straightforwardly

► My Mystic Messenger update of the day: ( vague spoilers for the end of Day Five/Day Six )

► I ran across an AMV rec on FFA (well, several, actually, but I only watched the one for the anime I knew), and now I want to pass it forward. It’s Death Parade - Lorem Ipsum, and I thought it pretty well-made. (And hey, an excuse to use my Death Parade tag again! I honestly thought that wasn't going to happen.)

It’s been years since I last regularly watched AMVs… I don’t know if I miss it, per se, but I do still appreciate a good video. I might check out more of this person’s AMVs later. idk.

► I was waiting for the Day Three post of the Fandom Snowflake challenge to go up before posting this so that I could include it too, but… I think I’m going to skip out on this one. One thing that I’ve figured out over the years is that setting monthly and yearly goals don’t really work for me (as much as I love to read about other people’s goals and how they do on them). Setting daily and weekly goals (while keeping the broader picture of what I’d like to eventually achieve in the back of my mind) works much better for me.

► 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.

► It occurs to me that I've been on an anime-kick these last couple of months. Last year I'd started watching anime somewhat more regularly again, and that seems to have been picking up more steam. I'm not complaining, but it's interesting.

► I finally got around to starting Death Parade yesterday. ( cut for spoilers for the first two episodes )

► I've also been slowly watching Revolutionary Girl Utena for the first time these last couple of weeks. I'm up to episode 18 right now. ( cut for length and spoilers )