straightforwardly

Recently, I’ve been playing Star Ocean: First Departure R on the Switch! ( storytime about my history with the game beneath the cut )

But it’s still a game I very much wanted to beat—both out of a love for that game in particular and out of love for the series that it’s a part of & my desire to actually play all the (main) games contained in it, hence why it ended up on my 10 in 2025 list! And now we’re here, with me actually playing it <3

( some of my thoughts so far, with spoilers up to van kingdom )

Beyond the story/character aspects, I’m also just having a delightful time with the gameplay itself. Since the system in the remake is based off of the SO2 system, it hits all the right nostalgic notes for me.

In short, my current feelings about this game can be summed up as: <3 <3 <3

(...I meant to end this entry with the above sentence, but while tagging this for posting, I discovered that I did not yet have a tag for the Star Ocean games! Which, considering how much this series means to me, feels like sacrilege. HOW.)

Today, I beat Mages of Mystralia! What a delightful little game. This was one of the titles from my 10 games in 2025 list, and it was on that list because it was a game I’d started once before (in 2020) and thoroughly enjoyed… up until I got stuck on a puzzle, decided to take what was meant to be a brief break from the game, and then oops, it’s been five years and I no longer remembered what I was doing or how the gameplay functions. But I still had a lot of fond memories of both the gameplay and the story, and I was very curious about how a certain plot element* would unfold, hence why I decided on it as one of my priority titles for the year!

( more beneath the cut, including spoilers )

tl;dr I had a great time, and I recommend the game!

I’ve been having so much fun with that book/lists meme that has been going around, and last night I finally finished one of my own! …And then promptly went on to make a second one that same night. And then started a third one that I haven’t finished yet, whoops.

First: 100 Books That Impacted Me In Some Shape Or Form! Deliberately excluding manga/graphic novels because I feel like that could be a whole list on its own.

I spent so much time fiddling with this list, debating on what it means for a book to be impactful, where exactly the difference between “impactful” and “enjoyed” lies, and where any particular book I chose would fall on that scale… do not ask how many hours I poured into this, lol. (And then, of course, after forcing myself to stop thinking about it and just post it, I immediately thought of like 5 more books that really should have been on this list! Isn’t that how it goes.)

After making that list (and sharing it with some people), I started thinking about making a list for games I’ve played as well. Since I do much less gaming than reading, I figured I’d make it easier for myself and aim for 50 games instead. So I opened up my backloggery, began making my way through, and… ended up with 75+ games without even really trying asdfghjkl; haha.

And thus: 100 Games Beloved By Me, featuring many visual novels and indie games, because I am who I am. I had to add so many of these to the database… But also plenty of jrpgs, because, again, I am who I am and I love what I love, haha. <3

All of these are games I really enjoyed at the time I played them; I make no promises about how they hold up now.

I would really love to hear how much overlap we have on either or both of these lists! As well as any more specific thoughts you might have on the books and games featured there <3

(As mentioned above, I have started a third list—for beloved/formative manga reads—though it’s slower going due to the amount of fan translations I read as a teenager that I no longer remember titles for… If I ever do finish it, I’ll share here! Also contemplating making another list for anime… but that will also have to wait.)

Apparently, the last time I updated was back in January! I do vaguely try to aim for updating my dreamwidth at least once a month, so I thought I’d do a post with some brief thoughts on what I’ve been up to lately.

► This month, I beat two different games! Which I’m pretty pleased about.

First up, I thiiiink I might have mentioned that I’ve been working my way through Pokémon Moon lately? I originally started my file back in 2017, but set the game down at some point during the second island*, and never went back to it—until last December, when I picked up again. ( beneath the cut )

The other game I beat was a far more recent acquisition—Strange Horticulture, which I bought on sale on Steam over the weekend (my first gaming purchase of this year!), and beat a few days later. (Here, I’m defining “beat” as “reached at least one of the endings”, which in this case was ending II.) I had a good time! It has a great, moody ambience, the puzzles were satisfying, and I found labelling the plants oddly soothing. Plus, you can pet the cat, who makes the most delightful purring sound. <3 I’m not intending on going after the other endings straight away—this doesn’t strike me as the kind of game that benefits being replayed back-to-back—but I do think I’m going to tinker around a bit more in the day 17 post-game first before I set it down.

► I’ve also actually been watching things for once?? Specifically, since shortly after my last fic recs post, I’ve watched the first four seasons of Miraculous Ladybug, plus a number of the specials. Season one was a rewatch, while the rest was new-to-me.

Some rapid-fire thoughts on each season + some of the specials: ( beneath the cut )

► Finally, last but definitely not least, someone made the most beautiful fanart for one of my Scum Villain fics! At the time, I’d noticed an unusual surge in comments on that particular fic, and was a little ??? about it, but then one of the people commenting kindly linked me to this fanart. It’s so pretty…

Including, but definitely not limited to, my recs from this past Yuletide. (Though, iirc, I still haven’t looked at the Madness collection yet.)

Fandoms included: Ace Attorney, Dracula, A Guide for Young Ladies Entering the Service of the Fairies, Hamlet, Mansfield Park, MDZS/CQL, Miraculous Ladybug, My Dress-Up Darling, Petshop of Horrors, Stardew Valley, Valdemar
( beneath the cut )

As the header states!

( beneath the cut )

Another year, another round of the snowflake_challenge!

Today's prompt was:

Update your fandom information. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

—which I think is the usual starting prompt for this challenge? I nearly skipped it, but I decided to take a look at my various profiles (namely, dreamwidth and AO3) to make sure that everything is how I want it. I did end up adding a few interests to my profile, so I suppose I did get something out of it?

Mostly, I'm just happy that it's this time of year again, and quite determined to do my best to complete as many of the challenges as possible this year! I did fairly well last year—better than I had in many years, even if I still didn't manage all the posts I wanted to do, so fingers crossed that I can manage similar levels of participation or better this time.

a song I was listening to: ♫ when does a man become a monster ♫

me, internally: “after he picks up a Death Note, probably”

Which is to say: I’ve had Death Note on my mind recently! So much so that I spent most of November and the beginning of December on rereading the entirety of the manga for the first time since I was a teenager, and I have. Feelings. ( beneath the cut )

► I follow a decent number of cover artists on YouTube (and thus obviously also regularly get recommended covers from artists I don’t follow), and the last… two or three months or so, I’ve been really enjoying listening to covers of songs from Epic the Musical. This all started with annapantsu’s genderbent cover of Ruthlessness, which probably isn’t the first cover I heard, but it’s the first one that made me sit up and pay attention to what I was hearing. I really like it!

I haven’t heard most of the songs from the musical, nor have I checked out the original (or indeed, even investigated in what form it exists in), though I probably will eventually—but for now, I’m just really enjoying the piecemeal (and tbh, mostly genderbent! which I’m so so here for) way I’m absorbing the canon.

I bring this up because at some point, YouTube recommended me Loganne’s roleswap cover of Suffering, and I am currently mildly obsessed with it. ( do songs have spoilers? )

tl;dr I really enjoy this cover and wanted to both record my feelings about it at this point in time and also rec it.

► And while I’m at it, have some fic recs from my November reading so far, organized by alphabetical order by fandom. I’ve been on a bit of Yu-Gi-Oh kick (with a side of Wuthering Heights, since I also reread that novel early in the month), so those comprise the bulk of the recs.

Fandoms included: Fire Emblem Awakening, Stardew Valley, Wuthering Heights, Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters ( beneath the cut )

Reading: just finished the final volume of Thousand Autumns, and have now started a nonfiction read about Artisans in early imperial China.
Listening: High Rollers Aerois, ofc
Playing: getting very close to beating Pokémon Scarlet!
Watching: keeping up with my usual YouTube subscriptions, but beyond that, nothing at the moment
Writing: nothing actively, but fingers crossed that I change that later tonight!

► As stated above, I’ve finally finished the official translation of Thousand Autumns! Also marking the first time I’ve read the story in its entirety. I freely admit to having neglected so many things in my life in the past week or so due to this novel—including, memorably, my deciding to read “just the opening chapter” of the final volume before going to bed last night, and instead staying up way too late reading all of the main story + the epilogues. I’m currently very tired, but also very happy. ( more beneath the cut )

►It took me a hot minute, but I finally got around to reading slashmarks’s new Bellatrix-related WIP (this time Bellatrix/Hermione, featuring time travel!!), and, unsurprisingly, I fell madly in love with it, so now I’ve come here to make a rec for it! It’s currently at 17 out of a planned 19 chapters, and the most recently posted chapter ended at a point that left me screaming. It’s great <3 Though do please do note the content warnings mentioned in the author’s note.

swallow some of their history (Harry Potter, Bellatrix/Hermione, currently 94K)
A clash in the Time Room in the Department of Mysteries sends Hermione back in time thirty-three years, from 1996 to 1963. There, she's forced to contend with a drastically different pre-war Wizarding World where blood-based prejudice and rigid class structures rule the day, and maybe worse, Bellatrix Black as a classmate. But getting involved with Bellatrix Black in any capacity means dealing with her family's problems, too.