Points to Ponder: The profound thoughts of Alex W________g aka Simon DelMonte

Sometimes it's the oddest stray piece of conversation that tucks into us, unwitting, unwarned, like a hook catching in the mouth of a fish, there in the middle of the stream, there just getting through dinner and another bite of chicken with cranberries and apple pieces.

It''s been nineteen year now.

As I said, at the end of my last piece, there was dinner with my mother, at the Cracker Barrel, where they sadly haven't started truly serving fall flavors yet. There will be more in November, but for now it there's just the add for Pumpkin Pancakes and the graciousness of my server who brought me hot cider. (In leiu of hot Earl Grey or Darjeeling that might keep me up all night.)

Expounding, or evading. (I feel like a fountain burst, words pushing everyday outward.
Everything I do involves words. How have I missed words so much at the very same time?)

It'll be twenty years next year.

I don't remember quite where it started. A conversation about how long we'd been having dinners/meals together, and whether it had or hadn't been a decade. Since it's either a decade, or one year short of a decade, since I got my masters. (What does it even say that it took me that long in life to get around to a job that required it? What does it say that I never even noticed until now?)

My mother's rebuttal, was with the second of those quote. For what? My sister's passing.




It's not surprising it's on her mind. It's tomorrow. Tomorrow it's nineteen years.
Tomorrow another day passes and she's still gone; the world still somehow turning.

I'm still behind and need to pick something to do with my Introduction to Lear today, but my morning is made by the announcement of Yuletide Book Swap, Candy Swap & Drink Swap opening sign-ups last night. These swaps have become part and parcel with my Yuletide prep and enjoyment now and I'm excited to see everything Yuletide slotting into place for another amazing holiday season.

This year has become something of an anime central in my world. I had watched the occasional show a long time before now. Sailor Moon happened throughout my childhood. Ouran High School Host Club happened during Milliways, and playing Haruhi. Utena Revolutionary Girl started during the end of Stephanie and a finished nearly two years later with Laura. The smattering of a million things in-between. Ghost in the Shell, and Akira, and Evangelion, Ronin Warriors, Cowboy Bebop, and on as advised seldom over time.

But, it had been a while even between Utena, and the years after cosplaying it, and Laura dragging me into Yuri!!! On Ice one fateful snowstorm last Christmas break. Somewhere in there, between Yuri!!! On Ice getting a best friend & roleplaying hook in and another girl friend in Geek Girl Brunch who was only too helpful with getting me recs, I fell hook, line and heavy metal weight into the anime section checking off things down lists as I was going.

I watched Your Name and A Silent Voice. Had my heart blown apart (possibly never to entirely return back to the shape is was) by Grave of the Fireflies. I loaded up in rows Princess Jellyfish, Madoka Magic, Free, and Attack on Titan. Movie Madness Night (an every last Friday of the month event I put on for friends now) saw me through watching the first episode or two of Food Wars.

I fell not-quite-by-accident into The Ancient Magus Bride, without any help, simply due to following some news on CrunchyRoll once that subscription happened. I bought an early, full pass, to Fathom's Studio Ghbili Fest 2017, even though I've seen all the movies at least once. (It's been glorious seeing them on the big screen though.)

I joined my city's once-a-month free screenings at a movie theatre by Anime at the Alamo group, but I've only managed one month of like four not to be either already scheduled on the night of their showing or not to have already scheduled something on every other night of the week and desperate for a break. For that night we watched Dimension W. I watched Castlevania with all my friends/family when it hit Netflix.

Somewhere in the late spring, almost out-for-the-summer, I got voluntold into The Anime Club at my high school (and the Nerdvana Con Meeting), which has only just started these last few weeks. The first meeting they listed anime's they might want to watch across the year and came up with a truly impressive 70+ individual titles. Their first three watching Friday's were dedicated to Princess Mononoke, and this Friday they'll move on to the first three episodes of Death Note.

They meet every Friday, but they probably won't end up watching more than 3-6 episodes of everything. We're doing a roulette tasting wheel of everything (and possibly there will be holiday themed pieces, too). If nothing else, it's going to end up with me exposed to a couple dozen different shows, all of which I might end up having to watch the whole rest of.

Which does not even touch the fact I have a queue longer than my arms of series rec's, too.




Pieces and parts of this ramble brought to you by the plethora of Yuri!!! On Ice things on my couch and shelves, watching the two new episodes of the newly started Ancient Magus' Bride post-OVA serial, and catching a (necessary to be pre-watched before handing off to the children on Friday) episode of Death Note with Laura before bed.

[ Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V

Borrowing over a fandom meme from musesfool (who in turn is borrowing it over from misbegotten). 50 questions, because it seems a sensible thing to start in the middle of the night when I need something to place in the giant silence headed precisely nowhere, but did, at the very least, decide not to be a migraine.

Fandom Questions 50, Part I

Ship Questions for your Current Fandom

11. Who is your current OTP?
Given we left off last time, in my current fandoms being Yuri!!! On Ice, my current OTP obsession is Yuri Katsuki/Victor Nikiforov.

12. Who is your current OT3?
I...don't really have one in this canon? I often do at times, and I've read a handful of Chris/Victor/Yuri pieces and even Victor/Yuri/Yurio pieces in the long slog through tons of fic being written in A03 for this fandom in the spring/summer, but none of the OT3's are my hardcore loves.

Wait. I lied. The whatever it is/isn't that's going on with Emil & The Crispino's. I don't really ship incest much (>_> Yeah, I know. I have that one Skywalker fic, I know, and I've totally written meta on Simon-River, and read Flowers in the Attic as a kid). But. Emil and the Crispino's for serious. Emil, who flirts with both twins and tries to get both their attention, and who spends time checking them both out.

I'm here for whatever is happening with those three.

13. Any NoTPs?
None? I don't really have any glaring red alert problems with ships in this fandom.

14. Go on, who are your BroTPs?
The main trio, I suppose goes here? Yuri, Victor, and Yurio as the trio the art depicts as happening, even if the canon hasn't made happen in the slightest yet. I'm really living for the day we'll finally have canon on how that happens and why and where.

I want to see more of Yurio in the land that the last episode/two shows us, addressing that not just Victor, but Yurio, too has gotten his L-words of "love" and "life" from Yuri, as well. That he both carried it and shows it in different ways than anything we've seen with Victor. I want to see what happens to the Victor & Yurio dynamic, too, especially as the art paints these three always together, and yet interviews are still saying that Victor is still only truly his happier relaxed self about only Yuri, himself.

Everything about Yuri & Phichit's cutest best friends thing ever, where Phichit attached himself to Yuri's life forever and didn't let go, and Yuri totally came to appreciate it and Phichit and never wants that to end, no matter where in the world they are. Also, Victor & Chris' best-flirty-competitors-frenemies thing. I'm around for more in that book, too.

15. Is there an obscure ship which you love?
Early on Yakov/Lilia, and everything with a side of Minako/Lilia.

16. Are there any popular ships in your fandom which you dislike?
No?

17. Who was your first OTP and are they still your favourite?
Victor & Yuri, and yes, a million times over. My pocketbook is still feeling the constant burn, as is my inability to wait for tags, or for new merchandise/art, or for each of the new events I stalk across the universe, tracking down every crumb said everywhere about them by the creators.

18. What ship have you written the most about?
Given I'm playing Yuri over there, I'd have to say that answer is obvious.

19. Is there a ship which you wished you could get behind, but you just don’t feel them?
I'm not really all that invested in almost any other ship but the main one in this canon. I like skimming them in reading, and a lot of them come up. I have a passing fancy now and then with Sara/Mila. But really I'm not massively all over the other ships that are sailing in the YOI waters.

20. Any ships which you surprised yourself by liking?
Isabella/JJ. I don't have any true love for JJ as a character by himself, but I adore Bella's absolutely, unwavering dedication to the boy she loves and her entire scene standing up, crying, and still shouting his name, even in his defeat, has me almost teary eyed every time. I'm here for more Isabella Bela in the future, too.