keltena: Ennis pondering something seriously. ([baccano] hm?)
I've been playing Dragon Age: Inquisition lately. I'm five years late (which, to be fair, is basically right on schedule for me), but I finally have a computer that can handle it, and I'm having a blast. I'm honestly surprised by how good it is! It's not as perfectly tailored to my personal preferences as Dragon Age II (few things are), and it shares the rest of the series' writing weakpoints for the most part, but it's so polished and full of life. (The world is no longer brown! It's a miracle.) Someday soon, I will finally no longer fear spoilers for this series.

So far, Inquisition might actually have my favorite overall cast in the series? I didn't expect anything to be able to compare to DA2's ragtag friend group of outcasts who variously like or barely tolerate each other, and that's still by far the best party dynamic in the series. But... well, I feel like one of DA's greatest strengths is its ability to simulate the experience of that one friend/relative who we swear is really a great person aside from the whole [racism/classism/sexism/xenophobia/aggressive evangelism/totalitarianism/unique and special personal brand of assholery] thing, except it's every character instead of just one—and DAI's cast nails that. Almost everyone is likeable and engaging and deeply terrible in at least one respect, and in ways that play beautifully off each other and the game's themes too! I keep getting invested in characters and then being rewarded for it by seeing them be awful, and I could not be happier.

(Well, except for the woman I have an immediate crush on once again being straight. I miss the DA2 model, where everyone was bi unless you paid to download a heterosexual.)

Most importantly, though, you can finally choose armor for fashion. My companions no longer cease having unique character designs the moment I put them in generic armor, it's a miracle. They even let you change individual colors! Among other things, I have used this power to ensure Sera is kept outfitted with the most eye-searing outfit feasible at any moment:

The progression so far )

It's what she would want, after all. My only regret is that there aren't more bright colors, especially in the metals and leathers. (Vivienne and Dorian are no doubt in excruciating pain, but I think it's a good learning experience for them.)


I think custom Cards Against Humanity decks have become my new default art form somehow, because I've found myself with the better part of a Dragon Age deck already. There are probably already a million out there, and I can't even play with other fans until I finish the game anyway, but... they're just so much fun to make. At least it seems to be shaping up promisingly enough so far, if quality of randomized plays is any indication:

The dialogue wheel exists to serve man, and never to rule over him. )

Someday I'll finally get around to making the Umineko and Utena decks I've been meaning to, and the resulting game will collapse into a black hole of mind-bendingly dense symbolism and inane anime humor that will ambiguously end us all.
keltena: Pharos helpfully explaining something. ([p3] what friends are for)
(I at no point intended to make "title journal entries with wolf pupy tweets" an actual policy, but I'm starting to become weirdly fond of it.)

I spent this weekend traveling with my brother to visit a friend, and it was great, but I think I've only just now returned to full processing power. I'm pretty sure I did more in those 4-5 days than I usually do in two weeks! Highlights include being relentlessly accosted for affection by my friend's cat and dogs, and an escape room we solved together. I'd never done an escape room before, but it was a ton of fun; I'm disappointed the company doesn't have any locations near me, because the room was fun and our game master was super nice. (We started off all handcuffed to a bed frame in a dark room. We proceeded to spend maybe ten minutes earnestly combing the room via careful coordination and angling of the single desk lamp for every puzzle we could reach while handcuffed, in hopes that one of them contained the key, before the game master cut in to tactfully imply that there was a light switch right in front of us.)

I was also introduced to this masterpiece of a Mario Maker level, which I'm helpfully passing on to anyone else who might appreciate it. (It's a 14-minute video, but might be entertaining if you have the time.)


I started properly studying Japanese again this spring, and it's been a great decision so far. My Japanese is still very beginner-level, but I'm making visible progress, which is exciting—I increasingly find myself able to read simple things with, if not reliability, a good deal less unreliability than I'd expect. The best thing about this is that my reading level is now perfect for spending an hour reading Inspirational Japanese posts to anyone within earshot. This is my current favorite. (It says don't translate into English if you can't read properly.)

My favorite discovery from reading random tweets on my timeline so far: 草 (grass) is internet slang for "funny", because www is the common shorthand for amusement/laughter, and, well...

ASCII art of someone mowing grass, which is represented by a string of w's.


I just glanced at my last post, and... jeez, it's been a month since I said I was going to finish that "Danganronpa characters as wolf pupy tweets" post? Most of that month has been me repeatedly blanking on what to put for Peko and Mahiru, because there's always the one or two stragglers that hold the whole thing up, apparently. See also: why half of this Beatrice/Battler fanmix has remained unfinished for... probably a year and half at this point, solely because finding a balanced collection of Battler songs is like pulling teeth. Any suggestions are obviously more than welcome, on the off-chance anyone else keeps wolfpupy tweets on hand to suggest for any occasion, but I'm led to understand most people don't actually do that.


People around me keep talking about Zanki Zero, and it's very difficult. I have a backlog and shouldn't be starting new, apparently long games! But I want in on the conversations! My life is very hard.
keltena: Flonne points on a blackboard to the word "LOVE", written with a heart for the V. ([disgaea] it might just save your life)
A few months ago, I decided I was going to get back to using Dreamwidth again! ...And then things came up, my life became somewhat more busy on a few fronts, and I didn't. (Among other things, I started having mysterious pain issues and eased off on things like computer use in case I'd strained something. But my doctor has since informed me that my nerves don't know what they're talking about and I should actually do things more just to spite them, so there you go.) In any case, I seem to be back now, so—hi!

So far, I've been celebrating my newfound computer freedom by playing Monster Prom, a dating sim that's actually a multiplayer party game, or possibly just an out-of-context screenshot generator. I was sold on it with an explanation of the multiplayer mode + the fact that almost all the love interests are not just shitty teenagers but downright terrible people. (...And also not actually teenagers, it turns out? It's probably normal to be attending high school in your 20s or 400s, right?) I've only played a few runs, but it's already more than paid for itself in entertainment value. On some level, I feel like the game's brand of humor should by all rights come off as obnoxious now and then, but it so fully embraces it that I'm just charmed by it every time. It's like playing with a GM whose definition of "yes, and..." is invariably "yes, AND THEN SOME", no matter how mundane (or ridiculous) a choice they're responding to.

Case in point: My first playthrough, I found a corpse for sale as an accessory in the school store and immediately wished for the option to take it to prom instead of the main romance options. (Especially once they turned out to be judgmental dicks about my decision to carry a corpse as a fashion accessory.) I ended up on one of their routes anyway, but I dumped him for being a hypocritical, body-shaming asshole and got a good ending where I had a great time at prom alone. On my next playthrough I made a beeline for the corpse, aced a series of skill checks to personally end the societal stigma against monster-corpse relationships, and got to take my very first love to prom after all! This game understands me.

(...I'm also reminded that, at some point before I got sidetracked for months, I was in the middle of playing Danganronpa V3. I should really get back to that soon, too. I left everyone in the middle of a murder investigation and everything.)

Outside of video games, I've taken advantage of Tumblr's still not-yet-total demise to post some important things. By which I mean I made an "Umineko characters as wolf pupy tweets" post, because apparently 90% of my interaction with fandom these days is in the form of shitposts. (Note: Full Umineko spoilers in that link. Jesus Umineko has a lot of characters.) And also a nice, normal astrology post about nice, normal astrology, for people who like that sort of thing. Featuring my new favorite humor website, the TSA's "What Can I Bring?" list, because I spent an afternoon laughing way harder than is remotely justified at it and needed to share.
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