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Today, I re-discovered the reasons that I hardly ever play video games any more.

1. Such a time-sink. I say, "Oh, I'll only be at it for an hour" but THEN... suddenly it's eight PM and I'm sitting there wondering where on earth the time went. (But then again - what would I be doing with my time if I weren't doing that? Noodling around on the internet? When I think of it that way... maybe it's not so bad.)

2. THE PAIN. Oh my god. My neck and shoulders and hands, JFC. I have no idea how y'all who play games more often manage it. Well, I'm talking handhelds specifically; suppose it'd be different for console and PC - though I remember that I did have neck/shoulder trouble while making my way through Valiant Hearts on PC, so maybe not. How on earth - do you guys just have amazing posture or something?!

This message brought to you guys by the fact that I started playing Ocarina of Time on my 3DS today (since I want to get through that before I play the Majora's Mask re-release) and oh man, I... am kind of regretting it. But kind of not. It was such a joy to play through this game that I loved so much when I was a kid (haven't managed to get very far yet - I've cleared the Deku Tree, but that's it). It's been long enough since I played the N64 version, I've completely forgotten almost everything, so it's almost like seeing it for the first time.

Still, though. Ow.

I finished a fic! And I'm very happy about it!

'Course, I still need to tweak it and proof it and fiddle with it a little, and decide on a title too, but the main thing is that it's finished. This thing has been in my WIP folder since late 2013, and I'm going to be so glad to be done with it.

It wasn't a Hetalia fic, either. The fandom was Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds; that Link & Ravio friendship fic that I posted an excerpt from a few months ago. It's so rare for me to write anything outside of Hetalia fandom... man, I'm so glad that I'm finished it.

With all the excitement about the Majora's Mask re-release, I guess that's what kicked me into gear to get it done, even if they're completely separate games.

Some of my friends have already received their copies of MM - mine's still in the mail. That's fine, though. Honestly, I haven't even managed to play the 3ds Ocarina of Time yet, and I do want to go through that one before tackling MM. That's the thing about me and games - I'm so horrible about actually setting aside time to play them.

Anyway! This thing should be done... soon. And then perhaps I'll get around to gaming. Maybe. (Probably not.)

Was busy most of the weekend and hardly was able to look at my flist at all. Apologies! I might get to it later. Or maybe not.

So, I've finally finished playing the first Ace Attorney game. Like I've mentioned before - not a favourite, but man, am I ever glad to know what the heck my friends were talking about. And being in on the fandom jokes is great. And I might have developed a fondness for Gumshoe (his thick-headed nature and affection/loyalty toward Edgeworth is cute). AND... I must say, it's a great game for long commutes. Seriously, awesome for that purpose.

Not sure if I'll play the other games, but the commute-compatibility makes me kind of tempted. During the pitch-black midwinter mornings/afternoons, it's best for me to play games on the hour-long bus ride, because trying to read puts me to sleep no matter what I do. So something like this... maybe. I'll have to see if I can get the others in the series used, maybe.

Until then! I have Ocarina of Time to work on. I haven't played this game in years, so I'm really excited to be able to play the 3DS version now. Hopefully I'll have it finished before Majora's Mask comes out (yes, I preordered it). There's plenty of time, so one would think I'd be able to do it easily, but I... tend to take my time with games. (Proof: It took me almost a year to finish Phoenix Wright, pfffft.)

In all honestly, I barely remember anything about OoT aside from the base basics of the plot. So, this'll be like playing it all over again for the first time. I'm really, really excited about that. It's one of the games that really left an impression on me as a kid; it's just... one of those things. But I suspect this is pretty common with Zelda fans.

Anyway! As far as Valiant Hearts goes - I still haven't finished the full re-playthrough (I almost did, but I jumped around a bit in the second half of the game). And there are some parts that I need to play over yet again, because I only just now realized that if I turn off the subtitles, I can get better screencaps. (Don't laugh! I'm just so used to playing with them on, I forgot that they can be turned off.) And I've also been neglecting the wiki, because I spent so much time in the last couple of weeks trying to get my fic finished in time for a fest deadline, so I haven't had a chance to do any of the edits/additional pages that I've wanted to do with it. (I can't believe we don't have a page for Marie yet. This is terrible. Sure, she's an NPC, but she's such a significant character! She deserves her own character page. ...And it will be useful for me, for my own reference when fic writing. Ahem.)

Well, I'll take care of that eventually. It's on the to-do list. Among... many, many other things.

Last time I updated, it was "I think that I'm coming down with a cold". Lo and behold, I did come down with a cold, and it knocked me out for about a week. After that, I had some scheduled time off to use some leftover vacation hours from last year that I didn't know I had. Spent that time (and the week) agonizing over an exchange fic. And now here I am.

That exchange fic didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. Even though I love Netherlands/Norway, I still haven't written a good fic with them, not something with any actual length to it or any kind of development or anything. I'd originally hoped to do that here, but I ran out of time... If I hadn't been knocked flat out by that cold, I might have been able to manage it because I'd had a pretty decent idea in the beginning, but it just didn't happen.

Anyway. Finally finished playing Phantom Hourglass. Going to start on Phoenix Wright next! I'm really interested in seeing what all the fuss is about. Most of the people who recommended it to me have similar tastes to mine, so I think I'll enjoy it. As for LoZ - well, I didn't 100% Phantom Hourglass. Not even close. After a while, I got kind of frustrated with it, because there were lots of fiddly little things that I had to do in order to complete all the subquests and upgrades, and eventually I was so ready to be done with the game that I just went ahead and finished it. This is quite different to my feelings about A Link Between Worlds... I definitely preferred ALBW to PH. Though Phantom Hourglass does have some good points. (Mainly, Linebeck. I love that grumpy greedyguts to pieces!)

... Other than that, nothing's going on with me. I've been spending so much time flailing over that exchange thing that I haven't been able to do any other writing. And to be honest, I don't know how much would get done even if I weren't. I'm kind of poking half-heartedly at the stuff in my WIP folder. None of it inspires me right now. But it's possible that I'm just sick of looking at it. Especially that big long thing I was working on - then again, I've been taking a break from it, so I can't possibly still be sick of it, right? Maybe I should look at it again.

I received a huge package of doujinshi yesterday. Bought it from a friend who'd been downsizing her collection. I'm really satisfied with what I have here; it's a nice little package. Still need to go through everything to get a look at what, exactly, I have. Probably the best one is a nice little historical Den/Sve - I was surprised she had it, actually, as she doesn't really like that pairing. Regardless, going to need to update the photos in my collection index... but I am lazy, and also le tired.

Aside from that, not much is going on. Started up some new roleplay threads, which is nice. There's a great plot-oriented one that I've been working on for a couple of weeks now with a friend who plays Germany, and then I started up one with a buddy who plays Belgium. We used to thread together all the time, so it's nice to be doing something together again. (And it reminded me of how much I like that pairing... I should write something with it eventually.)

☆ So, I've started watching Mushishi! Only been through one episode so far, but I think it's safe to say that I'll be watching the rest. It's just so... atmospheric and pretty! Think I'll try to go through this one slowly... it doesn't seem like the kind of series I'd want to marathon. Maybe after I'm finished it, I'll read the manga, but we'll have to see.

☆ Started reading a book about medieval Venice a while ago. Nearly finished it now. The main thing that I'm taking away from this is that I know very little about medieval Italy, and even less about the Ottoman Empire, and it also reminded me that I've wanted to read a bit about Romanian history, and a bunch of other things like that. I know very little about the Mediterranean after ancient Greece and Rome, and I really should fix that. Eventually. After I go through the massive stack of books on Scandinavia that I haven't read yet.

☆ Started playing Phantom Hourglass because I was getting a little bored with A Link Between Worlds. Not that ALBW is a dull game, but well, doing two runs so close together, when it's fresh in my mind like that - it's hard to keep my attention. I was partly doing the replay as a refresher for Ravio's characterization for that fic I'm writing, but then I realized that I can get all of his text-dialogue and cut scenes from the internet... so. As for Phantom Hourglass, holy crap, the controls are so weird. Or maybe it's standard, I don't know -- It just feels really weird to play using a stylus rather than buttons! I'm so glad that there is an option for left-handed play; I have no idea how I'd be able to play it at all if I had to try to go through this thing right-handed.

☆ I've been feeling kind of vaguely grumpy in a really vague way for the last week or so, and I'm really annoyed at myself. Like, I want to be social, but at the same time everything under the sun annoys me! I think the problem might be that I'm sick of winter and this frustration is manifesting in other ways. But, it's hard to tell. Regardless of what it is, I hope it fixes itself soon. :T

So, somehow in the last two days I've managed to pound out 2k of Link Between Worlds fic. This is not normal. Usually I'm doing awesome if I can manage to write 500 words of Hetalia fic in that amount of time. I write pretty slowly on average. So this much, for a fandom and characters that I have no experience with, is just ??? how the heck did that happen.

Not that I'm complaining! I'm just really surprised at myself. This doesn't usually happen. I think part of the reason I managed it is because Link is a silent protagonist in the game, so I can pretty much do anything I want with his voice as long as I keep it reasonable. So far the most difficult part has been... everything else. This story is a combination of action/horror with a side of friendship, and the action/horror part is super hard. There's no shortness of creepiness in A Link Between Worlds (and in Legend of Zelda in general) but geeze, how on earth do people write scary stuff?! It's so hard! Not to mention that action scenes never have been my forte. But I'm trying, at least.

Maybe I should read some horror novels to see if I can get any inspiration there - as far as technique and, hmm, creating atmosphere. :D I'm sure I have a few scattered around on the to-read list....

Anyway. It's New Years Eve, isn't it? To be honest, I'm kind of glad to leave 2013 behind. It really sucked in a lot of ways, and I am just plain done with it. On the upside, some good things happened too. Wrote some things I'm satisfied with, read some good books, went on an awesome vacation, started a new position at work and I like it so much better than the previous... and hell, let's add re-discovering an old fandom to the list, even if that happened at the tail-end of the year.

So, it wasn't all bad. But I am realllllly ready to be done and start a new calendar year. So, hopefully the next one will be... better. I'm going to do my best to make it so, I really am! But Chance always plays a part in how things turn out, so there really isn't any way to predict how things will go.

So, despite all of my fears, Christmas actually turned out pretty nicely! There was drama in the days leading up to it, but today actually went pretty well. I'm surpised and impressed.

Best gift this year was definitely the book my mother got me. It's a huge-ass recipe book of cuisine from the Friuli region of Italy (that's the region my grandfather came from). And omg, it all looks delicious! There are so many things that I want to try making... especially this one kind of pasta filled with fruit and ricotta (can't remember what it's called).

So, that was awesome.

Anyway. A few days ago I finished that Netherlands/Iceland fic for the rarepair exchange. I'd been agonizing over it for so long, and it was such a relief to just post the damn thing. I have no idea what my recipient thinks of it... but honestly, as long as they don't hate it, I'll be satisfied. xD

I've definitely been bitten by the Zelda bug. By that I mean, jesus, I have it bad. I haven't even allowed myself to finish A Link Between Worlds yet, and already I'm debating which game to play next. I'm thinking either Phantom Hourglass or Spirit Tracks, since both of them are playable on 3DS. Well, there's the 3DS version of Ocarina of Time too, but I've played OoT before, and I kind of want to try something new. The super oldschool games are playable too via download, but to be honest I don't think I'm quite ready to try them. It feels almost like they're extra-special, you know? Zelda I and II, at least. The games that started it all, wow.

Anyway, all this LoZ stuff has got me thinking about fanfiction. I don't have any really amazing original ideas or anything, but I got to thinking that maybe trying to write a short fic in this series would be a good way to practice writing action scenes. So it'd probably be slice-of-life stuff, except with more action than the phrase usually brings to mind, because a slice of Link's life usually involves going into the deepest darkest dungeons to battle monsters and rescue people, heh. And the nice thing is that I wouldn't need to get too realistic, just stay reasonable about it. I mean, the Master Sword shoots magic beams when you swing it, so it's not like I need to be... realistic. ;p

If I do anything, it'll be set specifically in A Link Between Worlds, since that game is very straightforward (and it's freshest in my mind. I mean, I barely remember ZOoT, if I'll be honest).

I'm definitely looking forward to having a more relaxed day tomorrow. I have roleplay tags that I need to catch up on, and some things I want to write, and some reading I need to do. My brother gave me Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander. Fuck yeah, I've been wanting to read the Aubrey-Maturin novels for ages! And I have some other novels I've been meaning to get around to -- there are a lot of books that I have which I want to read, but haven't been reading because I mostly read on my commute, and since the morning is pitch black in the winter, I can't do that without turning on the overhead light, which I'm reluctant to do because the refinery buses are usually packed and it's 6 AM when we start the hour-ish-long drive so everyone around me is usually sleeping.