straightforwardly

► So, I mentioned recently I was pretty close to beating two games, one of which was Dragon Age Awakening. Apparently, I didn't quite realize how close I was, or else I might have done it months ago— I mainly stopped because I was in the Deep Roads and utterly sick of it, but I was literally a step away from finishing it, haha.

Also, I'm apparently really behind on talking about my thoughts / what I've been doing in this game, but, thankfully, I had pretty decent notes about what I wanted to talk about, so it still works out. ♥

Fun fact: according to my records, it took me exactly three months to the day to beat this game. Much of which was spent telling myself, "I'll get back to finishing the Deep Roads later", whoops.

More on my adventures with my Lúthien behind the cut! ( cut for spoilers & an excess of strikethroughs and italics )

And now I'm really, really excited to get to Dragon Age II. However, unlike Awakenings which I accidentally bought before Origins, I don't own Dragon Age II, so I'll have to go see if my GameStop has it. If not, I might have to wait. =/

Still. SO HAPPY.

► In regards to the latest episode of Death Parade, I have many feelings, but not so many concrete thoughts. That being said, I don't understand why the fanbase ( cut for brief spoilers )

► It's been a while since I did a good link-dump, so here we go. I think I'll stick to fannish meta, this time around.

• A Song of Ice & Fire: Chapter-by-Chapter Analysis: Bran IV, ACOK
• A Song of Ice & Fire: Chapter-by-Chapter Analysis: Arya VII, ACOK
  
  An excerpt:

  At the same time, I do think it marks a divergence between Arya and Sansa’s story – from here on out, Arya will embark on a deliberate path of vengeance, whereas Sansa chooses mercy (although she will kill, unknowingly). On the other hand, Sansa is put into a story line where her choice makes sense; there is goodness to be found in Sandor Clegane that simply is not there in Gregor Clegane, or any of the rest of the Mountain’s Men.

  And another:

  Third, Arya’s choice works to renew her sense of control over herself and her environment – rather than a helpless, harmless mouse, Arya now has a way to strike back at her captors, to restore a moral order in which crime (Chiswyck’s enjoyment of rape and murder) is met with punishment. If Sansa will wonder whether all the stories are lies and think that the monsters always win, Arya will act to enforce a system of moral justice on the universe, however bloodily.

• A Song of Ice & Fire: Stark Justice II: An Ode to Catelyn Tully
• Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice Economics: Or Why a Single Man with a Fortune of £4,000 Per Year is a Desirable Husband
• Lord of the Rings: Oldest and Fatherless: The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil (Interesting to think about, though I'm not saying that I'm 100% convinced.)
• Lord of the Rings: Eight Things You Should Know About Tolkien’s Thranduil
• Lord of the Rings: Thranduil Is Not A Jerk

► It appears that I've been mispelling Shall We Date? The "Nilfheim"'s title this entire time. Apparently, it's actually spelled "Niflheim". Oops. I've fixed the tag, but it's misspelled in all of my previous entries about it.

► ...Um. Today's topic is Fictional Character You Would Have Dated In High School, which... I don't really know how to answer? Like, does this mean a fictional character I actively had a crush on while I was in high school, or does it mean a fictional character I think I would have been really into had I met him in high school?

Since I have no idea what the answer to the latter would be, I'm going to go with the former interpretation. The first character that pops to mind is, honestly, Selendrile from Dragon's Bait by Vivian Vande Velde. For all that he's technically a dragon, I had feelings, okay? Haha. There was also Sirius Black from Harry Potter, and Rikash Moonsword (who is also most definitely not human— I sense a pattern) from Tamora Pierce's Immortals books.

Oh, and, if we're talking Jane Austen, then I'd definitely would have gone for Henry Tilney, closely followed by Mr. Knightley. (And still would, if we're being perfectly honest.)

There are probably others— I was swooning over so many fictional characters in high school— but that's all I can think of on the top of my head.

► So, I have many, many feelings about otome games on the cell phone, many of them negative— not because I have anything in particular against cell phone games, but because I think that the monetary models they tend to work with really suck and are supremely unfriendly to consumers. That being said, near the end of October I did start playing some (free) otome games on the cell phone from the Shall We Date? series, and many mixed thoughts about them.

The tl;dr version is that I think some of them have genuinely great stories, characters, gameplay, and even world-building, but I do really, really dislike their monetary models. I'd much rather pay a single fee for an entire game than 1) paying per route, which is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of, or 2) dealing with their blatant attempts to annoy you into spending money on their free games.

I beat Shall We Date? The Nilfheim today, which is probably the best example— that I've played— of the good and bad of cell phone otome games. I'm going to talk about the games I've been playing a bit more in-depth, but it'll have to be tomorrow at the earliest— have an exam I need to finish studying for and plans to bake gingerbread men with a friend after said exam, so I don't really have time to get into it now. So this'll just have to serve as an introduction for what I'll be getting into later / hopefully tomorrow. ♥