderful perfect nails. They're too long and perfect and I can't press the buttons on my DS, and Sora can't walk straight. True story. So I'll have to wait until I can get them fixed by that friend of mine who does my nails. Yup.

On other news, I'm currently watching Leverage, and my god isn't it the most adorable thing ever? I've always loved stories about con men since I first saw The Sting back when I was an innocent little kid, and this show is just so adorable! It makes me feel all happy inside, it's like chocolate. Just started the second season, it gets better and better with every new episode.

My cold is getting better, my throat hurts a little, and I still walk around the house with a roll of toilet paper because I'm constantly blowing my nose, but I have no fever and my head feels fine.

And on other news, guess who has tickets for Bon Jovi's concert here in Italy on July? That's me! This was my first time buying tickets for a concert, so I was so sure I was going to screw something up, and yet, with all the fever, and my brain working at half its normal speed, I managed to get great tickets, go me!