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.

I have literally been writing this entry on and off again for weeks. To give you an idea of how long this has been in progress: I started it two days after posting my last entry.

► One of the book blogs I follow posted a link to How To Tell If You Are In A Brontë Novel. I found it amusing, though I think it applies more to Charlotte Brontë than her sisters. (Granted, I have not yet read anything by Anne Brontë, so I can't speak for hers.) Most of them sound like they came straight from Villette, with smatterings of Jane Eyre.

► I beat Dragon Age: Origins about two days after my last entry, and now I have a lot to say about it. Please bear with me.

Also, I decided to do this update in bullet points, because all my transitions were beginning to sound repetitive.
( cut for length )
So.... tl;dr I'm madly in love with Zevran, and I repaid poor Alistair's trust and affection by screwing him over at (nearly) every opportunity. Poor guy.

I do have to say, thugh, that I really loved this game. Just... it was so, so good. The battle system may not have been perfect but, with the exception of the final boss, I enjoyed it well enough, and any flaws that the actual gameplay had were more than made up for by the fantastic story and characters. Especially the characters.

(And, okay, especially Zevran, because I have a one-track mind.)

But still. When we were talking about our thoughts on the game after I beat it, my brother mentioned that he'd read before that Dragon Age: Origins' real strength was in its writing, and I have to say, I definitely agree. I'm already looking forward to playing it again, and to exploring the universe its in a little more.

► I also watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the first time. Because I actually want to get this entry posted sometime in the next century, I'm only going to give the short version of my thoughts (though I might talk about it a bit more in subsequent entries. Maybe.)

Basically, I liked it! I liked it a lot, even more than I thought I was going to.

Buffy was a wonderful character— there were just so many moments where she impressed me— and Spike hit so many of the right buttons for me. I can't say that I ship them without hesitation, because there were definitely some squicky moments, but I do still ship them. I also was a fan of Giles and Willow, though how much I liked them varied from season to season, and Cordelia as well.

Overall, I think the fifth season was the one which was technically the best (and I did like it quite a bit), but the second and sixth seasons were probably my favorites.

And... that's all I'm going to say for now, because, like I said above, I actually want to get this posted before I grow old and die.

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.