straightforwardly

► Since my last update, I finally started Jumin’s route in Mystic Messenger. Today I hit Day 5. ( Deep Story prologue + Jumin’s route Day 5 spoilers  )

It also turns out that the game doesn’t automatically change over when Daylight’s Saving Time does— it was first behind, then, when I exited and re-entered the app, it noticed it, but saw it as being in a different time zone;;; Still, as long as it works, I suppose I shouldn’t complain.

► Oh, I nearly forgot! Some years ago, I briefly posted links to what I’d written lately in my dw updates, in an attempt to counterbalance my habit of hiding my writing by posting most non-exchange fics to my fic journal exclusively and never sharing it anywhere. TO BE FAIR, I mostly do this when something’s really short, or if I’m not entirely happy with some aspect of it but feel too shy to go through the whole process of finding a beta (once I have a beta, everything’s good— I liked constructive crit; it’s just the finding part that’s a problem), but still.

My point in mentioning all of this is that I’m going to try start doing that again, starting now:

• A Practical Proposal (Fire Emblem: Awakening, Chrom & Maribelle | implied Maribelle/Lissa, 1.1K)
• New Beginnings (Fire Emblem: Awakening, Donnel/Maribelle | Maribelle & Donnel’s Mother, 1.6K)
• Uncertainty (Shall We Date? Wizardess, Liz/Amelia, <1K)

► I also wanted to do an update on my Fire Emblem: Awakening replay, but I’ve a fair amount to say about it and this entry’s REALLY LONG already, so I’ll save it for another time. Soon, hopefully.

► An update on the transcribing process for the Lovesickness Event in Shall We Date? The Nilfheim:

• J.J.: 100%
• Orlando: 100%, as of last night
• Jean: Currently stuck at the third Grace Point Checkpoint. I think I can probably get past this one (as of right now, I only need 1370 more grace points to pass it), but I highly doubt that I'll be able to pass the final checkpoint, since there are only seven hours left in the event. I can probably finish up the missing text from the diverging choices, but I don't think I'll be able to get the text for the Normal Ending. =/

► Now on to more positive things! Despite my above complaints, this transcribing project has actually yielded quite a bit of fruit for me in various ways. I ended up reading the text much more closely than I usually do and that, combined with the fact that I actually reread the side-stories instead of fast-forwarding through them the second time around, meant that I found myself picking up on quite a few small things that I hadn't noticed before and that I also promptly found myself saddled with more fic bunnies, whoops.

There's also a few details about the world of Nilfheim itself that I hadn't known before this event, some of which I missed during my first time through the event. The fact that people cannot become physically ill in Nilfheim— which actually makes quite a bit of sense, considering that they're all already dead— was the obvious one I carried away from my first playthrough, but there were some other details that I missed. The largest one that comes to mind is the fact that Nilfheim doesn't have a sun. In hindsight, this... probably should have been obvious, since every scene I have ever seen looks like it takes place at night / under moonlight, but somehow I'd completely missed that. And now the whole thing about Isabella being the "sun" of Nilfheim makes much more sense oh God I am an idiot for just realizing this now.

I'm not sure if the existence of another realm— Muspelheim— and its ruler, King Leo, was something that was revealed in Jean's Main Route, since I haven't played that one yet, but that was also new information for me. I really want to know more about it now, since I didn't realize that there were any other realms other than Nilfheim.

Finally, transcribing this event really hammered in how ridiculous the writing for this game could be. I mean, I always realized that it wasn't exactly great literature, but typing up some of these lines was definitely cause for amusement.
( cut for examples )
...I think they speak for themselves.

► Speaking of the Shall We Date? series... While The Nilfheim is the one which I'm the most fannish about, I do play some of the other games in the series. I bring this up because I've been playing through Elias' route— my first route— in Shall We Date? Wizardess. I'm on Chapter 10, and the conversation between Liz and Professor Merkulova in that chapter fired up quite a few dormant thoughts/suspicions that I'd been having, which I really needed to share with someone. ( cut for spoilers )

Of course, it's always possible that 1) the game is really not going to be that complex or 2) that it expects you to suspect that and will make it turn out differently, but for now, I definitely think that that's what's going to happen.

► I... just finished writing the last papers I'll ever have to write as an undergrad. And I took my last exam this morning. ...For some reason, this makes me feel mildly panicky. It's starting to hit me that I actually am going to be graduating on Friday, and I don't really know how I feel about it / how to handle it.

► Which means that I need to distract myself. My next topic is Important Moments of Your Reading Life. Most of my important reading moments are more of montages of the many times I reread my favorite books as a kid, but there's a couple specific moments that do come to mind. One is how when I, as an elementary schooler, went to the book fair at my big brother's middle school, and came across Eleanor's Story: An American Girl in Hitler's Germany by Eleanor Ramrath Garner. My mom bought it for me, and it became one of my all-time favorite books— it's impossible to count how many times I reread it. It was just such an important book to me— I even wrote the author once, and she actually answered me with an actual, handwritten, personalized response!

It's been years since the last time I reread it, but I still have it on my bookshelf, with the letter the author wrote me tucked inside the front cover. I think I might need to read it again sometime— it's been far too long.

► Continuing my discussion of the Shall We Date? games I've played...
( and I finally finish introducing these games )

And that's about all I have to say for now. ♥ See you all tomorrow!

► ...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. ♥