straightforwardly

► Since my last update, I’ve only watched two episodes of Critical Role— parts three and four of Trial of the Take. I at first thought I wouldn’t have anything to say about them other than “I liked the other half of the party’s adventures better”, but there were a few things that happened in the latter half of part four that really caught my attention. ( cut for spoilers for episodes 20-21 )

Also, this is completely unrelated to the characters/plot of Critical Role, but there was this moment when one of the guest Wills (as himself, not in-character) said something along the lines of, “Crocheting is fantastic!”, which. Considering that my Critical Role-watching time is generally also my crocheting time, that definitely made me smile.

► I now have obtained all of Jaehee’s Bad Endings in Mystic Messenger! Some brief commentary:( cut for spoilers )

► In other Mystic Messenger news… I didn’t mention this before, but sometime in the middle of January, after I beat Zen’s route, I decided to buy the Mystic Messenger VIP Package. This isn’t actually much of a surprise, despite my usual thriftiness: I have a huge weakness for soundtracks and a slightly-smaller weakness for art-or-guidebook-type things, and all the in-game benefits [unlimited phone calls!] just confirmed it for me.

The estimated shipping time was something like twenty-one days, so I didn’t expect it until sometime in the middle of February— which was why I was so delightfully surprised when it showed up today! I impulsively decided to photograph my unboxing, so I’m going to share bits from that now.
( warning: very image-heavy )

tl;dr I’m super pleased with it! I definitely want to wait until I’m 100% finished with the game to dive into the books, but I’ve already loaded the CD into my computer, and am listening to it now.

► I was going do a Mystic Messenger update at Day Nine, but by the time I found time to write up my thoughts, it was already pretty late, so I headed to bed instead. Then I figured that if I was updating on Day 10, I might as well wait for Day 11 to hit and write up all my ending thoughts at once… so here I am. ( cut for length and spoilers for the end of Jaehee’s route + the After Story )

► I’ve been poking around with crochet again. Specifically, I’ve been working on this baby blanket, as a surprise gift for a friend. I’m using different colors, though— I went with white, mint, black, and gold, since a bit of snooping around on her Pinterest suggested that that’s the color combination she’s wanting. It’s going pretty well so far!

► I’ve also started watching Critical Role. I’ve been meaning to do this for a long while now, since I’ve always been fascinated by D&D, and I already know from listening to Dragon Friends that I love seeing other people’s campaigns, but didn’t get around to it until now. I’m trying to listen to about an episode per day (though sometimes I only manage about half of one, since they’re so damn long), and right now I’ve just finished up episode 14.

Overall, I really like it! ( cut for possible spoilers )

I started watching before I started the above crochet project, but I’ve found that I really like watching it when I crochet. I’m not very good at focusing on audio-only* things (one of the reasons I’ve never gotten very passionate about music, and also why I never listened to podcasts before it occurred to me that I could listen to them while doing chores), so it helps me focus on the show, but it also gives me a set amount of crocheting time so that I don’t procrastinate. Win/win!

*Yes, I know it's not really audio-only, but there are long stretches of time when it's not really necessary to watch the screen, imo, so it's basically the same thing for me.

► Another Mystic Messenger update! Since I last posted, I got two of Zen’s bad endings, and have started Jaehee’s route. ( cut for spoilers )

► I also started playing Liar! Uncover the Truth!. Right now, I’m about to finish up with the 4th Liar, and I’m really enjoying it! It’s interesting in the sense that I’m not particularly interested in the romances in this game— I’m mostly playing because it’s fun to fit together all of the clues and figuring out who’s the one who’s lying.

I did have to laugh when I met the main character’s coworker, Ayumi— mainly because I was about two seconds away from naming the main character Ayumi before I decided no, that name didn’t really suit her. (Instead, I named her Kanae.)

► I think that I’ve mentioned before that my big brother and I have this thing where we chose a series (usually an anime) and watch through it together? I mentioned this because last night we finished watching Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which we started after I came home. It was a rewatch for him, but the first time for me.

( a bit of my history with FMA and overall reactions, including spoilers )

I also kind of want to rewatch the 2003 anime now, but it looks like it’s no longer on Netflix, and crunchyroll only has the movie. Woe.

Speaking of which, it occurred to me while watching Brotherhood that ( brief spoilers for the end of the 2003 anime )

► Google just suggested that I correct the word "homunculi" to "munchkin". I find this hilarious.

Mystic Messenger Day Eight/Nine: ( cut for spoilers, & also length )

I actually have a lot to say about today (and the end of yesterday) in Mystic Messenger? ( spoilers for Day Six and Seven )

► So, never did get around to writing a second entry yesterday. But that’s alright, because I can do it now. First, a link to the end-of-the-year writing meme I always do: 2016: Writing Year In Review.

► Second: A quick update on my Mystic Messenger playthrough. It’s Day Five now, and SUCCESS. I got onto Zen’s route! I didn’t end up running into a bad ending after all! I was a bit worried about that, since I was also getting a lot of hearts from Jaehee and Yoosung… I actually wasn’t sure if I had enough of a majority with any of them to get on a route at all, tbh. But I did, and it was the one I wanted to do first, so I’m happy. ♥

( briefly cut for possible spoilers, though I personally don't think it's anything too important )

► Finally: The Fandom Snowflake Challenge! I missed Day One, and while I know that I can still go back and do it, I think that I’m just going to let it pass by. Instead, I’m going to focus on Day Two.
( cut for those who’d rather skip it )

► I just realized when I went to post this that this is my 100th official post here. So yay for that?

► I have become so incredibly charmed by the podcast Dragon Friends, which I started listening to sometime last week the other week because I needed something to entertain me when I was trying to get through a tedious-but-necessary portion of an otherwise good game. Whereupon I then got so completely hooked that I basically started listening to it throughout all of my free time, even when I wasn’t in the middle of some sort of menial labor, which is pretty much unheard of in regards to me and podcasts.

And now I'm in love (or at least very strong-liking), and am seriously considering requesting it for Yuletide. I adore pretty much all three of the main characters, though who stands out as my actual favorite keeps changing.

( cut for length, and spoilers through episode 2.10 )

► Speaking of fandoms that I’m considering requesting for Yuletide… I’ve also recently played A Little Lily Princess, which is a VN based on A Little Princess— a book which I hadn’t read since I was a kid, but actually reread in preparation for playing this game, as I could remember very little about it.

I played the routes in this order: Mariette, Becky, Lavinia, Jessie, Lottie, Ermengarde.
( cut for length & major spoilers for pretty much all of the endings )

► The last episode of Go! Princess Precure was really good, surprisingly enough. I think it might be my favorite episode yet. ( cut for length )

► In regards to my last post on Shall We Date? Wizardess: ( cut for references to massive spoilers )

► Yesterday, I participated in fandomsecrets's Friending Meme XVI, and now I have a few new people on the flist. Welcome! ♥

► Now, onto the main point of this entry. Some of you may remember my talking about Shall We Date? The Nilfheim last December. One of the things I didn't talk about much then were the events.
( general event explanation beneath the cut )

Still, it's pretty easy to play through all the routes twice before the event ends. However, there is one major issue I have with these events, and that's this: once the event ends, the stories disappear, and it's impossible, as far as I can tell, to read them again. I have a memory like a sieve, so this is really a sour point with me.

For instance, the first time this game had one of these events, it was around the end of December. I played through all the routes, twice, but as of right now, I can only remember the bare minimum about what some of the routes were about. Since I've been becoming increasingly fannish about this game lately (and later events tend to refer to things that happened in prior ones), you can see how this is a problem— especially since I've been considering requesting it for Yuletide or some other exchange more and more. The monetary model is already, in my opinion, a huge roadblock in getting people to play this game, and having whole chunks of the canon being completely unavailable would only make it even harder.

This all leads me to my reason for bringing this up in the first place: the current event, which is called the "Lovesickness Event", which began earlier in February, and ends tomorrow, on 2 March.

This is the second time that I've played through one of these "grace point" events. This time, it had routes for Orlando, Jean, and J.J., and I played them in that order. However, when I was half-way through my first playthrough of J.J.'s route, all those above concerns coalesced into an idea for what should have been an obvious solution:

Why don't I just transcribe the event stories?

That way, I can just reread them whenever I want to refresh my memory on what happened, and, if I post them, I'll be able to direct people that way if I ever convince them to play the game. It's not quite the same as playing it directly— the loss of music to set the tone, and, while I've taken many screenshots, the loss of actually seeing the character's reactions as you read— but it's the closest I can get, and it's definitely better than nothing.

I'm really, really surprised that I didn't think of this earlier, and I really regret that I didn't think of it when that Christmas/New Year event was going on, because I remember Orlando's route in that one had some great Sunny/Isabella scenes. (I did screencap a few moments, but not enough. =/)

So, ever since then, I've been replaying the routes as much as I can, trying to get it all transcribed. J.J's was the easiest— since I was only halfway through my first playthrough, I got the entirety of his route, plus the two endings, transcribed rather quickly.

However, I'm having more troubles with getting Orlando's and Jean's route done. With both routes, I do have the basic route transcribed, as well as the premium ending. However, I don't have the normal ending for either of them transcribed yet, nor do I have the text for all the answer options during the choices yet.

Right now, I'm playing through Orlando's route for what is the fourth time overall, and the second time since I started transcribing. I think I probably can get to his normal ending, but... I'm not so sure I can do the same for Jean's, which is really troubling, especially since I remember that that one had a conversation between Orlando and Isabella that'd be important for a fic-bunny that attacked me last night.
( cut for a mini-rant )

I have more to say about the story/characters, but this entry's already gotten pretty long, so I'm going to cut it short. Next time, perhaps.

► Today I am meant to talk about books I Just Finished. Well, this should be fun. This is actually rather fortuitous timing, because this topic segues nicely into something that I was thinking about yesterday / considering writing an entry about.

Yesterday, I finished reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. This is actually the first time I've ever read it, and I only did so because 1) I had finished reading my last read-while-I-wait-for-things book on my phone and 2) it came already installed on my Google Play Books on my phone. I've disliked the Disney movie since I was a kid, so I didn't really have high hopes for it.
( we found wonderland / you and I got lost in it / and we pretended it could last forever )

► Do any of you remember that meme where you post the first sentence of the first entry for each month? I saw it popup on my flist some days ago, and it made me really want to do it again— I used to do it, and I can't remember why I stopped.

Without further adieu, 2014:
( under this cut! )
In conclusion: I really need to stop beginning entries— and sentences in general— with the word "so".