just killing time until the world ends

AMA meme July 2026 - July 22

2026-07-22T17:30:57Z

(I still accept questions for the remaining days of July, by the way!)

For today rogueslayer452 asked me this question: Whether or not you'd want to pursue it, is there a particular career or field of interest that fascinates you?

And well, as someone who writes I'm of course sort of interested in a career as an author. Yet I wouldn't want to go professional myself: of course I'm not good enough for it anyway, but I also think that having to do it as a job would take the fun out of it for me personally. Still, I think it's worth admiring if people decide to have a go at it - and as someone who reads a lot I'm thankful that so many people write and publish good books, of course ;)

The second thought would be a career as a comedian. Another thing I'm not going to do myself, but I think making other people laugh is a great thing to do, especially in the times we're currently living in. It's an amazing skill to have, and I'm also fascinated by the craft behind it (for example when we talk about silent comedy or improvisation comedy). Honestly, I'm of course not good at it, but making someone chuckle with a joke or a funny scene in a fic I wrote always makes me more proud than getting praise for other things, so dunno. Of course I'm way too awkward, but if my life had taken a different way I might have been a panelist on HIGNFY or Taskmaster instead of just fangirling about the shows, haha. I guess I should just become a comedy writer to put these two things together ;)

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Another crafts update - crochet ver.

2026-07-20T14:39:32Z

Now who the hell are these guys?! Well, you might have an idea if you had a peek at my Tomodachi Life posts. Because I had the glorious idea that the Miis from that game would actually work pretty well as crochet dolls, so I thought I'd give it a try. I didn't even have to change the proportions from my usual dolls that much, and as usual I freehanded it all, so I hope no one wants a pattern, haha. I had fun recreating their faces by cutting the pieces from craft felt.

Paul and Pooru-chan were of course the first ones I made. I think Pooru was even the very first...the work on her geisha hairdo was kinda fiddly, but it turned out alright, I think. (And yes, they do have the same face. I think I said this before, but Pooru-chan was originally Paul's drag persona from one of my more stupid HIGNFY fics. Ever since I recreated her in Tomodachi Life by simply copying Paul and putting lipstick and the geisha hair on him she grew on me so much <3)

And Pooru-chan obviously needs her girlfriend too, so I made her next. She is based on Nero Claudius from Fate/Extra, but I recreated her Mii version instead of doing a hairdo that's accurate to the original. Same goes for the dress - it's inspired by the original, but no recreation. I actually did a small and very accurate Nero doll before.

This is how they look in the game, by the way.

Finally I made two of my OCs from that game. Well, the design is my original creation, because they are actually based on Sei Shonagon and Murasaki Shikibu who are two of Japan's earliest and most famous female writers. God, I love Sei Shonagon's pillow book... Anyway, I experimented a little with their multicoloured hair. I can only blame myself for picking these colours for their ingame selves, lol. And like Pooru and Nero they too are a couple. So many lesbian dolls, haha.

Again, an in-game comparison.

I also made some additional clothes for them. I haven't tried them on yet, but I used Paul as a model when I took the measurements. So they should fit him, at the very least. I can't wait until I can put the dapper little waistcoat outfit on him... :D (Also, that hat! I fully improvised it out of craft felt and it looks so nice!)

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So, that has to be enough for the moment. There is also a lot of painting stuff I need to post, but I'll do that tomorrow. Otherwise this post would become way too huge.

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Whose journal is it anyway?

2026-07-18T14:12:30Z

I'm currently watching multiple episodes of Whose Line Is It Anyway (UK version) a day, and while I initially wanted to watch the show for Paul (I haven't actually seen a lot of him yet because I'm watching it out of order - yeah, don't ask) I now actually really got into it because of Ryan Stiles and Colin Mochrie. I always wondered why there were so many WLIIA posts on Tumblr and why the American version of the show has a whopping 500 fics on AO3 (yeah, not a huge fandom by any means, but my standard is HIGNFY with its 160 fics...), and now I know: it's because they deliver amazing old man yaoi, haha. Well, they're not that old in the UK episodes I'm watching, but that dynamic between them is just great and from what I saw in gif posts it only gets better. Apparently they kissed multiple times on the show, which just blows my mind in a way. xD Anyway, I'm looking forward to finally watch the episodes with Paul, and then I'm probably going to watch the American version of WLIIA too. Another show with an abbreviation title I can be weird about, yay!
(By the way, thank the heavens for Wikipedia...now I finally know why Ryan felt so familiar to me. It's because he was in Two and a Half Men. I used to like that show quite a bit some years ago lmao)

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Yesterday I tidied up some stuff like my DVDs (gotta watch some of these soon so that I can put them away) and my yarn and...boy, I really have amassed way too much yarn. It's fun to have a huge stash though: whenever I'm in the middle of a project like e.g. making clothes for the latest doll I am very likely to find the perfect yarn for it on my stash. Nevertheless, I am determined to use up some of this stuff as soon as possible, to free up a bit of space. And to help with that goal I promptly ordered more yarn online. Wait, that's not how it was supposed to go! I should add that the yarn I bought now will be reserved to make further doll bodies, which is why I count is separately from the rest of the stash. I normally wouldn't use this beige skin colour tone for any other project, lol.

Not that I'm supposed to make any more big dolls: my mother recently alerted me to the fact that I've got 17 big dolls sitting and standing around my room. SEVENTEEN! Each of them is like 40-50 cm tall and needs to be displayed at least sort of properly. Also, my room isn't very big and stuffed to the ceiling with books and anime plushies and HIGNFY merch and misc stuff anyway, so...it's all a bit insane, lol. (It also doesn't look like the room of an old bitch in her 30s, but that's another issue!) Still, they have grown on me and I probably couldn't throw a single one out just yet, so the cramped living conditions for everyone continue. And get worse as I make new dolls. Thankfully I haven't started yet, but there are some ideas at the back of my head...

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A few days ago a bunch of adorable young goldfinches appeared in the tree right before my window, and they're cheeping literally all day long. I can actually watch them as I type this and it's so cute to see them hopping about on the branches. Guess they must have sensed that there's already a Finch living in my room, although he looks rather different from them :D

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cooperscreosote @ 2026-07-16T13:18:00

2026-07-16T11:21:19Z

Meh. Still a bit sad because of yesterday, but on the other hand...the players who get into the final will have to shake hands with stupid FIFA guy and probably also even more stupid orange guy, so not getting to the final is actually a success! Or so I tell myself, haha. Still, it would have been nice after exactly 60 years. (Fun fact, the 1966 final was on July 30, which is my birthday and probably the thing I like the most about that date lol)

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I found that social media has become mostly unbearably annoying for me.

Since I decided to quit Tumblr because that site is as dead as a doornail I thought I could give my Bluesky account another try. So I opened the app and saw all the things I don't want to see anymore: depressing and overly alarmist politics posts (I get my politics fix from serious news sources and not from stupid hysterical people online, thanks), stuff from people's personal life I am not too keen to know, exaggerations about minor things ("unfollow me immediately if you don't agree with thing XY", which is something on the level of "waffles taste good" of course).... No, I don't want any of that. I wonder how I could ever deal with that on a daily base. But, and I want to explicitely state that here because I hate people who sound like that: I do NOT think that social media is bad per se or that teenagers should be banned from it or whatever. It's humans that annoy me so much. Humans write all this shit, humans are being mean and spiteful and horrible. This wasn't generated by the evil computer, it's all humans. Stupid buggers.

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I was working on my HIGNFY vampire AU again - one of them, actually, as I've got two of the things and both are at least novel length... - and sometimes I do think it's a shame this stuff won't ever be read by anyone. Even if it's bonkers, some parts of it could be mildly interesting as an original story, but alas...

Anyway, I still think that my HIGNFY fighter pilots AU is the best thing I ever wrote. It's cheesy and silly, but it's a proper slow burn story, it has actually interesting dramatic parts and I like the pacing of it and everything. Dunno which spirit possessed me to write this thing, but I always get a good giggle (and so much more) out of a re-read. If anyone ever wants to do me a favour they should give this one a read...I think it could even work without HIGNFY knowledge as it's basically just a romance between two very different characters.

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I did a lot of craft stuff recently and should probably take some photos soon. And today I need to cut my hair, which probably counts as a craft project too since it involves the usage of scissors! People would be horrified if they saw how I go about that, haha.

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AMA meme July 2026 - July 12

2026-07-12T16:33:32Z

rogueslayer452 asked me about my favourite season!

Well, I don't have to think long about my least favourite season - which is summer - but I've got nothing against any of the others. I guess my favourite would be autumn/fall, mostly for a few reasons: if autumn is here then the heat of summer is finally over and I can finally look forward to cooler weather. Also, there's Halloween which I somehow always look forward too, even though I don't actively celebrate it apart from watching some films with fitting themes, haha. So I guess that's mostly it? I would have gone for winter, actually...but where I live there is rarely any snow in winter anymore, so it's not as enjoyable as it used to be :/

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I guess there's still a football tournament going on

2026-07-11T19:52:17Z

You know what's annoying? When you support a football team other than the one from the country you live in and can't see most of the matches on TV :') They already didn't show the Mexico match and now it happens again. Sigh. Well, as long as the result is similar... :D

Also, I'm not a huge football fan anymore, but it gets more and more depressing to watch it as I get older. Most of the players are younger than me...sometimes a lot younger...

Also #2, I find it funny that many people online are referring to the tournament simply as FIFA. Alright, it is technically the FIFA World Cup, but I only ever heard people call it the world cup, so dunno, I just couldn't help but notice that.

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AMA meme July 2026 - July 11

2026-07-11T16:00:37Z

hamsterwoman asked me about my Taskmaster opinions! Again, I fear this will be rather boring, because I somehow have a hard time to remember all the various tasks and stuff. Sorry :/

Let's start in the beginning though: it was at the end of 2020 when I suddenly felt somewhat depressed for no obvious reason. Even watching TV shows with an actual plot felt nearly impossible, because there was always something that reminded me of my worries, even if they were somewhat stupid (my brain made me believe that I wanted a family and kids, which I most definitely Do Not Want). So instead of that I thought that picking something like a comedy show or panel show might be a good idea. People on Tumblr often talked about this show called Taskmaster and the screenshots they posted looked funny, so that was the show I decided on.

And wow, it was the right choice! It's not as if a TV show can magically make a bad mood go away, but it was just what I needed at the moment. Funny entertainment that kept me engaged and also didn't require too much brainpower, with the added bonus of so many new comedians to discover! Because I honestly knew almost no one of the contestants before I started watching, haha. That changed later on, but it was mostly at the start of my journey into the world of British comedy, after all. But a lot of them quickly grew on me and I watched quite a bit of stuff ever since then just because it had a Taskmaster contestant in it. (Or Greg or Alex, of course!)

One thing I still remember from the very beginning was that the series felt way too short! Once all the contestants had grown on me I was confronted with a new bunch, and at first I wasn't too keen on that. But as basically everyone was so good it didn't take me long to change my mind. At some point I was even looking forward to meeting new contestants! Anyway, it's probably because of all this that I feel a lot of nostalgia for the first ten series, because they were all that was available at this point and I binged it more or less all at once during the first months of 2021. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy the show even now, but nothing beats that experience. (The only thing that came close was when I tried out Taskmaster New Zealand - I haven't watched all of that yet, but S2 of TM NZ is probably among my absolute favourite TM series ever!)

Sooo, until here this was all pretty vague and general, but as I said in the beginning, I can't remember a lot of details about tasks. At least not until something jogs my memory...when I just saw a stuffed cat around my room I was reminded of all the tasks featuring Patatas, so there's some of my favourites :D And one that also particularly stayed in my memory is one from S17 (apparently, had to look that up) when they had to tie themselves up with ties they had to pull down from the ceiling - but they had to avoid the "terrible tie". That tickled my fancy because I was doing a Welsh Duolingo course at the time and knew that "terrible" is "ofnadwy" in Welsh. Guess how much I giggled when I spotted that word written on a tie, hehehe. I'm also somewhat happy when I come up with a good idea for how to solve a task that no one of the contestants realised (or if someone does they won with ease). Makes me believe that I could be pretty good on the show too ;)

As for favourite series and contestants: too many! But I'll try to narrow it down a little. Like I said I especially love the first few series - S1 is always special to me for that reason, but my absolute favourite is probably S4. I loved the cast and especially Hugh and Mel were a delight in the team tasks! S5 was almost as amazing, I still fondly remember the Diverse Stripes aka Nish Kumar and Mark Watson :D Then there was S7 with the absolute chaotic energy the whole cast brought to the show. S10 probably had the most memorable studio task for me, the one where Richard Herring didn't recognise Daisy May Cooper's hippo drawing :D

After that I watched the show as it aired. S12 was a delight too - honestly, I didn't like Victoria Coren Mitchell before I watched that series, but I pretty much fell in love with her during it. xD Alan Davies was great fun too...I think I was finally motivated to watch QI because I enjoyed his TM appearance so much! Also somewhat enjoyable was S15 - I think that was even the series that made me laugh the most, especially the team tasks with Frankie Boyle and Ivo Graham. Oh, and S16 is worth a mention too, there was a lot of hilarious stuff in that series!

I already mentioned a few contestants, but again, most of the people are great on that show, so it's hard to pick someone. I mostly enjoy the rare instances of knowing someone beforehand and finding them just as good as expected (Hugh Dennis, Richard Herring, Julian Clary, Reece Shearsmith among some others), or the ones where the show made me check out more of their stuff (Alan Davies, Lee Mack, Mel Giedroyc, Josh Widdecombe, James Acaster...that list is pretty long). But even the rest of them become something like old friends and when I watch another panelshow I often encounter the experience "oh hello, that's XY from Taskmaster again, how great!" :D

Anyway. This really was all rather boring, but I hope it became clear that I like the show quite a bit ;) Feel free to jog my memory and remind me of some tasks and stuff, if I can remember them after all I'll be happy to tell you my opinion on them!

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AMA meme July 2026 - July 10

2026-07-10T15:38:55Z

asuraid asked my about the character I relate to the most.

I thought about this for quite a while, but my admittedly boring answer is that I can't think of one. xD There are some traits of certain characters that remind me of myself or that I find relatable, but even that happens rarely these days. A few years ago I e.g. basically projected myself onto every otaku/fangirl character I came across, but that happened long ago...nowadays I feel as if my defining character traits are hating myself and being insecure, and strangely enough I usually don't like characters who do that. Now that I think about it, most of the characters I do like are usually entirely different from myself and I guess that should tell me something...
And another thing is that the characters were usually my main reason for watching a show some years ago, but that has changed a lot. These days it's more of a general feeling...dunno, haha.

Oh, that actually gave me an idea though...lately I could actually sort of relate to Liu Yan from Whispers of Fate. Unfortunately I'm not a handsome Chinese guy living in a xianxia fantasy world, but... It's going to be rather spoiler-y to say exactly why...I won't go into details, but it actually has to do with self-loathing (( spoilers ) and that was somehow relatable to me. Yeah, don't ask me, it's the best I could think of lol).

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It's Merton Thursday!

2026-07-09T15:07:17Z

No, I'm not confused or decided to do these posts on another day, but today just happens to be Mr Merton's birthday. A few years ago we used to share gifposts on Tumblr for the occasion, but... Well, anyway, I thought I'd mention it here. Congrats to my favourite comedian (and man in the world, really lol), hehe.

Paul's Mii self on my Tomodachi Life island is of course celebrating too, so I thought I'd post the screens here because it's my first Mii birthday and the cutscene is very cute ;)

( Read more... )

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AMA meme July 2026 - July 6

2026-07-06T16:35:01Z

(I'm sorry that my AMA posts so far have been supremely boring, but it would be unfair to stop doing the meme at this point, so I'll go on. I'm just not a person who has interesting things to say, I guess. ^^')

The question for today was asked by rogueslayer452, and it's this: What is an obscure piece of media you love that you wish had more of a fandom presence?

I think there would be a lot of those, but the problem is that I usually have no idea how obscure or popular a series is or how big its fandom is. Sometimes I read a manga series and think that it's probably pretty niche, only to look it up on AO3 or Tumblr and find thousands of fics and posts. Oops. Of course the other way around works too - there are many series where I thought they must be super popular, only to go into the fandom tag and only hear cricket sounds and see some tumbleweeds rolling past. So, er...I'm not good at judging these things. And lastly, for things like anime there is always the additional difficulty of some franchises having a giant Japanese fandom, but virtually none in the West.

And that thought led me to the series I actually want to mention here: Sakura Taisen/Sakura Wars! Very fitting since the series celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, but I doubt a lot of people in the West will know or care about that. Granted, I'm not an active fandom member either (then again, that's exactly the point: what fandom? I'm already carrying the whole HIGNFY fandom on my shoulders, I can't do another one!), but I think it's a franchise that would really lend itself to lots of fanart and other fan content. Even though most of the games never got an English translation, there's still the few exceptions and the multiple anime adaptions. That's how I consumed the story, and it was enough to make me fall in love with the characters! Also, their designs are just great, so that would be another plus for fan artists. Anyway, yeah. I wish Sakura Taisen would be more popular and well known!

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AMA meme July 2026 - July 4

2026-07-04T15:17:20Z

For today haunted_cherries asked me about my favourite time of the day, and I don't need to think about that very long: nighttime! Maybe I'm just some kind of vampire, but I enjoy the evenings and the beginnings of the night so much more than the daytime and I get legit happier when it gets dark outside. It's when I usually write my fics too, so it's also a very creative phase. And at the end of it you even get to go to bed and snooze off, so what's not to love? xD I guess that's also why I love winter more than summer, not because it's cool but also because there's more darkness :D

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AMA meme July 2026 - July 3

2026-07-03T15:53:59Z

For today's question greghousesgf asked me about some of my favourite British comedy shows. I'll mostly leave out the panel shows, since I talked about HIGNFY only yesterday and there's still more about Taskmaster to come up soon ;) So what I did instead was to take a look at my collection of comedy DVDs and take a bit of a trip down memory lane.

( Finally an opportunity to post a shelfie! (Even if it's not very tidy and not showing all the DVDs since a lot of them are blocked from view by book piles lol...) )

The thing that's so great about British comedy is how versatile it is! There's basically a show for every mood, something lighthearted, something more dark... And speaking of dark, one of the shows I was really obsessed with a few years ago is The League of Gentlemen. I only started watching it because I was also really into BBC Sherlock at that time and was desperately looking for other shows Mark Gatiss was in, haha. Damn, I loved that show, even if some parts (and characters) have not aged well. But keeping that in mind it's a delight. After that it was only natural that I moved on to the series Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton the other two gentlemen sans Mr Gatiss did together. I have a bit of a mixed opinion on Psychoville to be honest, but Inside No. 9 is simply some of the best TV ever made. It's not a pure comedy or if anything a really, really dark one, but soooo good.

Around that time I also discovered The Thick of It, which I already mentioned in my post about comfort media. It's a political satire/mockumentary and just an amazing show. Sure, it's very sweary, but the creative insults and quick wit of the characters are just what makes it so great. xD (Side note for Taskmaster viewers: if you liked Armando Iannucci in the latest series please watch this show because it's the best he ever made - at least if you ask me!)

I think these two are clearly among my top favourites, but I'd like to mention some of the other shows that earned a place on my shelves. Like The Mighty Boosh, which is just a really unique and quirky show and great fun. Or all the stuff by the group us fans lovingly call the Six Idiots: Horrible Histories and Yonderland (and to an extent Ghosts, but I'm not a huge fan of that show)! They might be technically aimed at younger watchers, but they really made me giggle when I felt down and I appreciate that a lot!

I also enjoy a bit of older British stuff from the 80s and 90s, having grown up with constant repeats of Mr Bean on German television! Shows from that time period I really enjoy are e.g. Blackadder, A Bit of Fry & Laurie and Yes (Prime) Minister. Oh, and last but not least, I also somewhat enjoyed Peep Show, and anything else Mitchell and Webb did together. I do actually have the DVDs of Peep Show, but they must be in a part of the shelf I can't access right now, lol.

And now...I'm pretty sure I forgot about at least one show I should have mentioned, but that has to be enough for the moment. I kind of want to rewatch all of these shows now, so I first need to find the time to do that ;)

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This is a random Genshin post

2026-07-02T16:08:11Z

I really don't talk a lot about this game...mostly because I'm still working on catching up on all the quests and whatnot (I started playing again in last September after taking a break of over two years...I feel so slow).

But recently I finished the Easybreeze Holiday Resort story quest and...Bennett ;_; I always had a soft spot for my boy, but now I love him even more. How fitting that I recently started using him in my main party again!

And then I got a character I've been waiting for since quite a while now. The Nod-Krai story made me tear up more than once, but there was this one bit of the story that was especially bad...and ever since I really wanted Sandrone. Now I've got her, after using up 50 of the about 60 pulls I had saved up. Phew lol (Also, I know like nothing about the in-game meta and good teams and whatever because I mostly care about the story and the pretty characters, but I heard that she might be the basis for a new team meta, so it can't hurt to have her for gameplay reasons too I guess!)

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AMA meme July 2026 - July 2

2026-07-02T15:48:21Z

Today I get to talk about my favourite subject: HIGNFY! Yay!

kitarella_imagines asked me what year I first watched HIGNFY and whether it was love at first sight. To answer the first question first, it was in March 2023 when I randomly picked a show from the multiple panel shows and other comedy things I had downloaded a while ago because my HD was simply bursting, haha. And then there was this show called Have I Got News For You with almost 600 episodes who took up so much space that I decided to go for that one first. So I first watched a few later episodes with guest stars I was already familiar with, because going for all episodes felt like a very daunting task, so I initially planned to watch only the latest few series plus a few selected ones from earlier. (A little disclaimer: technically I had also watched two episodes of the show some years earlier, because I was obsessed with Chris Addison at the time and had to see his guest appearances. For some reason I didn't care about the rest of the show at that point though, only about him. Love makes you blind indeed ;D)

So I did that, and then after a few episodes I just thought: hey, this is actually pretty good, why not watch it from the beginning after all? (I actually know when it happened: it was after S19E01....I loved how annoyed Paul was in that episode because of the video link with David Shayler, which wasn't working very well lol) Then I started from the first series, went through the episodes at a very fast pace...and halfway through the series I got hooked. Then I also fell in love with Paul Merton (still giggling at a Tumblr post I wrote at the time which went like "I might develop a crush on the young Paul Merton"...lol) and the rest is history. I love this show and after writing over 100 fics for it I can't see that this obsession will ever fully fade, so if I ever shut up about it you might assume that there's something wrong with me, haha.

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AMA meme July 2026 - July 1

2026-07-01T13:52:42Z

I wish I wouldn't be the first person on my friendlist to post one of these meme posts because I really don't know how to do the formatting, haha... Anyway, here is the masterpost with all the prompts (you can still send me more prompts, but if you do maybe pick one of the free days later in the month to give me some time to think about it haha):

Click here

And this is why I'm going to talk about comfort media today. I probably should have given this more thought than I did, but a few things immediately popped to mind. There are many other things I could have mentioned, but I just went with these few.

The first one is very boring as it's of course Have I Got News For You. There's nothing new about that and anyone who has followed my journal for a while probably doesn't want to hear about it anymore, but this show just means a lot to me. And the first few series really have become a very comforting experience. I know the guests, I know the news items they are talking about, so I don't have to think and can concentrate on enjoying the sight of Paul Merton being cute. If that isn't comforting, then I really don't know. At least not if you're me, haha.

Another thing that immediately came to mind are the Sherlock Holmes stories. Here it doesn't even matter so much whether it's about the original stories by Arthur Conan Doyle or one of my favourite pastiches - or depending on my mood also one of the adaptions I like the most! Reading/watching one of the stories just feels like coming home to Baker Street 221b and the familiar sitting room with my two good friends Holmes and Watson in it. Always a pleasant experience, especially during the darker parts of the year. That makes it feel extra cosy <3

A show that's technically not especially comforting since it's about politics and the characters swear heavily is The Thick of It. I admit that I haven't rewatched it in a while, but I still love it a lot and putting on an episode would immediately lift my mood. I should give it a try, but somehow I keep putting it off, lol.

Hey, and I just thought of something that people probably wouldn't expect on this list, but that is actually my number one comfort watch whenever I need to turn off my brain during a headache or something. It's a German television show about railways and trains, called Eisenbahn-Romantik (Railway Romance). Unfortunately they cancelled it last year (boo!), but as the show ran since 1991 there are many, many episodes I can still enjoy...over a thousand, in fact. The older episodes are especially good, since they are filmed at a rather slow pace, so they are super relaxing while also being entertaining and educational! If you want to have a peek, here's one of my favourite episodes about Japanese railways. The auto-dub feature seems to work pretty well on this one, so you could even watch it in English if you want.

( Mind the gap, here comes the train )

Oh, and since we didn't have a video game yet: I'm usually more of a RPG kind of person, but the most comforting games in my collection are clearly Animal Crossing New Horizons and lately Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream. Visiting my island friends - whether it's the animal ones in ACNH or the silly little gays I created in Tomodachi Life - is just like, well, meeting old friends. And they don't even judge me because they're virtual...I do enjoy this conflict-free zone from time to time, not gonna lie.

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Monthly reads: June 2026

2026-07-01T13:46:00Z

Ugh, I should just write these posts every two weeks or something, to avoid having such a huge pile of manga I need to write about at the end of the month... Not sure if I'll actually do it, but it's certainly an idea.

Light Novels

After catching up on Death March last month I immediately went on with an even worse offender in regards to the space the series takes up on the to-read pile. And this series is Sword Art Online. Aaaaaaages ago I read the first volume of the Alicization arc and was really intrigued by it, but then I somehow got the idea in my head that Kirito and Eugeo's time at the academy would annoy me - hence I never continued, but kept collecting the volumes. And with 18 of them on the pile it really was about time to work on this... Anyway, Alicization is clearly the best arc of the series so far. I still remember the days when I was somewhat annoyed by SAO, back then when I watched the anime... Things got a lot better when I started reading the novel, because Kirito is so much more interesting when I as a reader have access to his inner thoughts. He's still not super deep or anything, but yeah. I also don't really care about the Kirito/Asuna romance, so it was nice that there wasn't a lot of that in this arc. And finally, I really like Alice. At first I didn't think I would, but she's a much more interesting char than many of the other ones from the series. So I basically flew through this arc...and then I admittedly only skimmed over the two Moon Cradle volumes plus 3 out of 4 of the short stories in Kiss and Fly, lol. Sorry, but I was just bored of these stories, while Unital Ring is shaping up to be promising. So I'd rather forge ahead to that arc and find out what this unification of VRMMO worlds is about. So, July will probably spend with the remaining volumes up to 28, and then I have to wait for new ones to come out. Honestly, getting stuff off the pile (especially if it's been there forever) is just the most satisfying feeling ever, haha.

Manga

Too much manga, I don't even know where to start... Fairy Tail 100 Years Quest continues to be an intriguing read as it builds on the strengths of the original series. Looking forward to more, but can't buy it right now! I Cannot Reach You is a sweet boys love series on one hand, but massively annoying on the other hand, lol. I just can't with their constant misunderstandings in the beginning...at least it gets a bit better as the series progresses, so I hope I'll be able to bear it a bit longer. But like so often I'm more invested in the side chars than the main pairing... ^^

Speaking of boys love, ever since reading a oneshot by Fumi Tsuyuhisa I wanted more of her stuff since I love the drawing style. The first thing I tried was the 2-volume series Undead...that's already the second BL manga set in a zombie apocalypse, so dunno if that's just a very popular trope or something, haha. I should have read some more BL after that since I've got a bunch of one-shots on my pile, but yeah, I didn't do that.

Instead there was some more shonen and action stuff. Operation Magical Girl (the English title is slightly different, but I can't remember it right now lol) was pretty good, although not entirely what I expected. The German publisher marketed it as a comedy, which it wasn't really. Still, an enjoyable and quick read - almost too quick in fact, I would have read more volumes of the story and with these characters! But since I couldn't do that I moved on to various My Hero Academia spinoffs. Funny how the only manga of that franchise I haven't really made progress at it the main series, lol. Probably because I watched quite a few of the anime episodes and know the first arcs already, but that can't be an excuse forever... Anyway! I finished the remaining volumes of MHA Smash! (don't ask me why I read vol2 first) and it was highly enjoyable. I just like the characters of MHA, and so seeing them in all kinds of wacky situations was great fun. Same goes for the Team Up Mission spinoff - different character constellations give the reader another view at some characters and they also make for a fun read! Compared to that Vigilante is a more serious spinoff, but also highly enjoyable. I'm curious to see how things will develop there.

I also read the latest One Piece volume - I wasn't that thrilled about the current arc in Elban, but things are heating up now and as usual I can't help but get excited. I do have the manga taste of a little boy, lol. The final read for the month was volume 16 of Yotsuba&!. These books are always a gem because of the waiting time of multiple years between them, haha. Still love the series and after seeing Osaka-sensei I almost want to reread Azumanga Daioh. No idea where I put my volumes though (or even if I still have them!).

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Merton Monday #8

2026-06-29T15:03:24Z

Me too, guys! But I don't think he ever did that :/ Would soap be alright too?

(sorry but these glasses are amazing lmao)

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Meh...

2026-06-28T14:45:24Z

Argh, I'm having another phase of feeling troubled over my writing! Not because it's bad (I know it is, but I gave up on crying about that), but because the thought just hit me: what even is the point? I write all of these stories that couldn't be further removed from the source material, which just feels massively cringe if I actually give it some thought. It's like, I'm writing an original story and just slapped the names of the HIGFNY guys on the characters. But the thing is, I wouldn't write this story at all if it would be a full original story - or even if I did it would be a lot less fun! So I just really don't know...is that enough of an excuse to go on or not? :/

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Stuff!

2026-06-25T15:34:15Z

Thank you for all the questions I received for the July "ask me anything" meme. There are still a lot of free days in case someone has another question ;) Just check my blog for the corresponding post if you are interested!

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Well.

Looking at this I'm not sure I'm going to survive the next days. This shit has been going on for a whole week now and yet it still gets worse. Honestly, I'm someone who thinks that 25 degrees is already plenty warm/on the edge of hot, but that 25 on Tuesday is the sweetest thing I've seen in literal days...

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I was thinking about my Tomodachi Life island and how much it bugs me that the residential area of my Miis looks rather terrible because initially it was all single houses and now most of them have moved in with friends. I urgently need to redesign this part of the island, and possibly not just that. Have a look:

(I am proud of that heart-shaped lake ngl lol)

There was also a rather funny conversation between Paul and Diane (of Nanatsu no Taizai fame) on the subject of HIGNFY.

( click for the screenshots )

I feel you, Paul... :'D

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Ask me anything meme July 2026

2026-06-22T11:17:40Z

I know I'm going to regret this because getting zero interactions on these things always make me feel bad, but whatever, lol. I'm in need of some posting prompts because I'm too lazy to e.g. take pictures of the latest crafts and stuff. If I get any questions I'll try to answer them on the corresponding day, but I can't 100% promise it since I'm usually plenty busy with not dying of the heat during summer, so be warned.

The rules:
How does this work? It's very simple: just PICK A DAY for the month of July and ask me a question to answer on that day :D
You can also ask multiple questions/multiple days if you want to. I'm very open and will answer (almost) anything :)

Prompts received so far:

July 1 - Favourite comfort media! (asuraid )
July 2 - what year did you first watch HIGNFY, was it love at first sight or did it take longer? (kitarella_imagines )
July 3 - what are some of your favorite British comedy shows? (greghousesgf )
July 4 - favorite time of day! (haunted_cherries )
July 6 - What is an obscure piece of media you love that you wish had more of a fandom presence? (rogueslayer452 )
July 10 - What character do you relate to the most (asuraid )
July 11 - your Taskmaster opinions please :D (how/when you started watching, favorite series / tasks / contestants / moments, anything else you want to share) (hamsterwoman )
July 12 - What is your favorite season (spring/summer/fall/winter), and why? ( rogueslayer452 )
July 22nd - Whether or not you'd want to pursue it, is there a particular career or field of interest that fascinates you? (rogueslayer452 )
July 28th - What was your first ever video game that you played? What has been your favorite game so far? (rogueslayer452 )

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This, that, and something in between

2026-06-20T11:34:10Z

I'm wondering whether I should do the "ask me anything" meme for July that's been flying around, but I don't know if anyone would want to ask me questions. Probably not because I'm not particularly interesting and it would be a bit sad to get no questions at all, but it would be a nice way to get some prompts for posting...

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Life at the moment is just one health scare after another, with some bullying by the jobcentre mixed in. Seriously, the latest appointment made me feel like trash. I was scared witless the days before both because of the appointment and because of the health stuff (at least it's nothing new, just existing problems acting up and my mind making it even worse) and I felt desperate enough to consider offing myself right in the middle of the appointment. Oh damn. Later in the day I recalled what happened, got angry and that made my heart troubles acting up. I legit thought I'd die for a moment there, so...things haven't been particularly fun in that regard :')

Oh, and it does not help that we are in the middle of a bloody heatwave. I am SO LUCKY that the appointment was on Thursday, which was the first day of heat, so it was still bearable. I don't want to move right now or in the next days or really ever again if I look at the temperatures... I mean, I hate hot weather anyway, but health troubles and heat? Fucking hell.

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On a more positive note, there was finally some Tomodachi Life progress: Pooru-chan and Nero finally got together and they even got married only a few days later <3 I'm so happy for them and I hope they'll have beautiful children soon, haha. And I was shocked that Pooru-chan was the one who confessed instead of the extrovert Nero :O You've done great, my girl!

Also, my Finch birb celebrated his first hatchday yesterday. What a little sweetheart he is...and I'm still glad I noped out of the Supergirl event. Now that they're done with it I saw that a lot of people were disappointed with the story and said it feels like an ad. Oooooh, who would've thought! (Sorry, allow me to gloat for a moment!)

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I also bought a probably unreasonable amount of craft supplies (canvases and yarn, mostly), but I haven't done any painting recently. Although there are a few finished pieces I could still post on here, so who knows. At the moment I'm working on three dolls based on my Tomodachi Life characters. Yeah, I said I wouldn't make any more big dolls, but they're fun to make and I urgently needed some fun! I also found a shop that had some leftover stock of my favourite doll yarn, which has been sadly been discontinued last year. But if you're lucky you can still snatch up some skeins here and there, which I did. Once I'm done with the third doll I might post some pictures of naked crochet doll bodies, so things are going to be very sexy soon, lol.

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Looking at my Finch mood log is depressing...

2026-06-09T20:04:26Z

Why is it that my mother is always the victim in every single confrontation?

Today I asked her to stop doing her endless repeats of the same two words. Mind you, I asked politely after she has been already doing it for roughly 3-4 hours today. I felt another headache coming on and to be honest, the last few days were rough since I had a cold, almost constant headaches and couldn't sleep through a night for about a week. So well, I still try to be patient and understanding, but sometimes it's just...too much. I know it was utterly out of order for me to ask he to stop at least for the moment, but again, I tried to be as polite as possible, explaining the reason for my request.
Yet even politely asking was too much and she got first angry, then sulked for the rest of the day.

And I mean, I can understand why she is so frustrated. She never had the daughter she wanted and so urgently deserved, and that must be source of endless frustration for her. I get all that! But unfortunately I can't do anything about it. I already told her that I would happily die on the spot if that would somehow give her a better daughter in exchange, but she didn't even appreciate that. So what am I supposed to do? I cannot become this person who anticipates her every wish and immediately fulfills it and gives her support in every situation, no matter how much I know she deserves such a person. And I can't get her a replacement either, and it hurts. So I am forced to face my own uselessness every single day.

Recently she talked to a woman from the neighbourhood who's only a few years older than me, but so much better, prettier and more intelligent. I really wish I could just disappear and she could adopt this woman in my place, or something. They'd get along so well, and here am I, taking away their chance to do so. Damn, I really am useless...

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These Tomodachi lesbians are driving me insane

2026-06-06T14:17:22Z

^ THEN JUST CONFESS TO HER ALREADY GIRL!!!

I guess no one has told my Tomodachi Life islanders that it's Pride Month, or else I would expect a whole bunch of love confessions. Nero and Pooru-chan are the worst offenders - constant blushing and "aw there goes the love of my life" and neither of them confesses, lol. I mean, Pooru-chan is an introvert, so dunno if that's why she doesn't do it...but Nero doesn't have an excuse, she's an extrovert type! I can see their crush fade one day and all my work in putting them together in one place was for nothing, lol,

To be fair, the gay and straight couples aren't doing much better. No matter if it's one-sided or mutual crushes, they are all too scared to confess. Guess they take after me, haha. And then there's the couples I'd like to see, but they are constantly stuck in the friendzone, aaaah! Well, but I hope my patience will pay off one day. I have already racked up 90 hours in this game because I open it thrice a day and check on my Miis and their very sloooooow love lives, lol.

Oh, but at least one couple made some progress. I hope they'll have a child soon :D

And there was also a rather shocking development regarding the Pope :O

(Alright, I'll stop here. I could post millions of screenshots of this game, it's still hilarious!)

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cooperscreosote @ 2026-06-03T19:22:00

2026-06-03T17:26:32Z

I finally found out that there's a word for the auditory hallucinations I sometimes experience (it's the worst with that woman's endless repeats of the same two words - I hear her even when I put on loud stuff on my headphones because my brain repeats it in an endless loop - but it occasionally happens with e.g. ambulance sirens and I still hear them when the ambulance is long gone). Apparently it's called "palinacousis". Didn't find a lot about it, but it seems to be related with migraine, so that would make sense. Doesn't stop that woman from droning on, but it's nice to know.

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I'm currently fighting off the beginnings of a cold. Woke up with an amazingly sore throat yesterday - the pain was terrible, ugh. After consuming an unholy amount of ice lollies (the cooling effect was just the only thing that made it bearable) and a similarly liberal amount of medicines I seem to have stopped it from getting worse, although I didn't sleep well last night because of throat itches and a stuffed nose. I hate getting colds anyway, but it's just the worst in the summer. Cool air would make breathing so much easier... Anyway, I knew I was getting sick because my mother has been sniffling and complaining about slight throat pain for some days now. Of course she didn't take any medicine and passed the buck on to me (and immediately got all angry and defensive when I dared to suggest that I must have gotten it from her since I didn't leave the house or meet other people over the last few days - very predictable, lol.)

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In the last few days I saw the phrase "palette cleanser" written down twice - once in an actual published book and once on the title of an ASMR video (I think). And I couldn't help but think: cleansing my palette is what I do after I finished a painting, surely this is supposed to be "palate cleanser"? I looked it up and I was right! I know, it's not that much of a success and I'm sure the mistakes I make are way more stupid, but English is still only my second language! So it feels nice to be able to recognise such common mistakes that can happen even to native speakers!

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The Finch Supergirl event is even more boring than I expected. I tried to give it a chance, but come on - usually the story quests convinced me with their cuteness even if I weren't thrilled about the theme, but the first few ones were simply underwhelming. I just don't think that misbehaving dogs and slushies make for a very thrilling story :/ Man, even my HIGNFY space AU is more thrilling than that! So I'm going to opt out of the story for now. I wanted to do it for cute additional sprites of my birb, but I'd rather make normal discoveries with him than reading the event stuff if it's boring. (And do not get me started on the wigs. They still rile me up, lol.)

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Monthly reads: May 2026

2026-06-01T13:50:15Z

^ Me too, Pochi...me too! (Except that I don't have a house I could sell, haha.)

I'm kind of proud of myself for having read eight light novel volumes this month - it's about time to make a dent in that huge pile of unread LNs... And I even caught up on one series, so that's even better!

Light novels

The series in question was Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, one of my favourites. So I had quite a bit of fun with these volumes. Sure, there is the occasional lull in the story, but usually I don't mind that too much. What I did mind though was the simply terrible translation of volume 23 :/ Apparently there was a translator change for that volume, but it looks as if they also fired their editor. There were SO MANY MISTAKES in that volume, from simply typos to mixed up names and pronouns. And some stuff didn't even make sense and couldn't even be explained away by mistranslation. Well, at least volume 24 had another translator yet again and there were fewer mistakes, but... My enjoyment of the series got kind of dampened at this point. The plot wasn't super interesting either, so I'm actually glad that I get to take a break now, until the next volume is released (in September, IIRC?). I hope things will return to being as fun as they were before this two-volume slip-up. It would be a shame if I couldn't enjoy the series like I used to!

To cleverly shoehorn in yet another Tomodachi Life screenshot:

You're so right, Pooru-chan! :D

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Manga

I sometimes wonder why I still read Queen's Quality because I never really cared about the main characters - well, some of the side chars intrigued me, so maybe that's the reason? Anyway, now that there are only two volumes left I'm not going to drop it, but I'm not in a hurry to read these volumes and it's probably not a series I am going to miss once I'm done with it. I kind of think it would be good to re-read the whole thing, but 25 volumes of a series that was only sort of the "meh" kind of series? Not sure I want to do that.

After all these years I could finally complete the Gunsmith Cats sequel Burst. And dunno, while I kind of liked that we saw more of Goldie - her mind games and brainwashing stuff makes for an oddly interesting read, but maybe she just brainwashed me to make me say that haha - but then the plot just kind of petered out at the end? That was a bit of a shame, not gonna lie. A world where Rally is no longer a bounty hunter just sounds kind of sad to me :/ Good thing that there was also a volume of Cat's Eye to cheer me up. After the quite lame start the series has definitely grown on me, and most of the chapters/episodes were really enjoyable. I just like older series with that kind of retro feeling.

Although that doesn't mean I can't enjoy newer stuff. Koharu and Minato is a new series that piqued my interest - it's about a lesbian couple with an age difference of ten years who only recently moved in together after getting to know each other through the internet. Kind of what I dreamed of, except for the lesbian part, haha. Apparently it's also an autobiographical manga and their story really happened like that, so I can't help but root for them.

At this point the month was nearing its end, so I just pulled a random volume from the to-read pile. It's the first one of the Fairy Tail sequel 100 Years Quest. Granted, I haven't finished the first manga series yet, but I watched all of the anime years ago, so it should be fine (I hope). So far I enjoy it, it's simple yet endearing battle shonen stuff which is something I usually enjoy.

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