Once again! Come one! Come all! To the sixth annual BOSTON HANDBELL FESTIVAL!

Location: Old South Church, Copley Square, Boston
Cost: whatever you choose to give. Even if that's nothing.
Starting time: 8 PM tomorrow
Attractions: pretty pretty handbell music! Thia being a show-off! And the first-ever attempted merger of handbells and marching band style formations! No really, we've been running our rehearsals late for three months now trying to wrangle those formations into something pretty. Slightly more detail here.

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There is an enormous set of shelving that Maman built for my very first apartment, lo these many years ago, that has moved with me to every apartment since. It's currently set up in the 'library' (which is a pretty arbitrary designation given that everyone who lives/lived here loves books, and we have shelving in pretty much every room of the apartment, but there you are). Until yesterday, despite the pillages of various roommates moving out, it was full up.

Yesterday, faye_noire and I emptied it.

(We also pretty much exhausted my current supply of boxes. Fortunately, there's still four more weeks until we're actually moving, so I have time to get more.)

Today, we went out and saw THE RAVEN, which was cheesy and fun. And now I spend the evening doing more sorting and packing. And possibly disassembling the empty shelving, which is not making this move with us, as the wood is warped and some of the brackets are broken. I feel almost like I should have a decommissioning ceremony.

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There will be more details over on XamJapan starting tomorrow, including cosplay (and Thia's continuing adventures in learning to photograph same); kickass AMVs (and their not-kickass hentai cousins); and overviews of panels both good and bad (because it's no fun if we don't get to rant a little..

But not until tomorrow, because Amazing Girlfriend and I skipped the last panels we wanted to go to and came home, to be scolded by our respective cats and crash out. I've taken tomorrow off work, to do laundry and reassure Mariposa that I am Not Dead and do all the things one usually does on a weekend, but I didn't on account of being at a convention. Whee. I think.

(Most Common Fandom Cosplayed: Homestuck, by a country mile. I was glad that I'd read even as much of it as I have, so I wasn't totally lost like I was last year with Hetalia.)

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For various reasons, a lot of stuff that was up in the air is now coming down -- and not into chaos, but into patterns. Which is a poetic way of saying: I am moving in with the amazing girlfriend.

(We have an apartment. An equally amazing one. Ten minutes from where one of my best friends lives. Holy shit.)

(...we move on June 1st. Ohgod.)

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Current occupations: attempting to wrangle any of my WIP into a finished story. Ideally, the kind of finished story that I'd be willing to share in public, as opposed to 'fuck it, first draft, I'll fix the problems later.'

In other news: Saturday was theoretically Saiyuki marathon day for a bunch of us. Instead, we wound up watching the Rankin-Bass THE HOBBIT (with affectionate mockery), and the Saiyuki-watching didn't happen until the next day, when it was just me and faye_noire and sylverice2. But it did happen, and there was much sewing accomplished. It's looking good to actually have the giant plush squid done in time for Anime Boston. :innocent look:

Anyway. Writing. Right. With any luck, I may actually have shareable mathoms in time for my birthday next month.

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"I'm an introvert! How has all this 'going out and being around people' become a thing?" For values of 'being around people' that discount the fact that I've had roommates for some years now. But anyway.

So last weekend, I went to KotoriCon down in New Jersey, with sylverice2 and thesilentpoet and B, partially because Stef's favorite dub actor was the Guest of Honor, and partially because Kay and B and I are still stubbornly plugging away at XamJapan, and going to conventions and writing about them is a good thing. (If only because it usually gives Kay something to rant about. My write-up is already up, if you just want the pictures and a quick overview: the short version is that it was a good con, better than I would have expected for 'sponsored by a community college anime club,' but getting there and back was six different kinds of pain.)

Along the aforementioned endless drive, we were talking about other possible cons, some of which are pipe dreams (Anime Expo), some of which are more possible (PortCon). And Arisia came up. None of us have gone to Arisia for several years, partially due to money, partially due to shift in focus. But. "Hey, Thia, you have a shiny new geek girlfriend. Maybe she's interested."

That conversation went approximately as follows:

"So, are you interested?"

"I don't know, let's look at the website. ...wait, they have the Foglios as GOH?! And Doctor Who panels? DO WANT."

So! We will be going to Arisia for Saturday and Sunday. (But not Monday, because I require at least one day to putter around and sleep in and not be social.) ...am still sorta bemused.

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First squee: the Yuletide story I got. Tickets, Please is a BACCANO! fanfic that is exactly the story I was hoping for when I asked for something Claire-centric. The author took my request for Claire/Chane, and Claire being 'bloody and awesome - oh, wait, that's all the time,' and ran with it. :hearts:

Second squee: the Yuletide story I wrote. The recipient liked it! So do other people! Yay!

Tomorrow, I'll be heading out early to try to persuade a bus to let me on in Waterbury, so I can get back to Boston before dark. If I succeed, I'll still wind up kicking around Hartford for an hour and a half. But in the meantime, I had good food and a quiet Christmas and good stories and people like my writing.

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The kitchen smells deliciously of baking chocolate. Soon, all the brownies will be mine!

...and by 'all,' I mean 'the ones that aren't getting brought to the bell choir party tomorrow,' so really it's 'some of the brownies will be mine,' or possibly, if I'm being realistic, 'a few of the brownies will be mine.'

Eh. Semantics. There will still be brownie-having, and that makes it worth it.

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A NaNoWriMo winner is me! And the story is even finished, which is...sadly a new thing. Last year's story, which also hit 50K and won, has sat unfinished all year. Whoops. This year's story is subject to heavy revision, but the first draft is complete.

Next up: Yuletide. And maybe finishing said last year's story, as the girlfriend has read what I wrote, and made puppy-dog eyes at me on the subject.

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sylverice2 to me: "If you haven't made your NaNo word count for the day, you don't get to eat Thanksgiving dinner with us."

I started laughing, and she said, "Oh, no, you laugh, but I'm serious!" and I had to explain that no, I was laughing because I knew she *was* serious.

(Goal for today is supposed to be 40K. Current word count: 39,324. Must write faster.)

ETA: 40,054! Although part of that is due to Written? Kitten! (thanks, swankyfunk!). Write a hundred words, get a kitten picture. Rewards system at its finest. Especially amusing if writing catboys.

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Dear Yuletide writer,

Hi! And thank you in advance!

Overarching comments: I am a hardcore romantic. Not in the sense that I think love solves all problems, because it doesn't, but in the sense that I believe that happy endings are possible. I prefer them to be earned, but I do love my happy endings. Probably my most infallible plot-kink is trust (and contrariwise, my biggest plot-squick is partner betrayal).

Anyway: further details on the exact requests:

( Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl )

( Shingu: Secret of the Stellar Wars )

( Mamma Mia! )

( Baccano! )

Whatever you write, thank you again, and I look forward to reading it!

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I'm clearing out the spam that accumulates over at XamJapan, as I try to do regularly (because otherwise we wind up with lots of comments that are all from 'engagement rings huntsville al' or 'eye cream' or 'download games free'). And most of them are, well, obvious spam.

However, there's something new I'm seeing. They're all from the same IP address, different websites, different emails, different names. And they all consist of two words: "amanda mcnall."

Google tells me that no, I'm not missing anything obvious. So that's my deep philosophical question for the evening. Who is Amanda Mcnall?

(In other news, I am actually a little ahead on NaNoWriMo, hooray. This despite actually have a social life, although this might also be because the sort of people I have a social life with understand things like 'I'm sorry, I'm going to hole myself up in my room for a couple hours and type like a maniac to try to get my words in.' Yay people.)

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...by which I mean that belu has bought huge amounts of water and beef jerky and other such non-perishables, and the rest of us have, uh, kibitzed, and not really worried about it too much. (It is possibly worth noting that Ian is the only one of us in Chez Butterfly who did not grow up in New England and has not yet lived through a hurricane.)

Tonight, he checked with shotboxer and I, then started filling up the bathtub with water. Just In Case.

After a minute or so of the water running, he poked his head out of the bathroom as I passed by, and said, "It's blue! It's almost like we're at the beach!"

I gave him a Look, and continued on to my room. He called after me: "You've really got to learn to appreciate the little things!"

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Mind, I didn't know it was an earthquake at the time. I could feel my desk trembling, and my chair arms, and I honestly thought that someone was doing something elsewhere in the building that was causing our floor to shake. (Our upstairs neighbors have been known to be thumpy.) Either that or I was imagining it. It wasn't until Bosslady came in and said, so, did you feel the earthquake? that I discovered there was a third option.

In other news, I had the pleasure of meeting newredshoes and boundbooks this past weekend. We met up in Boston, and took up seats in a little playground, and talked for two and a half hours about fandom and writing and epic romances that shall never be. And were-corgis. I am fairly hopeful that we didn't traumatize any of the small children who were using the playground for its intended purpose. :-D I am a total introvert a lot of the time, but sometimes it's really, really worth it to get out and meet people.

(Okay, so I've known newredshoes for about ten years (!), all on the internet. Still. It could all have gone epically wrong! Somehow! And it didn't, it went epically right instead. As I said, I'm an introvert: I try not to take these things for granted.)

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So I have determined that I need to update my pictures on OKCupid, by which I mean that it might be a nice move to actually have a somewhat current picture that shows, say, the short red hair as opposed to the long blonde hair. So I made the request of the roommates to take pictures of me.

...roommate Ian has gleefully spent half the day pretending like I am a famous actress and he is paparazzi. Which in turn has led to fascinating discussions about what sort of pictures I am looking for, which is my best side, and whether pictures taken from behind are useful in dating-website context, and also a set of pictures wherein I have Mariposa held up in front of my face so I look like some sort of cat-head creature. Not in the sense that I have a cat's head, but in the sense that I have a cat for a head. (Mariposa was not harmed in the taking of those photographs. Squirmy, but not harmed.)

The other half of the day was spent at the MFA with shotboxer, as the Chihuly exhibit was going away, and I was assured (with great enthusiasm) that I would regret it forever if I didn't see it. It is indeed pretty! But I'm not sure it was worth waiting 1.5 hours in line, just to get into the MFA. At least admission was free this weekend (I have a BoA card).

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NOIR

Genre: Surreal and Psychological

How much seen: one episode (subbed)

What it's about: Kay describes this as one of the original 'chicks with guns' series. It definitely has kick-ass chicks aplenty, in what seems to be a classic sort of action set-up: girl wakes up in a room she doesn't recognize, with no memory of her recent life, just a few mysterious items and a set of extremely lethal abilities. (I will confess to making a joke about the first Resident Evil movie here.) She contacts another woman, who has her own set of secrets to keep, and they go hunting Kiriko's past.

This isn't to say it's easy to convince Mirielle to help. Even her eventual agreement has fangs to it: "I'll help you, and once you get answers, I'll kill you." But there's a weird sort of trust mixed in with the uncertainty. I don't know where this will lead them, but I want to find out.

Overall opinions: hey, kick-ass chicks and interesting f/f relationships? Definitely intrigued. Things like this are why I'm happy I chose this for Blogathon.

*

9 AM and I'm done! One last time, this has been for the Nature Conservancy, sponsored by XamJapan - y'all have generously given $130, which I'll be matching, for a total of $260. Hooray!

And finally, if you missed any of the posts, because you were asleep or for other reasons :cough: LJ being its uncooperative self on crossposting :cough:, and are curious, I've linked all of the anime reviews to the master list post. Thank you all again, for donating and for commenting!

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WILD STRIKER

Genre: Sports

How much seen: one episode (subbed)

What it's about: Soccer. :-D Okay, seriously: our hero has an older brother who is Most Amazing Japanese Soccer Player Ever. Naturally, this has left him with a few issues, and by that I mean a regular subscription, as Kyousuke used to want to be a soccer player himself - but what's the point when you'll always be outshone?

Then there's an incident in an arcade, where Kyousuke is trying his hand at busking (he's hoping to replace football in his life with music, and not doing a very good job of it). Some bullies throw a soccer ball at him, and he chases after them with it, then throws it up and kicks it. It's amazing! It's epic! It's practically glowing! ...it misses what it's aimed at, by just a few inches.

Alas for Kyousuke, one of the girls from his school, who's on the women's soccer team, sees this, and promptly uses the incident to blackmail him into coaching the aforementioned women's soccer team. He tries to resist, but still winds up kicking a ball back over to the women with that same flair (and, alas, lack of aim). And this time, not only Miki, but the teacher who coaches the men's soccer team at school sees him...

Overall opinions: Predictable? Probably. But it seems to know how to walk the walk without boring us. Not at the top of my list, but somewhere on my back-up 'maybe some day' list.

*

Just half an hour more. Kay has gone up to bed at last. It's just me and Stef finishing it out.

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AI NO KUSABI

Genre: Shonen Ai

How much seen: the whole thing (subbed)

What's it about: In the city of Tanagura, ruled by the supercomputer Jupiter and populated (apparently) by entirely men, there are the elite - always with silver or blond hair - and then there is everyone else. The elite are allowed to keep other, lesser men as Pets if they wish, and order them to do sexual acts for their owner's entertainment. Most of these Pets are born and bred into the role.

Iason Mink, elite of the elite, kept a street brat as his Pet for two years - and rumor has it that he did not limit himself to making Riki voyeuristic entertainment. Then he let Riki go, to see if he would come back.

This is one of the BL/yaoi stories: it's pretty much impossible to consider yourself interested in the BL side of anime and not have heard of it. Has it earned it? Well...it knows where a lot of the traditional buttons are located, so to speak. And it's got enough depth behind those buttons to earn the pushing. I'm glad I saw it. But I'm not sure it's something I'd seek out.

Overall opinion: it's a classic for a reason, and worth watching for that. But not something I personally would want to own.

*

Stef is on the edge of falling asleep on the couch, but Kay and I are still holding out. Just one more hour.

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BUBBLEGUM CRISIS: TOKYO 2040

Genre: Science Fiction

How much seen: one episode (subbed)

What it's about: In Tokyo of 2040, everyone depends heavily on what are called 'Boomers' - i.e. robots, which are advanced enough on the AI front to do everything from construction work to executive management. (Insert your own management joke here.) Unfortunately, said 'boomers' are occasionally prone to going mad, for reasons not covered in the single episode I watched. Officially, mad boomers are the business of the police. Unofficially, there's a vigilante group ready to take care of it - except for the part where no one wants to admit that vigilante group exists.

The first episode actually does an excellent job of setting all of this up - the anti-boomer prejudice (for reason?), the omnipresence of boomers anyway. We're given a viewpoint character, who admittedly makes a few stupid mistakes (most notably accepting an invitation out with a boss who clearly only has the most blatant of sexual harassment on his mind) - but she also is clever enough and determined enough that when she demands to join the vigilantes after they save her, it doesn't feel like an entirely implausible demand.

Overall opinion: Intrigued. Possibly swayed somewhat by the hints of yuri subtext, although how much of that is genuine yuri subtext and how much is sheer delight in having female characters who interact with each other without having to have guys there as invisible props... It's definitely going on my To-Watch list.

*

In case anyone cares: Pepsi Throwback is much better than Cherry Coke for giving one that jolt of wake-up caffeine. Either that or the hours from 3 to 7 are just really nasty ones. Or both.

24 hours, 49 posts, to benefit the Nature Conservancy, sponsored by XamJapan. I'm matching all donations, so if you donate, let me know! Also, if you suspect you missed any posts (helloooo, not-always-cooperative Livejournal!), the post with the master list has links to all the posts I've made yesterday and today.

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POKEMON

Genre: Kids and Family

How much seen: one episode (dubbed)

What it's about: do not make me break out the YouTube videos of the theme song. I will. My brain isn't that fried that I can't find it. And it's a good quick overview.

(This is the other reason why I am reviewing Pokemon at the other end of the day from Sailor Moon. Despite the fact that I watched Sailor Moon in Japanese, as soon as I mentioned it to B, he started singing the English version of the theme song. I do not know which one gets stuck in your head more thoroughly and effectively, and I don't want to try and find out.)

Overall opinion: did you know it's pretty much impossible to find the Japanese version of Pokemon streaming on the web?

Other than that...well, this is pretty much a very standard sort of Saturday morning cartoon. There are (unintentional) nasty implications if you think the Pokemon are sentient (slavery! Gladiatorial combat! oh, yeah, lovely) but as near as I could tell, the series does its level best to not think about this. It's neither very deep or so blatantly shallow that you don't care. But it's not so intriguing that I'm likely to go hunting for more, either. Except maybe to get that song out of my head. Grr.

*

According to Kay, 7 AM was when this used to come on back when she was in high school. It's seems appropriate to time it thus. :-)

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AI YORI AOSHI

Genre: Romance

How much seen: one episode (subbed)

What it's about: boy and girl get engaged in childhood (one of those arrange marriage things). Years later, boy gets accepted to university and defies his family to go. Girl follows him, risking being disowned by her own family in the process.

Kay tells me that the episode we watched was technically from the sequel OVA, but if so, I am still intrigued by what came before. Like Ah! My Goddess, this manages to be sweet without being sickly. It helps quite a lot that the characters are, evidently, capable of actually talking to each other like sensible human beings. That's even rarer in fiction than in real life.

Overall opinion: shall be adding it to The List.

*

If you notice things getting shorter, then you are absolutely right. We have hit the part of today's program where Thia's brain is pretty much completely fried. Gnrgh.

Two and a half more hours. Five more posts. I'll make it somehow.

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HIME-CHAN NO RIBBON

Genre: Magical Girl

How much seen: one episode (subbed)

What it's about: A girl from a Magical Kingdom is paying a visit to our world with her magical talking broom. As she later explains, apparently she's the prospective heir to the throne, but the heir to the throne must invent something new and magical before their position can be confirmed. So she's in search of someone who can take her new invention on a test run. (And when she finally finds such a person, they just happen to look exactly like her. Whether this was a requirement or a perk is never fully explained.)

Unfortunately, Himeko, the look-alike, has short hair and is a total tomboy. Naturally, because this is that kind of show, she has a total crush on someone who is mostly oblivious and regards her strictly as a friend. Himeko blames this on her tomboyishness, rather than on the fact that she's never gotten up the courage to say anything. It's just easier that way.

Naturally, when a girl who looks just like her (only more girly) shows up with an offer, Himeko is all over it. Erika explains the rules and limitations: primarily, the magic ribbon on offer can change Himeko to look like anyone. She has to be in front of a mirror for the initial change to work, and it will only last for an hour. It's not quite the lowest-key Magical Girl power I've seen yet - Magical Stage Fancy La La still has that honor, with its vague, 'ohm, yeah, I can let you *dance*!' - but it's a close contender.

Overall opinion: Not worth it. By the end of the first episode, I was wincing in embarrassment for the main character. I certainly don't want to see if I'm right

*

I'm getting up and moving around in between posts, or else I'm at serious riks of falling asleep on the couch. Gnrgh.

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SPEED RACER

Genre: Kids and Family

How much seen: one episode (dubbed)

What it's about: there's this guy, see, and he drives a car called the Mach 5... As the episode I came across (called 'The Car Hater') proved, Speed Racer stories don't always have to do with actual racing. Fast driving, yes. Racing, not necessarily.

I'd seen the live-action movie, so my first reaction was one of surprise that certain things they'd included in that movie were, in fact, from the TV series (i.e. the little brother and the monkey). My second, sadly, was amusement. I come from Initial D fandom, after all. There's a bit in First Stage where another driver is trying to ram Takumi off the road, and Takumi out-drives him so all he does is crash his own car. Faced with the same situation, Speed Racer hits a button on his steering wheel so that his entire car launches up into the air and over the oncoming car.

Overall opinion: Very old-fashioned, both in the overall style of the drawings, and the extremely cartoonish visual treatment of random side characters. I'm not sure how much of the equally cartoonish script can be attributed to English adaptation, and how much to the original Japanese. Either way, it's not really anything I'd seek out again, despite my snickering over un-intended, inappropriate comparisons between fandoms.

*

The caffeine is starting to lose its power. Nooo, sweet caffeine, don't leave me yet! I still have three and a half hours to go!

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RUROUNI KENSHIN

Genre: Historical and Alternate History

How much seen: two episodes (subbed)

What's it about: pleasant meek wanderer, turns out to have a dark past from the recent civil war as the baddest of badasses. The episodes we watched were not the first two, or even from the beginning of an arc. They were from near the end of the Kyoto arc, during the fight with Soushio.

I say 'during' because - well, you know how Bleach has a (well-earned) reputation for fights that go on forever? As does Dragonball Z? Kenshin can give them a run for their money.

Part of it is due to characterization. Soushio is, alas, one of those villains who can't just keep his mouth shut. He's got to talk, and talk, and boast, and rant, and talk, and dear heaven won't someone shove a gag in his mouth. It's not so much that he keeps winning, and winning, and winning, although that's deeply exasperating in its own right. It's that he won't shut up about how this proves something about how his view of the world is correct.

The fight itself is duly epic - the best of the good guys attack Soushio, and he fends them off. But we started part-way through the fight, and by the end of the second episode we watched, Soushio still hadn't been properly defeated. (Which in turn led to my wistfully asking Kay if he did, at least, die horribly. She hesitated a moment, then said, "Not in these episodes.")

Overall opinion: I enjoyed the manga, back when I read it, and kept being told that the anime was equally good - you know how it is with sword-fights, you gotta see them for real for them to have the full effect. After this, I'm starting to think I was better off with the manga. At least then I could skim forward until stuff happened.

*

We've come down to the last four hours. The sky is starting to lighten outside.

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PUNI PUNI POEMY

Genre: Ecchi/Mature

How much seen: the whole thing (subbed)

What it's about: Magical girls. Sort of. It's from the same people as Excel Saga, but on even more crack. Hell, it's on more crack than Dragon Half. It's on more crack than Dragon Half and Shinesman combined.

Or perhaps it's just that it's on the bad crack. Whatever you might say about Dragon Half and Shinesman - and heaven knows there's plenty to say - they came across as mocking from love. Puni Puni Poemy appears to have gotten thoroughly exasperated with Magical Girl shows, and set out to eviscerate them. The Tomoyo-equivalent is perfectly willing to rape Poemi. The Syaoran-equivalent is an alien and doesn't give a shit about Poemi - not just faking, really doesn't. There are lots and lots and lots of boob jokes, and nakedness jokes, and sex jokes - not in the same way as Lingerie Senshi Papillon Rose, where there were sex jokes that they seemed to assume would turn you on, but in a vaguely scornful, 'nobody wants to see that' sort of way.

Some of the jokes are clever. This is a two-episode OVA, and it bounces off the fourth wall like it thinks it's a pinball game. But exasperated though I might've become with the Magical Girl genre after this exercise, I still preferred them to this.

Overall opinion: Maybe if I'd been the sort of person who enjoyed Excel Saga? As it is, I'll pass.

*

24 hours, 49 posts, to benefit the Nature Conservancy, sponsored by XamJapan. If you donate, please let me know, as I'll be matching all donations!

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