Emer: This is the no-Kaidan club.

Games Played: Mass Effect 2, Harvest Moon, Animal Crossing, The Sims 4, FF:RK
Games Beat: None.

I’ve put in some solid time on Mass Effect 2 and have adjusted to the control changes. I can see why this is so many people’s favorite game — the mission system is fun as hell, characters have depth, and fighting is a pleasure. I’m impressed that Shepherd is snarky, and you know, even making the “paragon” choices often isn’t the right thing — there’s a cost to the things you decide. I ran into a very sad asaari merc who threw herself on my mercy, and I let her go. I found an audio log a bit later where she gleefully details a killing she carried out, and how happy she was about murdering people.

(Garrus: “We shouldn’t have let her go, Shepherd.” Shepherd: “…” )

Speaking of being pissed right the hell off: so, Shepherd starts the game by nearly dying, right? And she’s in a coma/stasis for 2 years while Cerberus rebuilds her. During this time everyone she loves thinks she’s dead. Fast forward to being alive: the first thing I did when I could was go to the citadel to try and find my romanced Kaidan. Literally, my first mission, ignoring everything else the Illusive man wanted me to do, ignoring the very pressing issue at hand and the countless humans being abducted by collectors. No, Shep is selfish and we took ourselves off to the Citadel. Alas, Andersen won’t tell me where he is. So, a bit later I hear he’s on Horizon, and we fly straight there, because Kaidan. I want him to know I’m alive and well and get smooches. And what does he do? Yells at me for being alive, yells at me for joining Cerberus (after the alliance basically writes me off, for one, and without letting me tell him that I’m consistently choosing things Cerberus disapproves of, using them as a means to an end). I can live with that because I’m not psyched about being tied to Cerberus either, but then. THEN, he writes me an apology where he tells me he’s just asked another chick out! WHAT THE HELL, KAIDAN.

Shep is the current president of the No Kaidan Allowed Club (because Kaidans are icky)

As an aside, this makes me think of GlaDOS:

 I’m afraid you’re about to become the immediate past president of the Being Alive Club. Ha. Ha.

Anyway, I’m just starting to get people’s personal quests (Miranda made me cry) (she’s kinda sweet underneath it all) (oh god she’s going to betray us all isn’t she), so I imagine I have a good 50 hours left in this game, if DA:I is anything to go by.

Meanwhile, Sims 4 fourth gen in the legacy challenge is all grown up and I finally got a female heir, who is currently expecting the first baby from gen 5. She’s a half alien, so I’m curious about how that will work; will her kids be 1/4 alien? Will some of them look alien and some not? I need to know. For Science. And I’m getting a little bored, so as soon as my heir starts making money in her career we will upgrade the house to a new model and I’ll get to decorate again.

Things continue their slog in FF:RK, although I feel we might be halfway there? Maybe? Growth Eggs are helping me power through, since I was starting to bump up against unbeatable dungeons. I should probably be better about doing the daily dungeons for orbs but honestly, I’d rather hack and slash. If it wasn’t for so many bosses having magic weaknesses, the only magic user I’d keep in party would be my healer (Yuna, in this case).

I found my DS last week and this week have been playing through some old soothing classics. My goal in Animal Crossing is upgrading my house as much as possible — I could make this hard by demanding a fully stocked museum, but I don’t have a year to waste. Unfortunately, in New Leaf you can upgrade your house a lot. A huge main room, three side rooms, a second floor, a basement. Luckily it’s still adorable and, I don’t know, something about running around, picking flowers and catching bugs is a joy. Ex-Mayor Tortimor just showed up which means I get to go to the Island and really make bells.

Harvest Moon’s pace might be too slow for me. I think that’s me putting stress where it doesn’t belong: I feel like I have to make all the friends, grow all the crops, collect all the things. I can’t quite shed the completionist in me, but that’s not what Harvest Moon is all about. It’s not about winning, it’s about building a life. It’s awfully sweet, anyhow, giving flowers and fish and fodder to people in return for thanks and not much else. Plus my cow has been impregnated! She’s very very broody now.