I can't believe it took me as long as it did to grasp the concept that Jhegaala was out and obtain it. That sort of thing must be reasonable cause for seppuku by my standards, but then again seppuku's not conducive to reading.

It was pretty nice. Loiosh is the greatest. I want to see more of these Dragaeran mannerist murder comedies. But someone really needs to get on top of the confusion between dead teckla and dead Teckla, it's getting unsettling.

Where do people get off charging $25 for a 300-page fantasy novel anyway? That's ridiculous. Curse my fangirling. I'm regretfully glad that I did pass on Trauma Center 2 for now, even though I've heard it's rather good. Still, there are yet more important games in my future. See autumn:

• September 15 - Dragon Quest 4
• September 22 - Kirby Super Star Ultra
• ...Sometime in fall(?) - Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

I mean, it's not as bad as this summer was, but with some luck it may turn out very close, and none of those titles are optional unless Castlevania somehow starts sucking at this point. Interesting how it's still all sequels and remakes. Whee Kirby Super Star~

Completely unrelatedly, I have determined that sleeping with a thick blanket wadded up in place of a pillow is awesome. Consider it: you can arrange it around your head, neck, and even shoulders if desired, having a wide range of possibilities in terms of shape and softness and whatever. Also the end result tends to provide some of the feeling of having a nest, which is always pleasant. Or maybe that's just me and my feral tendencies, but still.

I had a paper due last Friday, I have a paper due tomorrow (in addition to standard daily homework for that linguistics class which while interesting is often a bitch), I have a paper due the day after that. I'm an English major, baby! I'm tired but I perhaps overdid the preemptive caffeinating, so maybe I'm not that tired after all.

...Anyway, time for today's long-winded, overelaborate examination of something in fiction. I think you know the drill already. ( Well, part of it's just that I like using the word godhead. )

I like fantasy because -- well, one reason I like fantasy is because I like worlds. World-building fascinates me, as do the many subtle ways in which a setting's depth can be expressed. A world that draws me in and makes me love it never fails to impress me.

But, uh, why is that a characteristic of fantasy? Realistic fiction sure tends to have a rather large, detailed world to draw from. How come I haven't read a novel that makes me love the real world?

I don't think authors tend to try that. In a story set in the real world, the setting is a universal given -- I mean, it may be a part of the world that the target audience isn't going to be intimately familiar with, but it's at least based in something you already know of. Savvy writers may go out of their way to use this to their advantage, to use your assumptions to develop mood and theme and character. In any case, they don't have as much of an interest in selling you on a world they didn't create when their own characters and stories are vying for your attention. It's a matter of craftspersonship.

It could be that a world must be fictional to reach that effect. Even science fiction seldom compels me the same way, I suppose because it still has the underlying assumption that its worlds are connected to our own; fantasy that develops sci-fi elements later on is okay. Maybe it's not the level of life breathed into the fictional world, but the process of discovering it detail by detail. And the knowledge that, with all real-world influence cast aside, there are no realistic limits to what will come next. Maybe the best fantasy worlds are cultivated with a purpose, to explore logically the effects of an illogical premise on the people who'd be living with it. Maybe if the real world weren't invisible, it would have to be unrecognizable. (I have got to try out Shadow Hearts 2 one of these days, since I found the first one dishearteningly disappointing.) Maybe it's just me, and most people have been getting sold on the ol' Earth all along!

I adore Dragaera, and... uh... I wouldn't want to live in Westeros but it's a nice place to hear about. I like the Discworld even though I've only liked about half of its books that I've read; Terre d'Ange is an interesting entity no matter how much I wish Phèdre would shut up about how great it is. (I do not consider that to be real-world, no, although I sometimes consider it laziness.) I've been head over heels for Azeroth, although that had the unfair advantage of letting me explore it in person. When I was younger and less picky/stuck-up about these things I fell in love with the Forgotten Realms, which I'm not sure they had gotten around to giving an actual name at that point.

I've also managed to come up with worlds that fascinate me, although I've never gotten as far in fleshing them out as I'd really like. I wish I were better with the various venues by which I could explore them, but it still excites me whenever I come up with a new bit of lore that fits perfectly, even knowing I'll never use it for anything.

It would be awesome to get to do that, someday, share the creation and the love of them with other people. Maybe that's what really drives me. I love worlds and I often love characters, but I'm not so in love with stories, and that's always the part that trips me up. Ah well.

This isn't news to any frequenter of #chrono, but I picked up Etrian Odyssey this weekend after a futile battle against wanting it. It seemed like the sort of game that might compel one to play it without actually being fun as such, but the lure extended to powerful forces outside of the actual game: besides that memetic music video, I am thoroughly charmed by the internet's collective decision to refer to the Landsknecht class as Landshark. As for the game itself, all I know is that the phrase "strategic party-building" kept running through my head. (If you don't know anything about this game, it's an old-fashioned RPG all about exploring a first-person maze.)

But it is, in fact, pretty nice, though quite different from what most RPGs these days are doing. Its focus is squarely on the small scale; normal random enemies are often deadly, exploring a single hallway can comprise a successful expedition, every equipment upgrade is a cause for celebration. It's hard all right (currently my favorite skill in the game is Flee) but people who claim it's a grindfest are either changing characters too often, trying to do everything right away, or just plain bad at it. ...Or maybe further in than I. Somehow, it's both leisurely slow and incredibly tense, and it's had me yelping, cursing, and whining at my DS more than anything else yet. Surely not a game for everyone, but the sense of immediacy is more exciting than a lot of epic plotlines to save the world.

Anyhoo. I might focus on book readin' next, after this. Last summer around this time I read Kushiel's Dart and I still haven't quite decided whether I liked it enough to eventually continue the series. Maybe it would get the same effect if I just reread that.