straightforwardly

► There’s a DW friending meme going on over at snickfic’s journal! I’ve already seen a few familiar names from my flist over there, but I thought I’d mention it, just in case. (Also— hello to the new people on my flist!)

(..I wrote the above ~two days ago, and wow, that friending meme has exploded in popularity since then. It’s wild seeing how many new people have come to DW! I love DW dearly— it’s the fandom-style that suits me best— but this was still unexpected for me, even taking what’s going on with Tumblr into account.)

► I ended up spending the weekend rereading the Gokusen manga. (Well— I started and did most of the reread over the weekend, but I didn’t actually finish it until today, to be precise.) This is the second time that I’ve read it, and I think I loved it even more this time around. It’s such a comfort read for me. ♥ And I still liked Shin/Yankumi as much as I did before— I wondered if I would, since I usually bounce off of student/teacher pairings, especially in modern day settings. But nope, they continue to be the (excellent, excellent) exception to that rule.

► I’ve also been listening to the Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist of Roses soundtrack quite a bit lately, and ugh, I wish I’d found out what this game was about before I moved so far away from my favorite used games shop (and away from easy access to used English games in general). I’d heard of the title before, of course, but somehow I had it in my head that it was just another YGO game like Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Tag Force or that one GBA game that takes place during Battle City (both of which I’ve played, the latter of which I spent countless hours on as a kid). But the War of Roses with Yu-Gi-Oh characters is exactly the kind of weirdness that I’m here for! (Pokemon Conquest—a game that I do, thankfully, own, though I haven’t played it yet—has a similar kind of draw for me.)

► And while I’m talking about YGO games, there’s a Monster World event going on in Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Links! ...Featuring Yami Bakura, with no Standard Edition Bakura in sight. Poor guy. ._. ( a bit more beneath the cut )

I beat Transistor over the weekend. That was… a really good game. Even before you get to the story, it’s just gorgeously designed: lovely graphics, an amazing soundtrack (example: the song that plays during the first boss battle *_*), and one of my favorite battle systems in a long time. ( cut for potential spoilers + length )

► So, about a month ago, I went to see Frozen in theaters with a friend of mine. In short, I really, really loved it, and have been listening to a million different versions of "Let It Go" ever since. (There were other songs I really liked too, but it doesn't seem as though they caught on in the same way, so "Let It Go" it is.)

Some of my favorites include this male cover (if you want a direct youtube link, that's here, but I liked the pretty art associated with the tumblr link), the German version, the Danish version, and this ASL video (which, while not being different vocally, still is pretty awesome to look at), to name a few.

► Keeping with the Frozen semi-theme of this post... most of the articles about it that I've run into I've been irritated by, but I did like this analysis of the film, and wanted to link to it. It just hit a lot of points I felt strongly about, and articulated why I felt that way much better than I ever could have done.

Oh, and I just ran across The Frozen Girl: Visual Cues and Evil Femininity, which is another article about the movie that I liked.

► Speaking of music, I am kind of really in love with this (apparently) 1920's version of Lana del Ray's "Young and Beautiful". I have mixed feelings about the 2013 film version of The Great Gatsby, but I did really love both this song and the scene it was in, and now it's gotten even better.

► I think I make it clear that I fangirl Zeiva really, really hard. So when I found out that they decided to do a Kickstarter for their next game... well, I'm feeling so-so about what we know about the plot, and I'm still super-tempted to throw thirty dollars down, because Zeiva. They've never let me down. Besides, the second and third stretch goals sound absolutely AMAZING.