Hey out there in Internet-land,

I mostly post "friends only" these days, but I still post stuff like fic chapters, giant kitty pictures, etc as public. With a few exceptions, if I haven't had a bunch of interaction with you in Real Life instead of merely online, I probably won't friend you back if you friend me; please don't take offense though, since seriously, I don't really post anything of much interest in those friends-locked posts anyway. You'll mostly be spared my rantings about how I hate whatever costume I'm working on at the moment because it's being evil. ;)

If I have friended you, please note: I have a separate filter which I use to hide all my Asian Ball-Joint Doll ramblings, pictures, etc. Some people think dolls are creepy so I don't push them on people by default; ask specifically to be added to that filter if you'd like to see them. :)

So I finished Hurricanger not too long ago. It was pretty good, in fact. And now I can add it to the ranking list. And I'll be reorganizing that for my own reference, since it's getting harder and harder to place all of them into actual numerical order. So instead I'll just stick them in groups, and not try to order them any further than that. :P

Top favorites (The ones I'd gladly rewatch more than half the episodes, if not the entire series):
Abaranger, Timeranger, Gekiranger, Dekaranger

Good, but not favorites (These I'd probably rewatch maybe half the show at most, just skim through the good parts and skip the rest):
Boukenger, Hurricanger, Gingaman, Bioman

Ones I'm not so fond of (There isn't much in these I'd want to see again):
Zyuranger, Gaoranger, Megaranger, Majiranger

And the next up is GoGoV, now that I have it all. Once I've seen that, I'll have watched everything chronologically backwards through 1997's Megaranger. I'm actually rather dubious about GoGoV given what I saw in the crossovers... the only series I've been more dubious about is Go-Onger, which from the 7 episodes I made myself sit through, well, let's just say my fears were somewhat justified. But on the bright side, perhaps GoGoV will be another sentai I can actually watch while sewing? ^^;;

Lastly, note to body: Sleep soon plz. Insomnia not so fun.

So largely on a whim, I'm skimming through my favorite scenes in Timeranger again. And what (or rather who) should I stumble across in episode 38?

The actor for Maru in Moebius.

Ah, toku, how I love you. It's so nice to see familiar faces popping up over and over again. ^_^

Short-short version: I'm home safe. Con was fun. Er, won Best Recreation (Presentation) and Best in Class (Workmanship). Guess I'm a Master now. Drat, kinda. :P

Pictures, babbling, etc later. Because now I require sleep.

I'm at the airport. I was sewing snaps on the train to keep myself awake. :P (No, I'm not done. But I'm close.)

See some peoples in a few hours. :)

(Seen this everywhere lately... Oh, and please note that suggestions might not actually be taken. I have an awful lot on my list already after all. ^^;;)

Tell me two things you think I should cosplay: One you think I would really like, and one you think I might never consider in a million years but might be suited for!

Gonna go back to wrestling with the costume now. But I'll be happy to look at suggestions when I take an occasional 5-minute break. :)

So... I'm watching the final episode of Hurricanger before bed. I'm like a minute and fifteen seconds in and what do I hear?

The freaking TARDIS materialization sound effect. HOLY CRAP. All of a sudden there is Doctor Who. (And the mysterious dimension they're in looks suspiciously like the "Time Tunnel" effect too.) And there's really no way it can be anything else - it's even the long version that so rarely got used because it usually doesn't take the TARDIS all that long to appear/disappear.

Okay, Hurricanger gets a ton of extra random points from me now. :P

Last night, as I was explaining to Mark how the public television station I grew up with, KTEH, was the Best Station Ever, airing such things as Doctor Who and subtitled anime:

Me: So basically, KTEH was made of win and awesome.
Mark: Well, of course it was, with the call letters of "K-TEH"!

...what can I say, I am easily amused.

Also: WTF, it's SNOWING. Weather, um, did you miss the memo that it's APRIL??

New SRW info! It looks like this will hopefully be the successor to the gloriousness that was the Alpha series that I have been hoping for oh so much. :D And it has a ton of new series in it! Here's the list, with those I've seen (or played through in SRW) before in italics and the ones I haven't in bold:

Overman King Gainer (NEW)
The Big O
The Big O Second Season (NEW)
Invincible Superman Zambot 3
Invincible Iron Man Daitarn 3
Combat Mecha Xabungle
Mobile Suit Z Gundam
Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack
After War Gundam X
Turn A Gundam
Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny (Seed yes, Destiny no. But regular Seed is apparently getting skipped this time, which is fine, they've already covered regular Seed and Astray before.)
Mazinger Z
Great Mazinger
Getter Robo G
UFO Robo Grendizer
Space Emperor God Sigma (NEW)
Genesis of Aquarion (NEW)
Psalms of the Planets Eureka Seven (NEW)
Super Dimension Century Orguss (NEW)
Space Warrior Baldios (NEW)
Ultra Weight God Gravion (NEW)
Ultra Weight God Gravion Zwei (NEW)

Over half the included series list that is completely new to me! Awesome! Plus, my favorite character designer is returning for the originals. And it's going to be for PS2 even! No new console required! (Wonder if it's going to be sort of like Alpha in that case - start out on the previous platform, then jump up to the next somewhere along the line.)

And of course, there is no release date yet, which means it's going to be a while. :P But I have MX at the moment keeping me busy, and then there will be the PSP version of A, so I'm not exactly suffering too much from the lack of immediate Z. (Besides, MX and A both have the awesomeness that is G Gundam in them, which I haven't been able to enjoy for a while, so yay.)

Okay, I know this is boring to everyone, but I'm done now. Besides, I gotta get back to sewing. ;)

Okay, so I can't sleep and I'm watching Hurricanger. Some fairly random observations:

--It's THAT SONG AGAIN! The "under the chestnut tree" one. Somehow I went for years and years without hearing this song while watching toku, and now suddenly it turns out it's everywhere! @_@

--Made it past the introduction of the Really Weird Villain, and the subsequent Really Weird Hero (aka Shurikenger). I've seen two episodes after that in which Shurikenger takes on suspiciously familiar faces as disguises. I'm rather shocked and/or proud that I managed to recognize both of them, and I have to wonder if the trend is going to continue. For the record, the ones so far are: in Episode 23, the detective is played by the actor for Kenta, Megaranger's Red. In Episode 24, the taiko drummer is played by the actor for Matoi, GoGoV's Red. (The latter is especially fascinating as far as my recognition goes, since I haven't even seen GoGoV yet except for its teamups. Of course, I did see GoGoV vs. Gingaman awfully recently, but still...)

I have to say, if Shurikenger keeps on imitating people who played previous Reds that would just be all kinds of awesome. TATSUYA PLZ. ♥ Gonna keep a close eye on any future potential cameos. And speaking of which, I may have to watch Go-onger 8 before giving up on the show completely, because there's a guest actor who looks an awful lot like Ultraman Leo in the preview. Though my eyes may be deceiving me. But I figure the curiosity will really nag at me if I don't watch the episode to find out. :P

One thing that this sentai-watching of late is totally not helping with, I gotta say, is the insistence by my brain cell that I want to do an AU rewrite of Boukenger vs. Super Sentai. I've been trying to resist the idea for ages now, but the brain cell is still totally stuck on the idea so I may not win. I mean, I'm having Nazo no Red monologuing in my head. This is just plain silly. It would in no way be short enough for a movie though. It wants to be some kind of giant epic with lots of time travel and quite a few more series than the original. Brain cell, c'mon, please, I got enough epics going, seriously. Oh yeah, and a big deadline is about two weeks, too.

Brain cell: Ninjas! Gotta send Sion to Hurricanger-time. He'd LOVE all the ninjas!
Me: *groan* I'm going to bed. Seriously.

This rather nonsensical post brought to you by sleep deprivation. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. :P

Edit: Looks like the next one wasn't another Red but another Megaranger, in this case Blue. Ah well, it's entertaining to see familiar faces anyway, even if they aren't (yet anyway) from the series I'd have chosen. ;)

Edit2: And now Fiveman's Red actor pops up in 28...

Edit3: And why did I not realize sooner that the Gouraijers' dad is played by Ultraman Jack's actor? Guess I was fooled by the lack of beard I'm used to seeing from Moebius. But wow, this is fun. :D

Go-onger = Hate

Hurricanger = Love

Costume = Hate (Almost no progress today)

Getting other things done = Love (Because mysteriously, mundane things don't go away and stop needing to be done just because there's a costume deadline)

I'm not entirely sure why I'm so fixated on sentai lately. I don't think it's costume procrastination, seeing as I got through most of Gingaman while I was sewing. I won't be able to do that with Hurricanger, I can tell, but that's okay; I can save it for "okay, if I finish this piece, I can watch another episode" rewards instead. That usually works too. :)

But tomorrow is another day, and I have high hopes for productivity...

Author's note: The nice way to describe this fic would be a "character piece." But I'll be honest: I just finished Gingaman, I'm having a cranky-day and I needed a good victim to inflict suffering upon to improve my mood. (I am, after all, an Evil Fanfiction Writer.) So feel free to skip if you're not in the mood for plotless character abuse. My feelings won't be hurt, I promise. ;) Don't worry too much though, I'll fix them back up when I'm done. Sentai is great that way, characters almost always heal within a couple episodes. :D

Title: Hard Choices
Series: Seijuu Sentai Gingaman
Rating: PG
Pairings: None (no slash here folks, sorry)
Warnings: Set post-series, so there are some spoileriffic moments. Oh, and angst. Buckets of it, in fact. :D

( Brother... don't leave me. )

So today, I finished watching Gingaman. This is probably a new speed record or something, aided by the fact that a) I could watch it while sewing and b) I decided that really, life is just too short to watch every moment of the painful "comic" romance involving Blue Guy, so I would fast-forward with extreme prejudice. ( Some general thoughts, cut for potential boringness... )

And now, the requisite personal sentai ranking list yet again:

The Good:
1) ABARANGER STILL PWNS ALL
2) Timeranger
3) Dekaranger and Gekiranger tie
4) Bioman

The Merely Okay:
5) Boukenger
6) Gingaman

The Bad:
7) Gaoranger
8) Zyuranger
9) Magiranger
10) Megaranger

I'm wrestling with a bodice mockup at the moment (oh, Vogue, why must your patterns be so weird) and watching Gingaman while I sew. (Yes, I have found another sentai I can watch while sewing. This is probably already a pretty good indication of the quality of the show.) Our Heroes are currently on a bus full of singing kids. What are they singing? The very same song that the kids in Konomi's preschool are singing in Ultraman Moebius episode 1.

This is a rather discombobulating sensation. I guess I now know the Japanese equivalent to "Itsy Bitsy Spider" or some other such song...

Tons of Kyoshi pictures! One here, the rest behind the cut. :)



( Beware of bored Earthbender )

I think I want to start watching a new sentai series; I've been between them for a while now. I'm debating whether I want to give Go-Onger a try now that it's got a few episodes racked up, or if I should watch something earlier. I'm trying to get the end of Hurricanger but I've still got big holes, and I don't have all of GoGoV either, so the next complete series (in reverse chronological order) would be Gingaman. And I gotta say, those suits they wear are definite candidates for worst modern sentai suits EVER. (Not counting the godawful sweatsuits that the poor original sentai teams were cursed with. You know, before spandex had been invented and all.) But hey, the show might be good even if the suits are ugly, who knows.

If you don't believe me on the ugly suit thing? Go look. Just don't say I didn't warn you. The costume designer in me weeps. :P

I also went back through Boukenger (mostly flicking through the episodes and occasionally watching a particularly good scene) to write myself a reminder episode guide of which episodes are the best for rewatching. I have one of these for Aba and Deka too; still need to do one for Time and Geki at some point. One thing I remembered as I was going back through the series is that the show has really surprisingly good music. Usually I don't really care to hunt down the soundtracks for sentai, but this one is an exception.

But now I should go watch instead of babble, or I'll never get started. I think I'll watch Gingaman for now and give Go-Onger a bit more of a chance to develop a plot...

Edit: I watched episode 1. ( And OMG it's incredibly cheesy, even by sentai standards. )

Ganked from onyoukai:

1.Reply to this post, and I will pick three of your icons.
2.Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3.Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4.This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee!

( Icons and explanation behind cut )

And now back to sewing...

At Norwescon, having a good time. Am surprisingly recognizable in Kyoshi. Not as hot as I feared I would be, too. Can't type well with gloves on though, so more later. Pictures have been taken. Fear the inevitable upcoming picspam. ;)

I'm actually done.

Kyoshi is finished. The critical repairs/improvements I wanted to make to Esper Terra are finished. I'm packed. It's amazing. I even had time to watch Gekiranger vs. Boukenger.

Which, by the way, with no spoilers, was decent, if not amazing. Some nice effects. I was glad that a little "Making Of" segment was included too. Some of the behind-the-scenes footage was amusing and cute, like Ran and Retsu's actors attempting to trade jackets with their Bouken counterparts (I say "attempting" because the BoukenYellow jacket's sleeves turned out to be too narrow at the wrist to fit over the Gekichanger gloves - oops) or Akashi's actor catching a bug and comparing it to Kamen Rider. The most interesting thing of all to me was seeing just how opposite Jan and Rio's actors are to their characters - when not playing their roles, Jan's actor is the one with a serious face and Rio's actor is the one with the silly expressions. Why am I somehow not surprised?

Actually, many of them had very different voices when they weren't in character. Some of them sounded like completely different people. I couldn't understand most of what was being said of course, but if I was hearing right, Akashi's actor was a little sad that this was truly the end of the role, and Eiji's actor kept waxing nostalgic about how long it had been for him as well. So I guess at least acting in a sentai seems to be fun, if those guys miss it. ;)

Anyway, I think I might as well double-check that I really do have everything I need...

I've seen this all over the place, but I never have any idea what to ask people. So no one has to comment on this in my journal either, but I thought I'd tell people it's okay if they do have something they want to ask about. ;)

Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post comment about it. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, thoughts on yaoi, favorite type of underwear, graphic techniques, etc. Repost in your own journal (if you want) so that we can all learn more about each other.

And because I don't want to make two posts at the moment: Today, I had a kitty in my lap. A kitty who decided to lie on his back for a nap, and proceeded to be happy enough to try and knead and purr before falling asleep. Of course, given that he was lying on his back, this meant he ended up kneading the air. It was hilarious and awfully cute. I felt quite guilty when I had to get up...