the fan may retreat, but never dies!

I've been quiet lately, more so than I intended. First my attention was distracted away from the chimera fic by a new shiny -- the House of Smex spinoff of the Alter!Series. For various complicated, particular and irrational reasons, the Doubles sub-arc of this series captured me and drew me in, and I wrote a bunch of drabbles for it which I didn't repeat here. You can go read them now, but they won't make much sense without reading the surrounding background fics, and if you *do* read those, prepare to be drawn in. :D

( HoS and Doubles spoilers. )

RL-wise, this past week entirely flattened me; midterms came up on me completely unexpectedly. I shorted myself of sleep even more than usual and pulled an all-nighter to get everything done in time, whew. I had planned a road trip up to Vegas this weekend with windandwater's family, but that fell through at the last minute, so I shall revert to my default plan of spending the weekend lazing about, sleeping, and catching up on anime (yes, cerulean_burn, manga too!) that I've been behind on.

I began my re-fandoming quest by immersing myself in FMA tonight, reading the last two chapters of the manga. I'm very happy I did. My interest in the manga had been unenthused throguh the last several chapters, as it insisted on focusing on characters and plotlines I cared nothing about. This last two, however, were pure love. They were filled with everything about FMA that I fell in love with in the first place; Ed, Al, Ed and Al, devious plotting, actiony fight scenes, Roy being cool, Ed being alternately cute, cool, cunning, self-sacrificing, and more cute.

For those who aren't reading it, quick summary of everything you need to know about FMA manga 44 and 45:

( Manga spoilers 44-45. )

Love triggered by this, I went back and watched a few key moments of series, particularly 29-32. Am bowled over once again by Al's voice. Ed's voice shines so much that you hardly notice Al's, but Rie Kugimiya's performance is just something that english Al will never be able to come close to, no matter how good he gets.

*fannish trivia time* ( Today's musical selection.... )

All my friends are moving on to other fandoms. This makes me sad. (Yeah, pellaz, sockren, cerulean_burn, cryogenia, windandwater, I'm lookin at you.)

As long as I'm here, since I'm not producing anything of my own tonight:
We've Only Just Begun, a sweet little Elric brothers fic that just tugged lightly at my heartstrings, and sometimes that's all you need.
Suffering from Love's Wounds - Similar to the above, a slightly harder tug on the heartstrings. I like this author.
Remember that Roy/Ed fic I recced a while back? Its kids are even sexier, no joke. Some of the least-cliched, most-IC, most hawt and interesting Roy/Ed courtship fic I've read in quite some time. Breakfast In Stead, Can't Teach An Old Dog New Licks, Discretion Is The Better Part of Variety, Every Dog Has Its Way, Familiarity Breeds Consent, and Great Minds Think A Lot.
In Entirety -- this one is actually old, not new, but I was revisiting it today and enjoying it so much had to share.