Media consumption report: here be caps lock

It turns out that you consume a lot of media when you're home all the time and wanting to dissociate from pain.

VIDEO GAMES
Persona 3 FES for the PS2: Umm, this game is pretty sweet. I'm a Japanese high school student who hangs out with friends and goes out for ramen and studies, but sometimes at midnight I have to fight against these shadow spirits with my friends. To fight them, we call on spirits that have fused with us, or "Personas." We do this by shooting ourselves in the head. I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY THE SHOOTING HAPPENS OR WHAT IT MEANS. I named my protagonist Chris Colfer. I REGRET NOTHING. I'm still only in like, May.

Dissidia 012 for the PSP: I didn't play too much of this yet, mostly because holding the PSP felt a little awkward and also because this is an action game and it's SO HARD TO FIGURE OUT THE CONTROLS, OMG. Umm, characters from various Final Fantasies are called to A Place and fight against each other. But they can't remember their past lives, and they keep forgetting the fact that they can NEVER LEAVE. It's kind of depressing.
I thought that I could play the first Dissidia game with 012, but if you can, fuck if I can figure out how.

the_andy is sending me a bunch of video games to play. GUYS IT SOMETIMES TAKES ME FOREVER TO PLAY VIDEO GAMES. But I'm pretty hopeful because it seems to be doing okay things for my brain - stuff to work on in the background (strategy!). I also like when I dream "in video game," which usually happens when I play something a lot.

BOOKS
Atonement by Ian McEwan was pretty great. I almost hated the middle part, but then the end was about as great as the beginning. If anyone have recs for other shit written by McEwan, I'll take them. HIS PROSE, OMFG.

The Book of Heroes by Miyuki Miyabe. I'm only about 1/4 of the way through. IT'S PRETTY GREAT. This is my first book by Miyabe. The prologue made my eyes glaze over, but I'm glad I turned the page to chapter one, because it grabbed me right at the start.

Bone, volume 2 by Jeff Smith. Why does everyone think Bone is the greatest comic book series in the history of ever? Does it suddenly become amazing? Maybe this is like dude-bros who say that Love Hina & Maison Ikkoku are the pinnacles of manga.

VISUAL MEDIA
"Ever After" - rewatched the movie with a couple high school friends. We used to watch this like, every-other sleepover (opposite of "Center Stage"). I CANNOT BE OBJECTIVE ABOUT THIS MOVIE. IT IS AMAZING. I STILL KNOW EVERY LINE.

"Chak De! India" - I CANNOT CAPSLOCK ENOUGH ABOUT THIS MOVIE. OMG. Luckily, other people have written things that make sense. Rec post 1. Rec post 2.
This movie is currently streaming on Netflix. WATCH IT.

Parks & Rec - I'm a little more than halfway through season 2. AMAZING.

Downton Abbey - I've already posted about this. IT'S PRETTY GREAT, although season 2 is pretty soap opera-y now (I'm watch episodes as they air on PBS). Matthew and Anna are usually my favorite characters.

FANFICTIONS
I read fanfiction lots & lots when I was in middle school, and after that I just didn't have the patience to read that much text on a computer screen unless I was at work and paid to do so. BUT THEN I GOT AN E-READER.

"The Poetry in Blood" by Glass Shard - FF7 horror fanfic. The dialogue is, um, a lot more terrible than I remember it being. BUT. There are gunfights, and Vincent!angst and etc. Not as fab as I remember it being, but still one of the FF7 fics of my heart.

"Shards" by Frank Vederosa - I'm about 3/4 through this reread. I haven't read this fic for more than 10 years, probably. The fiction holds up better than I thought it would, but I hate how much of a victim Tifa has to be in order for her character to mature. I'm reading tons of epic-length FF7 fic lately, and I'd really like to do a comparison post of "what I remember" to "what it's like now." OMG I WANT TO DO THAT. I WILL.

Umm, I usually only read FF7 fanfiction. But I've been really into Glee lately, like, even a semi-active member at ontd_glee?? So I've been reading Glee fanfic.

Singing the Journey by wintercreek - "Blaine takes a job as Music Director at a Unitarian Universalist church to pay for grad school. Kurt is uncomfortable with this but finds his own way of fitting it into their lives. A story of liberal religion, complex relationship negotiation, family, music, marriage and a year in the lives of Kurt and Blaine."
IDK where to start with this fic. Umm. Blaine the character on Glee doesn't really do anything for me. I don't say that to bash a character while simultaneously reccing a fic, but rather to commend wintercreek's writing, because even not really digging the character, I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS FIC.
This fic is what kept me grounded in the last frantic hours before surgery, and in the horrible, terrible, no-good hours spent in a hospital recovery room when I wanted to die. It deals with heavy emotional stuff, but the fic is so comforting. Because it's about food, and music, and relationships, and Kurt Hummel ILU.
The third part isn't yet complete, but there's a pretty hefty word count there right now, and...and LOVE. I really can't say enough how comforting this fic was, and I hope to reread it soon, when I am not high on a morphine-variant like I was the first time.

I'm making way through lexie's Glee fic after reading her Tumblr post pointing out what was fucked up in the Michael Jackson episode.
I love ALL OF HER FIC; she captures each character's voice so well. She picks at things the show ignores; explores the relationships I wish the show paid more attention to. Here are some of my favorites, of what I've read so far.
Thousand Ways to leave this place - "Kurt has to figure out how life works, now that he's a student at Dalton Academy."

Find me a find, catch me a catch - in which Finn is a spectacularly inept matchmaker

What friends are for - "Santana and Brittany's friendship, from middle school through the summer before sophomore year."

To boldly go - Star Trek AU, in which Kurt and Blaine attend Starfleet academy.


If any of you have any recs for Glee fic, send them my way. This is the first fandom in which I'm cool with real fic, too. Except for Kurt/Darren, :p Lea/Dianna = my fave. Also like Kevin McHale, Harry Shum Jr., Dianna Agron, Chris Colfer, & Lea Michele.
For the actual show, I'll take pretty much anything, although the fic seems especially heavy on the Kurt/Blaine. It's not my favorite pairing, but it seems to be fandom's. My favorite characters include Kurt, Santana, and Sam. Fics giving actual personalities/backgrounds to Tina or Mercedes = appreciated.

MUSICS
I bought Lana Del Rey's album and I fucking love it. That's about it.