Hic Sunt Dracones

 Oh man, it's been a while since I've written anything personal - or written anything at all - here. And while some things have changed, others no so much. The biggest thing was I got a new job and now am officially working full time. Which is lovely because money but sucky because all of my other projects are basically on hold forever. I have a few things I'm still plugging away on but my job is pretty creative so a lot of my energy goes to that most days. I still try and make time on the weekends to write or paint or do creative stuff for me, because it's important, but it also means things are slow to finish.

My mental health is also a bit on the rocks at the moment. I've definitely been worse but I can tell I'm in a pretty low mood, considering I don't want to bathe and I'm falling into my old habits of wanting to shop and/or sleep all day. But I am recognizing it, so 1 point to me! Its a bit like a pendulum at the moment with some days starting bad and ending okay, some starting okay and ending poorly, and some that are just good or bad all day. So, that another point to me, it's not consistent bad days in a row. However, I am looking into taking a mental health day if things aren't feeling more stable by friday, especially because I think some of this is due to job stress (working for a start-up sucks sometimes, y'all)

Hopefully this weekend I'll have something creative to post, as I am almost done with the 1st chapter of a fic for Three Houses (!!!) and I am slooooowly getting through a few novels. So maybe a review, maybe some fanfic, who knows?

Oh man... the holidays kicked my butt this year. I feel like Thanksgiving happened and then time ceased to be a concept and now, here we are an hour away from 2019. This year seemed like it was a long year. A lot happened for me: A finished my Master's, moved into my own apartment (for the first time ever), got a promotion at work. I feel sort of like an adult for the first time ever.

But with 2019 on the horizon, it's got me thinking of things I would like to accomplish. Firstly, exercise 3 days a week. My life is super sedentary and I can really start to tell. I just feel physically weak in ways I haven't before, so I want to try and build some of that back. Secondly, reading more often. Since finishing my Master's I've definitely not been reading as much simply because I got to tired of it -- which is not always great when you work in a library. But I want to start reading again and I managed to get about 10 read in 3 months, so I believe! Lastly, I want to start writing again. Original, fanfics, I don't care, I just miss exploring characters and plots and all of it. Writing for fun is liberating in a way that writing for school is strict. Both are good exercises, but I think I need to get comfortable with expressing myself in that way once more.

I also have a day planner so I can start scheduling out time to do things. Literally setting aside time in my weeks for these things. It helps to visualize them and keep some of the burden off my own brain. So yeah, I'm already making plans and trying to flexible to see which will work for me.

Either way, so long 2018. May 2019 be better than this year was.

Since things have been a little... hectic here the past 2 days I only now have gotten time to sit down and write. And as I sat down, I was looking for some music to write to and found none of the usual stuff was helping. So I thought I would ask:

What music/sounds do you like listening to while writing?

Given the recent teaser of DA4 that was released at the game awards and my lack of internet over a few days, I decided to try and play DA2 once more. I don't have the best memories of DA2. It is, by a long shot, my least favorite Dragon Age game. There's probably a couple of reasons for this:

1. I went into DA2 the same day I finished DAO. I was, at the time, fairly new to playing video games and super new at playing narrative driven rpgs. I was on such cloud 9 after finished DAO and I was looking for more of the same for DA2. I pretty much set myself up for disappointment without realizing it, as I had no idea what to expect for DA2.
2. I romanced Anders the first time through.  I had not played Awakening by this point, as I think I was having trouble getting the game to recognize it. Either way, I had seen on tumblr parts of his romance and I was intrigued. Plus, I played a mage and was super not about the templars or the Circles, so I was thought, excellent! God, that was a mistake for me. I am very open about my dislike of Anders and I'm fairly sure it was because I had such a negative reaction to his romance. An important note - I dislike Anders, but I find his character interesting in the overall narrative. Even if I do want to punch him.
3. I didn't really understand the Friendship/Rivalry system.  After DAO and the whole, "here's a present, be my friend" mechanic, I was woefully unprepared for the Friendship mechanic of DA2. DAO, I took the same 4 people with me almost everywhere. I found very quickly that some of the characters I was most interested in did not get along and would bicker.

I have replayed DA2 once before, when I did my long replay to get my save state in order for DAI. And, somehow, it went even worse than my first time playing it. I ended with only 3 companions staying. 2 of the companions that stayed were rivals. I ended up having to kill Fenris, who I also accidentally romanced. It was awful and I felt so downtrodden by the end that I closed the game and uninstalled it. Then DAI came out and I became pretty much obsessed with it.

But, lately, I've wanted to revisit DA2. I actually want to properly romance Fenris this time, as he definitely falls into the category of my type. I also am not playing as mage, which I think will more align with my ideas for the character of Hawke. Also I've never had Bethany in my party, since I've always played a mage!Hawke.

Going forward, this is going to be a series of posts were I talk about each act in more detail. Part of this is meta for theorycrafting in relation to DA4, but also to help keep my thoughts organized. Perhaps others will also find them interesting! But this part is only meant to help set the stage for my original mindset to see if my thoughts have changed. Also, it helps give anyone new here a chance to see what my experiences were before, since I have no doubt I will reference these things in future posts.

And hey, if it goes well, I may do a similar thing for the other games, though those may be more for theorycraft and meta than personal feelings, but who knows at this point. 🤷‍♀

I sort of regret using this custom style because I'm now thinking of changing it

Never edit themes at 3am kids

to make this post more important my, TO DO LIST:
write an actual about me
an intro post to sticky
make more friends

it may take a few days though because tomorrow is EPIC COOKIE BAKING DAY