straightforwardly

► The next game in my “let’s get this VN backlog down” was Dragon Essence, mainly because I realized that I had two Zeiva games sitting around unplayed, and as a self-proclaimed obsessive Zeiva fan, that just wouldn’t do. I completed it yesterday. ( cut for massive spoilers and length )

► I was playing through the newest Liar! event, and this moment really amused me, because it reminded me so much of Reynir offering to fix Tuuri’s picture frame for her, before remembering, oh wait, he has no idea how to fix broken glass. The Liar MC and Reynir actually have absolutely nothing in common, so that made the comparison even more amusing for me.

► Finally, the O.P.I. Summer Prompt Challenge is a thing! I’m not entirely sure if I’m going to participate (if only because I already have so many stories that I want to write in the near future), but I have thrown some prompts in, and my nail polish-loving heart is just pleased to hear that this exists. Even if I actually like Essie better. Shhh.

► Lately, I’ve been slowly making my way through the Kalevala. I’ve read bits and pieces of it before during that Tolkien class I took when I was still in college, and I’d always meant to go back and read the whole thing, but it wasn’t until now that I finally sat down and started. (Blame Stand Still Stay Silent.) I’m reading it at a pace of two sections per day, which means that it’ll take a while before I’m finished, but that’s okay. I need to get better at pacing myself with my reading anyways.

Today, I read up to section 20, “Slaughtering and Brewing”. (I’m reading the Keith Bosley translation, btw, since that’s the one I had to buy for my class.) ( a brief summary of my thoughts so far )

► I’ve also been slowly playing through Solstice, because my visual novel backlog is starting to get truly ridiculous. This one’s been fairly high on my list for a while now. It was made by the same people who made Cinders, which was a game I liked enough to write for multiple times for Yuletide. Plus, it has a snowy winter setting! My favorite kind! ♥ (That’s… actually 100% of the reason why I decided to play it now when looking over my backlog, haha.)

I’m not quite done with it (due to the whole “trying to pace myself” thing I mentioned above), but I did get all of the main endings once, even if I haven’t seen all the achievement-worthy events or got all the variations yet.

Spoilers ahead. ( again, cut for spoilers and length )

Um, long entry alert. This is what happens when I don’t keep up with posting...

► I beat Never Alone a day or so after I last posted. I was actually pretty close to the ending at that time, apparently. It’s not a long game at all— it only took me about three hours from start to finish, according to Steam. Overall… I still feel mixed? There were a lot of frustrating portions, which the occasionally stiff controls didn’t help with, but when it was good, it was a lot of fun, and I loved the scenery and the story. I don’t think I’ll ever replay it from start to finish (though I might take the time to do full achievements + the Foxtales DLC, since I already have that), but I am still glad that I played it, if that makes sense.

► In Mystic Messenger, I’ve achieved Jumin’s Normal Ending and Bad Ending 03. ( commentary, cut for spoilers )

► I mentioned the other day that the Mystic Messenger April Fool’s Event inspired me to make my own cardboard/paper Seven. What I kept forgetting to mention is that, a day or two later, I made a cardboard!Yoosung as well!
( images beneath the cut )

Eventually, I’d like to make papercraft versions of all of the RFA, but I keep putting it off because it takes so long. I spent hours trying to get Yoosung’s pieces designed. ._. Next on the list is probably Jaehee, though I am concerned about how well her (brown) hair will contrast against the cardboard.

► I’ve also started on the Spring 2017 anime premieres! It’s been a while since I’ve kept up with currently airing anime, but I miss it, so I wanted to start the habit again. (I actually wanted to start with the Winter 2017 season, but… pretty much nothing aired that I felt like watching, ahahaha;;;)

I don’t have a premium account on Crunchyroll anymore (halted it because I was somewhere without internet access for most of last year, & can’t justify the expense at the moment, though I do intend to get it again someday), so I’m watching from a week behind on all of the airing anime. Here’s my initial reactions to the series I’ve tried out so far:
( length; spoilers for the first episodes of Alice & Zoroku, GRANBLUE FANTASY, & The Royal Tutor )

► This entry was actually meant to be even longer, but it’s literally two minutes to midnight as I type this sentence and I’d like to post it before I go to bed, so no. I’ll try to update again soon to make up for it.

► Yesterday, I got the good ending in Mystic Messenger’s April Fool’s Event. ( spoilers )

► I’ve started poking around in the Mystic Messenger fandom, and… it feels very young? Some of it is in ways that are very nostalgia-inducing (people giggling about something being their first fic, or their first try at smut, or other cute-but-naive-sounding comments in the summaries), but others are very...alien to me. ( brief digression/criticism )

The abundance of “baby’s first fic” or “baby’s first fandom” syndrome does mean that the overall fic quality… does leave something to be desired;;; I have found some pieces that I unabashedly like, but overall, most things that I’ve enjoyed, I’ve enjoyed with caveats. On the bright side, this does make me more confident about anything I may contribute to the fandom in the future? ^^;;;;

The fanart, on the other hand, is really great! I’ve actually been poking around on tumblr a bit because of it— mostly just looking up fanart. Here’s some of my favorite pieces:

• comic of the first first Seven phone call in the prologue— probably my favorite thing from this whole batch
• comic of another Seven phone call (from Jaehee’s route, I think)
• Seven tickling the MC
• comic of Seven teaching Yoosung Arabic...in a very Seven-esque way;;;
• various moments from Seven’s route, days 7-8
• mini-comics with MC/all the LIs
• mini-Seven/MC comic, vague spoilers for his route
• Zen & a crossdressing Seven on Tinder
• Seven + constellations portrait
• Seven & a kitty <3

Also, these two text posts are both so true.

► I haven’t been keeping up very well with sharing fic links for the things I’ve written “since my last post”— mainly because all of my last few posts since I last wrote something have been a Mystic Messenger emotions train, and I didn’t want to distract from that.

Links:

• Entomophobia | AO3 Link (Fire Emblem: Awakening, Gaius/Lissa, <1K)
• Of England | AO3 Link (Crossover - Chronicles of Narnia / Lord of the Rings, Susan/Goldberry, 4K)

► Note: There are multiple parts to this entry, but they’re pretty much all about Mystic Messenger. So if you don’t care about this game, feel free to skip over this entry entirely. I just had a whole lot to say, and it was easier to split it up into parts.

► So, I’ve done all the secret endings now, and… wow. Wow. What a ride. It was… emotionally draining, to be perfectly honest, but mostly worth it at the end? ( cut for major spoilers for both after endings )

► Here, have some meta about the overall themes of Mystic Messenger. This was originally part of the above write-up, but then I decided that I didn’t want it to get buried with everything else that I wrote, if only so that I can find it more easily in the future.
( spoilers for the entire game )

► After beating the game, I finally felt free to really dive into the guide books/character information books that came with my VIP package. ( cut for guide spoilers? assuming that that’s even a thing )

► Finally, at the end of last night I was in the mood for something sweeter after all of the angst of the secret endings, so I decided to play Seven’s Valentine After Story. This was a great decision; his was easily the best of the three I’ve played so far! ( cut for spoilers )

Mystic Messenger update: ( spoilers through the very beginning of Day 9 of Seven’s Route )

►Mystic Messenger update: I am on Day 6 of Seven’s route and I love it so much, omg. ♥ ( these long Mystic Messenger updates are actually really exhausting to type up, but still worth it in the long-run, imo )

► I’ve been poking around on the Fire Emblem: Awakening wiki reading some of the scripts for the Summer Scramble and Harvest Scramble, mostly concentrating on the ones relating to Lissa or Gaius for now (for fic-writing reasons). I bring this up because one of the Harvest Scramble conversations really struck me. ( cut for length )

Oh, that reminds me: I did finish my replay of the game, if anyone’s curious. I don’t really have much to say, though I did find Inigo’s comment during the fight about ( brief spoiler ) to be very revealing, and intriguing.

► So, Wolf’s Rain. I have thoughts, and now that I’ve slept, I think I can put them in some semblance of order. ( spoilers for the entire series, but especially the finale )

tl;dr I think the series had a lot of flaws, but I still liked it a lot.

► Mystic Messenger update: ( spoilers for Jumin’s Route, Days 5-10 )

► Still making my way through all of Yoosung’s Endings in Mystic Messenger. Since my last update, I’ve gotten Bad Ending 01, Bad Ending 02, and the Normal Ending. ( cut for spoilers )

► It’s… already been a few days since Chocolate Box authors were revealed, haha, but I wanted to share what I wrote! I wrote a few fics, but nothing longer than 1K. For Harry Potter, I wrote a Lucius/Narcissa fic and a Tom/Ginny, pre-Harry/Ginny fic. The former was my assignment. I also wrote Emma Woodhouse/Harriet Smith for Jane Austen’s Emma and Lucina/Severa for Fire Emblem: Awakening. (In unrelated news, I now have a new FE:A ship. :P)

► Speaking of which… between writing Fire Emblem: Awakening fic for Chocolate Box and receiving it, I got struck by the urge to replay the game. So that’s what I’m doing now. I’ve just finished Chapter 14. ( cut for spoilers and length )

►My big brother and I have started watching Wolf’s Rain together! God, it’s been ages since I’ve watched this anime— well over a decade, I think. We never finished it— we only knew it through renting a disc or two from Hastings. (I remember it as being only one volume— the first one. My big brother remembers watching the first two volumes. He has the better memory, so I’m tempted to defer to him.)

Speaking of which, I’d forgotten… pretty much everything about it? I remembered that the main characters were wolves, and that their human forms were illusions, and I had very clear memories of them standing on those pipes in the first city talking to one another, and a few bits of memory about how Kiba was re: Cheza, but that was about it. I’d even forgotten about some of the main characters! Kiba and Tsume I remembered pretty decently, but Hige and Toboe kind of blended together for me— I remembered there was a character who was the “youngest”, and I kind of remembered Hige’s character design, so when he showed up I went, “oh, he must be the youngest.”

One thing that strikes me: I remember when I was a kid, I was very focused on the “ooo, pretty boys!” bit, but now I’m very much focused on the fact that they’re wolves and that the human form is just an illusion. I just find it such an interesting concept? And I love the moments where it shows what’s happening underneath the illusion so much. ♥

We just finished up episode 8 tonight, and I’m cautiously intrigued by where this is all going. Post-apocalyptic futures with wolves, yess. ♥

► I’ve reached Day 10 of Yoosung’s route in Mystic Messenger, and wow, what a ride. ( cut for spoilers for Yoosung’s route up to Day 10 )

► The other day my big brother sent me a link to an article. He does this often (as in, multiple times a day often), but I found this one particularly interesting: Why It's So Hard To Make Games In China.

All of the games mentioned in the article looked pretty interesting. One of them, Hazy Days, was both free and short, so I downloaded it and played it. I… can’t say that I enjoyed it, precisely, but it was definitely thought-provoking, and I think I would recommend it playing it at least once. If nothing else, it’s an interesting example for how video games can be used for more than just entertainment. And it is really short— I didn’t time it exactly, but I think it took me maybe ten minutes to complete the entire thing.

► On Pokemon GO: I saw a Vulpix for the first and only time yesterday, but didn’t have any Pokeballs. D: What is with this Vulpix-related bad luck I’ve been having lately.

I did finally figure out how to get free Pokeballs from Pokestops, though, so that was excellent. And there seem to be a lot of Pokestops down Main Street, though the bit where they really begin to cluster together is a pretty far walk from my house, so.

Something that amused me: the local military school has a gym, and that gym is being held by Team Valor. Somehow, I am utterly unsurprised.