straightforwardly | 117 | in which I continue watching Critical Role & playing Mystic Messenger, & also share fic recs

► This year, I’m… actually doing a better job at commenting on non-exchange fics that I read? I mean, I’m still nowhere near perfect, but I’ve noticed today that I’ve actually been leaving comments on some of the fics or chapters when I have something to remark on, instead of thinking it to myself and never actually expressing it out loud. This is something that I’ve wanted to start doing again for many years now, so it’s kind of nice to see that I’m finally easing into it again.

►Speaking of which, I’m going to rec two of the WIPs I’m 1) enjoying the most right now and 2) have updated in this past week.

The first is because he strayed across the path (Harry Potter, currently 27K), which is an excellent canon-divergence taking place in POA. This is just such a cozy, feel-good read for me, and I love how it echoes the tone of canon while still doing its own thing. Idk, I’m finding it hard to talk about, but it’s been making me smile every time I read a new chapter. So that's good.

The other one is An Ever-Fixed Mark (Pride & Prejudice, currently 113K) which is a fantastic soulmark AU. It’s tagged as a deconstruction, and it does really dig into the trope, and does some great worldbuilding in regards to how soulmarks would affect the canon setting. The philosophy!

Also, the Darcy and Elizabeth dynamic in the last few chapters have been absolutely golden. So. There’s that. ♥

►Working my way through Jaehee’s other endings in Mystic Messenger! So far I’ve gotten the Normal Ending and Bad Ending 01.

I don’t have too much to say about Jaehee’s Normal Ending. It’s the first one I’ve gotten (though I do have a save file so I can do Zen’s— I’ll probably do that soon, actually, so that I can have 100% of my slots free when I start Yoosung’s route), and while the lack of guests was actually handled more gracefully than I’d dared to hope, it also wasn’t really anything special? Though Jaehee and Jumin arguing over the MC was pretty amusing. ♥

As for Bad Ending 01… well, here are the notes that I took while playing through it:

Jaehee slightly more supportive (of mc visiting him) than she is in zen’s route?
Seven so adorable omg I want to hug him so bad
Realized how much I trust seven— didn’t occur to me until mc in car that this is a bad ending, and so character mysteriously popping up to take her somewhere=usually not a good sign— and yet, still trust him to do right.
Wait… this is Zen/MC again???
oh no poor Jaehee. :( and she still wants the MC to be happy…. :(((((

Yeah, that surprised me— I didn’t expect it to basically be an extra Zen/MC ending! Albeit an extra Zen/MC ending that includes Jaehee slowly working herself to death (and maybe on the road to alcoholism???) Also, Seven popping up to take the MC to Zen’s place gave me so many Seven feelings. I really am looking forward to his route.

This unrelated to specific endings, but there’s a Death Note reference I completely missed the first time around. In one of the chats, Jaehee tells the MC about Zen playing in a musical called “Hell Note” where he played a character called “K”. (Zen also thinks about that role in one of those UFO thought bubbles.)

I’m working on Bad Ending 03 right now, mainly because I have a save file at the beginning of where the Bad Ending 03 choices start, but I’ll need to do days 5-6 all over again to get to the starting point for Bad Ending 02. (This is mainly because I had a save slot used up for doing Zen’s Normal Ending, so I didn’t have enough room to have save points for each of the bad endings… I did save over my file for Zen’s Route, Day 5, which I kind of regret now, but whatever. I just hope that I actually do have less than 15 emails answered for my potentially-Zen’s-Normal-Ending save file…)

I’m finding answering the bad options for this ending more difficult than doing those for Bad Ending 01 (which, outside of the cringe-worthy “Zen my love!” and “Zen my husband!” options, were usually pretty okay). It feels like betraying Jaehee just when she needs the MC’s support the most. Poor girl.

► I’m still slowly making my way through the episodes of Critical Role. Yesterday I finished up Episode 19 - Trial of the Take, Part 2. My thoughts, in bullet-point form:

I forgot to mention this last time, but I am very intrigued by the Kima/Allura thing! I know that the DM claimed that they were just very good friends, but I agree with the rest of the cast— there’s definitely a very shippy vibe going there.

Speaking of shippy vibes: Vex kissing Percy for making the grappling hook/exploding/exploding plus star arrows for her. His comment about how he’s been kissed by both of the siblings now.

My reaction: SHIT OT3 TIME GO GO GO

On that note, I am cautiously intrigued by Grog/Keyleth. I mean. She doesn’t fit his usual type of women (and let me say, I love how much he loves women who can beat things into a pulp), but something about their dynamics when she’s in Minxie from really work for me.

Pike’s leaving didn’t exactly take me by surprise (mainly because the first time I heard about Critical Role was through this FFA comment, which mentioned it), but I was genuinely touched by how emotional the cast got over it.

I was genuinely disappointed by Grog losing his fight, but in the end I think it was all worth it for the utter hilarity that followed. I laughed so hard, especially with the bit with the barstool.

I was absolutely delighted by Percy, Vex, and Vax climbing on the magic carpet all together. ♥ I mean. Nothing happened. But the mental image was enough to make me happy. ♥

Something I noticed when watching: when they were trying to get to 5000 subs in order to get the eight foot Trinket, Sub #4994’s name was “ForTrinket”

Grog and his desire for a beard is a source of ongoing delight. I adored the bit where Percy/his player described the magically-induced beard as making him look like ‘a fourteen year old whose father doesn’t love him enough to teach him how to properly groom himself’. And if that wasn’t excellent enough, he had to top it off by saying to himself, ‘no parental issues here nope’. ♥

I actually thought that I would hate the episodes where the party splits up, but, while I can’t speak for the second half (because I haven’t seen it yet) I actually really enjoyed the first half? Those were two really great episodes.

I was especially surprised by how much I liked Lyra, since she’s the kind of character that would usually annoy me. But her whole thing with Aldor was kind of amazing, and I genuinely liked her friendships with Vex (in the beginning) and Scanlan (later one).

And then there was Vex and Zahra’s bonding! Their hug after they defeated Rimefang was so sweet, but I actually liked their conversation during their watch the best.

“What was your father?”
“An asshole.”
“Oh, mine too!”

♥

Speaking of the Rimefang battle, I think Dragon Friends has forever ruined Witchbolt for me. When Zahra cast it against Rimefang, my automatic reaction was to laugh.