straightforwardly

Apparently, the last time I updated was back in January! I do vaguely try to aim for updating my dreamwidth at least once a month, so I thought I’d do a post with some brief thoughts on what I’ve been up to lately.

► This month, I beat two different games! Which I’m pretty pleased about.

First up, I thiiiink I might have mentioned that I’ve been working my way through Pokémon Moon lately? I originally started my file back in 2017, but set the game down at some point during the second island*, and never went back to it—until last December, when I picked up again. ( beneath the cut )

The other game I beat was a far more recent acquisition—Strange Horticulture, which I bought on sale on Steam over the weekend (my first gaming purchase of this year!), and beat a few days later. (Here, I’m defining “beat” as “reached at least one of the endings”, which in this case was ending II.) I had a good time! It has a great, moody ambience, the puzzles were satisfying, and I found labelling the plants oddly soothing. Plus, you can pet the cat, who makes the most delightful purring sound. <3 I’m not intending on going after the other endings straight away—this doesn’t strike me as the kind of game that benefits being replayed back-to-back—but I do think I’m going to tinker around a bit more in the day 17 post-game first before I set it down.

► I’ve also actually been watching things for once?? Specifically, since shortly after my last fic recs post, I’ve watched the first four seasons of Miraculous Ladybug, plus a number of the specials. Season one was a rewatch, while the rest was new-to-me.

Some rapid-fire thoughts on each season + some of the specials: ( beneath the cut )

► Finally, last but definitely not least, someone made the most beautiful fanart for one of my Scum Villain fics! At the time, I’d noticed an unusual surge in comments on that particular fic, and was a little ??? about it, but then one of the people commenting kindly linked me to this fanart. It’s so pretty…

► It’s been awhile since I’ve done a Mystic Messenger update (or any update at all, for that matter). Since I last updated, I've finished Zen’s Normal Ending, and am now playing Yoosung’s route. I’m currently on Day 7. My thoughts:( spoilers for Zen’s Normal Ending (and Jaehee’s endings too), and all of Yoosung’s route through Day 7 )

In other news… Cheritz has released a Valentine’s After Story for (I presume) all of the characters. Since it’s an After Story (which unlocks once you’ve beat a route), I’ve only been able to play Zen and Jaehee’s stories so far. I did Jaehee’s first, then Zen’s. My thoughts:
( spoilers for Jaehee & Zen’s Valentine’s After Story )

► I’ve also started playing Pokemon Moon! It feels weird, waiting this long to play a Pokemon game… I haven’t been playing a whole lot, though— currently, I’m on the second island. ( cut for length + possibly spoilers )

► Finally, today I (finally) started playing Pokemon Go! I’m slightly surprised that it took me this long post-new phone to start, and also still slightly sour that my having an outdated phone before kept me from playing when it was all new and everyone was super-excited about it. But I still had fun. ( cut for length reasons )

► 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.

Pokémon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire Confirmed For Worldwide 3DS Launch in November!

I realized that everyone was already squeeing about this yesterday, but while I was (and am) super excited, yesterday was also Dead Day, and as I have two of my most difficult finals today, I had to study. I've taken one of the two already, and am technically studying for the second right now, but I just can't wait any longer to talk about this.

I. Am. So. Excited!

To be fair, Hoenn has never been a region that I've ever been super interested in. Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald (as well as the Red/Blue remakes) were the games I missed during my hiatus as a Pokémon fan, and while I was curious about the games, and had an interest in some of the fanfiction written for it, I just never cared enough to actually hunt down a copy. So, Hoenn's actually the only region where I have never played through one of the games for it.^[1]

That means that, because of these remakes I will 1) finally be able to say I've played through all the regions for the first time since Gold/Silver came out and 2) be able to experience a new (for me) story, characters, and region!

I repeat: So. Excited.

---

[1] I have played Pokémon White, I've technically played at least one of the Unova games, but that being said, I technically haven't played Black 2/White 2 yet. Yes, I know. It's on my to-do list. Somewhere. As soon as I get around to buying myself a copy.

Right now I'm kind of regretting promising myself that I would update this at least once a week, if only because it's preventing me from procrastinating on writing this entry. Well... to be fair, in my head Sunday is the last day of the week, not Saturday, but that nice little calendar hovering next to me disagrees.

Moving is... progressing, for anyone who is curious. There's not really much I can say about it, though. At least, not anything that would interest anyone.

► Progress on Final Fantasy IV: there hasn't been any. I... need to get to that, haha.

► In more interesting news, I decided to claim some prompts over at female_fest! I can't lie, I'm a bit nervous about this, if only because I haven't written anything (at least, not prose) since last December. But the prompts looked so interesting, and I did feel the faint stirrings of something in the back of my mind, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

I claimed:
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Homura/Madoka, an almost perfect timeline
- Final Fantasy IV, Rydia, belonging in neither world

So, I suppose I have to finish playing Final Fantasy IV now, seeing as I passed up some equally intriguing prompts in favor of that one. To be honest, though, I'm a bit more excited about the Homura/Madoka one, which is... odd, considering that I actually don't ship the pairing.

► In regards to Pokémon X/Y— I'm quite excited about it, something which surprises me in the best way possible, considering how disinterested I was in Pokémon Black/White.

Side-note: How disinterested was I? Let's put it this way: I am ridiculously obsessed with Pokémon, yet, I somehow have not finished playing Pokémon White, despite buying it the day it came out, nor do I own the sequel. Granted, there's a "yet" at the end of that sentence, because 1) I am a huge fan of Pokémon and 2) it's not like I disliked the game. I just have a difficult time summoning up the interest to actually sit down and play it.

So my being this excited about the new games makes me quite happy.

Also, the depths of my desire for a Gogoat more than makes up for Chespin being 1) the first grass starter I've ever disliked and 2) the first time I haven't wanted to use the grass starter since the first generation. (Sorry, Bulbasaur. At least you have a friend now?)

► I don't know if there is anyone in the Labyrinth fandom reading this, but just in case... a drabble series I've been following just wrapped up, and I wanted to share. It's pretty short, only thirteen drabbles, but it's different from most of the fic I've read in this fandom.

The first drabble in particular had such a kick to it that, while I did enjoy the rest of it, I can't decide whether I liked that one better as a beginning to the rest of the story, or as something that stands on its own.

The story's called This Mother's Choice, by kzal.