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Text of the page (random words):
of the 25 episode show and the payoff for all that build up is wonderfully satisfying so yes i love a slow burn the tamon s b side anime had me kicking my feet earlier this year what a beautifully bonkers dynamic those two have to navigate they don t want to disturb the sacred divide between fan and idol they don t want to muddy their professional relationship but they re also genuinely friends now and they don t want to ruin the friendship and over in the world of yuri manga the slow increase in intimacy between the leads in the moon on a rainy night is driving me up the wall in the best way i would call this my bread and butter however i find myself increasingly drawn to romances that don t take their time quite so much or at least approach the storytelling pacing around the central couple differently continue reading leave a comment filed under archetypes and genre tagged as fall in love you false angels kase san and morning glories makeine too many losing heroines rainbows after storms tamon s b side the delinquent and the transfer student the moon on a rainy night toradora you and i are polar opposites august 1 2026 7 07 am a monster sized milestone july 26 roundup according to a little pop up from wordpress this month marks my 14th year running the afictionado that sounds like a ridiculously long amount of time doesn t it this little blog has seen me through the end of school a weird gap year my whole undergrad and postgrad education into the current stage of my life where i m kind of floundering around wondering who i am if i m not studying something it s seen the start and rise of my professional freelance writing career which is almost 10 years old in and of itself and the brief shining but stressful period when i thought i d be an academic before coming to terms with the instability of the university job market and getting a bonafide serious normal day job but even if it s not how i bring home the bacon i m always writing something you might say how are you so prolific or how have you maintained such a consistent schedule or how do you get your ideas or even just why do you write the simplest answer is that i kind of can t not write if i m not writing something s very wrong with me i associate serious genuine writer s block a physical inability to create with emotional upheaval and bad times like when i ended a long term relationship many years ago now and didn t make any art for almost a month and if i can t write as in there s no time space or energy to do so something lycanthropic happens to me and i begin to feel quite feral and unwell so this blog is a health measure as much as anything else even if fiction writing isn t coming so easy i can always come here and use the other equally creative but differently built part of my writing brain and exercise my skills in analysis or reviewing even if no one reads the darn thing i always have an outlet to gush or complain or pick apart the latest piece of media i m fascinated by are these expressions all good writing god no but doing the thing is how you get better at it and i ve grown a lot over all these years and done some work here that does genuinely make me proud some have said that the blogging world is a wasteland in one school of thought attention spans are shrivelled and no one wants to read big posts anymore and all the discourse is happening on short form social media yuck or the pivot to video yuck yuck in another longform self published essays are back in vogue but only if you re being fancy pants about it with a subscribers only newsletter or substack or something my wordpress with its wordpress in the url despite how much wp has begged me to start a paid account feels like a bit of a relic sometimes but that s why i m all the more determined to keep it running i m not here to be trendy i m here to waffle on about things i want to waffle on about and i intend to keep doing so so if you re reading this i really should say thanks whether you re a newcomer or you ve been here for the long haul many of these posts are shouts of and i think that s interesting into the internet void so if they hit an audience that genuinely enjoys them i m very happy here s to well 14 more years of blogging maybe let s see how we go i may as well mention though that i do have a professional website that hosts all my professional fiction and non fiction publications check out all those links from 2017 now that was a busy year for writing but i can talk about that more next year for its decade anniversary eek on anifem it s that time once more dara san of reiwa get this snake woman into a better show with a less gross sense of humour jaadugar a witch in mongolia a moving start to a historical epic about a young woman using her skills and reclaiming her agency in wartime love unseen beneath the clear night sky while this romance has its heart in the right place it has some room to grow in its depiction of the disabled love interest victoria of many faces follows an escaped former spy as she sets out for a life of domestic bliss with vibes more cozy than adventurous recommendations from spring 2026 i weigh in on two very different shows one an intense urban fantasy and the other a goofy gay comedy on yatta tachi the delinquent and the transfer student volume 1 manga review i think i ve accidentally become y t s yuri correspondent this one s really fun it s a retro rom com set in the 1980s other fun stuff to look at with your eyes it s time to eat our way through the odyssey and see what the epic tells us about the food habits of the ancient world despite the notion that all shoujos are romances and all romances are shoujos there are some distinct differences in style storytelling priorities and pov in love stories aimed at different demographics digital piracy can be an act of love in a world where online media disappears given sony s death to discs announcement we re once again having the conversation about art preservation and lost media grand theft auto vi the last blockbuster speaking of sony s nonsense among other paradigm shifts in the video game world here luke plunkett muses that the next gta game feels like a relic from a bygone era even as it s being positioned as the hot new thing filmmakers like christopher nolan sell their movies by geeking out the dvd special features menu might be a dying art but many filmmakers are bringing that energy to social media posting and podcasts instead 30 more sff titles to look forward to in 2026 some book recs from reactor editor christina orlando and some musings on the current trends we re seeing this year disability pride month manga recommendation list aj compiles yet another great stack of themed manga song of the month you know what it s wutherin time see you next month for more 2 comments filed under monthly roundups july 23 2026 11 06 am anime feminist recommendations for spring 2026 our staff picks from spring include fantasy adventures earnestly weird high schoolers and tender yuri read the full post here leave a comment filed under alex watches tagged as agents of the four seasons anifem go for it nakamura kun kirio fan club july 17 2026 11 49 am the delinquent and the transfer student volume 1 manga review a charming throwback rom com between an unlikely pair it s the 1980s in japan and light hearted riri has found an unexpected companion at her new school atsuko a k a the slayer of millions one of the area s most notorious sukeban while atsuko terrifies most of the school riri is able to unlock her secret soft side through goofy little word games but maybe there s more to their relationship than just messing around after class off the bat the delinquent and the transfer student is a lot of fun and i m rooting for the titular couple a lot of the initial charm and humor comes from the juxtaposition between the tough cool atsuko and her unexpected cute side that s certainly what draws riri to her but this isn t a one trick yuri by the end of the volume both atsuko and riri get some character depth that develops them beyond their initial archetypes and their relationship grows and changes through a mini arc of emotional ups and downs read the full review on yatta tachi leave a comment filed under alex reads tagged as lgbtq queer ya the delinquent and the transfer student yatta tachi july 10 2026 11 00 am first impressions victoria of many faces what s it about taking the alias victoria sellars a spy fakes her death and flees to a neighboring kingdom to live an ordinary life free of espionage and violence victoria s plans to keep a low profile get derailed however when she meets an abandoned child named nonna and agrees to take her in my first thought upon finishing victoria of many faces premiere was well wasn t that nice and it is a very nice episode it s a breezy watch that s very light on conflict given that it supposedly involves spies and murder even victoria s sudden decision to adopt nonna doesn t come with much stress or cause much friction aside from a few moments of internal monologue where victoria reminds herself to not get involved your standard refusal of the quest before she inevitably folds nonna takes to her new situation remarkably well the knight captain who helps them out jeffrey is also a very nice fellow handsome and dashing and kind with no sense of ulterior motive if the ending credits are anything to go by these three will be living together in domestic bliss before they know it how nice read the full review on anifem leave a comment filed under alex watches tagged as anifem victoria of many faces july 9 2026 11 00 am first impressions love unseen beneath a clear night sky what s it about shut in college student sorano s life takes an unexpected turn when he meets a blind girl named koharu at a campus party initially reluctant to get involved he becomes intrigued by her wish to see fireworks and grows closer to her as he realizes they share a class they say comparison is the thief of joy and i m really feeling it with this episode ultimately it s a bland yet sweet start to a story that i think genuinely has its heart in the right place but suffers by its similarities and contrasts to other shows i kept thinking oh this fits into this common narrative pattern how annoying or hey this reminds me of this other series that handled the same ideas way better on the one hand what a joy to have multiple romance anime with disabled leads to compare and contrast to one another but it still didn t stop the grating elements of love unseen from well grating on me read the full review on anifem leave a comment filed under alex watches tagged as anifem love unseen beneath a clear night sky july 6 2026 10 06 am first impressions jaadugar a witch in mongolia what s it about in 13th century persia sitara is an orphaned slave girl in the city of tus when the recently widowed lady fatima buys her at a discount sitara find herself in a household of scholars learning theology literature and mathematics and opening up her world despite her circumstances but sitara s life takes a grim turn when the mongols attack tus can she snatch back control of her fate even as the darkness of war and conquest threaten to steal away everything she holds dear to put it mildly this series comes highly anticipated based on an award winning manga this adaptation comes to us from naoko yamada directing at science saru while both of those names have a lot of their own individual prestige attached they also collaborated to bring us 2021 s fantastic the heike story a visually inventive historical series that explored the often unsung stories of women while managing to feel both personal and epic in scope from a glance at its promo material jaadugar a witch in mongolia seemed to be playing in a similar space so hopes were high and the hype was real but i also deliberately kept the series somewhat at arm s length going into this double premiere knowing as little as possible and with my expectations tempered so i didn t risk overselling it to myself read the full review on anifem leave a comment filed under alex watches tagged as anifem jaadugar a witch in mongolia july 5 2026 11 57 am first impressions dara san of reiwa what s it about legend says that a vicious vengeful spirit called yamatagi madara dwells in the mountains and will curse anyone who comes near her shrine siblings hinata and kaoru don t think she s that scary though they think she s pretty cool and want to make friends allow me an interlude to talk about snake god breasts i promise it s important read the full review on anifem leave a comment filed under alex watches tagged as anifem june 30 2026 7 02 am ghosts and stuff june 26 roundup happy pride month here s hoping that july will be sloth month so we can all take a nice long rest on the blog the chill guy and the ice queen knocking down expectations in the ramparts of ice some early reflections on this show and how nicely it s handling its two main character arcs including unpacking the male lead s white knight i can fix her nonsense pride month book recs stories about queer teens dealing with beasts creatures and entities my favourite micro genre at the moment read along for my recommendations we ve got ghosts sea monsters conniving fae and more on yatta tachi koharu and minato happy life with my girlfriend volume 1 manga review readers hungry for a more informative or introspective queer autobiography might be left disappointed but it s fun to spend a lazy weekend morning with these goofy girlfriends other fun stuff this week in anime back from far away as the trend of video game ish male power fantasy isekai begins to wane it s time to look back at the shojo portal fantasies that helped cement the trend in anime in the first place especially since a few of the classics are getting new adaptations queer books need more than a month amidst all the rainbow book stacks for pride mo fanning suggests there s still a publishing industry problem where queer stories are still treated as worthy niche issue led or seasonally useful rather than simply commercial entertaining broad audience books checking in on queer books this pride month author and activist against book bans malinda lo looks at the ups and downs in lgbtqia publishing over the years since her debut and writes that even though we re seeing a period of backlash the landscape is still miles ahead of where it s been in the past performing ease emotional detachment and masculinity in skip and loafer a character study of shima and how the series highlights the way gendered expectations around emotion are learned and reinforced at an early age plotless novels and what romance can teach us about good writing danielle binks reckons that anyone wanting to improve their writing should read romance the queen of all genres when it comes to compelling readers despite a foregone conclusion nothing feels real and everything feels insane and it s showing in our media wen yi ...