READING VLOG - Reading My Most Anticipated Fantasy Release + I'm An Emotional Mess lol
**A Deep Dive into Passionate Interests: Anime, Books, and Life**
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### Introduction: A Glimpse into a World of Stories and Reflections
The world of stories has always been a haven for me. Whether it’s the vibrant world of anime or the intricate pages of a well-crafted novel, I find myself drawn into the lives of characters that feel like old friends. This journey is not just about entertainment; it’s about connection, reflection, and growth.
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### The Allure of Naruto: A Never-Ending Adventure
One of my most cherished companions on this journey has been *Naruto*. Over the years, I’ve followed the story of the young ninja who defies odds and brings hope to his village. The series is a testament to resilience, friendship, and the power of believing in oneself.
However, as much as I love *Naruto*, there’s one aspect that leaves me puzzled: the relationship between Sakura and Sasuke. While Naruto’s journey is filled with moments of growth and connection, Sasuke’s interactions with Sakura often feel one-sided. Despite his many struggles, Sasuke rarely shows any genuine care for Sakura. This lack of emotional depth in their relationship stands out to me, especially when compared to the rich connections between other characters.
But despite my reservations about their dynamic, I remain a staunch supporter of Naruto. The series has taught me valuable lessons about perseverance and the importance of loyalty, even in the face of adversity. As we near the end of *Naruto*, I find myself reflecting on how far we’ve come and the bittersweet feeling that comes with nearing the conclusion of such an epic tale.
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### A Newfound Passion for Reading: Discovering Empires and Forbidden Histories
While anime has always been a part of my life, recent years have seen me delve deeper into the world of books. One series that has captured my heart is *The Poppy War* by Adeline海因莱希亚德 (Adeline海伦娜德). This grimdark fantasy novel follows Rin Yukari, a young woman navigating a brutal school system and the horrors of war in a world inspired by ancient China.
What sets *The Poppy War* apart is its unflinching portrayal of the darkest aspects of human nature. The novel explores themes of revenge, cycles of violence, and the devastating effects of war on individuals and communities. It’s not an easy read, but it’s one that leaves a lasting impact. Rin’s journey from a determined student to a weary warrior is both heart-wrenching and inspiring, reminding us of the resilience of the human spirit even in the face of unimaginable suffering.
The second book in the series, *The Fall of Bastion*, continues this exploration with even greater intensity. As Rin delves deeper into the political intrigues and horrors of war, she must confront the moral dilemmas that come with power. The novel’s multi-perspective narrative allows readers to see the war through the eyes of various characters, offering a nuanced view of the conflict and its impact on those involved.
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### Rediscovering Fruits Basket: A Beloved Classic
While diving into new worlds is exciting, there’s something special about revisiting old favorites. *Fruits Basket*, the anime adaptation of the manga by Natsuki Takaya, has recently found its way back into my life. The series follows Tohru Honda, a young woman who moves into the home of the wealthy Sohma family after her own home is destroyed in an earthquake.
What makes *Fruits Basket* so special is its blend of humor, drama, and heartbreak. Each member of the Sohma family carries their own burdens, and their interactions with Tohru reveal the depth of their humanity. The series explores themes of loneliness, belonging, and the power of unconditional love in a way that feels both relatable and profound.
As I rewatch the series, I find myself marveling at how well it has aged. Its message about overcoming adversity and finding hope in even the darkest moments remains timeless. It’s a reminder that sometimes, the most unexpected connections can lead to the most transformative experiences.
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### Embracing New Interests: A Journey into Anime Again
In recent years, I’ve found myself reconnecting with my love for anime. From the whimsical adventures of *Fruits Basket* to the intense battles in *Naruto*, each series offers something unique and enriching. However, there’s a part of me that feels like I’m missing out on newer titles that have gained popularity since I last actively followed the genre.
If you’ve come across any excellent shoujo anime or other genres that I might enjoy, please share! I’m always eager to discover new stories and expand my horizons. Whether it’s a heartfelt romance, a gripping drama, or a fantastical adventure, I’m here for it.
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### Conclusion: A Journey of Growth and Reflection
This journey through books and anime has been nothing short of transformative. Each story has taught me something new about the human condition, about love, loss, and resilience. As I continue on this path, I hope to uncover even more gems that will inspire and challenge me.
Reading and watching stories is not just a pastime; it’s a way of life. It allows us to see the world through the eyes of others, to feel their joy and pain, and to grow in empathy and understanding. As I move forward, I’m excited to explore new worlds, revisit old friends, and continue learning from the stories that shape us.
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**Final Thoughts**
The journey through *Naruto*, *The Poppy War*, and *Fruits Basket* has been a profound experience. Each story has left an indelible mark on my heart, teaching me valuable lessons about life and love. As I close this chapter of my reading and watching journey, I look forward to the next one, eager to see where new stories will take me.
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This article captures the essence of the provided text, exploring the author’s deep connection to anime and books while reflecting on personal growth and the power of storytelling.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi everyone it's regan and welcome to the start of another reading vlog it is currently currently currently pouring in new york city we're having a tropical storm right now i guess they were just thinking of other things to happen in 2020 so they landed on tropical storm but uh this this weekend i have some very exciting reading plans as i do every weekend because you know that's all i'm doing nowadays um but i am gonna be picking up one of my most anticipated books of the year and trying to read most of it it's very long so reading most of it would be very great for me um i won't lie before the start of this vlog i did just finish the poppy war which honestly blew my mind into a million pieces so i'm like trying to pick myself up dust myself off and get myself ready to be destroyed by the book i plan to read this weekend you know just gotta put myself back together enough to be absolutely obliterated by my next read which is the empire of gold by essay chakraborty this is the third and final book to the dab a bad trilogy it is over 700 pages long and it is gonna be filled with so much pain i cannot wait um yeah so the daba trilogy is one of my favorite fantasy trilogies of all time i have been reading them since they've been releasing they have just been extraordinary in my opinion um it is a middle eastern inspired fantasy story where the first one follows our main character who is a thief in cairo and in the first one she accidentally summons a warrior gin and then she's transported to a magical city um there she basically finds out she's part of this like long lost line of healers and it kind of she's kind of used as the catalyst to start a bunch of like political warfare essentially though there's been a lot of brewing politics in this city for a very long time for a variety of different reasons lots of thousand-year-old grudges being held and lots of generational hatred at play and she's basically used as a scapegoat as a reason to kind of act escalate a lot of the unrest that's been simmering for a long time um so that's kind of like the first two books there's war there's again it's mostly in my opinion a very political driven fantasy and the second one was absolutely excruciatingly amazing um and i am just so excited to see how the story is gonna wrap up in the third and final book i have no idea the second one had a decent time skip um between the first and second one which i think was to its benefit given that the politics are so ingrained within the society and a lot of the issues are not something one person could just literally magically appear in a city and fix overnight book is also multi-perspective so there's a bunch of characters in here that you follow my camera died but i think i was talking about povs and essentially because this is a pov novel you get insight and also you get to live inside of different perspectives from all of these boring factions within the city so it just gives you like first-hand perspective and knowledge on how much of a mess everything is and how there is no easy solution and there's just so much pain going on but it's such an incredible series i'm gonna try to read a bunch of it this weekend as i said it's over 700 pages so i'm not sure if i'll be able to finish it um but i'm definitely gonna do my darn this i feel like this is gonna be an emotional ride and i'm just hoping it's so good and i'm hoping this just gets all more of you guys to read the dab about trilogy because it's amazing i'm actually gonna be reading it on my e-reader i got a new e-reader for my birthday my mom got it for me and i honestly think it's part of the reason why i've been able to read so much this month so i've already read five books it's july 10th and i've read five books which is just so beyond my normal pace i know that's not a lot to some people but for me that is a lot um and i think it has a lot to do with my e-reader and i think it's specifically because i cannot see the page number as i'm reading and the screen is so nice but not saying the page number means i don't set i don't set arbitrary like reading goals so many times i'll read like 50 pages and then just stop because i've read 50 pages but when i can't see the page number now i'm reading like 100 pages 120 pages at a time without even realizing it so i downloaded the ebook too because whatever i'm trash and apparently i'll just buy this book twice um but yeah it's also just really nice to read it's really lightweight portable i can read in the dark i'm kind of like really on the e-reader thing right now um but yeah so that is my plan for the weekend i want to read all of empire of gold well as much of vampire gold as i can and share that reading experience with you guys that is pretty much my major plan for the weekend for ordering thai food tonight for dinner we're gonna be watching a lot of naruto oh i guess i should say too this is such a long intro but we're almost done with naruto like almost completed naruto and it's just that's like a whole nother emotional journey that's about to come to an end so that's sad i honestly feel like i'm gonna have to just immediately watch barbato but we'll see so yeah naruto books food that is the upcoming reading vlog um so i'm excited to read and i'm excited for you guys to follow along so yeah all right packed up my office for the day um and i think i'm gonna get a fresh cup of coffee and do a bit of reading until clay's done working and then i think we're gonna order dinner and uh watch naruto all righty i made a fresh cup of coffee while i was brewing i read the first chapter and a half of this book and it starts out literally just wild i also had to read i also love fantasy novels because they always have like a back glossary of characters and other things which i always need as a refresher especially given that this book has so many different characters and it's very political and all the political factions you need to think of i'm pouring myself a small cup of coffee we actually ordered food as i mentioned we're eating thai tonight but we decided to do pick up versus delivery um because it's raining but now we felt bad so we decided we would ourselves brave the rain to pick up the food which i'm really excited about i been craving type takeaway for a long time so we're gonna eat that and watch some naruto probably watch some last dance as well because we're almost done and i'll definitely be reading more tonight our food is arrived clay went outside in the rain and got it for us they gave us like two free appetizers which wow we are blessed on this friday um we're now gonna watch an episode of the last dance so time to chow down on all of this all right i've retreated to the bedroom to do more reading i have the physical book too because i do like to kind of keep track at the end of reading to figure out how far i got um but yeah watch some naruto eat some delicious thai food tonight it's wild how little naruto we have left we have maybe less than 40 episodes which in the scheme of an 800 episode show that's not very many and we're just like learning all the end game stuff and it's just so wonderful yet so sad one thing i will say curious for other naruto fans out there i love the show i don't really have like major complaints i do feel like as power-ups occurred though the fighting sequences got a little less satisfying because it's like less hand to hand if you know what i mean like less stylized because i guess the fighting became more massive force against massive force versus like individual level there were still moments and i don't want to spoil anything so like the fight sequence are just some of the most beautifully animated parts of naruto that there are some amazing quiet moments in the show as well what comes to mind is there there's a particular episode that focuses on chikamaru in naruto putin that's probably one of my favorite episodes of the entire series which familiar with the show let me know i also just love shakimaru so all sad to say is i love naruto and i'm really sad it's ending um and it's funny because this was i don't know naruto's been such a big part of my life for so long but i never completed the series the first time around so i'm finally doing it and i don't know it feels kind of sad to like it be all watched but anywho i'm going to read now um i'm going to try to get a good like 60 oh excuse me to 80 pages red depending on how much longer i can stay awake um but i'll keep you guys posted i feel like this book is going to be very intense and it's gonna start out like very quickly but we shall see but i'm gonna get started continuing my game of listening to music while i'm reading it is an absolute game changer i listen to this spotify playlist oh dismiss um it's reading music instrumental music for reading and studying it's the first playlist that popped up when i searched reading music on spotify but if you guys have any wrecks let me know but i'm gonna get to it hi everyone good morning i am in the midst of doing a hair mask um but it is obviously saturday i did stay up pretty late last night reading i got to page 65 which i'm actually pretty happy with usually because reading on friday nights is more difficult for me because i always fall asleep early um i also feel like i'm going to do a quick segment of the poppy war at some point today because i finished that book yesterday and i feel like i seem to talk about it for a hot second but back to the empire fold first 60 pages i've immediately fallen into the story i won't lie i did read like a summary of the second one before oh my gosh matilda won't lie i did read a summary of the second book before jumping into the third one which is so helpful whomever writes those summaries online you are just a gift because they're so helpful um which i think was definitely the right move because i immediately was rooted in the story and this one unlike the second one takes place almost immediately after the events of the second book which a lot of stuff happened at the end of the second book so it's definitely like the urgency and the pace kind of is already super ramped up um which i appreciate and i think because of that i'm i feel like i'm going to read this book pretty quickly like the beginning there's no like slow rise like everything is happening um in this first novel i'm actually two um because i'm talking about a third book in the series of a read in this reading vlog i'm gonna link down below some reviews from booktubers some of my favorite booktubers in the community reviewing this book who also love it so if you like fantasy and also wanting like a non-spoiler review of the first one i'll have that link down below because i never made one and their videos would be better than mine anyway so check out their videos if you want some you know more concise non-spoiler non-reading vlog format thoughts um so those will be linked down below it's saturday i almost like hate saying what day of the week it is at some point because every day is the same um no grand plans today just gonna read um i do want to do some filming this weekend obviously um that's kind of the grand plan do a hair mask as i'm doing now uh but yeah so i was able to read 65 pages it was so good the book is really uh just starting really strong right off the bat um yeah so there's that i also like it because i feel like it's a little bit full circle the first one starts in cairo and this one also starts in cairo and i feel like the historical setting um just provides like a different backdrop which i appreciate because we've been in such we've been in the magical city of davabad for so long that it's kind of interesting to see the cairo setting and thinking about like past lives and current lives and stuff like that so i appreciate that it's an element of it i'm really enjoying but anyway i'm gonna keep masking i'm gonna have a cup of coffee i'm gonna do more reading it's 9 a.m and that could only mean naruto watching bravo um but i'm about to make some coffee i paused the tv but i wanted to show you guys my jumpsuit so this is from target i bought it a couple months ago now at this point and it's probably my most worn thing this summer it's just this lightweight linen material it's baggy it's so comfortable and great for like the hot weather and i'm just wearing like a black tank top underneath it but uh it's my favorite thing i own and 30 bucks man can't go wrong can't go wrong i want to mine in other colors but all the other colors but that's what i sold out which say lovey but i'm gonna go make some coffee now coffee acquired bagels are ordered matilda's on her second nap of the morning it's a good saturday so far bagels are acquired putting the finishing touches on my video this is past me reading the first part of the poppy war which is just re-inspiring me that i need to talk to you guys about my final thoughts of the poppy war in a vlog clay is playing call of duty if you're wondering with that hi pals so i've just finished editing i'm uploading my video now and i am finally gonna sit down and do some reading i've kind of fallen into a reality tv hole which sometimes happens on a saturday i also have my weighted blanket which honestly can say has changed my life this thing is the flippin mom um but before i go back to reading empire gold i feel like i just need an outlet really fast to talk about the poppy war which i finished on friday and i'm not counting any of the pages towards this reading vlog but i read the second half of this book late last week um i took a bit of a break reading it for the creed-a-thon and then i picked it back up once i finished my tbr for that but this book was so good it's interesting because i had heard different things going into it so people loved the first half some people thought the second half was like too dark i mentioned this in my last vlog but the poppy war is a grim dark fantasy story where we follow our main character rin who basically tests into the most elite military school in her world this fantasy world is very much inspired by 18th or 19th century china during the song dynasty there's elements of like the opium wars and the sino-japanese war all within this story it's a grim dark fantasy meaning that it's very dark lots of trigger warnings um sort of like exploring amoral relationships and characters and things not to say you don't really enjoy the characters because rin is a really fascinating character there's so many amazing things that happen in this book but i really just want to send a wrap-up of thoughts because i kind of vlogged my first half reading experience of this book but i didn't vlog my second half reading experience and it's so good because the second half contrasts the first half just like so masterfully and i just appreciate what the author did so much in this novel she really is looking to explore the dark realities of war and also like the i mean this book is hard to read at times given what is happening and it's honestly just disturbingly inspired by history and she's also exploring this sort of like cycle of humanity kind of how war can continually happen again and again as people seek revenge against wrong wrongness done to them and then they're you know getting that revenge and then those people seek revenge and it just like keeps this cycle going and going combining these elements of like gods as well it was just so good and also having a school setting in the first half and then a war setting in the second half i thought was so effective because the school setting felt so real in the first half and like all the issues and the problems our main character was going through and also a lot of the frustrations their character was going through in the school setting were real in the time that she was doing it the fights and the experiences and the competition that she felt against her classmates was very real and as is the injustice that she experienced at school but then when everyone went to war like all of those day-to-day things within school kind of fell away as reality of just surviving kind of took over and those relationships those rivalries were like re-examined in a war setting and i just thought it was like so good anyway i really loved this book a lot i can't wait to read the second one i just felt like it deserved like a full talk through because i did just finish it because man i loved it so much and i just felt like this reading vlog is gonna be emoj because i'm reading this and then immediately well i finished the poppy war and i'm immediately jumping into empire gold i just must not i don't know it's gonna be a lot anyway just wanted to check in and talk about the poppy war for a second before i really fully fell into empire of gold um because i feel like that book is about to take over my life so before it does i wanted to like wrap up my thoughts on the poppy boar but i'm gonna finish my crappy reality tv show and then i'm finally gonna get to reading all right guys it's time for a midday snack i've somehow acquired some fries which in my you know ranking of hot cheetos the flaming hot fries are just by far and away the best version of hot cheetos out there so i'm going to enjoy this with matilda who is just very concerned that i'm eating and not feeding her at the same time reading my book but do we hear that snoring she loves the weighted blanket oh it's been a relaxing saturday i'm gonna get another cup of coffee and then i'm going to read more and i'll give you guys an update and a page count update but i won't lie i've been watching a little bit of uh well rather too much of a million dollar listing los angeles i woke her up do you see that tail wag you're such a little cutie clay's playing who's playing rome total war i think warships though all right i've been reading um and i have passed the 120 page mark of the empire of gold and oh my gosh i fell into the story so quickly and i just immediately remembered how much i love love um nahari and ali i literally would die for them they're just like just such great characters and seeing them have to reconcile emotionally with everything that's happened in these past two books i also feel like we've just been on such a journey with them because they have been close since the first book and again quite a bit of time has like passed throughout this series so in a lot of ways we've seen these characters grow up and have to like either become hardened from some of the decisions they've been forced to make having to watch them go through unimaginable tragedy throughout this book series and just seeing them like i don't know rely on each other but then there's just like struggle between them at the same time and their friendship and everything like seeing them grow is just been my favorite thing i also just appreciate how i say chakraborty deals with a lot of the relationships within this series everything is very dynamic so relationships and people even like coupled individuals coupled like romantically or even platonically in like the first book those might very well change in very dramatic fashion throughout this entire series so that's something i appreciate that like she's willing to subvert expectations and also provide reconciliation for characters within the series given that everything is so complex and nuanced like the realities of what people are going through is not just like simple right and wrong like it's just so good i just love ali and nahri so flippin much and they're just the best i mean i love a lot of characters in the series but their scenes have always been my favorite for for like you know all the books so anyway i'm gonna keep reading i've passed 120 page mark it's we're having it this is book number six for the month doing it today is taking a quick nap uh and i'm gonna take millie out feed her dinner but we're watching what am i doing we're watching naruto and i'm so disoriented because i just saw a certain character's face for the first time ever a face i have wanted to see for the past 10 years it was in a filler episode too we'd only skip all the fillers glad we didn't skip this one i don't know i don't want to say anything but you know what i'm talking about if you know what i'm talking about in regards to naruto also oh my god i just don't want to be spoilery for naruto but also there was a certain thai jutsu move used that i also wasn't expecting that keeled me over i lost it the best move naruto you get me every time i'm such a naruto fan girl the show and the character like i love naruto i'm never gonna be a sasuke stan i'm only a naruto stan only naruto stands aren't loud just kidding um anyway i just wanted to check in and talk about that face that i saw because oh my god i also wanted to show off matilda's new leash and harness situation we got a light pink even got a poop bag that matches you're an aesthetic queen matilda aesthetic we i like this one too because it pulls the harness from the back because she's a bit of a tugger and we just like the aesthetics i'm not gonna lie i saw this one i got an instagram ad and i was like ah all right matilda you're getting an upgrade naruto is wild and crazy but we have decided to go for a bit of an evening walk um it's still sunny out but it's like more overcast and it's less hot so i was like let's go for a walk maybe get some like to go margaritas and some to-go food and maybe go sit in a park somewhere and eat it um safely social distance from the world uh but yeah put our masks on i think we're gonna head out and enjoy a little stroll and then i think we're really gonna we're probably able to finish naruto tonight but we will definitely be able to get a really good like i think we're going to finish the arc and then there's just a chunk of episodes at the end that's just like the after part which i'm excited for don't get me wrong but i definitely think we'll be able to finish the arc tonight which i'm very very pleased with back from our walk more naruto everyone we're really in the home stretch i'm sad about it guess who's about to be super dramatic when clay tries to put uh her harness on to take her to the bathroom this little creature here mind you every other time of the day she helps she'll stand up she'll lift her paws so morose all right so we have been watching a lot of naruto in fact a major arc of the show and all that's left is kind of the after episodes in that we're on episode 480 if that helps anyone who's been following along and the thing is i need to talk about it from a spoiler capacity so all this is to say is i'm about to talk about spoiler things with naruto so if you haven't watched the show and you don't want to hear these spoiler thoughts please skip ahead to the from this part um because i want to talk about really fast i won't go into great detail but okay so we've been watching this show for so long obviously and i have loved every second of it i love naruto so much and all of the villains and the relationships i feel like everything is so dynamic and the fighting and the animation is amazing but if i have one qualm about this whole show it is or not naruto nothing to do with naruto it is the sakura sasuke relationship it makes no sense because sasuke has literally never one time been nice to sakura or has showed any ounce of thought or care towards soccer even when he's like straight up evil like when sasuke's evil he's still like trying to sever his bond with naruto because he feels like that makes him weak so he acknowledges that there's a bond there and that he has a connection to naruto that's not even a thought that crosses sasuke's mind about sakura she's just annoying even when he's like good and about to go on this journey she's like oh can i go with you he's like no i need to go at home for my sins fine and then he goes you have nothing to do with my sins um pretty sure you tried to kill her like four different times sasuke anyway i know i'm rambling about uh sasuke and sakura but i guess it's really to me like the only glaring hold in the story because all the characters all the connections all the other pairings from a friendship to a romantic perspective are so amazing and top-notch and well-earned and i think all the villains too have all these really interesting layers like obedo and kashi like all of that was so amazing and i love it and then you just have sasuke who's still such a jerk to sakura all the time i guess i've like i've honestly never been a huge sasuke fan because i'm such a naruto stan but that's my one that's my one thing and i feel like i need to voice it out into the world i needed other people to let me know what they think about the sasuke sakura situation because sakura deserves better she deserves better anyway that's my one rant it's mostly just because i hate sasuke i love sakura i want her i want her better for her in life that's why this is where this is coming from i have nothing against sakura um anyway naruto's great loved it loved the ending can't wait to watch bartow and see all the children run around i'm just such a i'm such a fan girl for the show at this point like they could be just doing nothing they could just be gardening all day honestly that sounds really peaceful if they could make a reality a fake reality tv show of naruto and like rock lee opening up a greenhouse would be obsessed with that show um but yeah so we still have like a good like 20 episodes left so we're still gonna be watching naruto probably throughout this week but we're like basically done which is so weird and i just what a journey and i just needed to ramble on and apparently just talk about how much i still hate sasuke but i love naruto and i love shikamaru and i love jaraya and i love kakashi and i love pretty much everyone in this whole show like who would have thought not me anyway okay wild saturday night everyone hello everyone good morning happy sunday um it's sunday what a weird way to start this next day um i just got i just woke up well i sort of just woke up i've since already gotten dressed um but yeah it's sunday so my plan for today is not much clay does have to work quite a bit today so i ultimately didn't read a lot yesterday with the understanding that i would read a lot today because clay's gonna be working we watched so much naruto yesterday and i'm still like in a bit of an emotional place with naruto i can't stop thinking about it um i just get really connected to things and when you're with the show for 800 episodes and also because i loved it so much growing up i just feel like this really deep connection to this show it's like an it's like similar to how i felt about avatar when i finished my rewatch of avatar i just feel like a little emotional i'm a little sad it's not even over i'm not even done i still have like 20 episodes of naruto left but anyway um so today i do plan to do a lot of reading i think i've mentioned a few times but i did end up getting to page 150 yesterday of empire of gold so not amazing but not terrible i definitely feel like i can make up a big chunk of that today um the only other major plans i have is i'm gonna record two videos for this upcoming week so outside of that that's really all i've got um reading and filming today i did get a new light like a filming light that i've been like itching to set up and try out we'll see it's actually really sunny today so i don't really know if i need it but i got a new light for filming so i would be it would be easier for me to film in the evening like after work so i don't have to like always film on the weekends as if you're a youtuber um well at least for me nothing is more stressful like i do all my filming on the weekends when it's raining all weekend because i'm like what am i gonna do this lighting's gonna be terrible i don't have time during the work week but now i have a light so i'm hoping that'll help alleviate some of that stress if i'm not able to have perfect lighting for the weekend or you know be able to film more after work anyway i'm rambling just wanna say it's sunday i'm already dressed it's like 10 a.m um and that's that's really it so plan to do a lot of reading today but first i'm going to do filming so yay about to film a video in lol just complete nut or disarray finished filming matilda very proud of myself i have a mess to clean up but i'll deal with that a little bit because i'm going to eat this bagel and watch naruto again we finished the main arc but we have some we have all the you know the after part to get through which i'm really looking forward to all right it's time for coffee also my favorite mug was available nothing feels better than your favorite mug being available and clean and clay not using it also i'm dressed i already showed you guys this i don't know but it's dress i got for my birthday from clay's parents and i think it's so cute it's made out of um this sort of like winnie material anyway i really like it it's really comfortable so that's that's what i'm wearing today all right i'm sitting down with my cup of coffee and my weighted blanket and my headphones because i'm going to finally start reading again um i really had to kick myself off my phone because i've been talking to audrey and starla about naruto for like the past hour i just love talking to people about naruto and starla and audrey if you're not subscribed to them by the way i'm gonna leave both of their channels down below they're the best impeccable youtube channels seriously um but anyway it's time for me to reach out and stop talking about anime i love talking about anime though okay time to read hi everyone i'm reading i'm almost on the 200 page mark which is great i'm not going to show you the page or the quote because i don't want to do spoilers or anything but something that i guess this kindle kindle books have that i've just never noticed until right now is they have they'll underline um quotes or lines in the book that other readers have highlighted and it'll tell you the amount of highlights and i don't know there's something about it that i really like because it's kind of like community annotation because like there's some wonderful quotes in this book and i read i'm like wow that's amazing and then i can be like oh wow 44 other people highlighted this quote too like nice else with it too is like when i see something is underlined that other people really like the line i like read it a couple of times um this is really random but it's just to say that it's uh kind of like a unexpected edition that i didn't know i needed and really enjoy hi everyone so i have just been sitting here reading matilda let me show you has been sunbathing so you know we're both being very productive but i'm happy to say i've passed the 250 page mark of this book and it's slowly killing me in like the best way possible this book i think i mean i'm i'm not far enough to definitively say but in terms of me immediately falling into the story i mean all of them are amazing this is so hard because all these books are so good but just like right off the bat i'm just like obsessed with everyone and it's like i never even left you know and i also feel like the author did this amazing thing so characters are kind of together and they're in two different kinds of places i don't want to spoil anything so because of this i feel like it's effective because it kind of while this book kind of starts off basically at the end of the last one it allows for the book to kind of repace itself so it's not like we're just in the midst of this like wild thing and everything is just like at 130 000 we still get the satisfaction of seeing things build up not to say there aren't immediate issues that everyone is dealing with in this book because that's definitely the case particularly for ollie and nari they're able to kind of reset in a way that i love also because i love them so much and i just don't know how to articulate it but i love them like they're my favorite they're some of my favorite characters i love them and i love what the author has done with their characters and just that's to say with this entire book series everything is just so good and it's just so complicated and it's so like all the conflict and all the war and everything all everything that's been present within this entire series is just like it hurts you because you don't know the answer either but there's good people and you want everyone to just be happy and just constantly you're seeing people be taken advantage of and like you see like the power of incrementalism too when it comes to accepting orders and how that can have like a legacy and create this sort of like cycle of people looking to pass harm to create current harm and in reality people are just doing terrible things to each other in the name of getting like revenge and it just kind of shows like war and revenge and everything is just like it breeds more like there's no solution it just keeps things from happening but you also understand why people are making the decisions they make because everything is so painful um and it's so good and i just feel like she explores all these particularly through some specific povs which i won't speak to but like i just feel like because this is multi-perspective we get to see and poke at things from so many different angles which allows us to just have empathy for all of these characters even if we disagree with their decisions and their choices you still have empathy for them which makes the story so powerful and so painful but i'm just so excited to keep reading this book i love it so much and the characters are great the writing is exceptional the characterization and just like the payoff for things nothing in this book is easy and she makes the reader i don't want to say like she makes a read of work for it but more to say is like life is long and complicated and there are seasons to life and chapters to life and it's not to say that things that happen to you at one point in your life is not going to impact you for the rest of your life because it likely will but with relationships and characters and interactions that you see throughout the series you'll see because she allows time to exist within her series she allows characters to have not a static relationship and also like tropes are able to be defied because she allows characters to move on in ways that i feel like you don't usually encounter in books well in fantasy stories or really or a lot of books that i read similarly especially i think with like romance particularly is such a good example within this series um like life has many chapters and so does romance and there's a lot of factors and a lot of growing that happens through time that makes you change as a person and change like what you're looking for in a type of relationship and that's just like a small piece this larger story i'm just so happy to see these dynamic types of relationships and ending of relationships explored within this series because it's just so good and well done and i just like she takes a lot of care within her characters and the time that you spend with them and anyway i love this book so time to keep reading all right i'm about to clean up and do some laundry so i'm actually gonna put some tv on and i'm gonna go back to my fruits baskets watch because i've only seen the first six episodes and i mean i've read the entire manga for fruits baskets back in middle school because i was obsessed just let me flip you around so i don't know how much of you guys know this about me but i obviously feel like i've more recently been talking about anime on my youtube channel but i'm actually like a huge anime fan um in i used to it used to be like exclusively what i watched in middle school through high school i fell out of watching it a bit in college and so that's why i've really been trying to make an effort to reintroduce it into like my life um because i love it so much i've seen a lot of anime there's a lot of shows i've seen most of the big ones you can think of and then a lot of the like more art house ones but anyway i'm getting ahead of myself point is to say shoujo anime i love it i've seen so many um fruits baskets was probably one of the first animes i watched and i watched read the whole manga manga afterwards in middle school because i just could not get enough some other favorite shojos gosh would be like nadame cantable about the musician probably saying that wrong and then like clanad like i love it all i love a good rom-com i love a cry i love like a reverse harem i l i love it all so actually if you have some really good newer shoujo animes please let me know because i'm very behind in my anime watching um because i kind of fell out of watching it so if there's any new ones that are just like so good please wreck them to me especially if they're on hulu and netflix but like i'm thinking about signing up for crunchyroll anyway they can be sub just let me know because i'm interested but anyway i'm gonna watch fruits baskets and clean up a bit hi everyone so i've just been sitting here i ate some cheetos they're gone now watching fruits baskets which i love this show i love this reboot i don't know why i like put it off watching for so long i'm an episode of like eight or nine now the first season i don't know how to describe it also such great humor and i don't know i just love it and uh goodness what was i saying oh yeah such a great sunday i'm just eating cheetos watching fruits baskets getting emotional watching anime and then i'm gonna get more emotional reading empire gold and think about the poppy war then i'm getting emotional there's just a lot of emotions going on in here i also resigned up for crunchyroll reactivated my account from way back when it's going down i'm gonna watch so much anime but anyway i'm gonna get back to fruits baskets i think i'm gonna watch probably a lot of this tonight because i've already watched three episodes and i can't stop but i'm still gonna get reading in um and i'm actually gonna try to get to page 300 before too much more time passes this evening um but yeah i'm going to okay watching fruits i'm about to cook dinner or start cooking dinner i've read or not read i've watched so much fruits baskets and then clay comes over after he's working he's like oh i want to watch this show so i guess i'm watching fruits baskets for the seventh time and i'm not even mad about it and then i also read another 50 pages of my book so i'm just emotions are running high oh who needs me it's monica yeah but actually quick reading update vampire of gold is excellent it's scaling escalating so well i still love all the characters also it's really cool because we're kind of seeing beyond dab bad most the first two books really primarily took place in dava dababad it opened the first novel open in cairo but we quickly departed versus we have some cairo scenes and then we also have um some other cities that are politically important within the magical world which i think is really awesome and it kind of expands the scope of the fantasy which i'm really appreciating but it's just like killing me slowly on the inside and also fruits baskets so lots of positive things to say but we're gonna watch some naruto um after i cook dinner for a little bit uh as we are in the home stretch and i feel like we deserve some of the happy episodes near the end which is what we have so we're gonna be watching that but i just wanted to do a quick reading update i've read 300 pages i'm hoping to read a little over 400 pages for the weekend i'd be really pleased with that um but yeah so that's my goal those are the updates yay i am making some chicken with mushrooms and roasted carrots i've also started that central park show which is really funny so far i love leslie odom jr so i thought i would give it a try but yeah dinner is in the works alrighty things are happening here carrots it should be pretty tasty and dinner is done chicken mushrooms mashed potatoes roasted carrots i kind of burned the carrots a little bit but should be good and then just you know a minor mess hi friends so i have been watching well almost finishing the rest of naruto just kind of watching those ant episodes and just messaging a bunch of people clay and i are also just reminiscing and thinking about our next anime adventure but also just being so sad toronto is basically over i cannot believe it i mean what at times like the perfect time to watch the entirety of naruto um i'm a little sad i really thought it would have lasted longer but three months you watched the whole thing but now i'm going to read more my goal still is to get to page 400 tonight so i'm really going to strive for that it's late um and obviously i work tomorrow so i'm really going to focus on powering through my pages um so i'm gonna do that now but obviously i've really liked this novel as well this has really been the weekend for consuming incredible content naruto finale the poppy war the empire of gold fruits baskets i mean just the primo of the primo but uh anyway i am gonna start reading now get my headphones on and focus listening to classical music too so peaceful at night guys i'm like a changed person now headphones are the only way i can read hi everyone it's regan and welcome to the end of the vlog the next day i hope you guys enjoyed this mess of a vlog because i've already edited most of it and i just realized i'm just like an emotional girl fangirling about too many things at once but anyway i wanted to quickly pop in and wrap up everything i was able to read for empire of gold i did pass the 400 page mark god this book is so good it's just this entire series is so well crafted the ability that i say chakraborty has in creating so many wonderful characters and so many like painful scenarios and just like that this world is just so full of pain but there's also so many people like who have hope and like want to make it a better place but it's just so hard and just the escalation of all the politics kind of coming to a head within this third novel i'm just like it's so good i obviously have about 340 or so pages left so i'm definitely kind of reaching the point where i'm seeing things escalate and i just like don't know how the cards are gonna fall but i'm very stressed but hopeful but very stressed um and i just feel like this series is just exceptional so i've loved reading it this weekend i'm gonna try to finish it this week during my work week but like truly it is so good it is so good but anyway this series is so good this book is probably one of the best books i've read this year so far it might be the best i haven't finished it yet um but anyway i hope you enjoyed this mess of a vlog and i hope you read the dab about trilogy because it is so good anyway i will see you guys soon with another video soon goodbyehi everyone it's regan and welcome to the start of another reading vlog it is currently currently currently pouring in new york city we're having a tropical storm right now i guess they were just thinking of other things to happen in 2020 so they landed on tropical storm but uh this this weekend i have some very exciting reading plans as i do every weekend because you know that's all i'm doing nowadays um but i am gonna be picking up one of my most anticipated books of the year and trying to read most of it it's very long so reading most of it would be very great for me um i won't lie before the start of this vlog i did just finish the poppy war which honestly blew my mind into a million pieces so i'm like trying to pick myself up dust myself off and get myself ready to be destroyed by the book i plan to read this weekend you know just gotta put myself back together enough to be absolutely obliterated by my next read which is the empire of gold by essay chakraborty this is the third and final book to the dab a bad trilogy it is over 700 pages long and it is gonna be filled with so much pain i cannot wait um yeah so the daba trilogy is one of my favorite fantasy trilogies of all time i have been reading them since they've been releasing they have just been extraordinary in my opinion um it is a middle eastern inspired fantasy story where the first one follows our main character who is a thief in cairo and in the first one she accidentally summons a warrior gin and then she's transported to a magical city um there she basically finds out she's part of this like long lost line of healers and it kind of she's kind of used as the catalyst to start a bunch of like political warfare essentially though there's been a lot of brewing politics in this city for a very long time for a variety of different reasons lots of thousand-year-old grudges being held and lots of generational hatred at play and she's basically used as a scapegoat as a reason to kind of act escalate a lot of the unrest that's been simmering for a long time um so that's kind of like the first two books there's war there's again it's mostly in my opinion a very political driven fantasy and the second one was absolutely excruciatingly amazing um and i am just so excited to see how the story is gonna wrap up in the third and final book i have no idea the second one had a decent time skip um between the first and second one which i think was to its benefit given that the politics are so ingrained within the society and a lot of the issues are not something one person could just literally magically appear in a city and fix overnight book is also multi-perspective so there's a bunch of characters in here that you follow my camera died but i think i was talking about povs and essentially because this is a pov novel you get insight and also you get to live inside of different perspectives from all of these boring factions within the city so it just gives you like first-hand perspective and knowledge on how much of a mess everything is and how there is no easy solution and there's just so much pain going on but it's such an incredible series i'm gonna try to read a bunch of it this weekend as i said it's over 700 pages so i'm not sure if i'll be able to finish it um but i'm definitely gonna do my darn this i feel like this is gonna be an emotional ride and i'm just hoping it's so good and i'm hoping this just gets all more of you guys to read the dab about trilogy because it's amazing i'm actually gonna be reading it on my e-reader i got a new e-reader for my birthday my mom got it for me and i honestly think it's part of the reason why i've been able to read so much this month so i've already read five books it's july 10th and i've read five books which is just so beyond my normal pace i know that's not a lot to some people but for me that is a lot um and i think it has a lot to do with my e-reader and i think it's specifically because i cannot see the page number as i'm reading and the screen is so nice but not saying the page number means i don't set i don't set arbitrary like reading goals so many times i'll read like 50 pages and then just stop because i've read 50 pages but when i can't see the page number now i'm reading like 100 pages 120 pages at a time without even realizing it so i downloaded the ebook too because whatever i'm trash and apparently i'll just buy this book twice um but yeah it's also just really nice to read it's really lightweight portable i can read in the dark i'm kind of like really on the e-reader thing right now um but yeah so that is my plan for the weekend i want to read all of empire of gold well as much of vampire gold as i can and share that reading experience with you guys that is pretty much my major plan for the weekend for ordering thai food tonight for dinner we're gonna be watching a lot of naruto oh i guess i should say too this is such a long intro but we're almost done with naruto like almost completed naruto and it's just that's like a whole nother emotional journey that's about to come to an end so that's sad i honestly feel like i'm gonna have to just immediately watch barbato but we'll see so yeah naruto books food that is the upcoming reading vlog um so i'm excited to read and i'm excited for you guys to follow along so yeah all right packed up my office for the day um and i think i'm gonna get a fresh cup of coffee and do a bit of reading until clay's done working and then i think we're gonna order dinner and uh watch naruto all righty i made a fresh cup of coffee while i was brewing i read the first chapter and a half of this book and it starts out literally just wild i also had to read i also love fantasy novels because they always have like a back glossary of characters and other things which i always need as a refresher especially given that this book has so many different characters and it's very political and all the political factions you need to think of i'm pouring myself a small cup of coffee we actually ordered food as i mentioned we're eating thai tonight but we decided to do pick up versus delivery um because it's raining but now we felt bad so we decided we would ourselves brave the rain to pick up the food which i'm really excited about i been craving type takeaway for a long time so we're gonna eat that and watch some naruto probably watch some last dance as well because we're almost done and i'll definitely be reading more tonight our food is arrived clay went outside in the rain and got it for us they gave us like two free appetizers which wow we are blessed on this friday um we're now gonna watch an episode of the last dance so time to chow down on all of this all right i've retreated to the bedroom to do more reading i have the physical book too because i do like to kind of keep track at the end of reading to figure out how far i got um but yeah watch some naruto eat some delicious thai food tonight it's wild how little naruto we have left we have maybe less than 40 episodes which in the scheme of an 800 episode show that's not very many and we're just like learning all the end game stuff and it's just so wonderful yet so sad one thing i will say curious for other naruto fans out there i love the show i don't really have like major complaints i do feel like as power-ups occurred though the fighting sequences got a little less satisfying because it's like less hand to hand if you know what i mean like less stylized because i guess the fighting became more massive force against massive force versus like individual level there were still moments and i don't want to spoil anything so like the fight sequence are just some of the most beautifully animated parts of naruto that there are some amazing quiet moments in the show as well what comes to mind is there there's a particular episode that focuses on chikamaru in naruto putin that's probably one of my favorite episodes of the entire series which familiar with the show let me know i also just love shakimaru so all sad to say is i love naruto and i'm really sad it's ending um and it's funny because this was i don't know naruto's been such a big part of my life for so long but i never completed the series the first time around so i'm finally doing it and i don't know it feels kind of sad to like it be all watched but anywho i'm going to read now um i'm going to try to get a good like 60 oh excuse me to 80 pages red depending on how much longer i can stay awake um but i'll keep you guys posted i feel like this book is going to be very intense and it's gonna start out like very quickly but we shall see but i'm gonna get started continuing my game of listening to music while i'm reading it is an absolute game changer i listen to this spotify playlist oh dismiss um it's reading music instrumental music for reading and studying it's the first playlist that popped up when i searched reading music on spotify but if you guys have any wrecks let me know but i'm gonna get to it hi everyone good morning i am in the midst of doing a hair mask um but it is obviously saturday i did stay up pretty late last night reading i got to page 65 which i'm actually pretty happy with usually because reading on friday nights is more difficult for me because i always fall asleep early um i also feel like i'm going to do a quick segment of the poppy war at some point today because i finished that book yesterday and i feel like i seem to talk about it for a hot second but back to the empire fold first 60 pages i've immediately fallen into the story i won't lie i did read like a summary of the second one before oh my gosh matilda won't lie i did read a summary of the second book before jumping into the third one which is so helpful whomever writes those summaries online you are just a gift because they're so helpful um which i think was definitely the right move because i immediately was rooted in the story and this one unlike the second one takes place almost immediately after the events of the second book which a lot of stuff happened at the end of the second book so it's definitely like the urgency and the pace kind of is already super ramped up um which i appreciate and i think because of that i'm i feel like i'm going to read this book pretty quickly like the beginning there's no like slow rise like everything is happening um in this first novel i'm actually two um because i'm talking about a third book in the series of a read in this reading vlog i'm gonna link down below some reviews from booktubers some of my favorite booktubers in the community reviewing this book who also love it so if you like fantasy and also wanting like a non-spoiler review of the first one i'll have that link down below because i never made one and their videos would be better than mine anyway so check out their videos if you want some you know more concise non-spoiler non-reading vlog format thoughts um so those will be linked down below it's saturday i almost like hate saying what day of the week it is at some point because every day is the same um no grand plans today just gonna read um i do want to do some filming this weekend obviously um that's kind of the grand plan do a hair mask as i'm doing now uh but yeah so i was able to read 65 pages it was so good the book is really uh just starting really strong right off the bat um yeah so there's that i also like it because i feel like it's a little bit full circle the first one starts in cairo and this one also starts in cairo and i feel like the historical setting um just provides like a different backdrop which i appreciate because we've been in such we've been in the magical city of davabad for so long that it's kind of interesting to see the cairo setting and thinking about like past lives and current lives and stuff like that so i appreciate that it's an element of it i'm really enjoying but anyway i'm gonna keep masking i'm gonna have a cup of coffee i'm gonna do more reading it's 9 a.m and that could only mean naruto watching bravo um but i'm about to make some coffee i paused the tv but i wanted to show you guys my jumpsuit so this is from target i bought it a couple months ago now at this point and it's probably my most worn thing this summer it's just this lightweight linen material it's baggy it's so comfortable and great for like the hot weather and i'm just wearing like a black tank top underneath it but uh it's my favorite thing i own and 30 bucks man can't go wrong can't go wrong i want to mine in other colors but all the other colors but that's what i sold out which say lovey but i'm gonna go make some coffee now coffee acquired bagels are ordered matilda's on her second nap of the morning it's a good saturday so far bagels are acquired putting the finishing touches on my video this is past me reading the first part of the poppy war which is just re-inspiring me that i need to talk to you guys about my final thoughts of the poppy war in a vlog clay is playing call of duty if you're wondering with that hi pals so i've just finished editing i'm uploading my video now and i am finally gonna sit down and do some reading i've kind of fallen into a reality tv hole which sometimes happens on a saturday i also have my weighted blanket which honestly can say has changed my life this thing is the flippin mom um but before i go back to reading empire gold i feel like i just need an outlet really fast to talk about the poppy war which i finished on friday and i'm not counting any of the pages towards this reading vlog but i read the second half of this book late last week um i took a bit of a break reading it for the creed-a-thon and then i picked it back up once i finished my tbr for that but this book was so good it's interesting because i had heard different things going into it so people loved the first half some people thought the second half was like too dark i mentioned this in my last vlog but the poppy war is a grim dark fantasy story where we follow our main character rin who basically tests into the most elite military school in her world this fantasy world is very much inspired by 18th or 19th century china during the song dynasty there's elements of like the opium wars and the sino-japanese war all within this story it's a grim dark fantasy meaning that it's very dark lots of trigger warnings um sort of like exploring amoral relationships and characters and things not to say you don't really enjoy the characters because rin is a really fascinating character there's so many amazing things that happen in this book but i really just want to send a wrap-up of thoughts because i kind of vlogged my first half reading experience of this book but i didn't vlog my second half reading experience and it's so good because the second half contrasts the first half just like so masterfully and i just appreciate what the author did so much in this novel she really is looking to explore the dark realities of war and also like the i mean this book is hard to read at times given what is happening and it's honestly just disturbingly inspired by history and she's also exploring this sort of like cycle of humanity kind of how war can continually happen again and again as people seek revenge against wrong wrongness done to them and then they're you know getting that revenge and then those people seek revenge and it just like keeps this cycle going and going combining these elements of like gods as well it was just so good and also having a school setting in the first half and then a war setting in the second half i thought was so effective because the school setting felt so real in the first half and like all the issues and the problems our main character was going through and also a lot of the frustrations their character was going through in the school setting were real in the time that she was doing it the fights and the experiences and the competition that she felt against her classmates was very real and as is the injustice that she experienced at school but then when everyone went to war like all of those day-to-day things within school kind of fell away as reality of just surviving kind of took over and those relationships those rivalries were like re-examined in a war setting and i just thought it was like so good anyway i really loved this book a lot i can't wait to read the second one i just felt like it deserved like a full talk through because i did just finish it because man i loved it so much and i just felt like this reading vlog is gonna be emoj because i'm reading this and then immediately well i finished the poppy war and i'm immediately jumping into empire gold i just must not i don't know it's gonna be a lot anyway just wanted to check in and talk about the poppy war for a second before i really fully fell into empire of gold um because i feel like that book is about to take over my life so before it does i wanted to like wrap up my thoughts on the poppy boar but i'm gonna finish my crappy reality tv show and then i'm finally gonna get to reading all right guys it's time for a midday snack i've somehow acquired some fries which in my you know ranking of hot cheetos the flaming hot fries are just by far and away the best version of hot cheetos out there so i'm going to enjoy this with matilda who is just very concerned that i'm eating and not feeding her at the same time reading my book but do we hear that snoring she loves the weighted blanket oh it's been a relaxing saturday i'm gonna get another cup of coffee and then i'm going to read more and i'll give you guys an update and a page count update but i won't lie i've been watching a little bit of uh well rather too much of a million dollar listing los angeles i woke her up do you see that tail wag you're such a little cutie clay's playing who's playing rome total war i think warships though all right i've been reading um and i have passed the 120 page mark of the empire of gold and oh my gosh i fell into the story so quickly and i just immediately remembered how much i love love um nahari and ali i literally would die for them they're just like just such great characters and seeing them have to reconcile emotionally with everything that's happened in these past two books i also feel like we've just been on such a journey with them because they have been close since the first book and again quite a bit of time has like passed throughout this series so in a lot of ways we've seen these characters grow up and have to like either become hardened from some of the decisions they've been forced to make having to watch them go through unimaginable tragedy throughout this book series and just seeing them like i don't know rely on each other but then there's just like struggle between them at the same time and their friendship and everything like seeing them grow is just been my favorite thing i also just appreciate how i say chakraborty deals with a lot of the relationships within this series everything is very dynamic so relationships and people even like coupled individuals coupled like romantically or even platonically in like the first book those might very well change in very dramatic fashion throughout this entire series so that's something i appreciate that like she's willing to subvert expectations and also provide reconciliation for characters within the series given that everything is so complex and nuanced like the realities of what people are going through is not just like simple right and wrong like it's just so good i just love ali and nahri so flippin much and they're just the best i mean i love a lot of characters in the series but their scenes have always been my favorite for for like you know all the books so anyway i'm gonna keep reading i've passed 120 page mark it's we're having it this is book number six for the month doing it today is taking a quick nap uh and i'm gonna take millie out feed her dinner but we're watching what am i doing we're watching naruto and i'm so disoriented because i just saw a certain character's face for the first time ever a face i have wanted to see for the past 10 years it was in a filler episode too we'd only skip all the fillers glad we didn't skip this one i don't know i don't want to say anything but you know what i'm talking about if you know what i'm talking about in regards to naruto also oh my god i just don't want to be spoilery for naruto but also there was a certain thai jutsu move used that i also wasn't expecting that keeled me over i lost it the best move naruto you get me every time i'm such a naruto fan girl the show and the character like i love naruto i'm never gonna be a sasuke stan i'm only a naruto stan only naruto stands aren't loud just kidding um anyway i just wanted to check in and talk about that face that i saw because oh my god i also wanted to show off matilda's new leash and harness situation we got a light pink even got a poop bag that matches you're an aesthetic queen matilda aesthetic we i like this one too because it pulls the harness from the back because she's a bit of a tugger and we just like the aesthetics i'm not gonna lie i saw this one i got an instagram ad and i was like ah all right matilda you're getting an upgrade naruto is wild and crazy but we have decided to go for a bit of an evening walk um it's still sunny out but it's like more overcast and it's less hot so i was like let's go for a walk maybe get some like to go margaritas and some to-go food and maybe go sit in a park somewhere and eat it um safely social distance from the world uh but yeah put our masks on i think we're gonna head out and enjoy a little stroll and then i think we're really gonna we're probably able to finish naruto tonight but we will definitely be able to get a really good like i think we're going to finish the arc and then there's just a chunk of episodes at the end that's just like the after part which i'm excited for don't get me wrong but i definitely think we'll be able to finish the arc tonight which i'm very very pleased with back from our walk more naruto everyone we're really in the home stretch i'm sad about it guess who's about to be super dramatic when clay tries to put uh her harness on to take her to the bathroom this little creature here mind you every other time of the day she helps she'll stand up she'll lift her paws so morose all right so we have been watching a lot of naruto in fact a major arc of the show and all that's left is kind of the after episodes in that we're on episode 480 if that helps anyone who's been following along and the thing is i need to talk about it from a spoiler capacity so all this is to say is i'm about to talk about spoiler things with naruto so if you haven't watched the show and you don't want to hear these spoiler thoughts please skip ahead to the from this part um because i want to talk about really fast i won't go into great detail but okay so we've been watching this show for so long obviously and i have loved every second of it i love naruto so much and all of the villains and the relationships i feel like everything is so dynamic and the fighting and the animation is amazing but if i have one qualm about this whole show it is or not naruto nothing to do with naruto it is the sakura sasuke relationship it makes no sense because sasuke has literally never one time been nice to sakura or has showed any ounce of thought or care towards soccer even when he's like straight up evil like when sasuke's evil he's still like trying to sever his bond with naruto because he feels like that makes him weak so he acknowledges that there's a bond there and that he has a connection to naruto that's not even a thought that crosses sasuke's mind about sakura she's just annoying even when he's like good and about to go on this journey she's like oh can i go with you he's like no i need to go at home for my sins fine and then he goes you have nothing to do with my sins um pretty sure you tried to kill her like four different times sasuke anyway i know i'm rambling about uh sasuke and sakura but i guess it's really to me like the only glaring hold in the story because all the characters all the connections all the other pairings from a friendship to a romantic perspective are so amazing and top-notch and well-earned and i think all the villains too have all these really interesting layers like obedo and kashi like all of that was so amazing and i love it and then you just have sasuke who's still such a jerk to sakura all the time i guess i've like i've honestly never been a huge sasuke fan because i'm such a naruto stan but that's my one that's my one thing and i feel like i need to voice it out into the world i needed other people to let me know what they think about the sasuke sakura situation because sakura deserves better she deserves better anyway that's my one rant it's mostly just because i hate sasuke i love sakura i want her i want her better for her in life that's why this is where this is coming from i have nothing against sakura um anyway naruto's great loved it loved the ending can't wait to watch bartow and see all the children run around i'm just such a i'm such a fan girl for the show at this point like they could be just doing nothing they could just be gardening all day honestly that sounds really peaceful if they could make a reality a fake reality tv show of naruto and like rock lee opening up a greenhouse would be obsessed with that show um but yeah so we still have like a good like 20 episodes left so we're still gonna be watching naruto probably throughout this week but we're like basically done which is so weird and i just what a journey and i just needed to ramble on and apparently just talk about how much i still hate sasuke but i love naruto and i love shikamaru and i love jaraya and i love kakashi and i love pretty much everyone in this whole show like who would have thought not me anyway okay wild saturday night everyone hello everyone good morning happy sunday um it's sunday what a weird way to start this next day um i just got i just woke up well i sort of just woke up i've since already gotten dressed um but yeah it's sunday so my plan for today is not much clay does have to work quite a bit today so i ultimately didn't read a lot yesterday with the understanding that i would read a lot today because clay's gonna be working we watched so much naruto yesterday and i'm still like in a bit of an emotional place with naruto i can't stop thinking about it um i just get really connected to things and when you're with the show for 800 episodes and also because i loved it so much growing up i just feel like this really deep connection to this show it's like an it's like similar to how i felt about avatar when i finished my rewatch of avatar i just feel like a little emotional i'm a little sad it's not even over i'm not even done i still have like 20 episodes of naruto left but anyway um so today i do plan to do a lot of reading i think i've mentioned a few times but i did end up getting to page 150 yesterday of empire of gold so not amazing but not terrible i definitely feel like i can make up a big chunk of that today um the only other major plans i have is i'm gonna record two videos for this upcoming week so outside of that that's really all i've got um reading and filming today i did get a new light like a filming light that i've been like itching to set up and try out we'll see it's actually really sunny today so i don't really know if i need it but i got a new light for filming so i would be it would be easier for me to film in the evening like after work so i don't have to like always film on the weekends as if you're a youtuber um well at least for me nothing is more stressful like i do all my filming on the weekends when it's raining all weekend because i'm like what am i gonna do this lighting's gonna be terrible i don't have time during the work week but now i have a light so i'm hoping that'll help alleviate some of that stress if i'm not able to have perfect lighting for the weekend or you know be able to film more after work anyway i'm rambling just wanna say it's sunday i'm already dressed it's like 10 a.m um and that's that's really it so plan to do a lot of reading today but first i'm going to do filming so yay about to film a video in lol just complete nut or disarray finished filming matilda very proud of myself i have a mess to clean up but i'll deal with that a little bit because i'm going to eat this bagel and watch naruto again we finished the main arc but we have some we have all the you know the after part to get through which i'm really looking forward to all right it's time for coffee also my favorite mug was available nothing feels better than your favorite mug being available and clean and clay not using it also i'm dressed i already showed you guys this i don't know but it's dress i got for my birthday from clay's parents and i think it's so cute it's made out of um this sort of like winnie material anyway i really like it it's really comfortable so that's that's what i'm wearing today all right i'm sitting down with my cup of coffee and my weighted blanket and my headphones because i'm going to finally start reading again um i really had to kick myself off my phone because i've been talking to audrey and starla about naruto for like the past hour i just love talking to people about naruto and starla and audrey if you're not subscribed to them by the way i'm gonna leave both of their channels down below they're the best impeccable youtube channels seriously um but anyway it's time for me to reach out and stop talking about anime i love talking about anime though okay time to read hi everyone i'm reading i'm almost on the 200 page mark which is great i'm not going to show you the page or the quote because i don't want to do spoilers or anything but something that i guess this kindle kindle books have that i've just never noticed until right now is they have they'll underline um quotes or lines in the book that other readers have highlighted and it'll tell you the amount of highlights and i don't know there's something about it that i really like because it's kind of like community annotation because like there's some wonderful quotes in this book and i read i'm like wow that's amazing and then i can be like oh wow 44 other people highlighted this quote too like nice else with it too is like when i see something is underlined that other people really like the line i like read it a couple of times um this is really random but it's just to say that it's uh kind of like a unexpected edition that i didn't know i needed and really enjoy hi everyone so i have just been sitting here reading matilda let me show you has been sunbathing so you know we're both being very productive but i'm happy to say i've passed the 250 page mark of this book and it's slowly killing me in like the best way possible this book i think i mean i'm i'm not far enough to definitively say but in terms of me immediately falling into the story i mean all of them are amazing this is so hard because all these books are so good but just like right off the bat i'm just like obsessed with everyone and it's like i never even left you know and i also feel like the author did this amazing thing so characters are kind of together and they're in two different kinds of places i don't want to spoil anything so because of this i feel like it's effective because it kind of while this book kind of starts off basically at the end of the last one it allows for the book to kind of repace itself so it's not like we're just in the midst of this like wild thing and everything is just like at 130 000 we still get the satisfaction of seeing things build up not to say there aren't immediate issues that everyone is dealing with in this book because that's definitely the case particularly for ollie and nari they're able to kind of reset in a way that i love also because i love them so much and i just don't know how to articulate it but i love them like they're my favorite they're some of my favorite characters i love them and i love what the author has done with their characters and just that's to say with this entire book series everything is just so good and it's just so complicated and it's so like all the conflict and all the war and everything all everything that's been present within this entire series is just like it hurts you because you don't know the answer either but there's good people and you want everyone to just be happy and just constantly you're seeing people be taken advantage of and like you see like the power of incrementalism too when it comes to accepting orders and how that can have like a legacy and create this sort of like cycle of people looking to pass harm to create current harm and in reality people are just doing terrible things to each other in the name of getting like revenge and it just kind of shows like war and revenge and everything is just like it breeds more like there's no solution it just keeps things from happening but you also understand why people are making the decisions they make because everything is so painful um and it's so good and i just feel like she explores all these particularly through some specific povs which i won't speak to but like i just feel like because this is multi-perspective we get to see and poke at things from so many different angles which allows us to just have empathy for all of these characters even if we disagree with their decisions and their choices you still have empathy for them which makes the story so powerful and so painful but i'm just so excited to keep reading this book i love it so much and the characters are great the writing is exceptional the characterization and just like the payoff for things nothing in this book is easy and she makes the reader i don't want to say like she makes a read of work for it but more to say is like life is long and complicated and there are seasons to life and chapters to life and it's not to say that things that happen to you at one point in your life is not going to impact you for the rest of your life because it likely will but with relationships and characters and interactions that you see throughout the series you'll see because she allows time to exist within her series she allows characters to have not a static relationship and also like tropes are able to be defied because she allows characters to move on in ways that i feel like you don't usually encounter in books well in fantasy stories or really or a lot of books that i read similarly especially i think with like romance particularly is such a good example within this series um like life has many chapters and so does romance and there's a lot of factors and a lot of growing that happens through time that makes you change as a person and change like what you're looking for in a type of relationship and that's just like a small piece this larger story i'm just so happy to see these dynamic types of relationships and ending of relationships explored within this series because it's just so good and well done and i just like she takes a lot of care within her characters and the time that you spend with them and anyway i love this book so time to keep reading all right i'm about to clean up and do some laundry so i'm actually gonna put some tv on and i'm gonna go back to my fruits baskets watch because i've only seen the first six episodes and i mean i've read the entire manga for fruits baskets back in middle school because i was obsessed just let me flip you around so i don't know how much of you guys know this about me but i obviously feel like i've more recently been talking about anime on my youtube channel but i'm actually like a huge anime fan um in i used to it used to be like exclusively what i watched in middle school through high school i fell out of watching it a bit in college and so that's why i've really been trying to make an effort to reintroduce it into like my life um because i love it so much i've seen a lot of anime there's a lot of shows i've seen most of the big ones you can think of and then a lot of the like more art house ones but anyway i'm getting ahead of myself point is to say shoujo anime i love it i've seen so many um fruits baskets was probably one of the first animes i watched and i watched read the whole manga manga afterwards in middle school because i just could not get enough some other favorite shojos gosh would be like nadame cantable about the musician probably saying that wrong and then like clanad like i love it all i love a good rom-com i love a cry i love like a reverse harem i l i love it all so actually if you have some really good newer shoujo animes please let me know because i'm very behind in my anime watching um because i kind of fell out of watching it so if there's any new ones that are just like so good please wreck them to me especially if they're on hulu and netflix but like i'm thinking about signing up for crunchyroll anyway they can be sub just let me know because i'm interested but anyway i'm gonna watch fruits baskets and clean up a bit hi everyone so i've just been sitting here i ate some cheetos they're gone now watching fruits baskets which i love this show i love this reboot i don't know why i like put it off watching for so long i'm an episode of like eight or nine now the first season i don't know how to describe it also such great humor and i don't know i just love it and uh goodness what was i saying oh yeah such a great sunday i'm just eating cheetos watching fruits baskets getting emotional watching anime and then i'm gonna get more emotional reading empire gold and think about the poppy war then i'm getting emotional there's just a lot of emotions going on in here i also resigned up for crunchyroll reactivated my account from way back when it's going down i'm gonna watch so much anime but anyway i'm gonna get back to fruits baskets i think i'm gonna watch probably a lot of this tonight because i've already watched three episodes and i can't stop but i'm still gonna get reading in um and i'm actually gonna try to get to page 300 before too much more time passes this evening um but yeah i'm going to okay watching fruits i'm about to cook dinner or start cooking dinner i've read or not read i've watched so much fruits baskets and then clay comes over after he's working he's like oh i want to watch this show so i guess i'm watching fruits baskets for the seventh time and i'm not even mad about it and then i also read another 50 pages of my book so i'm just emotions are running high oh who needs me it's monica yeah but actually quick reading update vampire of gold is excellent it's scaling escalating so well i still love all the characters also it's really cool because we're kind of seeing beyond dab bad most the first two books really primarily took place in dava dababad it opened the first novel open in cairo but we quickly departed versus we have some cairo scenes and then we also have um some other cities that are politically important within the magical world which i think is really awesome and it kind of expands the scope of the fantasy which i'm really appreciating but it's just like killing me slowly on the inside and also fruits baskets so lots of positive things to say but we're gonna watch some naruto um after i cook dinner for a little bit uh as we are in the home stretch and i feel like we deserve some of the happy episodes near the end which is what we have so we're gonna be watching that but i just wanted to do a quick reading update i've read 300 pages i'm hoping to read a little over 400 pages for the weekend i'd be really pleased with that um but yeah so that's my goal those are the updates yay i am making some chicken with mushrooms and roasted carrots i've also started that central park show which is really funny so far i love leslie odom jr so i thought i would give it a try but yeah dinner is in the works alrighty things are happening here carrots it should be pretty tasty and dinner is done chicken mushrooms mashed potatoes roasted carrots i kind of burned the carrots a little bit but should be good and then just you know a minor mess hi friends so i have been watching well almost finishing the rest of naruto just kind of watching those ant episodes and just messaging a bunch of people clay and i are also just reminiscing and thinking about our next anime adventure but also just being so sad toronto is basically over i cannot believe it i mean what at times like the perfect time to watch the entirety of naruto um i'm a little sad i really thought it would have lasted longer but three months you watched the whole thing but now i'm going to read more my goal still is to get to page 400 tonight so i'm really going to strive for that it's late um and obviously i work tomorrow so i'm really going to focus on powering through my pages um so i'm gonna do that now but obviously i've really liked this novel as well this has really been the weekend for consuming incredible content naruto finale the poppy war the empire of gold fruits baskets i mean just the primo of the primo but uh anyway i am gonna start reading now get my headphones on and focus listening to classical music too so peaceful at night guys i'm like a changed person now headphones are the only way i can read hi everyone it's regan and welcome to the end of the vlog the next day i hope you guys enjoyed this mess of a vlog because i've already edited most of it and i just realized i'm just like an emotional girl fangirling about too many things at once but anyway i wanted to quickly pop in and wrap up everything i was able to read for empire of gold i did pass the 400 page mark god this book is so good it's just this entire series is so well crafted the ability that i say chakraborty has in creating so many wonderful characters and so many like painful scenarios and just like that this world is just so full of pain but there's also so many people like who have hope and like want to make it a better place but it's just so hard and just the escalation of all the politics kind of coming to a head within this third novel i'm just like it's so good i obviously have about 340 or so pages left so i'm definitely kind of reaching the point where i'm seeing things escalate and i just like don't know how the cards are gonna fall but i'm very stressed but hopeful but very stressed um and i just feel like this series is just exceptional so i've loved reading it this weekend i'm gonna try to finish it this week during my work week but like truly it is so good it is so good but anyway this series is so good this book is probably one of the best books i've read this year so far it might be the best i haven't finished it yet um but anyway i hope you enjoyed this mess of a vlog and i hope you read the dab about trilogy because it is so good anyway i will see you guys soon with another video soon goodbye\n"