#xellafail

Today, @spaceswordblaster reblogged one of those "have you seen this movie" polls about a Bloody Mary movie. That reminded me that I had wanted to go to the wikipedia page and read up on the common way(s) the legend is invoked, because if it actually worked the way that I was vaguely remembering, that would be a neat parallel that I could ramble about sometime!

The wikipedia page itself gave me a lot of related ideas but it also linked to a similar myth from Japan about "Hanako-san." Having only cursory exposure to horror movies and the like, I was like "is that the Ring girl?" and clicked on that link; it was not (I think the Ring girl starts with an S but anyway).

At the top of THAT wikipedia page was a disambiguation section, which included "if you're looking for the manga, see "Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun" and I was like w h a t (until I read the Hanako-san page, at which point is still sounded hilarious but made sense).

So then I went to the Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun page, as you do, and saw it had been adapted into an anime in 2020 and there was a reboot coming out in 2024 (I think?). So I looked THAT up and it's free on Crunchyroll and I was like "okay I'll watch one episode just to see what it's like, then I can go do the things I need to do for the day" and now I'm on episode 7/13 or something like that.

The audiobook and hardcover versions of Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth do not contain the extra bonus content that the paperback and ebooks do!

The paperback releases of the books are the first editions to contain any bonus content and while the ebook edition is typically updated even if you purchased it prior to the paperback release, physical books can't be updated like that and the audiobook is recorded well before the hardcover's release and is therefore also not updated (though it'd be fabulous if Moira Quirk were to record them some day, I don't think it's likely unless there's a short story omnibus at some point that gets its own audiobook release).

As a result, hardcover readers and audiobook listeners have some additional content that they might not have realized existed that can sate them somewhat while we wait for Alecto (and Nona's paperback release, which may also come with bonus content). The drawback is that anyone who has ingested the series through those formats (as I have) may not even be aware that there's more story and information that they're missing out on!

Instead of drawing something for it this year, I was preparing to make a montage of all my attempts' boxes set to Yakety Sax, the way I decided to start doing that for Arfus at Hallow's End. Arfus dropped the very first time I hit Start Recording on OBS, but it was looking pretty bleak that I'd get that lucky again.

The world continues to laugh at plans. Day four, the first run of the day.

180 attempts this year. 5,043 recorded attempts since 2014, an unknown number prior to 2014, fourteen years of not only running as many times as I could during the two week period of the event but also largely structuring my account around being ready to run as many times as I could during the two week period.

It's the end of an era. I don't ever have to do this dungeon again if I don't want to. I am free.