straightforwardly

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.)

Reading: Set aside what I was previously reading in favor of making my way through the books I got for my birthday! ♥ I’ve already finished The Seventh Bride (Maria/Sylvie y/y? and/or mentor!Maria & Rhea+her hedgehog?) and Bryony and Roses (which, *_*). Now I’m working my way through the A Charm of Magpie books, which… are a bit too gruesome for me, but I’m determined to finish them since I own them now.
Listening: Still catching up on Buffering the Vampire Slayer. Technically. Progress has slowed.
Playing: Nothing! Not even phone games, outside of daily log-ins—I’ve been distracted by reading/writing.
Watching: See above.
Writing: Gotten a lot of outlining/a little bit of writing done on one of my original projects.

► I’ve been thinking about making a new fic masterlist. Not that I dislike my old one—I’m still surprisingly fond of it—but I’ve been itching for a change. This is getting to be something of a pattern with me—I can only stick with a masterpost style for 2-3 years before I start wanting to do something new.

To that end, I’ve been poking around table codes to see if there’s anything I like. I think I’m going to go with the other one I was tempted by the last time I switched things up. But that wasn’t the only contender. I was also intrigued by this one, and while this one probably wouldn’t work as well for a fic masterpost, I really do like it. I’m just not sure what I’d use it for. Finally, while I’m happy with the navigation post I have on my fic journal, this one’s pretty cute too.

► Sometimes when I’m reading, I’ll take pictures of passages which I want to remember for some reason or another—because I want to reference it later (recipes, mostly), or because I found some detail interesting and want to research it more (history, mostly), or whatever—with my phone. I'm bringing this up because when I was going through my pictures last night, I came across one which I’d completely forgotten about from when I read Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” last April, and I wanted to talk about it. ( spoilers for Revolutionary Girl Utena beneath the cut )

► About a week ago I read a short story that I really fell in love with— “Jackalope Wives” by Ursula Vernon. It was really amazing? Grandma Harken has my heart forever and ever, and I loved the atmosphere worldbuilding so much. I, uh, also kind of shipped Grandma Harken/the Jackalope Wife? ...Their interactions were super cute, okay?

Then I found out from yuuago that Vernon also wrote a novelette about Grandma Harken called “The Tomato Thief”, and— it basically has all the strengths of “Jackalope Wives” and then some. Seriously, it was amazing. ♥ The reveal of who the antagonist was sent me flailing ( some spoilers )

► Speaking of short stories… I also read “Help Me Follow My Sister into the Land of the Dead” last week, and 10/10, would recommend. What an excellent use of an unusual format.

► I was going through and clearing out the unneeded notes from the sticky notes program I have on my computer, and came across a part of a Prince Maker Braveness fic I lost when my computer got hit by that encryption virus a few years ago.

Except, it’s not actually a proper snippet. It’s the result of a snippet that I ran through Google Translate a few times for a meme. It’s kind of interesting that that still survives when the original fic doesn’t.

I don’t think I ever shared it anywhere before, though, so I’m going to share it here:
( cut for text )

I still remember why I saved it to a sticky note— it was because I loved how the last paragraph turned out, and how it almost sounds like a prayer.

► While I’m talking about writing… I have a mildly amusing story to share. I wrote a story involving Tom Riddle for a recent exchange. At one point while I was typing, my word document randomly decided to turn Tom into ™ instead, and I had to laugh. Because he would want a name so special that it has to be trademarked.

► 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 )

It’s that time of the year again, when I talk about my favorite media consumed in the past year. This year, I have no anime listed, mainly because I spent most of the year without any internet connection, and so only managed to finish up one series. (Grimgar of Fantasy & Ash, if you’re curious.) I did put a podcast category, because I ended up listening to a lot of podcasts this year.

And now, for the actual lists. Like last year, I’ve put everything in vaguely alphabetical order. ( cut for length + many images )

► One bright side about my relative lack of internet is that I’ve been able to get around to reading books and playing video games that I’d never gotten around to before during my free time. Of course, there’s a limit to this— with books, I only have those that I already had on my phone / that I can pick up for free because I am not going to buy a ebook when I already know that I greatly prefer physical copies, or that I can get from my library’s online library, and with video games, I’m limited to those portable games that I brought with me or, hypothetically those that I have on my computer.

Still, I’ve managed to chip away a bit at my backlog, to my delight. I’ve already read, in addition to a truly ridiculous amount of romance novels (I don’t know why; I’ve always read romance novels, of course, but usually I’ll read two or three, then return to my one true love, fantasy), Ivanhoe, Moby Dick, and am now nearly halfway through Les Miserables, which so far might be my favorite of the three, though I’ll have to admit that Ivanhoe did a better job of not running around with really, really long digressions.

( cut for length )

► I also mentioned video games above. I haven’t been playing quite so many video games as I’ve been reading books, mainly because it’s much easier to put a book down at a moment’s notice than it is to do the same with a video game, but I have finally gotten around to playing Pokemon Alpha Sapphire.

The short version of my thoughts on it: ( this is not so lengthy, but it’s being cut anyways )


► Now, I’m playing the GameBoy Advance version Final Fantasy V, which I bought used at GameStop many years ago. As some of you may know, I came pretty late to Final Fantasy as a series, which is kind of odd, considering how much I love JRPGs. I played my first Final Fantasy game, FFX, in 2010, and then played FFIV in 2012, and that’s about it, as far as the series goes. That is, I did play a bit of FFXI on my friend’s account, but I don’t really like online games, and ignore those entries in the series.

Over the years, I’ve also picked up copies of FFI and FFII, both on PSP (which I, unfortunately, didn’t bring with me), FFVII and FFVIII on PC, FFIX on PS1, and FFXII on PS2, but I haven’t gotten around to playing any of them yet. ...Which means, now that I think about it, that I own more than double the amount of Final Fantasy games that I’ve actually played.

Enough babbling about this. Here’s my thoughts on FFV. ( cut for length— and spoilers, if anyone cares about that )

► This was all written on 23 May, by the way; the biggest change since then is that my DS isn't charging for whatever reason, so I haven't been able to get further on FFV.

So, I kind of fell off the posting-every-day-this-month bandwagon, but that doesn't mean that I've forgotten about my yearly traditions! (Though, um, I'm not sure if I actually want to do my questionnaire this year.) Here is my top favorites from the various forms of media I consumed this year. ♥

I know that Yuletide reveals just happened, but I'm likely not going to post my reveals post until tomorrow, when it's actually January 1 in my timezone. Look out for it!

Everything is in no particular order.

( they are the hunters, we are the foxes )

► So, I've been wanting to play Crusader Kings II ever since I read this amusing comment about it on fail_fandomanon (side-note: that community increases my to-play list by far too much). I still don't own it, nor have I played it, but it's definitely on my radar.

I bring this up because I found myself having a bit of free time yesterday (which, at the time I'm typing this, was Saturday, 29 November 2014), and since not too long ago I read a Princess Maker Let's Play which I enjoyed, I decided that I'd look through the archive of that site to see if I could find something else to read.

I found this Crusader Kings II Let's Play. And oh my God, I had no idea that it was possible to feel this fannish about a Let's Play. Just. There were so many great characters! I had so many feelings about so many of them! asdfghjkl;
( cut to spare anyone who just really does not care )

God freaking damnit, I just really loved this Let's Play. Is it possible to have a fandom based on a Let's Play? Because I want a fandom. I want all the fic about these wonderful, screwed-up people— even the ones I didn't mention here but still loved— and all the wonderful friendships and even more fascinating parental-child relationships. I kind of want to cry with how much I love it.

► So, I meant to post this entry yesterday, but apparently my rambling about my feelings about fictional characters from a Let's Play took much longer than I expected to do. Therefore, I'm going to talk about my plans for December now in this same entry.

Basically, I've been seeing those talking memes going around + all those plans to post every day in December, and I thought: I'd like to try to post every day in December. I have no idea if I'll actually be able to do this, since, to be quite frank, I'm likely going to be insanely busy the first twelve or so days of this month, what with finals and final papers and graduation and all that. Still, I'd like to try.

That being said, I'm not doing the talking meme, mainly because I don't think very many, if any, people will give me topics to talk about. Instead, I'm going to do something similar to those 30 Day Memes which were so popular a couple of years back. I found a list of book-related questions on tumblr, and I've decided that I'll answer them, with one answer per day.

Here's the list for reference: ( cut for length )

► Now for today's question/topic: Author You’ve Read The Most Books From.

I'm... not actually entirely sure? I can make a guess, though. This was the only topic which I actually looked at when I was still home for Thanksgiving Break, and when I glanced over my bookshelf, I figured that it was probably either Mary Higgins Clark (oddly enough) or Mercedes Lackey. GoodReads (which might not be entirely accurate, but is the best thing I have for figuring this stuff out) tells me that I've read 34 Mercedes Lackey books as opposed to 20 by Mary Higgins Clark. Since I can't think of any author that could beat that, at least not on the top of my head, I'm going to go with Mercedes Lackey as my answer.

Now, I could expand on that, but I'm going to end this here, mainly because today I have: one essay to write which I haven't started, another to outline so I can write it on an exam tomorrow, an article which I need to finish reading, and a 300-500 word commentary I need to write on said article, and I really need to get to work.

So, I am mainly writing this entry because at the moment, I am taking a break from what I really want to be doing, which is playing video games until I melt into the ground. But my little brother is forever paranoid about our Xbox 360 overheating, and I've already been playing it for a while today, so here I am, writing this entry.

► If my mentions of my little brother and doing nothing but playing video games didn't make it clear, I'm done with classes for the summer! Finals were on Friday, and I moved out/went back home on the same day.

For our final, my Tolkien professor brought us doughnuts, and was all, "I have brought 35 golden rings of power, and I will need your help to destroy them all." Then, when one of my classmates asked if one of them was the One Ring, he said, "I don't know— the only way to find out is to work on destroying them all."

So, yes, I was amused by that.

► That means that I've also finished The Silmarillion since I last updated. I don't have too much to say about the rest of it, though; I enjoyed it, but not much of the ending caught enough of my attention for me to have thoughts about it.
( cut for potential spoilers? not sure if I need to, but better safe than sorry )

► And now, for the main portion of this entry. Yesterday, I went to GameStop, and now I have finally begun to play Dragon Age: Origins, which is a game that I've been super interested in for a long time. So far? I am really, really enjoying it.
( cut for length, as well as potential spoilers )

And that's basically where I am right now. I am definitely enjoying this very much, and, depending on whether or not one of my brothers have claimed the 360, might go back and play some more right now.

The last time I updated was when I was getting ready to head back to school. Now I've been here about two weeks, have settled in nicely, and have quite a bit to say about what I've been doing these last two weeks. (I've actually been meaning to write this entry for over a week now, but I keep putting it off, oops.)

► The first thing on my list of things to talk about is school. Specifically, the Tolkien class I'm taking! I signed up for this one as quick as I could when I saw it listed among the summer classes, and spoiler alert: I am so, so glad I did.
( more babbling under the cut )

► Perhaps unsurprisingly, that class has also awakened a new fandom for me: Lord of the Rings. It's kind of funny. While I've never seen the movies, I have read the books before— The Lord of the Rings twice prior to this summer (with the first time being when I was in the sixth grade), and The Hobbit once. And don't mistake me; I did enjoy them both times when I read them, but... I never really understood the passion people had for them?

Like, I loved Aragorn the first time I read it, and have always been really into Legolas and Gimili's friendship, but otherwise... it was just another fantasy series for me. I appreciated what it did for the genre, but didn't really get other people's reactions to it. I know there are people who reread it every year, and I remember just being baffled by that. Once every few years, sure. But every year?

Needless to say, I completely understand it now.
( under the cut: more fangirling! )

► Not to detract from my Lord of the Rings flailing, but I did watch the second episode of Sailor Moon Crystal last night, and I wanted to jot down some quick thoughts about it. Unfortunately, the animation quality bothered me a whole lot more than it had with the last episode— even Luna looked really odd at times, and Ami kept switching between looking great and looking uncomfortably off.

But outside of the animation, I really enjoyed it! The relationship between Usagi and Ami was great, that quick flashback to the Moon Kingdom really intrigued me, and I have discovered that I do, apparently, have some Usagi/Ami feelings. Maybe not strong feelings, but... yes, I was definitely shipping them at least a little bit in this episode.

► And I need to get back to my schoolwork, so I think I'll end this here, for now.