The Skyrim Book Tag

Guess who finally decided to play Skyrim? If your answer was me, then you’d be right! 😀 It certainly took me long enough, with pretty much everyone I know going on and on about how much they thought I’d love it. And guess what else; I am absolutely loving it. XD This tag was created by The Quirky Book Nerd, and I wasn’t tagged by anyone, but I thought I’d give it a go anyway – it looks super-fun! 🙂

1) Fus Ro Dah – A book that blew you away.

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff! I read this last year, and it made me feel so many things! I laughed, I cried, I nagged all my friends to read it incessantly… 😛 It also really got me into sci-fi, a genre I’d previously been rather leery of (and which I now really enjoy). I can’t wait for the sequel!

2) Dovahkiin – Favorite “chosen one” story.

This is probably an overused answer, but as far as Chosen Ones go, nothing beats the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. 😉

3) Thu’um – A book that got a verbal reaction out of you (good or bad).

I tend to stay pretty quiet when I’m reading, but there was a point near the end of Harry Potter & the Cursed Child (during that scene between Harry and Dumbledore’s portrait) where I realised that the strange whining noise I could hear was coming from me. 😳

4) Arrow to the Knee – A book or series that started out well but ended up being disappointing.

Will I incite a lynch-mob if I say Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas? (Probably, but I’m saying it anyway.) The whole Throne of Glass series just seemed to be getting better and better as it went on, and Heir of Fire was close to perfection, but all the character-development decisions that Maas decided to make in the most recent book were a huge disappointment to me. 😦

5) Shadowmere – Favorite literary/fictional animal or pet.

I really, really love Manchee from The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness – he’s the ultimate doggy friend. 😀 I like Angharrad (a horse who appears later on in the same series) a lot, too, but Manchee still wins.

6) Alduin – Most frightening literary/fictional animal.

Hands down, it has to be Shelob from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. I deal badly enough with normal-sized spiders…

7) Companions Guild – Best literary friendship.

I don’t know if this strictly counts, since it did eventually become a romance (much to my annoyance), but one of my favourite things about Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas was the slow-burn friendship between Celaena and Rowan…

8) Dark Brotherhood – The darkest story you’ve ever read.

Probably I’m the King of the Castle by Susan Hill, a chilling story about bullying that you can’t escape from, and authority figures too blind to notice it. Everything I’ve read of Susan Hill’s has been dark, but this one was pitch black.

9) Thieves Guild – Favorite morally ambiguous character.

Locke Lamora! From the Gentleman Bastard series by Scott Lynch. He’s a conman, and does some pretty extremely questionable things over the course of the first book (the only one I’ve read so far), but I couldn’t help but love him anyway! ❤

10) Wuld Nah Kest (whirlwind sprint) – Your fastest read.

I couldn’t say for sure (I’ve read a lot of very short books, very quickly), but probably something like Kindred Spirits by Rainbow Rowell – an adorable World Book Day novella that I read in less than an hour.

11) Tiid Klo Ul (slow time) – Your slowest read.

A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin took me forever to read, mostly because it mainly featured all my least-favourite characters from the A Song of Ice & Fire series… I spent months carrying this book everywhere with me in hopes that I’d crack it open, with very little success. 😦

12) Tamriel – Favorite fictional world.

Both of Tamora Pierce’s fantasy worlds are ones that I love to get lost in, but since most of my favourite books of hers are part of the Circle universe, I’ll go with Emelan, where the Circle of Magic, The Circle Opens, and The Circle Reforged series are all set. The magic system is wonderful, the world is richly imagined, and it’s full of some of my favourite stories and characters… I really hope I get to read more from this universe soon! XD

Bonus Question:

+1) “Sworn to Carry Your Burdens” – The heaviest book you own.

A Dance with Dragons, which I own as a massive hardcover. All that carrying it around that I mentioned? My shoulders were punishing me for it long after I finally finished the book. 😳

A Different Kind of Top 5!

<- Look what came in the post this morning (or, by the time this goes up, yesterday)! XD Isn’t it a thing of beauty? I’ve been impatiently waiting for the release of Fire Emblem: Fates since I heard that it was going to be a thing, and the fateful day has finally arrived! (Pun absolutely intended.)

That said, I haven’t started it yet. I wanted to get at least one blog post written before I inevitably lose myself in all the strategising, family drama and matchmaking that awaits me in Fire Emblem-verse. 😛 But what to write about? The only thing in my brain at the moment is Fire Emblem, and since I can’t say anything substantial about Fates at the moment, instead I’m going to talk about Fire Emblem: Awakening, the game that got me hooked on this series. More specifically, I’m going to talk about my favourite pairings. Because the marriage mechanic was one of my favourite things about the game (as much as some of the older fans complain about it), and I’m really, really excited to start making new matches in Fates…! 😀

5) Maribelle & Kellam

I paired up these two on my first playthrough of Awakening, and their support conversations were cute (as supports involving Kellam tend to be), but what really sold me on them was their epilogue: Some random information on Maribelle’s future, and the words “Her husband’s name has been lost to history.” It was so surprising – and yet so fitting for Kellam, especially contrasted with Maribelle’s celebrated career – that I couldn’t help but laugh.

4) Henry & Sumia

The game pushes pretty hard to get Sumia together with Chrom (one of the two main characters), so often her other potential matches (few as they are) get overlooked, and her romance with Henry is one of the less popular ones: The only comment I’ve ever seen about them online is that Cynthia (Sumia’s daughter) looks pretty with (Henry’s) white hair. Which is true, but not why I fell in love with their relationship – that would be because of the body-swapping episode. 😛

3) Morgan & Yarne

In my first playthrough with the female version of Morgan, I was sure that I was going to love her relationship with Owain, since his friendship with male Morgan is so ridiculously epic… It ended up falling a fair bit short of my expectations, but luckily that meant that I got to discover the wonder that is Morgan and Yarne! They have an interesting dynamic, which mainly involves Morgan teasing, and Yarne trying to escape from her, and I really enjoyed the hilarity of it.

2) Lissa & Lon’qu

This is probably one of the more common pairings on this list, as Lissa’s crush on Lon’qu is featured in the main storyline, even if you don’t unlock their support conversations. Lon’qu’s interations with all the girls in the game are quite funny, since he’s gynophobic, but I love the way Lissa’s sunny personality gradually wears him down… Also, Lon’qu makes so much sense as Owain’s father, given what happens in his and Lissa’s A-rank support!

1) Gregor & Cordelia

And at number 1, there’s Cordelia – a pegasus knight who’s head over heels for the unromancable (at least for her) Chrom – and Gregor – the cheerful mercenary who decides to help her win the affection of her love! Of all the pairings on this list, these two have the least comical relationship (you might’ve started to notice a theme with the others…), and I really love the sincerity of their affection for each other, and how naturally it seems to develop. In a lot of Cordelia’s romantic supports, I got the feeling that in the end, she just settled for Anonymous-Guy-Who-Isn’t-Chrom, whereas Gregor was able to help her actually move on. ❤

 +1) Inigo & Gerome

An added bonus, since these two can’t actually romance each other in-game – but they’re still my absolute favourite! Inigo is an incorrigible flirt, and their support conversations involve him trying to persuade Gerome to help him pick up girls, under the guise of improving their teamwork, which, naturally, works out terribly for everyone involved. What really sold me on them as a romantic couple, however, is their conversation in the Harvest Scramble DLC, where the writers exchanged undertones for bludgeoning-over-the-head, and I just about died from the cuteness. XD Also, you should really watch these wonderful dramatisations of their support conversations (C, B, A)…

Distractions!

A.K.A. The obligatory reading slump post.

A.K.A. An excuse to geek out over something other than books.

Today’s post comes to you pretty late (a whole day late, in fact!), because I’ve been super-distracted for the last week or so. I realised a couple of days ago, after my last post went up, that I didn’t have anything lined up for today – and every day since then, I’ve said to myself, “Oh, I’ll write something next time I have a spare moment.” … And then I promptly forget about it. Or rather, I get distracted by other shiny things.

Also, this is a thing that happened while I was in Skye! I’ve increased my goal since then, of course, but I’m still pretty chuffed! (Click on the image to see my challenge page.)

The thing is, I haven’t been reading all that much this month. While I was in Skye, I only managed to get through about half of The Boy Who Wept Blood (by Den Patrick) over the greater part of the week – only to binge-read the second half of it, and the whole of How to Be Bad (by E. Lockhart, Lauren Myracle & Sarah Mlynowski) on the last day of the holiday. On the way back, I started on The Ask & the Answer by Patrick Ness, and I’m really loving it so far, but it’s been six days since I started, and I’m still less than 150 pages in… (well below my usual reading pace.) I don’t think I’m in a reading slump, exactly – I don’t really get reading slumps, thankfully. I’m just really, really distracted.

And what am I distracted by, I hear you ask? Well, a lot of things, but mostly Fire Emblem! In Skye I decided to introduce my friend Chloë to the wonders of Fire Emblem: Awakening, and we spent most of the week on a cooperative playthrough (we’d play a chapter each, and have long, involved discussions on important matters like who was going to marry whom, whether it was worth resetting the game in order to save a character who’d just died, and other such things). In this way, we managed to play about half of the game before Chloë had to leave, and it was really, really fun. But watching Chloë play – and experience this amazing game for the first time – made me kind of want to do the same thing.

I couldn’t, of course. At least, not with Awakening, as I’ve already played it over and over and over (as you can probably guess, it has great replay value~ 😛 ). However, I do have one other Fire Emblem game available to me: The Sacred Stones, which I got ages ago as part of the Nintendo 3DS Ambassador programme, tried playing once, and gave up on in sheer frustration. The experience almost stopped me from even trying Awakening, which would’ve been a shame (though perhaps not for my reading list!).

Some of my favourite characters so far. Left: Tana the pegasus knight. Right: Cormag the wyvern rider. Can you tell I like flying units? 😉

So, long story short, I decided to give it another go. I’m about halfway through at the moment, and while it’s definitely still a frustrating game (and a lot harder than Awakening), I’ve only had to reset-due-to-character-death a few times so far, and I’m enjoying the storyline and gameplay mechanics. I think it suffers a little in comparison to Awakening because the lack of voice acting makes it harder to get attached to the characters, but I’ve still found a few favourites~ ❤

The very observant amongst you might have noticed that I’ve added a video games category to my sidebar, so you can probably tell that I’m planning to do more gaming posts in the future (though it’ll still be more book stuff than anything else). I might eventually add an anime category as well, as that’s another of my major hobbies…

Lastly, I have a quick poll for you. One of my resolutions this year was to write at least one detailed book or series review every month, and I’m having trouble deciding which book to review this month…

*This would be my first choice, as I feel like there’s a lot to say about it, but there would be serious spoilers for The Boy with the Porcelain Blade (which, unfortunately, I don’t have so much to say about). I feel, however, that The Boy Who Wept Blood is a better introduction to the series – The Boy with the Porcelain Blade felt very prequel-y…

**Assuming that I actually get round to reading them this month… 😳