I vowed to write more on this blog this year. One of my resolutions has been to practice my writing more, and that means I am going to be posting much more often than I did last year! I'll probably end up writing a lot of meaningless posts.
Most blog posts have an image attached to make them more visually appealing, but I couldn't think of a suitable one.
Here, take this random DiaLovers screenshot I found on my PSP.
Back during the heyday of this blog (which was only a couple of years ago, but it feels like it's been a decade) I had a lot of games to write about. My otome backlog was usually at least three games long It wasn't because I had a disposable income to spend, it was because relatives kept gifting me Amazon vouchers and PS Vita games happened to be selling at decent prices. Now the games are getting rarer, so the prices are probably going to increase significantly. I'm glad I got my Vita when I did.
Now I seem to be playing my Xbox more often than I do my handhelds. It's mainly because of the Microsoft Rewards, it allows me to get so many games for such decent prices. I played most of my Switch games to death, and until I find a good sale, I won't be purchasing anything else for it.
I haven't just stopped becoming interested in otome because of the prices. It's also partly due to time and energy. I don't have as much time to read a thirty hour visual novel anymore, due to work and school. Well, I still have some time, but my brain just doesn't feel like sitting through that stuff anymore. Due to lack of sleep and many other factors, I find that I now can't pay attention to things for very long.
I've also lost interest in newer games. Even though I've only played a small portion of the world's otome supply, I feel like a lot of them repeat the same old tropes and plot points that I've seen many times. And the games that Aksys seem to be localising aren't really my cup of tea. OK, I'll admit I played basically every single Vita otome localisation without thinking, but now that there's more choice, I've become picky. The localisation choices are always the massive games with these grand plots that they think will have mass appeal. I like plot, but I play these games for the romance and the cute boys. If I wanted just the story, I would watch anime instead. Maybe I'm a bit harsh on these games because I'm just not interested anymore.
The only otome I was actually playing was Ikemen Prince. I played it a few times at work when there was nothing to do, and then I just forgot about it. It still gives me notifications every day to get me to play again. Sorry to the one person who was probably looking forward to my Ikemen Prince route reviews.
My Japanese learning seems to be progressing slowly. I don't take the time to formally study anything, again I'm just picking up the language from TV and music. I should probably speak to a real person in Japanese one day. It makes me feel bad when I see these people drilling hundreds of kanji into their heads each week, and I'm just casually watching anime and picking up the odd few words here and there. My listening skills are much better than my reading. There are so many words I know, but I don't know the kanji for most of them. The only thing that's helping my kanji recognition right now is the fact that I am taking a university Chinese course. You are probably thinking "Misty, those are two different languages, they're not the same!!" I am well aware of that, but I believe that studying Chinese can also be useful in learning Japanese.
I also took an Arabic class. I don't think I'll be able to continue it next year. It's not a very good idea studying too many languages at once. The Arabic vocabulary just doesn't stick with me like it does with Chinese or Japanese. I only survived the final exam because the teacher decided to make it a true or false quiz. Even if I don't get very good at it, at least I can say I know a bit of it!
I'm also learning French. I have to because of where I live. I haven't studied French properly for a couple of years, so I forgot a lot of the grammar. In the past some of my teachers weren't that good, so my French suffered. It's probably my favourite language to speak, but my accent is terrible. When I speak it, I speak in such an obvious British accent. It sounds awful. I'll improve it somehow.
I don't really know what any of this has to do with the blog. It's just good to write every once in a while. Next time, I'll review a game or an anime, because that's what I enjoy doing the most. Also, I've been meaning to change the site's layout again. I never read my own blog, but I feel that the font must be super painful for others to read. Whenever I have some more free time, I'll make sure to update things.
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