.: so comes snow after fire :.

Another Reading Bingo update, and sorry for spamming your friends page with these. ^^



For the "A Book With A One-Word Title" I read Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl. I bought it because the cover art was by gingerhaze, an artist I love. I devoured the whole book in less than a day, it was wonderful. It's the story of Cath, a fanfiction writer who's on her first year of university, has social anxiety, and whose relationship with her twin sister is starting to crumble. She falls in love, tries to keep the deadlines on her hugely popular Harry/Draco fic, all the while worrying about her family and her future. Story-wise, it's nothing new, but the characters are so alive and real that it all feels new and exciting. The importance of fandom for Cath is described with love and respect, and every chapter starts with an excerpt from either a fic by Cath, or from the imaginary Harry Potter books she adores (they're not called Harry Potter, but they're obviously talking about Harry and Draco). Plus the writing is great, fluid and fresh, and the author avoids all the tropes she could have easily fallen into. If I had to find one flaw, I'd say the ending is a bit rushed, but that's probably because I was loving the characters so much I didn't want it to end.

If you have the chance, read it, especially if you're a fanfic writer/reader and would love to see yourself represented in mainstream media. It's an act of love for fandom, and a beautiful story too. What more could we ask for? *_____*

And a couple of videos for you too! First, Nancy Sinatra's original music video for These Boots Are Made For Walking. It's the most 60s video to ever exist. If we had to explain what the sixties looked like to an alien, we'd just show them this video. I laughed so much I almost fell off my chair, and then I remembered my formative years were spent in the 80s and 90s and I have no right to talk. :D

Then, here's the latest Final Fantasy XV trailer. Oh yeah, look at those PS4 graphics! Dayum! Sadly Tetsuya Nomura just left the project to focus on Kingdom Hearts III, but he left the helm to the director of Crisis Core, so no worries there. ^^

And here's a random video from EuroAirDotCon, just because. :D

Now, it's back to working on my aunt's birthday gift. I have a week to complete it, and no time to lose! \o/

Great real life news, my aunt is coming on monday! She bought the ticket yesterday, and then she sent me grocery shopping so that when she arrives we can make frittelle di carnevale. I love my aunt. ♥

My mouth feels a lot better, I'm eating proper warm food again, it's great. Today the weather took a turn for the worst, and my cellphone started beeping frantically with texts about the acqua alta (I'm registered to a site that sends texts and emails about the tide every day), but me, I was happy and warm in my armchair playing Lightning Returns. Speaking of which, just before lunch I defeated the final boss (in 11 minutes, go me!), and then proceeded to cry my eyes out during the finale. What a beautiful, perfect ending to a great story, one that I've been following for four years. I love all these characters, and it was so sad to say goodbye to them, but it was such a wonderful ending I can't help but feel happy.

And now I have this urge to start all over again with the first one. ^^

Tomorrow it's time for the second and, crossing all fingers, last part of the surgery on the stupid tooth. The other day I ordered myself a post-surgery gift, a tradition in my household. After the breast cancer surgery, mom got me a Best Of Queen cd, for example. *_____* This time I got myself a Totoro bag, because during the past week I've been marathoning all Studio Ghibli movies and they work even better than painkillers. And it's a super cute bag. Amazingly it arrived just in time, so I can carry it with me tomorrow for good luck.



And Lightning Returns arrived too, cue happy dance of joy. \o/ And I finally managed to talk on the phone with my therapist, and that calmed me down a lot. Between her family emergency and my tooth we haven't seen each other for three weeks, unacceptable!

Gotta go save a goddess now, wish me luck for tomorrow!

Still having a great time with my aunt! Sadly she'll leave tomorrow, but we got to do lots of things together, I'm trying to concentrate on that.

Yesterday we went to the cinema again to see The Descendants. We didn't know much about the story, she saw the poster and she liked it, and I just loved the idea of going to the movies with her twice in a row. We liked it so much. It hit very close to home (a woman has an accident and falls into a coma, that's us), but it was dealt with a lot of respect, and tenderness, and it was never over the top or forcibly pathetic. Obviously now I can't wait to read the book too. ♥

I bought a videogame for my younger cousin, since last week he turned 17. I chose a hunting game, and the game came with a controller in the shape of a rifle, where one should insert all move controllers and shoot at the pretty ducks on tv. I managed to put it all together, choose New Game, and that's as far as I could go. I couldn't bear to shoot any cute duck. Anyway, the game works, it's in my aunt's bag, and my uncle will surely love it too. Mission accomplished. :D

The icing on the cake of the day was when I met a friend of mine who's from Ukraine, and she gave me some sweets that a friend of hers made yesterday. They're a Russian recipe, I gathered, and they're AMAZING. I was torn between telling her she shouldn't have and asking her for more. :D

I also bought the new Final Fantasy XIII-2 DLC, the one with Sazh, and it had two new minigames, a cute card game with a magic clock, and, well, poker. I kept shouting at the tv about folding and queens and jacks and royal flush and straight flush and I had to stop when my aunt walked in and looked at me like I was losing my mind. Ehm. It was fun though. :D

Last night, at midnight, the neighbour upstairs came home drunk and singing out loud. After half an hour of that, I went upstairs and knocked on his door to give him a piece of my mind. He didn't answer, probably because he saw it was me, but he stopped singing and went to bed. So I texted the building manager, and he told me he'll talk to him about this and a couple other things today after work.

I mean, seriously. Is that flat haunted or something? A powerful curse that only attracts assholes? At least this guy isn't planning to stay here for long, but please.

Obviously I didn't sleep well after that, mostly because I was pissed off, and I woke up all nervous, but now a few hours have passed and I feel a bit better. But still, I feel like I should call an exorcist and leave it at that.

Yesterday I finally finished Final Fantasy XIII-2! I was incredibly over-levelled, so it took me only three minutes to kill the final boss. Then I sat back ready to enjoy the final movie. And that's when I got a To Be Continued.

I hope they're not planning to give us the ending in DLC, but they'll release another sequel. Because there's so much stuff to do now, I can't.

Last night, at midnight, the neighbour upstairs came home drunk and singing out loud. After half an hour of that, I went upstairs and knocked on his door to give him a piece of my mind. He didn't answer, probably because he saw it was me, but he stopped singing and went to bed. So I texted the building manager, and he told me he'll talk to him about this and a couple other things today after work.

I mean, seriously. Is that flat haunted or something? A powerful curse that only attracts assholes? At least this guy isn't planning to stay here for long, but please.

Obviously I didn't sleep well after that, mostly because I was pissed off, and I woke up all nervous, but now a few hours have passed and I feel a bit better. But still, I feel like I should call an exorcist and leave it at that.

Yesterday I finally finished Final Fantasy XIII-2! I was incredibly over-levelled, so it took me only three minutes to kill the final boss. Then I sat back ready to enjoy the final movie. And that's when I got a To Be Continued.

I hope they're not planning to give us the ending in DLC, but they'll release another sequel. Because there's so much stuff to do now, I can't.

This morning I woke up early, and this is the view that greeted me from the window:



Real snow! An actual layer of snow! It melted by noon, but it kept snowing all through breakfast, and it was such a beautiful sight. *_________*

In other news, yesterday Sakura and I were playing and one of her claws cut me at the base of my left thumb. It cut really deep, it bled a lot, and now I have this big bandage that's really weird. I only had normal band-aids, but they were too small, so I had to use one of those gauze bandages I bought when I had eye surgery. It's in the shape of an eye, and not meant for a hand at all, so I had to fix it with some tape. Tomorrow at the gym it's going to be so weird to do push-ups with this.

Going off-topic once more, I bought the latest Final Fantasy XIII-2 DLC, and after five attempts I finally have Lightning in my team. She's a mean fighter, and I can't wait to fight the final boss with her, mostly because it makes no sense considering the story, and I find it funny. :D

Sorry for disappearing on you. As expected, I've been completely absorbed by Final Fantasy XIII-2. I absolutely love it. It has all the strong points of its predecessor, and they fixed the weak points. The story is far easier to follow, for one. And having only two main characters gives it way more clarity. As of now, I'm at the last save point before the final boss, and I decided to take a stroll and level up. I'm actually stronger than I should be at this point, but I don't want the story to end yet. :D

On real life news, I finally went back to the gym. I skipped the last two months, and by god it feels like my body forgot everything. Tonight I managed to do almost all the exercises, but it was so much harder than usual. Plus my legs hurt. Ouch. The best part though was that our teacher loves the 80s, so she made a mix cd with a bunch of classic hits, and at one point it was a room full of girls marching to Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus. Amazing experience, worth all the cramps I'll have tomorrow. :D

Sorry for disappearing on you. As expected, I've been completely absorbed by Final Fantasy XIII-2. I absolutely love it. It has all the strong points of its predecessor, and they fixed the weak points. The story is far easier to follow, for one. And having only two main characters gives it way more clarity. As of now, I'm at the last save point before the final boss, and I decided to take a stroll and level up. I'm actually stronger than I should be at this point, but I don't want the story to end yet. :D

On real life news, I finally went back to the gym. I skipped the last two months, and by god it feels like my body forgot everything. Tonight I managed to do almost all the exercises, but it was so much harder than usual. Plus my legs hurt. Ouch. The best part though was that our teacher loves the 80s, so she made a mix cd with a bunch of classic hits, and at one point it was a room full of girls marching to Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus. Amazing experience, worth all the cramps I'll have tomorrow. :D

Holy shit, The Vampire Diaries. For once I was right. It's the first time I anticipated them, and figured out a plot point (the fourth coffin, woot!), I'm feeling so proud of myself. This show keeps getting better, and now we have new awesome characters, and I want to hug Elena so much. All the feelings, guys.

I just bought Final Fantasy XIII-2, and I'm 40 minutes in it, and so far I love it. Noel is adorable, Serah isn't useless at all, the Moogle is cute but never annoying, and I'm actually understanding what's going on. :D Off to Pulse, then!

EDIT: And this is the best comment to this VD episode EVER. I was browsing a forum, and somebody linked it as a review and I laughed for ten minutes straight. XD