#Because i played this shit in 2020 and am only JUST now feeling the delayed visceral reaction

[eggwishing]

someday... you gotta learn when to QUIT.

[kanmom51]

Jikook - what we see is what we get

When we get to see it.

Not seeing it doesn't mean it's not there though.

Was sitting today BTS songs just playing in the background while I'm working on my post. All this shit just happening around us, around JK and JM (yes, JM is part of it, he's also affected by it all), and The truth untold comes up.

This version:

One of, if not their best performance imo. The emotion just pouring out of them.

This song. It kills me every single time. Brings me to tears every single time. JM turned away from JK singing "and I still want you" in every performance. Well, other than their last 3 in Seoul, changed by them, performed by them, ending facing each other JM singing "but I still want you". Defiant.

All about the need to wear that mask to hide your true self for fear you might not be loved for who you truly are, that you might be seen as ugly, a monster. And the two of them, changing the staging, turning to each other, looking into each other's eyes, while changing the "and" to "but I still want you"... do people understand this? The enormity of this moment?

And then this song comes up, this performance:

This was on day 2, while on day 3 we had this:

Omg, my YT logarithm is trying to kill me today.

And got me thinking about this moment we got on day 3 as well.

This love, people, this chemistry, us not seeing it as often for the lack of BTS ot7 content doesn't mean is gone. It's very much still there. We just aren't as lucky to be able to see them in that one frame as often or even at all. But when we do, there is no denying it. Even if it's for the shortest of moments.

We saw it in 2020 (have people forgot memories 2020 for god sake?)

We saw it in 2021

So much more, so little image allowance... But you can find it all in my masterlist.

We saw it throughout 2022 in their Seoul and LV PTD concerts.

And in JITB even if briefly,

And in Busan and Run BTS episodes.

And we even got a little touch of it in 2023, when there was no way of keeping them out of the frame, like in Jhope's enlistment BTB, D-Day in Seoul and even when not being in one frame, in those lives we got to enjoy when the one joined the other in their comments and even without the other even making that kind of appearance.

Letter, goddamnit.

Oh and then we had JM literally flying across the world to be with JK for his Solo debut (if only GMA concert wasn't cancelled, damn it), and them dipping off for their 4 day private trip in CT.

It's sad how short people's memories are. Really. I am reading all sorts of fanfictions being put forward as "this is what happened with Jikook over the years", stating facts that are not facts, creating non existent drama, because people love the drama.

This is a loving couple in a long term relationship. You know, that boring kind. The stable, loving, filled with respect and no drama. The one where one supports their partner when they are struggling. One where just being with each other is fulfilling (cough JK coming to JM's room in LA just to be with him in the same room for hours cough).

Funny how people are talking about them breaking up 2020-21 during the pandemic when JK literally had a slip of the tongue spilling the beans they live together, they are one household, in Run BTS episode 142 they were each gifted a knife. JK all proud and piping up "we got 2"...

JM just sitting there all quiet, smirk on his face.

Stories about breakups. Stories about sexually experimenting but no actual emotional commitment. All while ignoring the constants. Those things that are just there, all the time, whenever we do get to see them:

That electrical chemistry between those two.

The way they look at each other constant over the years.

The way they talk to each other constant over the years.

The way they touch each other constant over the years.

The way they talk about each other.

The way their interactions are so different from the others or their own with the others.

The way the others are around them, their reaction to Jikook.

All still there!!!

*PS:

I wrote this post yesterday before JK's Radiohead appearance and his TikTok post-delete.

I guess now would be a good time to repeat what the wise @ourwinterspring (yes, I'm mentioning you again, lol) once said (well a couple of days ago, that is):

Rumors are created by haters

accepted by fools

and spread by idiots

[raleighcarrera]

holiday writing requests

wow feels weird to use the post title feature sdkjfdglfkgjfkjg

ANYWAY i’m opening up winter/holiday themed writing requests for choices & twc !! my goal is to do as many of these as i can before the end of the year but i’m going to try to space them out so please be patient and i’m sorry if i don’t get to yours or if it takes awhile

and thank you all for making my time here so far in 2020 so much fun and for being so nice to me since i made this blog in may ❤�� 

if you have a specific scenario or request in mind, just send me an ask, but otherwise a list of assorted prompts i’m accepting is under the cut !!

from here - winter/cold weather prompts:

1. first snowfall 2. hot chocolate 3. ice skating 4. blankets 5. fireplace 6. fuzzy socks 7. scarf 8. snowball 9. sweater 10. snuggling 11. snowed - in 12. mistletoe 13. candles 14. winter sunrise 15. eggnog

from here - winter/holiday writing prompts:

1. mistletoe kissing booth 2. makeout sesh in front of the fire, but someone is being a tad too respectful 3. snowball fight turns flirting, turns serious, then flirty again 4. snowed in and huddling for warmth 5. home for the holidays, but my parents won’t let us share a room so we sneak out to see each other

from here - winter/holiday sentence starters:

1. “it’s cold out here, can i borrow your jacket?” 2. “warm my hands up?” 3. “look! it’s snowing!” 4. “the car won’t start...” 5. “it’s supposed to snow tonight, you should just stay here...” 6. “i haven’t felt warmth in approximately twenty-three days.” 7. “that blanket looks big enough for two!” 8. “you’re cute when you’re cold.” 9. “it smells like i just walked into cinnamon hell.” 10. “can’t we stay in bed? it’s cold outside...” 11. “you’re not getting sick again, are you?” 12. “i’ll take care of you.” 13. “don’t slip!” 14. “i may or may not have gotten tangled up in the tinsel.” 15. “so... the tree is too big to fit through the door.” 16. “last minute gift shopping is an art, and you’re not ready for it.” 17. “all i want for christmas is you.” 18. “can i open just one? pleasseeee?” 19. “don���t be such a downer, mr scrooge.” 20. “i have michael bublé’s entire discography and an unopened bottle of wine.” 21. “i couldn’t find any gelt, but we do have raisins!” 22. “please don’t burn the house down.” 23. “normal people don’t own this many candles.” 24. “that’s the ugliest sweater i’ve ever seen.”

from here - winter/holiday prompts

1. “it’s almost midnight!” 2. “yeah, uh, alcohol doesn’t go in hot chocolate.” 3. “why does the house smell like a cinnamon roll threw up?” 4. “if you throw a snowball at my face so help me.” 5. “open your present!” 6. “wanna get shit faced instead?” 7. “why is there mistletoe everywhere?” 8. “i’m still sad you won’t be home for christmas.” 9. “aren’t you afraid of setting the house on fire with all the lights?” 10. “i hope you break your ass on that ice.” 11. “wait, no one got you anything?” 12. “so... we’re kind of snowed in.” 13. “it looks like the north pole threw up.” 14. “are you sure it’s illegal to kill carolers?” 15. “you didn’t think i’d let you spend christmas alone, did you?” 16. “i told you you were going to get sick if you stayed in the snow all day.” 17. “does that stocking have my name on it?” 18. “and now the power’s out.” 19. “you’ve never had a new year’s kiss?” 20. “you’re kind of cute when you look like rudolph.”-“the reindeer?”-“no, my dentist. yes, the reindeer.”

from here - december fanfic prompts

1. a snowball fight 2. overly bundled up for the weather 3, decorating the tree 4. ruining the holiday dinner 5. secret santa gift exchange 6. unwrapping presents 7. making cookies 8. new holiday traditions 9. work holiday party 10. eating candy canes 11. traveling for the holiday 12. a holiday proposal 13. drunk at new year’s party 14. a new year’s kiss

from here - christmas/winter starters

“sorry, it’s not me, it’s the eggnog.” “just so you know, i’m kind of stuck in the christmas lights.” “looks like you’re getting coal this year.” “i just took an online quiz and it said i was on the naughty list! if it was you i could see it, but not me!” “are you seriously crying over rudolph...?”   “i just called to tell you merry christmas.” “please stop singing christmas songs.” “if you ring those dumb jingle bells one more time, i will wring your neck.” “oh my god, is that  mistletoe...?” “what kind of christmas would it be if we didn’t play in the snow?”  

from here - holiday au prompts

1. we don’t like each other, but we’re at a mutual friend’s christmas party and we keep getting caught under the mistletoe together 2. we both work at the mall’s pictures with santa event. you shouldn’t be able to look that attractive in an elf’s costume and we should not be hooking up in santa’s cottage on our break 3. why can’t you turn your christmas lights off at a reasonable hour? they’re way too bright and some of us are trying to sleep. if you won’t turn them off, i’ll turn them off myself 4. my parents keep pestering me about a boy/girlfriend, so i lied and now i need you to be my fake boy/girlfriend for the holidays 5. if you sing one more christmas song, I’m breaking the radio and kicking you out of the car. i don’t care how cute you are, i can’t take one more rendition of santa baby or all i want for christmas is you 6. you didn’t have anywhere to go for the holidays, so i invited you to come home with me as friends but my parents now think we’re dating

from here - more christmas aus

1. “i know we hate each other but it’s christmas eve and your flight was cancelled, please come inside.” 2. “i got you for secret santa so i got you this really expensive but sentimental gift that you’ve always wanted, hoping you’ll never find out it’s from me - and that i’ve been in love with you 1234567 years.” 3. person a seducing person b into taking a few steps back/backing them against the wall (”oh look, how did that mistletoe get right there?”) 4. i knitted you a jumper/mittens/scarf 5. “we were playing in the snow and you suddenly tackled me to the ground and now... we’re just... staring... at each other...” 6. "our christmas party turned into a tropical theme because the radiator is broken and it’s hotter than hell in here - damn you look good without a shirt, i never noticed before asgdhfjgkhl” 7. “we’re co workers who hate each other but you had too much to drink at the staff christmas party and admitted your love for me i don’t know how to act around you now.” 8. TEACH ME HOW TO SKI (lol jk i know how you’re just so fucking cute) 9. PULLING YOU IN FOR A KISS WITH A SCARF 10. “i did that annoying thing where i put loads of smaller boxes inside one big box and you’re getting really mad but you don’t know that the ring is in the smallest box and i can’t wait to see your face”

from here - christmas/holiday starters

1. “woah, someone drank too much egg nog.” 2. “i can’t believe i’m all alone during the holidays.” 3. “i hate snow. and smiling children.” 4. “if i hear one more christmas song, someone is getting strangled with tinsel.” 5. “the limit was $20, people. why do I see an iPhone?” 6. “i know who got me this. there’s only one person who knows me this well. it’s you.” 7. “this is really corny... but you’re already a gift to me.” 8. “have i been naughty this year?” 9. “oh, i’d ride in your sleigh.” 10. “your eyes twinkle like tree lights.” 11. “great, now my flight is delayed…” 12. “how am i supposed to get home in this weather?” 13. "do these dreidel cake pops look pinterest-y enough?” 14. “it’s not a ‘made-up’ holiday. all holidays are made up.”

from here - new year’s starters

1. “will you kiss me at midnight?” 2. “here's hoping the new year is better than the last.” 3. “this is the perfect way to ring in the new year.” 4. “i don't feel well...” 5. “did you just kiss me?” 6. “the stars are prettier than the fireworks.” 7. “let's ring in the new year right.” 8. “are you drunk?” 9. “can we go home?” 10. “hold my hand.” 11. “i think i drank too much.” 12. “let's get a cab.” 13. “you look silly.”

from here - cold weather starters

1. “it’s hand holding season.” 2. “i got the biggest blanket for us to share.” 3. “your cheeks are so red; it’s so cute!”  4. “this scarf isn’t big enough for two people.” 5. “maybe if i kiss you, you’ll feel warmer.”  6. “hug me; i’m cold and love you.” 7. “are you cold? let’s cuddle, it’ll make you warmer.” 8. “what time is it? don’t answer, it’s christmas.” 9. “if it snows, wake me up.” 10. “christmas songs this early?” 11. “please stay warm; i don’t want you to get sick.” 12. “i refuse to let you go – i’m cold.” 13. “it’s icy outside – also, can you help me limp to the couch?” 14. “i don’t need mistletoe to kiss you.” 15. “i’m glad I get to spend this season with you.” 16. “are you shivering?” 17. “i ran you a bath since it’s freezing outside.” 18. “stay in bed with me, it’s warmer here.” 19. “i don’t understand how you love this kind of weather so much.” 20. “are you blushing or cold?” 21. “oh, darn, i seem to have forgotten my mittens – please warm my hands?” 22. “i don’t think cold weather is an excuse to drink ten times more coffee.” 23. “well, you can never have too much hot chocolate.” 24. “i’m gonna stay up and wait for it to snow.” 25. “being with you makes the season even better.” 26. “since it’s cold should i start calling you ‘snow angel’?” 27. “are you going to share this coat with me all night?”

[adhdvane]

Talking about GW/U&F Under the Cut because it’s gunna be a long ramble

S here’s my rankings (I want to save these and post them in this entry for myself, I want to better keep track of how much I do so I can keep a log of how much stupid effort I end up putting into this godda.mn event each time to see how my progress goes) Individual:

i’m like both proud and dead (ignore dark team, this was fire favored but final rally zeus is light, so kill him with dark team). i could solo nm 100 just fine, like much better than pervious events, including the last wind gw in June 2020 (which does tell me hey, you’ve improved a lot on your fire team in the past year), it’s just soloing nm 100 took like ~10 minutes and required me paying attention. by day 3 burn out was real (despite there being no 24 hours interlude this year because of server issues delaying prelims, lol let me tell you when i went to check the prelims on my break to find out oops sorry we’re delaying prelims a day bc ppl had issues last night when we started at 3 am your time, rip). nm 95, you see, that i could make a full auto team for and just summon the devil and skill cast a couple of the skills click attack and then full auto, and ignore the game for like 4 to 4:40 minutes. so while i did do some nm 100 runs, i mostly defaulted to nm 95 (on another note i could 1 turn nm 90 with my break/od team bandit tycoon/5* tien/summer bea/5* zeta and so during prelims and round 1 that felt really good). on the one hand it hurts that i ignore my main fire set ups for favor a full auto team (rb/sieg/heles/izmir) but like how else do i survive doing that many godda.mn raids without total burn out (and i mean the only difference is playing relic buster instead of lumberjack so no using my prized ullikummi and swapping tien out for heles bc tien is less full auto friendly bc you don’t want her buff skill activating before her damage. also i mean it was nice to let heles get exp so i got her to lv 100 during the event bc i’d leveled her to 95 prior. she has some good damage nukes, and her additional atk/def down stackable meant coverage when sieg or izmir’s didn’t land properly). besides i still got to use my main fire set up and ullikummi when i did the nm 100 runs (look i love my fire ullikummi + lumberjack i will never shut up about how good it is and how happy i was i went through with it originally for a harp memeing only to discover WOW ITS JUST REALLY GOOD FOR MAINHAND PERIOD EVEN WITHOUT HARP MEMEING GRID). sure running nm 95 was. technically not optimal in terms of time/meat/tokens/honors but it was fckin optimal for my SANITY.

crew (day 4 at top - day 1 at bottom):

first of all slkdfsjk can’t believe i actually stayed above top 30,000. WOW THAT IS DEFINITELY A FIRST. third slkdjgsldf 3 of 4 won, one day i’ll get 4 of 4. tbh surprised i managed to win the last one (THE ONE AT THE TOP) (i was... i was raiding from 3 pm - 4:40 am it was bad... i wanted to hit the 400mil individual mark for the reward bc i was close and like it would suck if i was only a little bit away)... it did feel good to actually win some though, i haven’t had victories in a while because despite the fact every gw i was definitely getting more honors than i had the previous one it was getting harder to solo shit when i’m against crews with multiple ppl participating. (HELL LAST GW, THE WATER BOSSES, WAS THE FIRST TIME I ACTUALLY MANAGED TO GET BACK INTO FCKING MAKING THE SOLO C TIER AFTER SEVERAL GW WHERE IT DIDN’T HAPPEN BECAUSE THERE WAS A BIG LEAP IN HOW MANY HONORS THAT 36,000 CREW HAD AT THE BOTTOM. also like lol at work so i can’t really start doing prelims until i get home bc i decided i wanted sleep in the morning)

other:

:) oh boy a single sunlightstone shard that’s going to sit there forever and never do anything bc how the fck am i ever going to do this 10 times. draw box fcking 50 is what i’m on. it takes 10k to empty. i would need 8k more tokens. i would get 100 tokens per extra zeus run.... im not doing 80 more zeus runs... i’ll .... just have to hit “toke draw 100 times” 21 times to use the rest of the tokens which is annoying. i guess. AND NOW WE COME TO THE REASON WHY I PUT SO MUCH GODDAMN EFFORT INTO THIS GW. gbf is a bastard man that wants me to 5* the rest of the eternals (5 of them) before i can transcend shisu to 140 ( ´•̥̥̥ω•̥̥̥` ) i hate it. so in order to get enough rev weapons to work on my next 5* i needed to 36 box for fif (i have 1 fully uncapped copy of her rev from when i was initially going to have to recruit her normally but then seeds of redemption happened in 2020 and i got her free + 50 five-star fragments, since i already had a fully uncapped copy i thought fine she’ll go next bc less weapons needed and also i have one of every other element 5* so i wanted to do her or song either way. plus maybe if i can 5* her i can actually go do that gilbert quest lol). i WOULD HAVE LOVED TO BOXED NW QUARTZ. I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO HAVE BOXED NW QUARTZ AFTER I 36 BOXED HER. BUT I KNEW IF I DID THAT, I WAS PROBABLY GOING TO INEVITABLE HIT BOX 46 BC OF THE RATE I WAS GOING AND IT WOULD FORCE ME BACK TO REV STAFFS AND I’D END UP WITH EXTRA COPIES WHEN I COULD HAVE BEEN STARTING THE NEXT SET I NEED. so instead of boxing the quartz i wanted after i switch to harps and IT sUCK. also depending on if i get the harp draw from the 2000 token i have left... i might continue zeus farm until i get it bc then at least i’ll have an even uncap on my harps (4 fully uncapped, bc i actually had a 1* harp in stash already.... bc those were FROM RANDOM DROPS I’D GOTTEN FROM GW IN THE PAST)

uhg anyways... this was like one of the first times in like a very long time that i didn’t fully burn out by day 3/4. i pushed through to the end like a godda.mn maniac. even in my early days i often just went lol im done on day 4... last gw i thought i was insane bc i got like ~158mil total honors (and EARTH IS LIKE ARGUABLY MY LEAST DEVELOPED). and this time i got over 400mil :) next one is going to be hell because my wind has be improved to 100% double tia crit and i have a my developed full auto team. oh fcking boy. 

[sarah-blue-eyes]

2020 In Review

Hoo boy, here we go.

[Ok just before I begin. I had this queued to post in the first month of January but it doesn’t seem like that ever happened haha. Better late than never I suppose!]

So I am a nostalgic bitch, and since 2011, have loved to make memory boxes for each year, where I put trinkets and memories into a shoebox. This year I have continued that tradition, but I have also kept track of my happy memories throughout 2020 in my planner. This was done with the intention for me to upload a year-in-review sort of thing in hopes that maybe like, 3 people max on this god-forsaken site will read it. This sort of reminiscence was inspired by my friend @a-lbeit​, who has done these for a few years now and me, as a slut for nostalgia, was encouraged to do the same back in January (I think? What even is my memory at this point?)

2020, as it has been for many, was a very shit year, and I am no different. I would safely say that this year has undeniably been the worst I have lived through. But I am here. I am present. And I have made it through some of the darkest times to face 2021 with a new sense of hopefulness. Keeping track of my happier memories has been something that has truly got me through this clusterfuck of a year, so I am glad that I can finally go through them all again and share them with you.

Read it, or don’t, I don’t give a shit what you do with your time, but if you do, I hope that you aren’t bored to tears. And I hope to keep myself accountable to continue to do this for years to come.

Buckle up, grab a hot drink and a snack and get comfy, because this is a JOURNEY.

January:

· Kicked the new year off with hosting a 1920’s themed party with some of my closest friends at my family home at the beach. Had fun with drunk SingStar, playing What Do You Meme, creating a playlist with everyone’s top 3 songs of the decade (it was a bangin’ playlist I must say), and just overall drinking too much and having a riotous time

· I remember going to the beach New Year’s Day (as is tradition in Australia) and playing ultimate frisbee in the shallows and completing a crossword puzzle on the sand (I am a 75-year-old woman, it is just a fact of life)

· I also had my friend Kirsten from South Australia stay with me for the New Year’s period and it was lovely to have a guest over! I haven’t spoken to her much this year, she sort of fell off the face of the planet, but I hope she is doing ok.

· Went town to Torquay (a beach town in Victoria) for the 6th time for Beach Mission, which is essentially a holiday program for kids in preschool-year 9 where we run activities for them. It’s a Christian-based program but the aim isn’t to convert the kids or anything like that, it’s more to show God’s love to them through our actions and how we as Christians live our lives. It’s also a convenient way for parents to dish their kids off for a few hours too haha. This was my final year of being a part of this program, and I am so pleased to have made so many memories and (hopefully) impacted many children’s lives during my time there

· I remember going on a late-night beach walk with my boyfriend Josh, talking about what the year had in store for us. We were just sitting on the beach, as you do, and I saw a shooting star. I can’t remember what I wished for (if anything) but in that moment, life was a dream.

· The week after beach mission I started at my new internship! It was for a place called KidsCo, who run school holiday programs at workplaces, so parents don’t need to take time off work to look after them. I helped with client relations and a lot of behind-the scenes stuff. I really loved it there

· On the very first day of my internship I remember there was torrential rain, and the train home was delayed by like, an hour or so lol

· One of the best parts about interning at KidsCo was that they were the official child-minding service for the Australian Open. I make an effort to go each year, but I was lucky enough to get free ground-entry for me and a guest for the duration of the event. I went quite a few times and got to take my mum and Josh along as well.

· Saw my only concert of the year, The Veronicas, at the Australian Open. When I say the moment the violin riff at the start of Untouched absolutely went the fuck off is an understatement. Grade 5 me would have cried (and 23 year old me did a little bit too tbh.) Yet another of one of my “all-time-favourite-songs” that I’ve had the pleasure of hearing live. (I also went through the year feeling sad that this was the first time in 11 years I hadn’t gone to a concert, but this one certainly fell through the cracks)

· Started planning my trip to the UK to see my twin sister, and best friend, Jess

· Went away to Rye for the Australia Day weekend #changethedate. An excellent time with excellent mates, and went to the beach pretty much every day and got mindlessly sloshed every night

· Listened to the Triple J Hottest 100. I think 4 of my picks made it in, which was pretty good

· Continued my job as the office manager/events coordinator at my church

February:

Basketball started back after the summer break for my two different teams, The Vikings and The Wildcats (honestly such a highlight of this year with how the rest of it ended up going)

As a team-bonding activity at KidsCo we hired a boat for a few hours and I got more drunk that I had been for a while. It was a very fun time jetting down the Yarra, waving drunkedly at the people jogging by

For Valentine’s day Josh and I had an indoor picnic with our favourite food! The weather was shit for Feb, hence the indoor nature of the picnic

Saw Shrek the Musical with two of my closest pals, Bec and Katie (I honestly forgot that this happened in 2020 hahaha) but it was ICONIC

Had a Jackbox night with The Boys

Had my cousin Amy from England over for dinner! I hadn’t seen her in 5 or 6 years, so it was so lovely to connect again like no time had passed at all

Went to Healesville Sanctuary, a lovely conservation park which focuses on preserving and educating its visitors about Australian animals, with Amy

 Went to mini-golf for a friend’s birthday on the leap day. He technically celebrated his 6th birthday which was excellent

Saw Cody Ko and Noel Miller live with Bec and Katie

Finished working at the church office to make room for the potential job opportunity at KidsCo

March:

Ahhh March, you shitstorm of a month. This is where everything started going downhill.

The first thing of note that happened this month was me injuring my ankle at basketball, which had me out of action for a few weeks. It was especially bad because I was nearing the end of my internship and was hoping to do my best work so that I would be chosen to stay on as an employee, but had to take a week or so off to rest my ankle. My ankle would continue to be tender and sore for most of the rest of the year

Went away for the Labour Day long weekend with the family

Finished up my internship at KidsCo. Honestly was lead to believe that I would be staying on as an employee and felt sort of betrayed after all the work I did for them, but whatever

 Had a party at Bec’s house to listen to Triple J’s Hottest 100 of the Decade. One of my favourite songs was number 1 which was a pleasant surprise

Went down to the holiday house for a few days just to have so me time and sort myself out

Animal Crossing New Horizons came out haha. Honestly was one of the highlights of this year though. I stayed up until midnight so I could download it as soon as it was available because that’s the sort of person I am  

Mum’s birthday dinner with Dani, one of my best friends, and her girlfriend Amy

Went for a hike at Sugarloaf Reservoir with Josh and got spooked by a mob of kangaroos

April:

My mental health started really taking a downward spiral this month for multiple reasons which I won’t get into here, but this is more a note to my past self to say that it will all be ok I guess? Idk I just felt like this needed to be here

Did my ankle badly again on Good Friday

Watched the Overwatch League live with my friends and just memed in the livechat lmao

WARNING - this is a bit TMI but I am going to share anyway since it was a big part of this year, and if you are reading this you are either a stranger or a good friend so I really don’t care lmao: This month I also started to get bad pains in my uterus, like, not period pains but deep, stabbing pains. This continued on for the next few weeks without me doing anything about it, except for increasingly getting stressed about it, although I will talk a bit more about this later.

Josh and I celebrated our 6th year together which was ~wholesome~

Called my friend Ashley from the US and just caught up. It was nice to see her face again. She is a good egg. I haven’t talked to her since but I really hope she’s ok.

May:

Watched Star Wars with Josh and his family for “May the 4th”

Started a volunteer job at Kivuli, a non-for-prophet that is based in Kenya, and started helping out with their website and social media stuff

Zoom movie time with my friends, we watched How To Train Your Dragon I think? Athough everyone was talking over the movie so I didn’t really get anything out of it

Played Scattergories (one of my favourite games) with Bec and Jess on zoom and just wrote really stupid and funny answers and I remember this being just what I needed

Went for a long walk with mum and one of her friends and her daughter on a track we don’t usually go on, which was a nice change of scenery

Went down to the holiday house for the first time in forever since restrictions were eased, at least for a little while lol, with the fam

Went to Portsea for a walk along the beach with Bec and her husband Trevor

Did an online trivia night that night with a big bunch of friends

Had a doctor’s appointment to see what was goin’ on down there. Honestly freaked that it could be something REALLY bad. Got booked in to have an ultrasound the next week, so at least I’d be finding out what was wrong soon.

The day after I got my results was the 21st of May, the day my mum and I were meant to be flying out to the UK to see my sister and her boyfriend. It was already hard enough a month or so before when I had to cancel my flight, but this day was so SO difficult. I can’t remember the last time I cried so hard. I am so blessed to have a boyfriend like Josh though. He was by my side the whole day, and held me as I cried. Oh man I am crying as I write this now, it was such a hard time but I know I will see my sister again.

And then the day after THAT whole ordeal was my birthday, which was meant to be spent in London with Jess but it turned out to be the first birthday we’ve had apart. This day was also hard, but made better by being with loved ones and having dinner at my grandma and grandpa’s house. Grandma’s roast potatoes make everything better.

Went to Geelong to see the other side of my family, it was so good to see my nan again. I love her very much.

Went to the Briars with Bec and went on a lovely nature walk and saw a lot of little wallabies and even an emu

Had an ultrasound and my pain turned out to be a 10cm wide cyst!!! So fun!!!!! Thank the heavens it wasn’t a child. I was so relieved. It is still in my body so that’s cute tho.

June:

Applied for a bunch of jobs, and even got a few interviews! Still no job.

The absolute highlight of this month, and maybe even the whole year, was going away to Lake’s Entrance and Yarram with mum, dad and Josh. It was so good to go to the country, I love country towns so much and the wildlife and nature is so beautiful in the eastern part of Victoria. If you ever get the opportunity I recommend going there!

We ate so much nice food and just relaxed. It wasn’t a perfect replacement for not going to Europe, but it was something at least.

Did more work for Kivuli which kept me busy

Went to Bec’s house to bake a cake. She came out to me as bi this day too, and the cake was coloured like the bisexual flag!

Started a short course through the university I went to in Facebook for Business. It was a great way to build up my skills.

Played Animal Crossing with Dani’s little sister, Tami, a very wholesome time

Looked after Josh’s dog Jed while his family went away for the weekend (also went into the start of July) and was honestly the greatest time

July:

Halfway through the year. Thank fuck.

Had another job interview

Went on lots of walks

Was just generally cold

Did a lot of cleaning

Painted the downstairs rooms at church, which took a few days and a lot of back pain, but it’s cool to think that I was able to contribute my energy and time to something while I was not feeling good at all

The restrictions were tightened again, meaning that I couldn’t go further than 5kms away from my house, except to see Josh, so this was a really lonely time for me.

Really got into Masterchef with mum this season. They had all returning contestants from other seasons so that was really fun to watch.

Got and assembled a new couch upstairs that I can say I actually own myself. I absolutely love it.

More walks, despite the cold

This was a very uneventful month, but that’s ok!

August:

Had a call with the hospital I’ll be having my cyst surgery with. It was good to know that things would be started. I had to have a blood test and a second ultrasound then put on the waiting list for surgery. Still no sign on when that will be happening though 6 months later. Just so lucky to live in Australia where all of these appointments are free.

Went for a really nice long walk with Josh. Got shat on by a bird.

Did lots of stuff around the house, just tidying and watering the plants and sorting through my wardrobe to purge all the clothes I grew out of

Had an online Switch games night with some friends which was fun. We played Smash Bros. and Mario Kart and just had a great time!

Ok this sounds super lame but my favourite podcast, The Jenna & Julien Podcast, finished forever which came as a surprise and was just really sad. I really hope it comes back one day.

Did my tax return lmao

Baked rice puff/marshmallow bar things

Made an ASOS order to fill my happiness with material things. Did get some cute clothes and lingerie tho 😉

More games with Bec and Jess, we played Golf With Your Friends this time

Had a cocktail night with Josh, where we just made a bunch of fun cocktails and got drunk. I can’t wait to live with him so we can do this all the time.

Lots of Kivuli work, as we are planning for our 10th anniversary fundraising event

September:

Baked cookies, which was something I did a lot at the start of lockdown but sort of drifted away from. I absolutely love to bake.

Started working for Media-Wize, a small PR company that was started by someone I know at church.

Started playing Among Us at the start of the month

So many Among Us nights omg, just call me queen impostor please

Did my induction for Media-Wize

Got  n e r v o u s  because I kept getting things wrong in my new job. I always seem to fuck up the good things and opportunities that I get

Did a livestream reading of The Great Gatsby on my friend’s Twitch stream. It was really fun and something I had never done before. I voiced Tom Buchannan, which was interesting but cool to sort of get into the character. I hope to do something like this soon.

I burnt my hair while cooking dinner and had to give myself a haircut lmao. It was the first time since 2018 that I had cut it so it was a long time coming anyway.

So much Media-Wize work. It felt good to finally be getting paid to do a job

Got locked out of my bathroom so I had to climb up the laundry chute to unlock it from the inside, all because a fly outsmarted me (it’s a long story… and honestly best told by speaking it)

October:

Had the Kivuli 10th anniversary livestream. Lots of work went into it and it was so much fun! It’s incredible that a non-for-profit that has benefitted so many children and families is still going strong. Such a blessing to see.

Dad’s birthday, and we had a picnic with grandma and grandpa and saw them for the first time since lockdown was somewhat lifted

Walked to Beasley’s nursery with Josh and got a coffee. This was the first proper, not McCafe coffee I had had in months and it was SO good

Played Animal Crossing with Dani

More Among Us, a theme for the last few months of 2020

Watched the AFL Grand Final. Wasn’t super exciting this year tbh, especially since we couldn’t have a BBQ or party or anything, but hopefully next year will be different

Nearly moved out of home with a friend of a friend, but since I didn’t have a job, didn’t think it would be a wise decision. Would’ve been nice though

Did some more Media-Wize work. I haven’t been given anything to do since this time though, so I don’t know what’s going on with that? They really be ghosting me tho.

Applied for JobSeeker so I would at least be getting a little income

New Jackbox came out, and had a games night with The Boys playing all the new games

Voted in the local election

Went to Westerfold’s Park with Josh for a lovely long walk

Played lots of The Sims 4 (but tbh I have been doing this all year)

November:

This month things sort of started to turn around, as Covid wasn’t hitting my state hardly at all, so I was actually able to see family and friends again!

Went to my old primary school with Dani and played basketball and just shot around and talked. She also came over for dinner. It was so nice, and she is a true friend.

Had a picnic at the park at the top of the street with my dad’s side of the family, all together at last

Melbourne Cup Day, not that I really care but it’s nice to get a day off. Went on a day trip to the Dandenong mountain range. It was so, so nice and bought some lovely little things from local shops, went for a bushwalk and had a bakery lunch

Went to the park to throw the frisbee and kick the footy around with Josh and his friends, although they are my friends too tbh

Had a picnic with a group of friends that I hadn’t seen since January, so it was so, so good to catch up with them and have a delicious BBQ dinner

My favourite online comedy group, Aunty Donna’s Netflix series came out! Had a virtual watch party with a few friends and binge watched it all in one go

Had lunch with grandma. This used to be a weekly occurrence but for obvious reasons was put off for this year. I absolutely adore her and every lunch we spend together is so precious to me

Went to Kyneton with some of the family as another day trip

Christmas shopping time again. So weird to be at the shops and feel sort of normal? I went 4 different times in the span of a week and a half haha

Josh’s birthday! We went to this maze place with has a bunch of big mazes and other fun activities. It was such a perfect day. Then we had dinner with his family.

Got a letter from the IRS saying that I needed to provide them with proof of identity, so that was fun trying to sort that out. We love the outdated US tax system <3

Went to a bridal shower for my friend Katie

Went for another hike with Josh to the mountains

Drove down to Geelong for a friend’s wedding and stayed at my nan’s house

Had a pub dinner and Jackbox night while down in Geelong with The Boys

A good friend of mine was leaving to live in Japan for two years, so I went to her house one last time to say goodbye and chill in her pool and just hang out

God why is it so hard to get a job?

December:

Omg we have made it to December. It truly is a miracle with how this year went tbh. And if you have read this far, thank you but also, how little of a life do you have?

Went to my friend Katie’s wedding. Sort of surreal to go to a wedding during a pandemic but it was fun and I got to see a lot of friends I hadn’t seen in a while

Enjoyed the hot weather and went to the beach a number of times with a variety of friends

Went Christmas shopping, and just shopping in general since it was safe to and shops had finally opened again

Got a job at a talent agency where you get gigs as a paid extra in TV shows and movies, which was pretty cool! I even had a professional photoshoot to get headshots done, something that I had never done before. Glad that I could get some pictures to use on LinkedIn though haha. Still haven’t been cast in anything but here’s hoping.

Had dinner and drinks with Josh, Bec and Trev in the city for the first time since it reopened. God I love Melbourne so much. It is just so magical on balmy summer nights. This was such a special evening, and was so good just to be in the city again

Had a lovely day with Dani, starting with breakfast and then going on a hike before the weather got too hot. We went to Sherbrooke Forest, a place I hadn’t been before, and it was incredibly beautiful

Had a number of job interviews this month too, none of which got back to me which was annoying :/

Now it was heading into the time where every weekend is packed with Christmas do’s so I’ll just collate them in this point. Lots of drinks were consumed and many delicious roast dinners

Had our annual Christmas Carol’s service at church. It was a blessing to be back in the building for the first time since March, and to be able to do something I love (singing) with some of my best friends was the best

Christmas eve I went to my grandma and grandpa’s house (on dad’s side) to help them set up for Christmas lunch. Spending time together just the three of us is so special, and I am so glad I was able to come over and just chat and be in their loving presence. Then that night I went to our 11pm church service to bring in Christmas day. It was a great service and was great to see our kick-ass minister give a sermon face-to-face.

Ok here we go, Christmas was a doozy, let’s go. So Christmas lunch was, as I said, with my dad’s side of the family, which is always a great time. Cracking open crackers and fighting over who’ll get the bottle opener or nail clippers is always a highlight haha. But we had the fucking best roast potatoes I swear. I need to know what my grandma puts into them because I could genuinely eat 20 of them and still have space. Then the rest of the afternoon was spent in a food coma until I went to Josh’s house to spend dinner with his family. Another delicious meal and great banter was what I needed, although I can safely say that I put on at least 5 additional kilos after that day.

The next day the fam and I headed to Geelong to see my mum’s side of the family. Was a great drive down and I listened to all of The Avalanches new album which had just released. Easily the greatest album of the yeah hands-down. So we spent lunch there and absolutely stuffed ourselves with more food. Three Christmas meals really took a toll on me, but I am just blessed as it is to have a loving family and food on the table.

The next day dad, Josh and I headed to the beach to spend that weird time between Christmas and New Year’s. To get there we took the ferry that goes from Queenscliff to Portsea, which is always a fun time, since we don’t often go from one side of the bay to the other (if you don’t know the geography of Victoria I apologise lmao). Mum didn’t come with us as she had some symptoms of Covid, so went home to isolate and get tested. Thankfully she tested negative and she joined us the next day.

Once I got back home I had to prepare the house for my friend Jono who was visiting for new years from SA. Many last-minute chores and cleaning was done haha.

New Years Eve! Went to pick up Jono and my other friend Sarah from the airport and dropped Sarah off at her accommodation and ended up staying there with Jono for a while as this was where the New Year’s party was going to be. Although, in true Victorian fashion, our premier announced that there was going to be a limit of 15 visitors at any house from 5pm that night. Excellent. We love a last-minute change of plans. So we had lunch and spent the afternoon at my friend’s house before heading to a local park to chuck the frisbee and kick the footy around. We also had our second annual NYE trivia competition, which my team lost by 1 point!! Dang I get so competitive, but we will win next year, I can feel it. The new year came through uneventfully, we were in the middle of a game of Scattergories or something like that when someone changed the channel on the TV to see the Sydney fireworks across the screen and like, 4 second left of the countdown. I gave Josh a bog ol’ smooch and gave my friends a big hug. We had done it. 2020 was defeated.

Conclusion (damn this really be an essay tho)

This year was undeniably the hardest year I had ever been through. Going through unemployment for the majority of the year and having no sense of purpose hit me hard but I am entering 2021 with the hope and willingness to get on track with my career. And I think I will be successful. A lot of truly awful things happened around the world this year as well, with the devastating bushfires at the start of the year, the powerful BLM protests, Coronavirus absolutely destroying lives and many, many other global events but through it all, here we are. I hope you all keep well this year and that your 2021 is infinitely better than your 2020.

Song of the Year: Tangerine – Glass Animals

Album of the Year: We Will Always Love You – The Avalanches (I CANNOT stress this enough, but you absolutely must listen to this album!)

TV Show of the Year: The Mandalorian - Season 2

Movie of the Year: Bombshell (the only movie I saw at the cinemas so didn’t have much to go with)

Memory of the Year: Going away with my family and just enjoying time away with each other

Thank you for reading this, if you’ve made it this far, you’re a real one <3

[tripstaysnoided]

Flow Just Like Water

Story and writing-related transparency update and my many shames...

The Question on Everyone’s Mind

“Hey you haven’t updated No Stars over Uptown in almost a year...”

Hmm, I hate it when you’re right. (This section has been rewritten ad-nauseam to curb back the bitchiness by the way)

So back in early/mid 2018, the idea was to divorce Uptown from a person who influenced it (and myself) heavily. She was my most important audience member, the closest friend I ever had, and unfortunately someone who used her power to bully, ostracize, and hurt others with my help. I cut contact when the hurt + some self-awareness finally reached me. Apologies were made and I feel like my work will never be done with it, but there was still Uptown.

Between censored comments, entirely recasting Axel’s save, different plot threads, and a load of disclaimers, there was nothing that would scrub her influence from the story. There was no way to cleanly drop everything because of how deep her influence went. It disgusted me to look back at it, and I had to private the blog because I feared what it endorsed, even if just in the past.

I pulled back from that sims writing community. I had its main thread on the Official Forums removed too (I guess if that was a mystery to anyone). It was a surrender that I never wanted to do, but I had it in my mind that if I was gone, then she wouldn’t be there either. Uptown became this cursed item, and as I quietly retired it, I noticed that she went quieter too. Not gone, but enough to make me sleep easier at night and even occasionally say hello to old friends.

And I hope deep in my heart that no one else is getting hurt in my place, but now this is gonna haunt me all day huh!

The two paths forward...

1) Complete Uptown rewrite that I’ve been threatening everyone with all year. While it won’t ever be clean because I can’t undo time, I do have a sound outline for a story that is much more true to my actual vision and how I’ve evolved, with a few necessary boundaries in place that are going to be there for all stories moving forward: no more casting calls and no more collaborative efforts. I am not going to open myself up to this happening again, even if the people have changed.

2) Same as above, but I continue the original Uptown as a favor to loyal readers alongside the rewrite. I would try to put the effort into it that I initially did, but with no promises on an update schedule and no advertising. I did ask myself “is there Patreon but without pledging money, just the private posts function” but it could operate as part of a private forum, a members-only part of a website, etc.

Also readers of the original would be beholden to a rule of “don’t spoil the rewrite for new readers, c’mon guys”. I mean, not really, but it is a good courtesy to extend to people.

Priority on this isn’t high but you at least will see what is!

I will probably make the blog public again either way due to the many broken links on my Tumblr but we’ll see. There are other things to deal with as I shall list!

Where Life’s Been Regardless

Been spending more time with my grandpa every weekend. Life’s pretty good and he’s warming up to my dogs.

Shiny New Webbed Site

Cucumber Fields Forever is a site I own now. We have a full domain, cucumberfieldsforever.com, a blog with one post, and the framework needed to host stories the way I want to and still through WordPress. The functionality of likes, comments, and following should still be the same but you know...I’ll take feedback too...

The main blog still has an undefined purpose though I do have drafts sitting around about:

The maybe/maybe not hoax band that was on the Metal Archives and the history of Funeral Doom Metal.

The curious case of when Sims 4 babies get their genetics and my only collaboration (read: was talking about it with a friend and might quote her if needed, it’s actually a bit of a doozy)

Amazon.com’s fake dried udon noodles, an actual issue by the way.

Things I’m reading! (This’d be a monthly feature if so)

For the sake of unity, I am thinking of solutions for hosting old and shameful content there including Uptown and for the real fans in my followers feed, Eight Cicadas...a world I totally have plans for too (not really). I don’t want them to be front-and-center, and that’s why I mentioned forums/members-only content. I finally have that power! Maybe.

Ooooh but what are the costs? Not too much to handle, that’s what. 😉 (Like really, I don’t need any hand-wringing about this, I can manage my finances)

Project Queue (In Order of Confirmedness)

Outrun the Scythe: have you seen me post out-of-context Sims 3 pictures? Did you want more? Did you hope it was Linda in Custody? If the answers are yes, yes, and “meh, whatever you want”, then you’re in luck.

Outrun the Scythe is a Sims 3-based tale of a young gay man and his zombie grandma, as they are both offered separate roles of being the undying intermediaries between the world of humans and the influence of a race of space daemons. It’s pretty familiar if you’ve been following me pre-Uptown, taking some cues from stories I’ve kept under lock and key like Eight Cicadas, The Chains of Lyra, and the not-so-locked-up Ironstar Immortals (of which Outrun is just the direct sequel to sans any retconning...ah the smell of early 2013 and performative heterosexuality)

Ah, back to my roots.

It’s a hybrid of gameplay, story, and lore about my little race of daemons with a lot of my own idiosyncrasies that I’m not really ashamed of: basing it off a super-polarizing Sims 3 challenge from a site I moderate, using a lot of EA’s pre-made townies and their genes, lots of unnecessary posemaking, stupid references. It’s a comfort to have in my roster.

While the first few chapters are in the middle of revision, I have around six in the queue and will be making this public when I have ten. I’m guessing December then?

Undocumented Black Widow Challenge: I just did this for fun/forum kudos (yes, in fact I have joined many forums), there was going to be a short story but it was quickly becoming something against my code of ethics. I mean, sims die and all. (read: I had to choose between “heterosexual widow” and “widow with some same-sex marriages that still end in tragedy, reinforcing negative stereotypes to the public for the sake of me not getting bored and detached during gameplay” so there were no good choices. Except for her affair with the mailwoman, 10/10) I hope to finish this before October ends and get my medal on Boolprop, I’m pretty far through it all. I might upload the sims involved anyways. This is for TS4.

I mentioned it because it’s keeping me busy. But not for long!

NaNoWriMo 2020: Dipping my toes into that again! It’s not sims-related, just a tale of lesbians, nosy neighbors, a haunted beach house, and some light murder and kidnapping. And I actually got my brother to scout out locations for me this weekend. If there’s any demand, I can share chapters as the rough drafts are finished, especially for the sake of proofreading.

Not saying I’m publishable, but wouldn’t it be nice? Will keep me occupied for much of November.

Untitled “Dear Diary” Challenge: Tired of feeling left out of the fun on the Boolprop forums, their “Dear Diary” challenge was the one that appealed to me the most on first glance. Why? Probably once I found an idea that let it be set in the early/mid-2000′s to begin with and explore some interesting characters through diary entries (which I have mixed feelings on as a literary device but I think that’s just me saying “well I didn’t like Dracula”, yes you get bonus points for writing it like a diary)

Also writing is the one skill I’m good at across multiple games. Wanna hear me bitch about the cooking skill tree in TS4 or riding in TS3? I’ll spare you.

I guess I could have included “spending time on Boolprop with old and new friends” in where my life has been. It’s a nice lil community if also a place with its own idiosyncrasies as well. So it doesn’t feel like I’m promoting another community if/when I make a thread there for Outrun the Scythe, I want to have a couple chapters of this ready to go by Outrun’s release, though it’s not gonna be the highest priority compared to it nor as long because I think I can blast through the gameplay quickly.

This one will be played in TS4 due to it having the easiest writing skill/I dunno variety is the spice of life. And hopefully another December release.

Defunded or Forgotten?: Oh shit I actually released stuff in 2020 and told no one? I do have a “mortifying ordeal of being known” sinking feeling whenever I get a site hit because it’s not my best work (but good enough) and veered sharply into issues I may be over my head in, though I try to be a good noodle with research and listening. Maybe hiding is bad after all.

Being based off a very flawed and incomplete Sims 3 challenge I found in the annals of the Official Forums, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work just making sense of things. And I’m scared of working on reconstructing the house but I haven’t abandoned the project yet. The story has eight chapters so far and is pretty game-based with some additions here and there. Scared of how long it could be though!

Date for this unknown.

Untitled Sunlit Tides Decadynasty: another year-long abandoned TS3 project with a much stupider reason why. Last update was about Hua getting ready for her wedding, and I wanted to do some poses for a bait-and-switch wedding chapter because to put it mildly, her real one was an absolute disaster.

Blender decided to fuck up its interface again, I got discouraged (this probably does account for some of the Uptown delays too), and when I decided to plow forward, it was for other projects instead.

Meanwhile I played all the way to Gen 5′s teenhood and the only thing stopping me is time (it takes almost 30 minutes to load the file right now, though they’ll be looking at moving towns in a couple gens) and maybe fear of the Logic skill.

Date for this also unknown but it’s easy to pump out updates once I’m in the groove for it. My third heir had a difficult life so maybe I’m just trying to bury it.

Also I just noticed the view count there was really good and probably because I linked it here on Tumblr last year. Thank you so much guys. I can’t really fret over views on Carl’s forum these days thanks to the years-long death spiral pretty much every forum anywhere has been riding on. But it’s a nice surprise. And it’s an alright little challenge recap to read during your lunch break or whatever.

The Wawas

I figured I’d end on the real news everyone wants! Both the chihuahuas are a year and a half now and reached their adult size around a year ago. For the most part, they are happy and healthy dogs.

[a-woman-apart]

Watch "I'M BACK! WHY I LEFT YOUTUBE FOR TWO YEARS!" on YouTube

This scared me so badly, because this is EXACTLY what happened in my life, except it was all in The Reverse.

I graduated with an Associate Degree in Music Performance in 2018, but instead of running TOWARDS my dream/calling I ran hardcore AWAY from it. My pride in graduating only lasted a month before I declared myself Utterly Unmarketable and sought to go after a "real degree" and get a Big Girl career.

Between 2018 and 2020 I had major life changes.

My dad died of stomach cancer

I broke up with my neglectful boyfriend

I turned down a Full Ride to a major college

I hospitalized myself for Suicidal Ideation (Sept 2019)

I quit my job of 5 years

I started working for my best friend and became her Office Manager

I started dating the Love of my Life

I lost my friend group and peer support

I lost my mind and left college due to COVID-19 (but not before making one of my best decisions in taking a Screenwriting class because I WANTED not NEEDED it)

Started distancing myself from the toxic women in my life and definining Womanhood/Adulthood for myself

Visited my brother's grave after over a decade of waiting and got closure

Fully acknowledged my childhood trauma/abuse

Rediscovered my sexuality

Was disowned by who I erroneously thought was a close friend of 17 years over my political views

Joined and exited Unity2020

Turned in my car for repossession

Spent a week in the hospital after having a severe, paranoid psychotic break, but came out completely free of the vice of self-consciousness I was living under

You know what is nuts? I feel in many ways, I have completely reverted to who I was in the summer of 2011. I was off my meds, and it WAS mania, but personality-wise, the tempestuous, gum-chewing, cigarette-puffing, flirtatious, humorous, free-spirited ball of fire that drove all the way to Colorado on a whim wasn't rebellious, SHE WAS ME.

I just wasn't Me around the right people, and it wasn't the Right Time.

My inner Sagittarius moon would remain in a dormant state for almost a full decade. I would spend the next 9 years heavily sedated, sleepwalking through life, only alive at The Sound of Music.

It was Torture to feel so much but be afraid to express myself. I had to Hide while doing a major that demanded that I Command Attention. I am by nature "dramatic", "theatrical", "emotional", "expressive" but that part of me was so suppresed that I was frequently told I sang with excellence but without emotion.

Aside: During my 2011 manic episode, I spoke a lot about Doppelgangers. Without going into excessive detail, this is a German word that means "Double" and it is considered bad luck to encounter yours.

In the past 2 weeks, I have encountered people that look/sound like me (Josephine is Nigerian-Canadian and I am Nigerian-American and I kept thinking about her work even though I initially disagreed with her lot) and a woman with my name (different spelling) who was NOTHING like me and I also think might've had malice in mind for me.

I was DEFINITELY an agnostic atheist when I started this year, but as a result of undergoing so much weird shit I almost certainly believe in God, and yes, "God is a Woman." (More on that later)

Also, I realized that I really DID, as many teenage girls, "lose interest in math and science" but that was because of the terrible, unfactual way it was presented in my homeschool curriculum and by my mom, who was a Math major but whose disinterested detachment made every algebra lesson an excercise in torture.

I have always loved biolology and anatomy and I remember so much more chemistry than I thought. Geology class in community college was amazing and also helped me understand-- even more than the Theory of Evolution-- why young earth creationism was completely impossible.

As for math, I spent 15 years thinking it was my greatest weakness when I have had to use arithmetic in cashiering, my managerial work, and my monthly budget for the last 7 years. Also, as annoying as it was to hear constantly, my mom parroting "What you have to do to one side, you have to do to the other" (but in reverse) gave me the ability to do Algebra quickly and (mostly) effortlessly. I could never get A's, but I got a B in Quantitative Mathematics with no real help aside from occasional teacher input and the "Help me solve this" function of MyMathLab.

Here is where it Gets Weird. I am a Creative. I have been writing stories since I was 6 years old. I have loved Story all my life. My parents were in math and science fields and they completely lacked any creativity. COMPLETELY. It was part of why they were so religiously rigid, authoritarian, and draconian. There was no room for spontaneity or childish imaginativeness.

Looking back, I had major sensory and processing issues. I was likely speech delayed, I learned to read late, and I recently confirmed that when I am stressed my dyscalculia kicks in bad (it IS real). Numbers and symbols get really interchangeable (like an 8 and infinity symbol become kinda the same) which is why I had to recite phone numbers out loud to remember them or write them on colorful backgrounds so I can see them in my head as an image. Also explains my aversion to math but my ease with fractions (1/2 is half a sandwich, etc).

My spatial awareness is also shit when stressed. Before I turned in our car, I had earned the nickname "U-turn" from my boyfriend because on that Floating Death Machine left and right got completely crossed, frequently.

By the way, I struggled with right and left until I WAS EIGHT YEARS OLD. I literally didn't understand the concept of a mirror and 3D space, meaning that the basic understanding that my right is someone else's left didn't come into play until I had an argument with my [now-deceased] brother about it.

What is so weird, is that because of years of correcting for these issues, my sense of direction, ON FOOT is good, if not better than most people. Also, once I realized that, given the opportunity, I very much do whatever I can with my left-hand, and that my hearing is MUCH better than I even thought, I am far less clumsy. Depth perception is still crap, but that is probably also because I was forced to spend years without the glasses I needed (and got earlier this year after living with chronic eye strain)

When I talk about these "issues" it is in line with female autism, but you know what? If really do have adult autism, then I am a Complete Boss because I have pwned that ho.

After being rehospitalized, a kind nurse suggested I may have PTSD and suggested medicine for insomnia and nightmares. It was extremely helpful. I had been looking into C-PTSD for a while, because I didn't think I had "suffered enough" to have "real" PTSD. But that isn't how diagnoses work.

Btw, I still have Bipolar I, Psychotic Features. Another kind nurse told me I don't need anti-psychotics, and no, I don't. I was given Zyprexa by a bitch nurse and it was like getting drunk. I stumbled the halls, almost fell over (possibly did) and woke up with a neon "Fall Risk" bracelet. Anti-psychotics also fucked up my menstrual cycle for years and I have had lingering hormonal isssues. Haha no thanks.

Anyway, I digress. Of course I am fucked up. I lived under family members who questioned my reality, attempted to crush my dreams, threatened me with physical punishment any time I behaved in non-neurotypical ways, violated my rights and interfered with my treatment even though I was a full legal adult, undermined my relationships, tortured and socially isolated me, etc., all under the guise "of knowing best."

In minority cultures, our darkness hides in plain sight, and ESPECIALLY in the Bible Belt, with its supeestition and idolization of familial hierarchy/patriarchy, victims of financial, spiritual, emotional, and physical abuse have no where safe to turn. The Long Arm of the Law is often Short when it comes to "breaking up the family", and women and children are victimized openly with little to no intervention.

On top of doing my Creative Work, I plan to create legislation to make sure that what happened to me and my siblings isn't allowed to go unpunished. We lost my older brother, and I almost died, too, but Enough is Enough.

The Time is Now.

P.S. If Josephine is an Air Nomad I identify as a Water Bender. I basically have no water in my astrological chart, but water signs bring me great comfort in times of need (and make bad romantic partners for me obviously)

Also, this is one Bad Biyatch.

I also found out I am an ISFJ, not INFJ. Yep. Gonna be a Playwright and Director. I want to be a part of the action, not just writing about it.

[tonyglowheart]

This entire thing is a rant, feel free to ignore it, but I saw your post about how destiel fans can’t win in this context, and yeah. So have some rambles.

I’ve been thinking about the fact we (current spn/destiel fans) can’t win all night... I’ve seen so many people talking about how homophobic it is - and while I would very much like to argue, as every point I’ve seen made by a non-spn fan has been wrong so far, if I did everyone inside the fandom would agree and everyone outside would either call me straight or pity me for believing it’s okay.

(Cas wasn’t even sent to hell lmao. He was sent to angel death (the empty), a place he has escaped in the past. Other points, like that meta about spn has been predicting exactly this for months, that Dean ended up sobbing on the floor because he was so upset, like that death means next to nothing on spn, like that there is two episodes left, etc etc. you feel me right? I just don’t want to post wank to other spn blogs atm, we’re getting enough frustration as it is, no need to add to it.

It’s also worth pointing out that the bar is very, very low. Spn is a prominent TV show - not a Netflix show, or indie, or whatever - and it just said “main character in gay love saved the world”. [insert gif of ghostfacers dude saying that gay love can pierce through the veil of death and save the day here]

I just saw someone saying that spn having Naomi try to brainwash Cas out of loving dean makes spn homophobic (it is a conversion therapy parallel). My first response to that is that Naomi was the villain lmao? I guess we can’t write villains doing anything homophobic because having villains do homophobic things makes, uh - checks notes - villains look homophobic, and clearly we can’t have that.

There certainly are legitimate things to criticise spn about, but this isn’t it lol.

Also now some people are unironically trying to cancel Jensen because “his acting was homophobic, and so he’s clearly homophobic”, nevermind that he’s an actor and his character struggles with understanding his emotions (which I think he played excellently, myself. That scene had a very Dean delayed emotional response), nevermind the support he’s given to us queers in the past. Like. Idek man.

We would have been laughed at if we got no destiel, too.

It would have been worse, had the writers pulled a dumbledore. At this point I also trust the writers not to pull a GoT - they have explicitly criticised that ending in spn’s canon.

Spn’s writers did that by making the main villain of this season, Chuck / God, say GoT had a good ending. To reiterate a previous point I had: villains do bad things because they’re bad. And the bad things they do make them bad. For the people out there not still following, if someone does something in a story and it makes them a villain, that is explicitly telling you the story (and probably the writers) thinks that thing is bad. In this case, Chuck likes to write things for him, and we the audience have been shown and told that is bad.

Apparently thinking a gay confession is good in 2020 makes me straight. Seems unlikely, but whatever. Sorry for the length, I guess I went overboard, I’ve been holding it in lol. Anyway, DESTIEL IS CANON 💚💙 hope you have a good night

Helloo supernatural anon I hope you are living your best life right now. Yeah I’m like..... skeptical and leery myself but having lived through some absolute garbage discourse that is general purity wank, as well as the C/QL greater fandom here and on Twitter I find myself... much more wanting to question the “general wisdom” of things esp in terms of negativity, bc a lot of the time I find.... it’s wrong? Like so wrong. Or at least presents such an incomplete picture of the whole situation and also presents it in such a removed context that words that have meaning and are operationalized in a certain way for a reason, no longer have meaningful usage.

Anyway I don’t... know too much about the specifics of Spn but someone I follow is into it and talks a lot about the Gnostic stuff and that all was very fascinating to me, and I also have been grappling a lot with cultural Christianity bc of cmedia and the way ppl just *clenches fist* unthinkingly or uncritically slap some Christian norms on it and call it a day 😩 help I’m Tired. My thing here being... I actually got tired of the uncritical “superhell”s at some pt bc I am, in fact, incredibly exhausted with cultural Christianity, and because it does seem like, even possibly(?) without the Gnostic stuff it’s different from a “hell” or other Protestant-derived afterlife concept, and also yeah that it wasn’t seeded out of nowhere, it was set up to happen, which then... lends credence to the idea that whatever the current era of Spn is doing, the current showrunners are doing it with purpose.

And idk I just... refuse to believe the concept that ALL of the fans of Spn - esp the ones who have been following it still, or got back into it and are following it currently, are acting under delusion or are fooling themselves into liking it or thinking it’s good or whatever. I personally find that kinda infantilizing and patronizing and playing into issues of dismissing things women and/or other marginalized identities like.

Plus I find the concept that (from what I think I’ve been seeing Spn fans say) that the current era of the show is quite actively grappling with itself, its past, its legacy. to be very interesting and compelling; it hearkens back to like an old lore kind of feeling, of a thing that has grown into a nigh undefeatable monster and realizing that, also realizing that the only way to defeat itself is through grappling with its own nature and transforming and transmuting itself into something else. I personally find that more plausible and compelling than “Supernatural has been actively and continuously queerbaiting for 15 homophobic homophobic years., so right now we’re all very sorry for you because this maybe is no longer queerbaiting but it’s still homophobic and it can never be anything different ever.” I’ve been sort of tangentially aware of Spn thru the years and didn’t we agree, around the time of that in-universe play about Spn and with the lil Destiel shoutout, that Spn has come a ways as far as coming to terms with its fandom and working to treat its fans better? Why the sudden regression into “oh no, Supernatural is and forever will be homophobic and a hate crime”? 🤔 

The rest under a cut bc the ask is already long and then my rambling will get longer-

But yeah I mean..... I get that the legacy of Supernatural has been certifiably Rough, but I think people also forget how different of a time 2005 was? Hell, how different of a time 2015 was, even, prior to, say, Obergefell v. Hodges. Now I’m not saying that to blanket-excuse Supernatural, but like, you look at mainstream shows from the era and... there’s a lot of shit lmao. The fact that Supernatural has existed this long seems to me like.... maybe we CAN look at how it’s developed through the years vs just insisting it is what it was 15, 10, hell, 5 years ago. Especially since, to my knowledge, there’s been showrunner changes? Which seems to me like it would... affect things? I mean honestly, I remember back when I got into Spn for a hot second because of Castiel, I remember watching panel, Q&A, etc vids thru the years, and like... I thought we agreed that... it was the fans who were going a bit far pushing the shipping question like literally ALL the time to the actors, who are not in control of the show and.... like at the time.... that could have had personal implications for them? And yes homophobia bad, and people can still be allies despite that, but again like.... I do feel like - from what I’ve seen - that these guys were NOT ready to deal with a lot of that but they’ve (okay Jensen I’m talking about Jensen here) genuinely grown and learned? Also how many years ago was the essay autograph thing that people keep trotting out, like what year was it in and what year of spn was it, and what were the prevailing opinions on LGBT issues and bisexuality then.

I’ve been seeing some murmurings of identity politicsing surrounding ppl who enjoy Supernatural, and I’m sorry that that’s happening to you, it really fucking sucks and it’s also the dumbest way to “make” or “win” an argument because it shouldn’t ever be a final determiner, just factors to consider when considering what life experiences might have informed someone else’s PoV and views as well as maybe how you can better communicate with them. Instead of it being a “weapon” or “tool” to either dismiss someone or de facto validate an argument.

Also yeah I get it that you don’t want to send discourse to spn blogs bc I imagine you guys ARE actively grappling with all the bs rn and it’s a lot. Even just from like, the stuff I see around, I’m like tired of it. I’m genuinely having more fun with ppl who are having a good time with Supernatural than the ppl who are hating on it, even in this sort of backhanded “oh we’re not clowning YOU we’re clowning the writers and showrunners who think you should be satisfied with this,” when... yeah? the people who HAVE been watching the show and therefore... know what’s up.. DO seem to be? And all this based on *fake gasp* context. And that’s where the backhandedness becomes kind of poisonous to me, because it implies that it IS bad, and that you SHOULDN’T be satisfied, but poor little you are but don’t worry, we’re not making fun of YOU for liking garbage, you’re just the hapless victim who is consuming the garbage bc... idk, whatever reasons ppl are coming up with ig.

idk man it’s 2020. Fandom isn’t activism, performative or otherwise, it’s okay to let people enjoy things even if you think they’re “objectively” bad, and like... I don’t know if people can call something bad when they’re not even working with the whole context and instead are dealing with rumor and reputation. 

[kaorei-endgame]

Game of the Year #4: Pathologic 2

You went in with 10 years knowledge on the subject, read those Rock Paper Shotgun Articles, consummate played-by-proxy nerd. And if you come in feeling like that, you've got a clean head start in the first few days of Pathologic 2: The Pandemic Simulation RPG (And Meta Commentary On Gaming (And The Nature of Fiction (And Perhaps Humanity Itself?)) and proto survival sim elements). Like it's turbulent and your health meters drain quick, but you get the jist. Water is short so you learn where the water drums are. Break borrow and steal. Deus Ex house-scavenging on a time limit. That is a genre of game you can wrap your mind around. On day two the plague begins, infected district is cordoned off on the map (which you know--because you have read Rock Paper Shotgun--is shaped, and named, like a cow's various parts, pre-butchering. metaphor!!) and your little virtual desire paths shift to compensate. A timed meeting with a medical colleague on the other side of the city now includes a 5 minute detour. Your nightly visit to harvest herbal curatives from an abandoned village in the steppe slides back into a midnight run, and then an early morning visit as the tasks consume you. Treat these people or we'll withhold your (paltry) salary. But also, heal your friend or his whole district succumbs. But also, buy a cloak to cover your face or you'll succumb. But also, you can't afford a cloak, which is why you're stomping through this abandoned village in the dark trying to remember where the fucking weeds to pick up are because you can't even afford a fucking cloak, much less real medicine!! Which is why you spend like a full quarter of every day making the trip here and back which is why there are now a half-dozen infected districts, all your friends are dead or dying, and the military has brought out the flamethrowers! The game has to be almost over, right? This fucking bull I scrounged up to buy on Day 1, when the world was simple and kind, is supposed to talk to me on the worst day of my life and you're telling me that's not right now, on Day 5 of the 13 total days in this game??

So it's kind of like that. Pathologic 2 arrests my functions through mechanical overwhelm. You're always on the knife's edge of poverty, and the next trashcan is always going to be the one that has a sewing needle in it that you can combine with the cloth you also don't have yet to make a pocket and expand an inventory you couldn't possibly own enough to fill with anything but more trash.

In 2020, this sounds close enough any survival sim but Pathologic's loop is so attenuated by long travel times and finely diced resources that you will never become comfortable. Here's a Terraria where you mine every copper vein you see while everyone around you slowly dies, but not so slow that you can't convince yourself you can save them, or if not them.... maybe the next one? Holy shit, this game is hard, yeah, but wow! Am I a doctor? Am I doing triage?

You build a base, and it's never stocked because you're living out of your coat pockets. Oh, haha, you think you're a doctor? Well you can't afford medicine, as stated, and your guess-work home remedies require infected organs harvested on the sly when you pray no one's looking, because they will run you out of the neighborhood for it. Haha, remember? You spent the literally whole first day, the only infection-free day, skulking in alley ways because the whole town was ready to kick the shit out of you Rambo-style for being a wandering vagrant?

And you still got the temerity to call yourself a doctor? Bitch, you're a fucking haruspex, and that much is clear in how a certain percentage of the population views you as moooore or less one step removed from the anthropomorphic nomad people who roam the plains (and who are, not coincidentally, being targeted by hate crimes as the plague sets in). Half of the tinctures you brew in your lab go into your belly to delay the onset of hunger or sleep for a few more hours. You crash on any couch you can find before the meter bottoms out. You spent less time diagnosing patients yesterday than you did scrounging through the garbage for enough refuse to trade for a fish from a midnight merchant called the Dead Item Seller who for some reason wants bloody bandages, and the fish didn't even fill up your whole belly. Barely even 40%. And the day starts anew, another two cornerstones of the town are sick and dying but what else is new. Have to go watch the giant plague doctors put on a secret play in the town's enormous baroque(????who cares???) theater we've converted into an emergency ward so don't wake the patients, please, you quasi-metaphorical thespians! Oh, my uncle or some shit says there's a hole in the center of the earth where all the blood goes down and THATS the problem?? 😰Well haha I don't think anyone's got enough Orange+ Tincture for a hole that big, Grandad!!🤣 Maybe better find another shaman trained in the ancient ways?? This one's barely making rent.😬 Oh the RAT KING wants to talk to me now? Is he gonna HELP? is he gonna GIVE ME DRUGS OR A FUCKING COAT?🤬

Please, it's 2020, 50% of the people reading this use horror movies as a safety valve to experience trauma and inure themselves to it. In that way, I feel I am among friends. Pathologic 2 is a mechanical expression of that release valve, maybe? A way to touch all those anxieties--Gotta Work, Gotta Rest, Gotta Eat, Gotta Talk To People, Gotta Do My Mindfullness Meditation, Gotta Be Responsible For Building My Own Boundaries In Personal Relationships And Also A 401K or an IRA If I Have The Time, You Know, On The Weekend, By The Way I Belong To A Class Of People The World Unilaterally Hates :)--so I think a good way to manage that.... for people like me.... who have brains who don't manage things well without external motivation.... which, for them, has been historically linked to trauma.... is to play a video game where everyone looks at you like you're sick while THEY'RE all dying of the fucking plague. Is that it? I don't know. It's 2020. So maybe that's just it.

[csykora]

[A tabby cat curled up in the middle of a bubble hockey board. Or you, being comfortable in an athletic community that’s good enough for you]

Hiiiiii! I’ve been looking at ice hockey and it seems a cool sport and something that I might want to do as a hobby. Only Im disabled. Do you think I could still do the thing? Do you have ideas on how to start doing the thing? Ive often found it hard to do sports because coaches or trainers don’t know shit about disability and so have no clue how to teach you things or what you may or may not be capable of and telling them is useless because they make assumptions about your body and gah. Cheers

Hey—

Yes. Do the thing. Please go do it! I am not your coach, not your trainer, only friendly local bone witch—which I am very annoyed to have to say because you are a great athlete to work with.

Can I point out a couple things you just said?

You’re offering to do a trainer’s homework for them.

The early game didn’t have coaches. People milled on and off in whatever situations they felt like. Coaches and trainers came onto the scene so that someone was keeping track of who was actually good at what, when they needed support, and how to use them to best effect. That’s their whole gig.

Talking to folks on this blog, I’ve learned lots of people have this impression that capital-A Athletes have some factory-settings-standard body, any deviation a disaster (and they themselves can’t be athletes because they don’t.)

I think it’s very useful to smash this idea. Every athlete is a grab bag of weaknesses and weirdnesses, from old injuries down to handedness. Every coach longs to have three right-shot defensemen, and has made peace with the fact they’re not going to get them. Their job is to play with all the mismatched pieces they do have until they fit into a team.

If you present a coach or trainer with information about your abilities, and they don’t want to use that information, the problem you got right there is a shit coach.

Despite what the National League believes, there are more than 32 coaches in the world. 

Throw a stick up here and you’ll hit another amateur coach. When we’re little, if we get a shit coach or PE teacher, we get stuck. That does real and lasting harm, which I am happy to go on at length about, but to flip it around:

Now, you are a big Zee, who wants to learn to play as a hobby, with the goal of having fun. That’s a powerful place to be.

I won’t say there aren’t stakes: you could get hurt, physically or emotionally. Sharing information about your body with other people to try to keep yourself from getting hurt all the time can be hard. Playing can make you feel physically accomplished and capable in your body, which is a deep need I think we all have, so having to back away if a team does turn out to be shit is hard. So I don’t say “you can always quit a team” lightly, but…there is no threat if you quit a shit team, no one (who matters) will get mad or make you go back.That means you can advocate for yourself, and if a reasonable shot at advocacy reveals that a coach isn’t just unfamiliar with how to do their job for someone with your disability but uninterested in doing their damn job for a disabled person, you can wave them farewell and find another.

Now, our goal is for you to find a good trainer, who just needs to be given information about what you (not someone with the ‘same’ condition, but you specifically) have got going on.

I’m going to tell you to look up an adult learn-to-skate program. Most rinks will have regular learn-to-skate and learn-to-hockey programs spaced throughout the year (often paired so you spend “first semester” on skating before the people who want to move up to hockey). Look up different rinks, talk to people about the rink culture and the coaches there. If you have the time, maybe spend a while hanging out there watching the open skates, local team practices or public classes, getting a sense what it’s like and telling yourself you have as much right to be in that barn as anyone else. Then sign up for a class. But first I want you to be devastatingly, Hepburn-ishly confident in talking about what your disability means for you.

From the information you’ve just given me, I don’t know almost anything I would need to work with you. You may or may not know that information about yourself already, but you can figure it out.

“Mild hemiplegia” is not a super-medical phrase. Hemiplegia is complete paralysis on one side of the body, where you are unable to move those muscles on purpose. A mild to moderate loss of muscle strength on one side is hemiparesis.

These terms are, to be honest, mostly used to organize medical literature. They describe very specific signs that might happen for a variety of reasons. Other symptoms like loss of sensation, loss of range of motion, involuntary muscle spasms, or loss/delay of involuntary motion (reflexes), which may or may not occur with plegia/paresis, have to be specified and described. If I were treating you I definitely wouldn’t describe your case as “hemiplegia”, I would call it “hemiparesis” with a lot more descriptive words around that (and I probably wouldn’t use either when talking to you).

It’s not that you used a word wrong. I’m concerned that 1. people have made you think you have to use A Medical Name for your disability for it to be taken seriously, but also 2. because the stroke happened so early, you’ve actually been denied care and opportunities to learn about it.

1. First, for the record, you don’t have to justify your disabled identity to me. And while I really (really) understand the self-protective urge a lot of us have to try to say, “my condition is really real and serious, it has a Real Medical Name, please believe me”, I think that (outside of a legal context where you’re seeking protected accommodations) that strategy often isn’t as useful as we hope it will be to communicate with other people in our daily lives. The people who demand to see your Really Medically Serious card before making accommodations will always find something else to demand, while people who aren’t trying to be assholes will be better able to help you if they know exactly, practically how.

It’s not that one way of talking about your disability is wrong, but I want you to talk about it in ways that are useful to you, that help you connect with other people and get you what you want.

2. I’ve worked with a lot of elders who have paralysis or hemiparesis from strokes later in life, after being able-bodied for most of their lives, and doctors and therapists jump right up in there teaching and training them to “recover” that “lost function”. They/their families can’t not know all the medical words just from hearing them over and over. But what often happens when a person is disabled since childhood is that…they aren’t seen as having “lost capacity” that can be “saved”, but as having a baseline “low level of function” that’ll never change, so much less attention is payed.

I’m using the air quotes because many people’s disabilities are present throughout their whole lives, and someone’s disability or disabled identity is not just a “problem” to be solved or gotten rid of. But people with disabilities grow and change, especially when we’re, you know, children. What often happens is that parents/authorities encourage able-bodied children to play, practicing motions and building up their bodies’ ability to move, while children with disabilities get benched from practice, benched from not just one activity but from being active at all, which means being benched from developing their bodies in the ways that might actually work for them, and from developing relationships with their bodies.

Proprioception, for example, is a combination of some fundamental ability/capacity/threshold/potential/whathaveyou and skill developed through experience that changes in context. Ever seen a baby? None of them know where the hell they are. A baby that can crawl is let loose to explore the world and bump into things that trigger their nerves until their body learns to fit all that sensation information together and use it. A baby that doesn’t crawl for some other reason often doesn’t get a chance to explore, to experience those sensations or train up that skill. And a kid that has a different threshold for stimulation, who naturally seeks out more or less or a different sort, is often stopped from stimming in ways which would provide their body information they could process.

As an adult, you get the chance to look at what you want to do and how your body can do it again.

So…

I want you to go throw a ball at a wall. Try to catch it. If you do any exercises already, sit-ups or pushups, do some of those. Run around the block, jump around on your bed. Stretch or just swing your arms and legs around. Find some small objects to use as weights and lift them, with either arm and then either leg (or set them on the floor and see if you can push them).

Work your way up your body one limb at a time, first thinking just about that limb on its own and then comparing the two sides after you’ve done them both. Don’t put a value judgement on anything yet, just pay attention: if your feet feel okay after running around, if you had more strength in one spot than you expected, if you had fun jumping, if there was a time you thought you might wobble but were able to correct, count that too! Think about each activity you did, the sensations around it, and whether that stim was satisfying, overstimulating, or not stimulating enough.

I want you to be able to go to a learn-to-play program, ask to talk with the coach at an appropriate time during the application or orientation, and say things like, “I have this condition. This is what it means: I have less strength with one arm, but I can move it as fast as the other, and with the same range of motion. I don’t grip items as well with one hand, or I tend to grip very hard. I don’t feel this type of sensation in this area, but I do feel that”.

Your coach is then going to recommend exercises to build strength in particular areas, or modifications to exercises so that you can do them without needing to use a particular area; they might have you try different equipment (find a tape job or adapted hand position that helps you keep hold of your stick, etc), and they may also encourage your towards and start training you for a particular position where you could do the most. When it comes to sensation, they’ll know to watch you closer for injuries in that spot that you might not notice.

This came in while I was applying to go back to university, and I bribed myself through the short essay section by pausing every hour to eat chocolate and sketch out what I would have you do for hypothetical positions and exercise plans. That’s still a long way off, but I’m very invested, so a couple things I want you to think about as you work towards the goal:

Keep sled hockey in mind. It’s not always a fit for people whose disability involves their arms, but it’s a cool community and most rinks will offer clinics where you can try out a sled and get a sense of the game.

How do you feel about getting hit with a puck? From your description, stickhandling and shooting may not be super fun for you. They may be, but if you give them a fair try and start to fee discouraged, try picturing yourself as a defender focussing on positioning or shot-blocking, or a goalie. Some people never ever want to do it, which is fair, but if you’re at all interested I’d love to see you try some time in goal! Everyone’s different but some folks the weight of the pads and the focused role can be really good stimulation. If your handling or footwork doesn’t feel great, goaltending would let you focus on moving your body more naturalistically as a whole to position in front of shots. And everyone else will love you for volunteering!

Write back and tell us how it goes!

[supernoondles]

2019

The last day of 2019 was also the day I fainted for the first time--a fitting metaphor for the year.

2019 was overall very emotionally taxing. This year was emotionally defined by falling intensely, deeply in love with someone (who is a very private person so I will try to be vague to respect that) and being in a lot of pain because of situations mostly outside of our control. There were a lot of intensely joyous moments, and a lot of intensely sad ones. Throughout it all I wish I had communicated better. I also made some bad decisions with another person I really loved and cared about that resulted in us growing apart. Do I think I grew from the experiences? For sure. Do I wish I could have come upon these realizations through a different course of action? Also yes. Am I fully healed from the experiences? Not really, but I've been getting better.

2019 was also very bad in terms of research. It was the 2nd year of my PhD. After I submitted my rotation project I basically felt stuck in the swamp of my advisors rejecting new project ideas for like literally half a year. This, combined with my high emotional volatility (partially due to starting birth control), made me really sad, unmotivated, and susceptible to self-blame. I definitely had high expectations for myself and became frustrated at my lack of progress and felt a lot of pressure from myself to get my shit together. I also felt incredibly bad after most advisor meetings and not supported by one of them to the point where I had to have a conversation with him about the lack of support (which was very scary)! Things started picking up, though, near the end of the year. I published a paper in collaboration with a former post-doc/now professor elsewhere whom I learned a lot from, and started finally building out another system. I also started mentoring an undergrad who at some point told me I helped him feel like he had something important to say and belong at Stanford for the first time and those words meant a lot to me. I think I'm continuing to refine what I value as research contributions and increasingly think about what it means to build systems that aren't used outside of the lab to satisfy the annual conference publishing cycle. I'm also starting to feel the pressure of doing work that follows a narrative rather than random projects that interest me.

Oh, I guess in terms of "program requirements," I did finish taking required classes, passed qualifying exams, and got a master's degree. But honestly those weren't hard at all nor do I think are externally valued in the larger research community, so I don't really celebrate them as accomplishments beyond surface level.

In 2019 I saw two different therapists. The first one was awful, I think directly influenced some of my bad decisions, and also didn't respect my gender identity??? The second one is a lot better and I'm grateful to see her, even if 90% of our sessions are just talking about my relationship (romantic/advisor) issues, which is something I want to move away from in the future. But I also feel incredibly privileged when relationship issues are the primary stressors in my life--I am grateful I feel equipped to handle other crap, like deadlines, and don't have to worry about my own health.

Those were the main things that have colored this year. We'll now move into the section of this post where I go through my photos to jog my memory of other events.

New years started a tradition of getting dim sum with Jasper, Matthew, and Michelle dear to my heart. My high school friend was also visiting and we all attended a really awesome new year's eve party. I was also going on a lot of dates and having a lot of good sex, which made me really happy, and at the same time crying all the time at work. In February I received probably the best gift anyone has ever given me and saw Panic! at the Disco, which I said in an end of the year group meeting was a good memory of my year (it was, to relive my scene days!). In March I roadtripped both to Marin (which I had never to been before, despite all my years in the bay) and LA for Wondercon; it was nice to both see high school friends and go on a trip with the boo. In April I went on a hike with my office which was probably the start of us all becoming closer (we are the social office in the wing now, which I take pride in! Also we draw a lot of Pokemon which warms my heart). In May I went to CHI in Glasgow and then to Paris afterward, and the entire experience was very weird and bad and also too many flights were canceled and/or missed and I vowed to not return to Europe for a while, but man do I love the noodles at Trois Fois plus de Piment. In June we hosted a double apartment party with my downstairs neighbors (side note: I am really appreciative of the place I live in, for the community, convenience, and large-ass space and will be really sad to be kicked out fall 2020) and I started a friendship important to me. I cat-sat for my advisor (the one who doesn't make me feel bad) twice. I went to Redwood State Park with my family and hosted a summer solstice celebration. Over the summer a friend I met in Paris back in 2017 moved in with me. I had a much needed escape from the bay to Seattle where I was reminded how abundant the world can be. I also went to Tahoe to celebrate my parents' anniversary, and really liked stumbling upon a smaller lake with a cheap boat rental. Then I became FOMO about the highly competitive Bay Area camping and did a last minute walk-in at Redwood Basin in Santa Cruz, which made me realize that I don't actually love camping (but was nice nonetheless). I ate an expensive meal at Commonwealth before they closed. For my birthday we made a friendship quilt and I served my favorite dish of cumin lamb but it was also 90 degrees in my apartment (I felt really bad and bought two fans afterwards). I started buying many cartoon frog plush after being gifted a $3.99 on sale Safeway frog (called Baby!). I went on Tinder dates (one of which was at a quaker yard sale marketed as Harvest Festival where I got a 1970s Kermit puppet for like $2) that largely went nowhere. My high school friend visited and we were both sad about break ups. I did Inktober before I went to New Orleans for a conference on Bourbon St where everything felt like it was coated in a sticky film of alcohol. I almost missed my flight home because I fell asleep in a sculpture garden but I had the most amazing Uber driver who snaked his way through traffic (oh and the flight was delayed by like 3 hours). I went to kind of embarrassing haunted houses and pumpkin patches over Halloween, but also had the most incredible bowl of ramen at Mensho. My whole office dressed up as Zootopia characters which warmed my furry heart. I spent like $120 on a Pokemon shirt. I started playing Arkham Horror and rekindled another friendship important to me. In November went on a road trip to Big Sur because again, I had to escape it all. For Christmas Eve dinner I roasted a duck for the first time (which was delicious). Shortly after I waited in line for 2 hours for a rollercoaster at Great America, which taught me the value of buying a fast pass because at this point in my life that money is worth it, and then waited 2 hours in line at the DMV to get a RealID (I had made an appointment, which was the fast pass).

Okay, now we move to the hobby section!

I got really into sewing in 2019, having received a sewing machine last Christmas. I made a Judy Hopps (which I wore to CrunchyRoll Expo) and Korok cosplay (Fanime), several unsuccessful garments, a crab bean bag, a dice bag, a fanny pack, and put hearts nipples on a jumpsuit.

Shows! I think I went to way fewer shows this year. The ones I can remember are Elephant Gym, Thom Yorke the night before I had an 8am flight, Carly Rae Jepsen over pride weekend (also, she is my #1 artist of the year, which makes a lot of sense given my emotional space), Mitski at Stern Grove, Capitol Hill Bloc Party (which was super lame, except for Lizzo, where I cried), and the National (which was a fucking surreal experience as they played on Stanford's campus, I was the only one within earshot of myself who knew the words to Crybaby Geeks, and then the white catalog moms came up to me after to thank me for singing the song).

I also started playing my own music! I started playing viola again for the first time in 7 years (lol) in both pop-up concerts with the Awesome Orchestra (one in Golden Gate Park, one at the Exploratorium) and a string quartet through my school. Sometimes I am filled with joy and delight. Other times interpersonal tensions run high and also I am very bad at being in tune. It's life.

Media! I really liked Mob Psycho 100 Season 2 and Beastars. I feel like those were the only notable anime I watched this year? I saw the Farewell three times--first in Seattle where I sobbed for like 1 hour after the movie, the second time with my parents, and the third where Awkwafina was present for a Q&A. I thought Parasite was incredible and Promare was OK. I have spent an unfortunately large amount of my time playing Pokemon Masters. I finally beat BOTW and completed my Pokedex in Shield like 2 weeks after getting the game.

Resolutions! In my draft of my 2018 end of year post (which I never polished and posted, sorry), I said my resolutions were 1. come out to my parents 2. draw enough to table at an anime con 3. be disciplined about paper reading and have a doc. I did none of these things!!! However, for 1, I feel like I am well equipped to have this conversation but am waiting for my sibling to do it first out of respect. 2 was just bad. I barely drew this year except for gifts. 3 was okay--I did have a large doc in the beginning of the year when I was looking for ideas, but as time went on I abandoned it (I also stopped reading papers, which I don't think you're supposed to do as a grad student...)

My resolutions this year are phrased as intentions (-(c) Matthew). They span several categories. Relationships: I want to open myself to and actively seek experiences of love, because I miss that. That being said, I will only date someone if 1. they have their life together 2. they love themselves and 3. they challenge me to grow. (I do think you can experience love without dating; the thing I'm after is love in an expansive sense.) Work: I want to do enough work so I don't feel guilty about not doing enough work, and also not berate myself for taking a long time to do things. Hobbies: I want to sew at least one thing a month. Chinese: I want to improve my Chinese, especially pronunciation.

Having written this 20 days into 2020, it's not been so bad so far. But I was also really happy in the beginning of 2019. Here's to no global maxima, a monotonically increasing year!

[thesinglesjukebox]

SOCCER MOMMY - CIRCLE THE DRAIN

[7.73]

Did not Usher in a top score; did yield a lot of writing...

Ian Mathers: There's a mandolin part (or something) peeking through the mix here in places that, combined with the dreamy listlessness of Sophie Allison's lyrics and delivery, is giving me significant pangs of that ol' devil nostalgia for both my past and the music of my past. Sometimes though, you just gotta go with it. [9]

Vikram Joseph: Nostalgia is a hallucinogen; it blurs the distinction between times you miss and times you simply happen to remember more vividly than others, and, more disconcertingly, between places you have been and places that have only ever existed in your internal world. There's something about "Circle The Drain" - with its soft golden hour hues, its fuzzy edges - that drives deep into whichever ganglion or cortex is responsible for nostalgia, and sends uncoordinated sparks and signals across its synapses, triggering a slideshow of fragmented memories that may or may not be memories at all. It reminds me of so many tangible things - the late 90s / early 00s guitar-pop of Natalie Imbruglia and Avril Lavigne, the Smashing Pumpkins' "Today", and (strangest of all) second-tier Brit indie band Feeder's tender teenage stoner anthem "High" - but also of so much that is unreachable and unnameable - walks home from nowhere, composite daydreams from a hundred train windows, summers disintegrating into the building blocks of memory. As if getting older isn't frightening enough, if I have this much capacity for nostalgia at just past 30 won't I be slowly crushed under its weight by 70? But for now, while I can still think of myself as young, I'm grateful for this song - a gorgeous, dreamy downer - and for the synthesis of new memories from the glowing rubble of ones that came before. [9]

Leah Isobel: On my first day of work in the new decade, a customer yelled at me. It wasn't the first time this had happened, and he wasn't actually mad at me; he was hurt by something my boss had done, and I was just in the crosshairs. But what he said - the justified core of his anger - has stuck with me, like an ink I can't wash off my hands. It's followed me all month, keeping me from being present with my friends or honest with my parents or productive at my job. I haven't been able to write about it, either; the helplessness, the horror, the rot I feel in my body. It feels a lot like the sick-sweet guitar decay in this song. [9]

Julian Axelrod: Calling a song "passive" is rarely a complement, but everything about "Circle the Drain" feels detached in the best way. The sample-of-a-sample guitars fade in and out of focus, Sophie Allison's numb sigh is couched in a week's worth of reverb, and her verses frame summer love and self-immolation as equidistant unattainable ideals. It's a song about depression, but it doubles as an interrogation of the "slacker rock" tag bands like Soccer Mommy so often fall under: Is this person stuck on the couch because they're unambitious, or has the mold in their brain turned them to a bedridden husk of their usual chipper self? Everything around Allison is pristinely produced, which makes its passivity all the more pointed. As a great artist once said, "Do you think a depressed person could make this?" [7]

Nortey Dowuona: A nice, twee song about being sad. That's it. that's the tweet. [9]

Katherine St Asaph: I cannot pinpoint, and it's bugging me, what specific maybe-obvious riff this is biting. (My ears hear something like Kay Hanley's Cherry Marmalade, and the duh answer is probably like Nirvana, but I think part of it is, of all things, Incubus's "Drive"?) But I've listened to enough '90s college-rock filler to recognize a clear improvement on it. [7]

Alfred Soto: Nailing the early nineties college rock churn 'n' jangle as surely as "Lucy" did last year, "Circle the Drain" flirts more closely -- more ominously -- with the churn 'n' jangle that crossed over several years later: think Shawn Colvin, not Belly. Listeners may dig this direction. I say Soccer Mommy gets blanded out. [6]

Thomas Inskeep: Is that a banjo? Well, that's unexpected. The guitar-plugged-into-a-sole-amp and ramshackle '90s-Beck-ish drums, those are expected. But you can definitely hear the increased production budget on this, and I'm not 100% it's for the better. [6]

Brad Shoup: The dream of Adult Alternative is alive and well and uncanny. The idea of daubing one's emotional grayness into the short shadows of a deceptively summery pop rocker... I wasn't sure that was a move anymore. [7]

Joshua Copperman: This doesn't sound like a 90s radio hit, this sounds like 90s album filler. Okay, that's a bit much. It sounds like it was there, but then someone at Loma Vista said 'it's 2020, music has been functional background noise for like four years now, take out everything interesting except for the delay spin in the second verse and the nifty tape flutter effect around four minutes in, don't distract anyone'. There's a synth pad at 1:15 that disappears by 1:20. The actual song is pretty great - I especially love the imagery of walking on a cable, depression being so debilitating that doing anything has the stakes of conducting the electric city. The top comment on eight-minute advance single "Yellow is the Color of Her Eyes" currently reads "If she went far enough, I think she would meet Chris Martin at the beach." For "Circle The Drain," I wish she did. [6]

Michael Hong: Bubbly and burbly, "Circle the Drain" sounds exactly like that, a spinning whirlpool. Where Clean was blurred by the surrounding ennui of being a teenager with a crush, "Circle the Drain" marks a clear progression in Soccer Mommy's sound, sounding more expansive and vibrant. You feel it in the twang of the looping guitar melody and in the shuffle of the backing beat. The background noise of Clean is washed away, reduced to a low fuzzy din and Soccer Mommy's voice comes with reassuring elegance that suggests while you can fall apart in the spiral, there's comfort to come when it does eventually end. [9]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: I hate the game my mind plays with regards to my depression being "legitimate" enough. If things are OK and I don't feel depressed: Great, but was I just dumb and emotional this whole time and my depression not actually real? When things are OK and I feel depressed: Not great, but at least I know my depression is... real? I don't know. That I have such thoughts is an upsetting thing in and of itself, and the plainness with which Soccer Mommy talks about not wanting to remain strong for family and friends is a reminder of how debilitating life can be. That others feel that way makes me feel less alone. "Circle the Drain" is a song about being stuck, of being "chained" to your bed (please help me if I'm "napping" all the time). There's a quiet appeal--a slacker glamour--that this song exudes, that captures the allure and sickness and banality of depression in the everyday. [8]

Will Adams: The chorus is curious; the bridge sets up a clear launch, but at the cathartic moment the production falls away, to the point it feels like we're getting a second verse. It's not until the titular thinking appears ("round and around") that the arrangement comes back into focus. It's a neat trick. One that wears thin by the third time, but who am I to argue with a song that wraps me in the nostalgic comfort of Orange County radio and Daria commercial bumpers like this. [8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Soccer Mommy's best songs capture the clarity of feeling like shit like no other artist's do. It's a hard feeling, the way that being lost and beaten-down create not any kind of moral righteousness but a shocking awareness. It's everywhere on "Circle the Drain," from the crunch of the intro guitars and the tinniness of the drum machine on the bridge to Allison's vocal performance, which sounds at once both immediate and far away. But it's there most in her songwriting, which Gabe Wax's production only intensifies. The way that the second verse breaks from the figurative language of the first into stark, morbidly funny descriptions of mental illness and decay is arresting, and the way the song pushes through it, almost making the final choruses sound triumphant, is even more so. [8]

Alex Clifton: "Circle the Drain" is a story of depression set to the warmest guitars I've heard this side of the nineties. It's a beautifully neat trick to pull and Soccer Mommy here does so with aplomb--both aspects kept reeling me back in for second and third listens. Although the lyrics are sad, the feeling is ultimately uplifting. It's okay if you are falling to pieces. A song like this will catch you. [8]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[agape-l0ve]

hello i am back lol

I think the last few times I wrote out a blog was when jj was deployed.  tumblr was a really helpful tool for me at that time because it allowed me to be completely vulnerable without having to burden anyone else!

I was looking back at my old posts and it’s so interesting to read where I was back then and to see the progression of how much life changes in such short bursts of time! So here’s just an update for my future self -- warning, it’s not very exciting hahaha

So, since jj returned in dec 2018, it’s honestly been great! We saw 2019 and 2020 as a time to catch up on all the lost time we had in the previous years.  No more exercises, training, or trips away, life actually went back to normal - which was weird.  I look back and think about how we’ve only been in this lifestyle since 2016, but so much can happen within a span of 4-5 years.  I’ve finally graduated from CFCC’s OTA program, which was honestly such a blessing because our class was able to complete our requirements before COVID got really bad.  Well, I should say most of our class.  As of right now, I think only one more person is finishing up their FW II, which is crazy because these days, I find myself thinking about how I was just finishing up HH and transitioning into peds outpatient in FW II exactly one year ago.  

I’ll talk a bit about my FW II experiences.. since they were not the greatest lol.

Home health was really interesting.  I was honestly DREADING it because 1, I don’t like spending long amounts of time in the car and 2, I hate being in the car with just one other person - especially someone I don’t feel100% comfortable with. Also, I wasn’t too fond of the idea of going to people’s homes either.  I think this placement really stretched me and pushed me out of my comfort zone in every aspect.  Looking back now, I genuinely enjoyed the experience for what it was! Would I voluntarily do it again? It depends! (which is a step up from a solid no) 

Our area covered the extremely rural areas of our surrounding counties and it definitely served as a huge culture shock.  But everyone was so sweet and grateful for any help they could get and I will always remember some of the most awesome patients I got to meet.  The negative effects of this rotation mostly came from my supervisor.  She was an awful human being, but thankfully, she was at least a good OTR.  However, that being said, I saw ZERO treatments! Even when I tried to tell my professor, NO ONE LISTENED OR BELIEVED ME.  It was extremely frustrating because I had all of these assignments to do and all of them were about mf interventions.  Anyways, my OTR was untimely, rude, unapologetic, and lacked empathy out of her ass.  I was so ready to be done with her and thankfully, she didn’t ruin HH as an option for me - just wasted my time with her.  If someone could win an award for the amount of countless hours they could talk about themselves, it would be her.  9 hours every day, non-stop, talking about herself and how great she is and her bf. omfg JUST GET ME OUT OF THE CAR

FW II was supposed to be really exciting for me.  I was done with HH and moving onto what I cared about the most and what I really felt passionate about.  Helping children in clinic! It was honestly my dream.  It was a multi-disciplinary site with SLP, PT, and OT. Everyone seemed nice and it just so happens that my OTR at this placement was a former Marine and he and I had a lot in common paper.  Boy, was I in for it.  He turned out to be an extremely narcissistic man who thought the world of only himself.  He shit talked EVERYONE behind their backs, but was extremely fake to their face.  Him and the front office administrator would gossip every moment they got, like they were 13 year old bullies.  He suffered from several TBIs when he was enlisted, so it’s safe to say that his temperament issues and memory loss were definitely a result of those.  But the worst part is, he refused to admit it.  He would shit talk the boss, the PR manager, the PTs, the clients, and just about everyone in between.  And he brought 100% of his personal life into this, which I get if we’re co-workers, that’s fine.  But as your student, I don’t need to know about that kind of crap.  On top of that, I was his first FW II student... lol of course I was.  So he knew nothing about how to help me, guide me, or teach me. Instead of looking at the informational packed my professor handed to him, he puts that in the closet the entire 9 weeks I’m with him and proceeds to continuously throw me under the bus when it came to doing my assignments and treating patients.  Mind you, I didn’t get to treat anyone in HH, so this is now my first real opportunity to start treating patients throughout the entirety of my program.  Safe to say, I was nervous.  But I pulled through and did my best and I forced myself to become really confident really quickly.  I was awesome at it and I was honestly very proud of the practitioner I was striving to be.  He did help me from time to time and I’d like to believe there were moments where he was genuine and tried his best to help me.  But none of those times outweigh the flustercluck that was that clinic.  Anyways, I came out pretty salty about the whole thing, but I didn’t let it ruin my passion for helping children, as that is what I aspire to do in the future.  I made strides with kids my OTR wasn’t able to connect with for months.  And instead of encouraging me and allowing me to fulfill my duty as a student, he re-books them with another therapist and anyone in healthcare knows how that detrimental that process is to their progression and tells me that he’s just trying to be nice and share his case-load with other people.  No, you’re purposefully taking them away from me because you can’t stand the thought of someone being better than you at something.  His pride and arrogance will forever taint my experience there and I have no intention of going back - which is a true shame because I absolutely fell in love with the kids and some of the other therapists there.  Oh well, good riddance to both my HH OTR and my peds OTR.

Luckily through it all, COVID was just beginning and it only delayed my graduation process a few weeks.  I was extremely fortunate to be one of the first few in my class to finish up and start studying for my NNCOT exam!

Studying for my exam was a time and a half.  I honestly had -0% confidence in myself to pass this test.  I knew it was coming, I knew I had to eventually take it.. but time just snuck up on me so quickly and before I realized, it was my time.  I studied for about 3 months, graduating in June and taking my exam in Sept.  I took a short break immediately following graduation and then read an entire 3,000 page textbook, took over 300 pages of notes, and took practice tests and listened to podcasts/watched youtube videos.  It was a lot of information but it was honestly so rewarding to think about how much knowledge I’ve truly gained from these past few years.  Fast forward, Sept 23, 2020 was the day I took my test and it was great! A lot less structured of a process than they make it sound and I was able to complete my exam in about 2 hours and passed a few weeks later! I got my license and everything was great!

For whatever reason, during this time, I felt in my heart that it was time to get another dog.  This topic kept coming up un-provoked in EVERY single conversation we had with others and it just felt right.  Being home now, I was able to spend every day with Teddy, rather than taking him to daycare.  Because of the uncertainties of COVID at the time, I didn’t feel comfortable taking him in, nor did I want to drive if I didn’t have to.  Teddy became extremely depressed, always sleeping in the closet or between the toilet and wall, which are places he goes only when he’s hurt or sick.  I would try to play with him and take him out, but he had lost all motivation to do anything.  It hurt my heart that I couldn’t give him what he wanted or what he needed.  So, after a lot of thought and research, Chester came into our lives! Teddy’s breeder had JUST had a litter of puppies (on the same day I took my exam!) and I figured it was a good time to raise another puppy, since I have the time and no outstanding commitments right now.  We picked him up in Nov, right before Thanksgiving and jj’s brother was in town to help us.  It was a looooong day, 5 hours there and 5 hours back.  I think we got home around 2am, but since then, my life has just been on hold while I raise Chester.

Teddy was not happy at first.  I could tell he was confused and upset that another dog was here.  But over time, they have become much closer and share experiences that has helped him become a better brother.  Chester is a lot of work lol but he’s brought so much joy to all of us and I love him so much.  He’s currently 5 months, losing all his baby teeth, and getting into everything and Teddy has been enjoying the company (in moderation lol).

In regards to our life, we were really hoping to PCS back home summer of 2020, but it didn’t happen.  It was pretty disappointing because we’ve been on the east coast the whole time we’ve been active duty.  A lot of our friends moved either back to their hometowns or to the west coast and it felt really unjustified that we were stuck here, but even so, we are making the most of it.  We would have had to move through COVID and we wouldn’t have gotten Chester, so those are definitely some benefits of staying put.  Since we’re here for a bit, we’ve decided to purchase a house! Our friends down the street are selling theirs and we figured it’d be a good financial idea to start allocating our rent into a cheaper mortgage.  It has a double yard and it’s a bit newer than our current rental.  So we are hoping to move around June! I’m excited, it’s kind of a fresh new start without having to be too big of a move for now.  

Mentally, I’ve been fluctuating.  I have a lot of self-inflicted guilt from not working at the moment.  And yes, I agreed to get Chester and it’s a full-time job to watch him and not have to crate him all day.  I want him to enjoy his puppyhood and I want to be here with him as well, so I do cherish these moments that I can have with both him and Teddy.  However, I just feel like it’s the right thing to do or it’s what I’m supposed to do. I graduate and then I work! But being here, it’s just not the path for me.  Besides, I keep reminding myself that there are no job openings in my immediate area right now anyways.  So for now, I’m just spending my days with the pups and working on keeping the house clean, which does bring me a lot of joy.  I need to learn to enjoy life and not worry about what I’m not doing.  To help myself, I signed up for transcription services again, so hopefully that’ll bring in some money and take up some time.  I think it’s the need to feel productive and I haven’t had that in a while.  But with COVID, I’m sure that’s a very popular feeling.  

I think that’s about it for now, that’s what’s been going with me the past few years! I can’t wait to read this in 2 years and hopefully, I won’t be in the same place lol

byee

[xtremedespair3d]

New Year 2021: The Virus That Ruined Everything

WARNING: THIS POST IS EXTREMELY LONG, YOU CAN EITHER SKIM TO SOME IMPORTANT PARTS IF YOU'D LIKE.

The 2020 decade is finally here and... Quite a lot of stuff has happened for the absoltue worse, and I didn’t ask any of this.

Life continuously gets worse every time with bad stuff happening, mainly online drama and problems with my personal life, other things like celebrity deaths and among other things, but this year, no thanks to a certain virus and worse, my personal problems, this has definitely become the worst worst year yet!

(As for the thumbnail, I was gonna look for generic images of “2021″ but I realized I had saved this image since 2020 began, but looking at it now, I don’t think it has hold up because 2020 has become a far worse year of its own. Hopefully for a 2020 2 picture for 2021 in case if life continues to get worse and worse)

This is definitely the longest Tumblr post I’ve ever written, so be prepared!

First off, let me apologize for last year’s New Year post where I said it would be my last post and I would be retire from Tumblr, but after a few months, I got bored and I decided to come back because I can’t live without blogging, so I’ll continue doing what I like doing, even if nobody reads or cares about my posts most of the time.

I should also tell you in advance that I’m dropping the scoring system in my top best of the year lists, not only they were usually rigged, biased* and repetitive, it was pretty confusing too. What I was basically trying to do with these scores is just matching different systems, like for example:

10/10 Rank: S++ 100%

The first one is a standard one, the second is common in some games but it’s more loosely based on Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain where the top rank is S++, and the third part is of course based on Rotten Tomatoes, which thank god I’m not even checking that site anymore and I have the word muted on Twitter so I won’t be disappointed with how terrible the movies I want to see the most perform (And why should I really care about that to begin with?). In the end, numbers don’t matter, it’s all about how much I enjoy this media and how much do I love it or hate it to be top or bottom, that’s all what matters.

*Although my lists will always be biased regardless. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Now, let’s kick off this post with some of the cursed shit that happened throughout this year, there were Australia wildfires, we almost had World War 3, police brutality, and now the worst thing of all, COVID-19. I’m not even gonna bother going into details on these other events other than COVID because it’s a very important issue that happened throughout life, even for my standards which I wouldn’t give an absolute shit about everything else that happens. A lot of major events got delayed, movies and games that I was looking forward the most got delayed, etc. Everything about COVID was a mess, but as usual, everything that happens in my life is far worse than every event. There’s a plethora of issues that happened throughout this year with plenty of things that really affected me, so I really hope you’ll understand (If not, it’s fine, nobody cares about these posts anyway).

When I was writing this draft, I put some titles to better indicate myself and to not forget about the important topics I want to talk about, and at some point I was debating myself whether or not I should leave these titles, but as I was writing without the titles when I got to certain topics, I realized how disorganized this post was looking, so I’m definitely putting these titles back as part of the actual post. I’ll probably do this in every New Year post too. Anyway, let’s start!

Quarantine and mental health: Let’s talk about the current situation we live in, quarantine. A lot of people miss being outside and being social, although to be honest, I’m not really missing out on anything, my family and I rarely go outside and we love staying indoors all the time anyways, except for going to the cinema, and the lockdown wasn’t really that strict in my town.

The best part of the quarantine was at one point my mom decided that I wouldn’t do online classes for my fine arts school since it’s not very convenient to learn stuff at home, and while I partially agree, the main reason why I didn’t want to continue studying is probably because I lost care about it, I’m always so distracted on my phone, I’m always so slow with sculpture and painting, not being able to go to school is the best thing the quarantine could happen... Except... There’s still some priority with my older sister, and when September came, it was time for the homeworks once again, my worst nightmare...

Doing my older sister’s homeworks really bring the worst of me, every time my mom always tells me there’s homework to do, I always say “ugh...” in varying tones and sometimes I get in trouble for it where my mom constantly gets triggered and tells me we must do it for my older sister’s sake, blah blah blah, and always, I shit you not, I ALWAYS fight with my mom when we do homeworks. I try to tell her the do’s and don’ts of how to use the internet and stuff, she sometimes takes too long researching for stuff, she constantly talks while figuring out and changes words when I’m supposed to be writing the things she’s supposed to tell me, I hate doing maps, etc. Just working with her is the absolute worst. I wish I could calm down in every situation, but I just can’t, I always get triggered and I insult my mom in said things.

Sometimes my mom tells me that my angry behavior comes from my lack of sleep, I always insist her that my bad sleep has nothing to do with my angry behavior, it’s the way I am. (Lately my sleep schedule is a bit messy but, like I said, I’m always angry because that’s how I am)

If you’ve been following me for a while and looked at how I tweet and interact with other Discord servers, you probably would have guessed that my behavior hasn’t gotten any better, and indeed it hasn’t. Of course I did promise I would change this year by trying to not attack people’s opinions and not being so mad at my mom, but being me as usual, I’m never going to change at all.

I don’t know what’s worse, attacking people’s opinions, or always figting with my mom in what to do with doing my older sister’s homeworks.

Before you tell me stuff like “Why can’t you tell your older sister to do her homeworks herself?” Because she doesn’t care and there’s one particular reason which I’m probably not gonna discuss in detail publicly (Unless you ask me to).

I've recently been hearing stuff about the COVID vaccine coming to Mexico, while that sounds great news, but at the same time, I can't help but have a feeling that I don't have the highest hopes for this and I don't think things would be fine, like, what if someone might be allergic to whatever the vaccine is made of? Not to mention that the vaccine is delivered in syringes, instead of going like the ending of Spider-Man PS4, I have a better idea: Why not try to make planes and spray out the vaccine everywhere so everyone outside can breath it, like it was some sort of pesticide but it has the opposite effect? It's kind of a messed up idea when I brought the pesticide thing, but that's the best thing I could think of.

Novel progress: This is something I was desperately trying to achieve, but the road has become a complete let down. I don’t want to disclose anything about my project, but I actually succeeded in publishing at least the first two chapters of my novel, the prologue and chapter 1, but I’ve been getting some rather harsh criticism in my website that I’m not really fond of, some of them are suggestions I’m not really sure I want to do, and even some that are just destructive, not only on my chapters but even on my blog posts when I’m trying to talk about some changes and other things, even my older sister’s harsh criticism doesn’t help me at all. All the negative comments combined with my eternal procrastination and having NO IDEA what the story even is and trying to figure that out and the monthly gap, I couldn’t help but give up on the project, I haven’t flat out cancelled the project out of my mind, but in terms of making it exist, I put it on hold. Yeah, I was really hurt and I have no idea what to do.

I don’t know about you but I’m just very sensitive about the kind of feedback I got with my project, it’s just something I never asked for and it really hurts me so much, it completely discourages me to keep going

I’ll talk about the future of my project in my resolutions, but the one last thing to say about this is that once my project exists and if I’m become successful, I really hope for once in my life my projects or I won’t get the same treatment as the next topic below.

The Last of Us 2 and YandereDev: This is seriously the most trigger inducing topic I’ve ever had to witness in my life, it’s beyond disgusting.

Literally every time over the last 3 years, everything that I’m interested in always ends up getting some form of backlash for no absolute reason. Fate/Apocrypha in 2017, Venom, Ready Player One and FLCL2&3 in 2018, Captain Marvel in 2019, now it’s TLOU2 in 2020.

First of all, I’m not a huge TLOU person, although I would have watched Let’s Play videos of people playing the first game, and from what I’ve seen, it was beloved by many, and then there’s the iconic “That’s the cutest fucking thing I have seen in my entire life” meme which I didn’t even know it was originated from TLOU to begin with.

The first game is a favorite, so the sequel should be an instant hype, but early this year, I started to see some hate around TLOU2, and it has been going for months, even some of my friends and artists I care about are joining the hate bandwagon for no reason...

LIKE, WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY???!!! THIS IS DISGUSTING!!!!! EVERYONE, LITERALLY EVERYONE ARE ABSOLUTE DISGUSTING MONSTERS!!!!!!

Literally, some of my friends and even some artists I care about talk shit about TLOU2 and they continue to do so! And then there’s other people I do care about like YouTubers who do care about TLOU2 and that’s enough to make me happy and I would LOVE to watch their videos but I’m too spoiled and self-conscious about watching TLOU2 videos and like it, so I have no idea whose should should I be on!

And then there’s The Game Awards which a lot of the nominees and even the winners were saturated with TLOU2, I can’t even bother getting into details for this but I definitely expected people to be so mad at TLOU2 winning almost every single award.

Now with how much shit TLOU2 has gotten, the future of the TLOU series which can even affect the upcoming HBO series is not gonna be so bright and everyone have turned against Naughty Dog completely.

You know what the saddest part is? Looking at the hate for TLOU2 makes me think on how will my project can get treated with whatever bullshit I may put with certain characters and other stuff, and that shit is beyond depressing, I absolutely WISH my beloved project I may or may never bring to life can get the same treatment as TLOU2, EVER! NOT EVEN FROM THE PEOPLE I CARE ABOUT! JUST DON’T!

Please let this shitty year end so no one can ever talk about TLOU2 EVER AGAIN!

Lastly I have to talk about YandereDev, although I wouldn’t like to get into details because I’m probably gonna get crucified that I’m still supporting them. I also don’t have much to comment on them but it really sucks seeing people I have highly regarded going down in infamy. Especially with YandereDev, I still watch KubzScout’s videos about Yandere Simulator and I like seeing how the game is progressing, and sure, YandereDev can be a shitty person but I can’t help but feel for him and his something is something I wish I wouldn’t be when defending my project, like I don’t want to be the next TLOU2 and the next YandereDev. And then I’ve seen some of the most unfunniest memes I’ve seen in my entire life.

Hololive disasters: This isn’t something that necessarily affected me pretty badly, but it’s worth pointing out, kinda like “I’ve seen some shit” situation.

As of late, Virtual YouTubers have become finally become a norm into our modern pop culture and global society as a whole, we’ve all become VTuber simps. Whether it’s Hololive, Nijisanji, Pikamee, Projekt Melody, Artemis of the Blue, everyone’s simping VTubers now.

Out of all the aforementioned groups and independent VTubers, the most popular group is of course Hololive. Hololive as of late has gained a huge following thanks to fan subtitled clips and even the Azur Lane collaboration early this year. Then Hololive English has launched and it became a success, and the biggest Japanese milestone is the 5th generation! But as soon as the 5th gen debuted, things don’t get any sweet with Mano Aloe where she leaked her Live2D before her debut stream and forgot to delete her leak and other things. For something like this seems too outrageous, but with that she completely decided to retire even after she debuted, which was really sad, but what makes it especially furious for me is that Guchico, Aloe’s designer, got his art completely wasted and I doubt he would make another VTuber design for Hololive after this.

Then there’s the infamous Kiryu Coco and Akai Haato Taiwan thing, which I don’t really understand what the hell happened with that, and I don’t want to be too offensive, but that’s kind of retarded on the Chinese part.

There were a plethora of other disasterous events with Hololive but I think those two of Mano Aloe and Coco/Haato Taiwan are the most important worth talking about, this wasn’t quite a good year for Hololive to say the least.

Artists: Another thing I didn’t like throughout this year was the artists, and this isn’t so much about dramas like last year, but I’ve started to hate a number of artists for various reasons, even Custom Maid people.

I’m not gonna call out people’s names, so I’m simply going to tell the actions which really turns me off. On the illustrators side, I got really tired of seeing artists complain about shit that I like and other things, and my absolute least favorite, artists completely being hard on themselves and being hardcore perfectionists. That is one of the worst things I hate seeing to artists, there’s just something about their ranting about their perfectionism and everything else that really turn me off so badly, as for the times they do their “I can’t draw, I hate my drawings” and whatever, it really pisses me off so much, why artists aren’t just happy with what they’re doing?! And to top it all off, they completely neglect their fans’ encouragement and they continue with the same shit over and over! Like, I don’t understand! I just want to see them happy and deliver the best works they can, but if that’s what they really feel all the time, why are they even drawing in the first place? Might as well they should retire for good and then I’m immediately gonna regret saying this afterwards!

Then there's also some of the artists I follow (At least the ones who speak English) who talk shit about some anime, games or movies that I like, and some what I've seen even join in the TLOU2 hate train for no reason like I previously mentioned, which gives me a huge sour taste in my mouth. Sometimes I even went so far arguing with at least two from what I recently remember when one tweeted where he sounded like he was talking ill of Rui Komatsuzaki's art with the Danganronpa x Akudama Drive crossover art, and another one who for some reason doesn't even care about the Azur Lane game, and the biggest irony is that this is an artist that drew Taihou quite a lot, and that thought process is downright stupid! Like, what's even the point of drawing fan arts of the characters from a game which made you successful but made you start to lose care for it to begin with?! You're so stupid!

In short: I hate perfectionists and I hate when artists talk shit on the things I like. Even if I hate the way they are, I just can't let go of them because I still support them for their art, I wish I would simply care for artists for their art and not so much for them (Except for their health and stuff, although I still feel selfish about it), but I've grown too caring for some of them (At least the ones who speak English) that I would occasionally read their tweets about certain things like games, anime, movies, etc, and some of them leave me a sour taste in my mouth.

Then there’s the Custom Maid people, although there’s not much to say but what pisses me off the most in some cases is that they abruptly started to retire and disappear without a trace and there’s not much I can do about that.

Throwing some Koikatsu artists in there as well, I don’t really follow many Koikatsu artists but the one I truly believe was the absolute worst is “renka.” (For some reason he deleted his Twitter, he might have ranted about something about his struggles but glad I didn’t even witness that to even care about him at this point, although his Pixiv is still open) From the very beginning early this year, the dude did some rants about his struggles and other things I can’t even bother to remember, but over the next few months I’ve grown to like the guy, we even followed each other and communicated for a while (That is until for some reason he decided to unfollow me so we’re no longer mutuals), but as of late, his content and his mental state have completely deteriorated, he stopped doing these “Good morning” posts I always interacted with, he abandoned his one OC, and the worst part of renka is that he’s become so hungry for attention and numbers, I mean, his posts always get over 1 thousand likes and he thinks it’s not enough. And the one thing that broke my heart the most about talking to this guy, I made these collab screenshots (Or just some よその子 (Yosonoko, someone else's OC) screenshots I did for fun) and renka never even bothered interacting with them. No likes, no retweets, no replies, NOTHING! The dude for no reason completely neglects my screenshots I did for fun, these screenshots I made are probably the screenshots I'm the least proud of ever making, the dude was so ungrateful, fuck the guy. Then there's also the time where renka out of the blue blocked a Custom Maid person I interacted with, which gives me more reason to not care about the guy.

I seriously wish I can at least counter some artists' opinions very often and to not get discouraged, basically virtually slapping in their faces like I always want, but I really wish people wouldn't take me as if I'm threatening them with a strong tone (Though sometimes I do it on purpose) to the point I would get instantly blocked, even when I try to make a rather innocent disagreement. This is all for directly interacting with these artists, in my private server, I ALWAYS talk shit to them behind their backs, their art and the artists themselves.

And yeah, even if I were to start drawing regularly and I face the same struggles the artists have which makes me an absolute hipocrite, but the thing is I’m still so inexperienced with digital art and the artists I care about are hella experienced, it’s completely ironic and it’s just frustrating to watch!

Private Discord server and downfall: Probably the most heartbreaking thing that happened to me and I have ever done this year. In 2018, for a while I’ve constantly been making test servers just to copy and paste some things and I always ended up deleting them afterwards, but one day I somehow have finally decided to make a server that’ll stay forever, and indeed has been which has become my personal journal where I can freely and privately talk about some things where I wouldn’t publicly do so in Twitter mainly for my controversial tone and opinions.

In 2020, a few months ago, I started bringing some people into my server, although one time I did bring someone to take a quick look at it and got out afterwards, but this time the people I brought were friends I recently made and the ones I care about now, which they happen to be Custom Maid creators and an artist (The following links contain NSFW content, click at your own risk), such as Ten Speed (Who was the only person active mainly because he’s the only second English speaking person, he’s a Filipino), hinosuna (Main account, he’s been using this more nowadays since June 30th, he seemingly retired from doing Custom Maid content), ryuuunnji, Shimotsuki Nagomi and Maidin (Who at the time he was about to delete his Twitter account for some drama, I asked him to make a Discord to better communicate rather than using Pixiv, then the Twitter account was remade into what you see in the link, no communication, screenshot posting only).

On December 4th, however, things started to take a dive. ryuuunnji had left the server, I asked him on the Twitter DM about it and he has indeed left the server because he wasn’t very active on it, which makes me sad. With that being said, it came into my mind that I would start trying to kick out the other inactive members of my server, so I tagged Nagomi and Hinosuna about it but to no response, but then I DM’d Maidin on his personal and communicational account, I was asleep for a few hours, I woke up and I found out he has cut ties with me. He softblocked me on Twitter, he blocked me on Discord, he deleted the MEGA link that contained all his screenshots (which I didn’t get a chance to download some of them, and I really hope he didn’t delete the collab screenshots he made with my characters), all of that without prior warning... Notihng. This put me in a really awful position.

Maidin and I had a pretty good history, I always liked, retweeted and interacted to his tweets, I brought him into my server because of some struggle he was having and we did interact a little bit in the server for a while,

This happened similarly to another Custom Maid creator known as gg_colombia, I made a TierMaker of ranking Custom Maid creators I follow and some I don’t but still know, even throwing a bit of Koikatsu people, where I put a friend of Colombia in the “Die” tier because that person I put in that tier blocked me a day after my birthday after telling them that my birthday happened the day after in Mexico and I got blocked for no reason, and apparently Colombia got really angry and blocked me, I communicated with other creators who followed me to vent my problem, and somehow Colombia and I eventually settled. But with Maidin... It seems like he really doesn’t want to talk to me anymore, I’m pretty sure I broke his heart. To this day I’m still trying really hard to contact him in different ways but he completely neglects me, and that really sucks how much I think about how I have instantly turned him against me, it’s just sad.

And then I got blocked by Maidin for good on the 28th after tweeting him begging to follow me again which makes things even worse now, at least I’m still not blocked on Pixiv, but I’m not having any high hopes for that, I’ve had enough.

I should never take Japanese people for granted, and I should never invite anyone into my private server ever again.

This one action that completely messed me up so bad, one of the moments that truly make me question my sanity, my being and my overall existence. I was pretty depressed for that entire weekend, it got me thinking for a while I really want to leave behind my current social media accounts and start from scratch with a new identity and stuff, but I got tired of doing that and when I got blocked some people, I didn’t care anymore, but now it’s coming back.

In late November, I made a Twitter thread ranting about my history of deleting accounts and even wanting to do the same thing over and over again as well as the cons for doing so. Now that I think about it, I don’t think it should even matter about the names I will use, it depends on the kind of person I actually am, and even though I try to change and try to be different, someone’s gotta be bound to recognize me for some things I might post or something. I’m also paranoid that people won’t support me at all, not as Hajime Komaeda, not as my pen name, but me in real life as a whole, no matter the names I go by.

I always think about doing aggressive call-outs to some people like it’s no big deal, but then when it comes to the execution, I get in very big trouble for it and I always feel bad, but now, I got what I deserved. 3 long years having the same problem with people’s opinions combined with telling a friend they were being kicked to my Discord server which left him heartbroken, not to mention always ALWAYS being aggressive towards my mom every time we do my older sister’s homeworks, I’m a really messed up person who doesn’t deserve to exist in this world. I don’t want to be a burden nor lose friends any longer.

Even if I've grown really close to Ten, there were times that we did argue and dear god, I really hope I won't get too salty about what we talk about, I don't want to break friendships any longer, especially towards someone who's now my #1 friend, fuck everyone else I talked with before.

Now, let’s move on to the more somewhat positive side of things throughout this year.

The positives

Pixelbuster and Phan-Site: Probably the best thing to come out of this year is Pixelbuster getting cancelled. Although I haven’t gotten a chance to witness this mess live as it was happening, I was asleep for a couple of hours, I woke up and started checking Twitter on my phone and I saw a tweet from MysticDistance talking about Pixelbuster and a couple of retweets and I was like “Holy shit, Pixelbuster is getting owned!” and his Discord server was gone, and with that said, I blocked Pixelbuster in Discord as well.

If you don’t remember, Pixelbuster was under controversy from some people at gaming news site Final Weapon where Pixel took advantage of their name to get free games with codes from developers. So yeah, that was quite a shitty move, but in all honesty, to this day I still feel like I don’t give a shit about that, when the controversy happened, I just capitalized in ranting about why Pixelbuster was so unlikeable, I made a post about it as well for more details as to why I hated him.

I was asleep for a few hours and I didn’t get a chance to see his downfall happen at the very moment, when I woke up, his Discord server was already gone and I wanted to see the shitstorm that happened in there, but it’s all gone.

PIxel even tried going back into social media to apologize to some people I assume he got blocked by under the name SpookyLava/Sp00kyLava with a picture of Sucy from Little Witch Academia as his profile picture. Of course this did not go well as people immediately started calling him out, and just like that, he completely disappeared without a trace for good. I don’t think I’ve seen any activity or a word from Pixel as far as I know, so he’s completely gone and I really hope I wouldn’t see him ever again.

A little while ago I came across his Nitomatta Twitter account being open for some reason, I can’t verify for sure this is Pixel himself since there’s only this one tweet that simply says some laughter and then Soul Kiwami’s tweet of the TwitLonger about Final Weapon’s experience working with Pixel that for some reason is actually pinned (Wait, how is it possible to pin someone else’s tweets? Don’t you simply pin your own tweets? How the hell does this work?), it’s even stranger when this account has been open and the one tweet where posted around the time the controversy happened.

As much as I hated Pixelbuster so much and I hated reading his tweets constantly complaining about the current media and franchises that I had muted Pixel for a while before the controversy happened, sometimes I can’t help but wonder what is actually Pixelbuster up to now, like for example, does he play Genshin Impact? There were other things that came into my mind, but the Genshin Impact thing is the one thing I have in mind the most.

The only thing I ever liked about Pixel were his shitposts, sometimes he was funny and I retweeted his memes. He also even got retweeted by some Japanese artists, including the creator of Pop Team Epic, bkub Okawa, where he retweeted a clip posted by Pixelbuster, I can’t remember what video was it exactly, maybe it might have been a Resident Evil 3 mod video or something.

To Pixelbuster, if you’re still here and you’re possibly reading this: GET FUCKED!

Next is Phan-Site and this one was quite a surprise. For a while I grew uninterested with Phan-Site’s Twitter, so I muted him. His Discord server also didn’t do any favors for me, so sometimes I did my usual complaining about people’s opinions and just being angry, after some time being inactive and just for my feeling of uninterest, I left the server.

Although not everything about Phan-Site’s Discord was necessarily bad, as I met Emanuel Gracia, a Persona fanfiction writer who I actually looked up to the guy for his writing skills and motivation, I never necessarily read his fanfictions (Sometimes I did take a peak at his Persona Next Gen fanfic, or as it’s now called Persona Grand Legacy, for reference in how to write novels), but sometimes I did give him some info about my top secret project as a symbol of trust as writers and I’m even in his Discord server as a mod.

(Gracia, if you’re reading this, I’m so sorry)

Although our friendship is not going to last long after two years and by the time this post is published, it’s most likely going to happen because I grew completely dissatisfied with the guy and his Twitter for my same problem of hating to see his opinions and talks shit about other things I like so I muted him as well, and probably the worst of him is his fixation with One Piece, he’s so fixated to it that he treats it like god and he uses it to shit on My Hero Academia and possibly other modern Shounen (Though he utterly criticizes MHA the most) which really pisses me off. Not to mention I’m pretty toxic in his server with the same stuff I vent over and over and some other problems, so it really doesn’t help.

Anyways, back to Phan-Site, the controversy happened when MysticDistance posted a tweet of a screen video capture of his voice message from Phan-Site which I’m probably not gonna link the tweet because it’s quite scary to listen to, but what I can say is that Phan-Site definitely wasn’t in a good mood, as he was threatening Mystic to answer his phone in a very angry voice.

After that tweet was posted, Phan-Site disappeared just like that. The last thing I remember is someone taking up the mantle of the Phan-Site Facebook page, but some people were telling this person to better delete the account so the brand wouldn’t continue any longer because of what happened, and that’s it, haven’t heard anything about Phan-Site or the person behind him ever since.

After Pixelbuster and Phan-Site disappeared, it made me realize that I wouldn’t like to ever follow or even associate with these kinds of bigshots ever again, neither RedMakuzawa nor UltimaShadowX, or any other of these accounts in general, not even Karoshi of all people who I’m still somewhat attached for some reason, because they’re often very bland, they often tweet opinions in a very harsh and gatekeeping tone, etc. I just really hate these kinds of people, I don’t wanna see them nor I wanna be friends with them if they’re gonna talk shit about the stuff I love.

The Boys: This is something I never expected to do, but it was something I wanted to do for a long time when season 1 came out. One day, I heard my mom and my older sister having a conversation where instead of watching shitty YouTube videos, she should at least watch some series, and that got me thinking about it and somehow I randomly went to Amazon, subscribe for Prime, check Amazon Prime Video and I immediately saw The Boys on the homepage and I started watching it, and boy, I’m so hooked on it and I seriously wish I could have seen the series sooner!

And the most unexpected part is that this is my first time watching an exclusive series in a streaming platform, completely legally! I would normally go to some random pirated websites like swatchseries or whatever where I would pretty much watch everything, but not with The Boys, I actually paid for Amazon Prime Video, well, it was my first time being subscribed to Prime so my first subscription was for free. The best part of watching The Boys using Amazon Prime Video is that I can actually turn on the subtitles and even change the language dubs, so sometimes I watched a little bit of the series with Japanese dub, though I prefer watching the series in the original English language with English subtitles on, but it’s fun watching the series in Japanese dub. (Unrelated but at some point I rewatched Venom in Amazon Prime Video and I was sad that it doesn’t have Japanese dub in there)

I actually started watching The Boys a few days before season 2 even began, so I managed to watch the first season just in time and then I definitely watched season 2 weekly (Except for the finale, I did have to go to swatchseries for the finale because I wouldn’t use Amazon Prime for the rest of October).

Things get more hype when the news of No More Heroes 3 being delayed were being released, Suda51 also stated that he happened to hire the comic artist of The Boys, and I went all-out fanboying my ass off, it’s the best thing that has ever happened to my life by a mere coincidence of watching The Boys!

To end things off, I’ve been very frustrated with Agents of SHIELD and The Blacklist. The final season of Agents of SHIELD started off interestingly, but then until the second half of the final season was an absoltue let down, it was meh, I’m so glad Agents of SHIELD is over, the era of Marvel TV shows that made references to the MCU but weren’t even allowed to have crossovers anymore is over, and now with the Disney+ shows, we’re finally getting the TRUE MCU connected and crossover shows we deserve!

Then there’s The Blacklist, and oh boy, don’t even get me started on that series because lately it has gone consistently shit, and things get worse when in November, they literally premiered the first two episodes and then the series will continue in January 22nd which is too far and too long of a break for a season that came out this November! Not to mention that they literally recast Dom after the original actor passed away a few months ago, but only to kill him off in the second episode of the premiere, this was an absolute waste of a recast! After the original actor passed away, I always thought they would leave Dom in a coma and write him off of the show, but no, they decided to recast a new actor to continue the character and his story one last time, and then they did this shit, write the character again only for two episodes and the rest is history!

Elizabeth couldn’t have put a better way to describe my feelings on the show lately with this scene!

I don’t really know for sure what’s my future of watching The Blacklist is going to be, this episode was so bad that I ranted how bad it is to the point where I said “I’m done watching this show,” I mean, I really want to stop watching this show, I want to drop it, I want to stop caring about it, but once the season returns, I’m gonna feel so bad about missing out what’s going on in the story when I may come across tweets from the official Twitter account of the show. And then there’s this Japanese article where Nijisanji Vtuber, Shizuka Rin or ShizuRin, actually appeared and she watches The Blacklist! But even that doesn’t do me any favors to continue watching this shit any longer!

So yeah, fuck Agents of SHIELD! Fuck The Blacklist! The Boys is my new favorite TV show and I will never get tired of it! I love The Boys, I love these kinds of adult rated superhero stuff with gore, strong language, sex scenes and such, it makes me think of Kick-Ass!

Other major events: There are also some major events I forgot to address in last year’s New Year post, like the US Elections, the death of Adobe Flash and even the next gen consoles.

Then there’s the US Elections, although I don’t have much to say and I normally don’t care about politics in general, let alone foreign politics, but I’m glad we won’t have Trump again, although I’m not sure if I might have heard great things about John Biden but at least I wanted someone other than Trump. Now for Mexico, I’ll have to wait 4 more years to get a new president and remove AMLO, although Mexican presidents are always useless.

Next is the death of Adobe Flash Player, today is finally the day for to say our prayers to Flash, let’s press F to pay respects. There were also some news that Flash playback will stop being supported on January 12th 2021, which makes it even sadder because there’s still some things that still use Flash, like some really ancient Newgrounds stuff and even Chaturbate (Yeah, this is a little weird, I normally don’t use the site often but I had once for Projekt Melody), I even recently watched an old Madness fan cartoon that is now deleted on Newgrounds onto the Wayback Machine and Firefox asked me to use Flash, so I did that. And this current version of Firefox, version 84, is the last one to support the Adobe Flash Player.

Hopefully there will be some good alternatives to play some old SWF Flash content, like Ruffle which is an open source Flash emulator that is actually sponsored by Newgrounds of all people, and I recently found a tweet from Tom Fulp that Newgrounds will soon be using Ruffle. The demo page of the website even allows you to play the original Alien Hominid game before the remaster comes out, it’s not perfect but at least it’s something. As of the writing of this post on December 23rd, I didn’t know I can actually download the Ruffle extension, I always thought it was something that’ll take a long time to perfect and only has a demo page to test it out, but they actually have some download links for the standalone program and even browser extentions, although it’s probably still not the first major release or anything, it might be something (I tried but for some reason Firefox wouldn’t let me download the extension).

Oh, and speaking of deaths, let’s press F to pay respects to Chadwick Boseman, Keiji Fujiwara and HorribleSubs. To Chadwick Boseman, especially, this was quite a shock he’s had colon cancer for the last 4 years, he fought quite a long battle like a true warrior, Wakanda Forever! And Keiji Fujiwara amd Kobe too, god damn, we lost a lot of great ones this year!

As for the console next gen, the Playstation 5 and the Xbox Series X/S, although we’ll stick to PS5 because I’ve always been a Playstation person, don’t judge me. This is something I’m not quite fond of it happening now because my biggest problem is that my family bought the PS4 last year and it felt like it was way too late. Sometimes I do feel tempted on wanting to get a PS5 so bad now, but there’s still gonna be some games coming to the PS4 (inb4 people are gonna be playing those PS4 games into the PS5) and there’s still like a shitton of games that I haven’t played in years and who knows if my older sister and I are gonna have time to play them all. it’s still gonna have some time left because there will be games coming to the PS5 entirely for good in like 3 or 4 years. Looks like I’ll have to wait for another 6 years to own the PS5, and then the next year, the PS6 would be released.

Really the only thing that could have sold me on the PS5 is if it was colored black and most importantly, if it was actually fully backwards compatible with every Playstation game, that could have been an absolute win so I could have replayed some PS2 games I still own, but sadly it’s not.

Home improvements: We’ve also had some home improvements, like adding a gate around my bedroom’s hallway where the staircase goes so my dogs won’t annoy me at my door, but the biggest improvement we’ve made is finally upgrading our internet modem and we finally got proper home Wi-Fi... For better and for worse.

I didn’t know I wanted this to happen but it was about time to upgrade our internet, but the results have been mixed. On one hand, I guess the internet is mostly the same, it’s not faster or anything but at least we finally got proper Wi-Fi on our house, but at the same time, the Wi-Fi can be absolute garbage especially when it barely reaches my bedroom which I’m in the second floor and that doesn’t make sense considering we live in a small house and even if I’m on top, the router should be closer to me! When I’m really frustrated with the Wi-Fi’s poor signal, I continue to use the Windows 10 mobile hotspot thing which I’ve been using for years. Not to mention that my internet on my laptop goes on and off randomly and that really annoys me, I swear when we had our old router, this didn’t happen before.

Despite these problems, at least it’s better than having no internet in FOREVER when the lights go out like it happened with our old router. Sometimes the Wi-Fi signal works, but sometimes it doesn’t, it drives me insane. That is until I finally decided I would start using the Wi-Fi for my laptop since as of the writing of this post in the 29th, the Wi-Fi has been working rather nicely, the speed of my Wi-Fi on my laptop so far is kinda the same as my ethernet, so hopefully it’ll be fine. Until the Wi-Fi goes slow, I’m switching back to the ethernet.

As of the publishing of this post, I haven’t gotten any problem with using the Wi-Fi and that makes me jump into the conclusion that my issue with having my internet randomly turn on and off really comes from my ethernet cable. Sometimes I did run into some slow uploading problems but most of the Wi-Fi is fine.

That’s all I have to discuss about my life this year, it was an absolute disaster and even I do think I wish I was dead, I didn’t want to exist in this planet any longer yet I continue to fight and suffer through a lot of things. What do I even want to accomplish by arguing people by forcing my opinions against theirs and stuff? Power and attention, but it never turns out like I want. People tell me over and over not to care about what people say, but I continue ignoring and doing the same fight with no success over and over, my problem is indeed that I’m too caring. Yes, I’m too caring about everything, and ignorance is almost never my solution. There’s seriously nothing I can do about it.

Anyway, here’s a silly meme about my 2020 to enlighten this up.

Best and worst of the year and anticipated releases

Let’s finally move on to my favorite part of making these New Year posts, the good old top best lists and most anticipated releases of whatever media I love! This year is going to be a little different, as I’m making these top best lists of each category, I’ll be talking about the most anticipated releases of the same categories I talk about simultaneously! And looking at the upcoming releases, 2021 is looking to be the most lit year ever!

Better keep in mind that not all releases could be for 2021, they may be bound to be delayed to 2022 or beyond.

Top 15 best anime of the year

I already have my top 4 contenders figured out for quite a while (Which you’ll find out), but as usual, figuring out the rest is quite difficult. At first I thought I had this list to top 10 maximum but now I got some perfect candidates to make this a top 15 list instead, a little shorter than last year’s with 20, but it’s worth it.

15.- Watanuki-san Chi To: It’s probably gonna be a permanent pattern where the Watanuki-san Chi series (if it’ll get more seasons, that is) will always be the first, or the bottom depending on how you read these top lists, since it’s a dorama and not an “anime,” but it’s still a good series regardless. And no it’s not honorable mention worthy because I really like the Watanuki-san Chi series.

Also, there are many people who make subtitled highlight clips of various VTubers, why aren’t they making fansubs of Watanuki-san Chi To or no streaming platform has picked up the series yet? smh.

14.- Eizouken

13.- Hentatsu (TV): I’m usually biased to Tatsuki’s works now that should have been amongst the top 3, and not to say this series is rather disappointing (I would never call any of Tatsuki’s works disappointing, bad or worst), but given that this is a short series, let alone EXTREMELY short with 1 minute and 30 seconds long (The size of openings and endings), I feel like it wasn’t enough.

There’s also this one episode in the TV series that is kind of the same as the one from the web series with some changes, like Tatsuki kinda threw this episode in there to fill the gap anyways.

(Web series - TV series comparison)

I kinda wish this was instead a full fledged TV series for Keifuku-san since Tatsuki tweeted this and even Crunchyroll thought it would be a Keifuku-san series, but he jebaited us all, but I do admit that I admire the troll marketing, that was quite an unexpected move.

Now it seems like we’re gonna have to wait until 2022 so we see a new Tatsuki release, I hope it is the Keifuku-san series that was supposedly teased, but if it’s gonna be another remake of Tatsuki’s old works like Kemurikusa or a brand new series, I’m down for whatever it may be.

(Also, let me painfully remind you that Tatsuki will never make Kemurikusa 12.2, so whatever happened at 12.1 will remain as a cliffhanger)

12.- Uzaki-chan wa Asobitai

11.- Girls’ Frontline Healing Chapter season 2

10.- Osomatsu-san season 3

8.- Magia Record: I don’t know about Magia Record as a game with its story, and in my opinion this one is probably not as messed up or even “revolutionary” as the main series back in the day, but it’s still an interesting series. regardless. I also reward Magia Record for having the Best Anime Soundtrack of the Year! Just listen to this masterpiece!

8.- Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Gou

7.- Kaguya-sama season 2

6.- D4DJ First Mix: Sanzigen absolutely dominated this year with a ton of releases I never knew I needed, but with all these releases, we’ll have to pick TWO of the very best for this list BanG Dream season 3 and D4DJ, but first, we’ll start off with D4DJ First Mix!

I have made pretty much all the Sanzigen shows of the year but Bandori season 3 as A-tier anime (While the aforementioned Bandori S3 is S-tier), this was going to be another A-tier anime for the sake of being a new franchise, but after watching 5 episodes of the series, it already changed my mind that this is S-tier, I’m liking the concept and the characters very much!

5.- BanG Dream! season 3: Bandori season 3 is in my opinion is the series’ best season, mainly because I’ve been waiting for the plotline of Rokka being a member of RAS since I researched in the Wiki and stuff and saw these images of RAS that has Rokka in it, and this season overall made me like RAS a lot more, I would go so far to say that their chemistry and development are more interesting than their songs, not that I don’t like them or anything but I haven’t gotten the time to listen to them in Spotify.

But with my new-found love for RAS came at a cost and it was not very good: Their wasted potential in Garupa Pico Ohmori, you’ll find out why in my list of Worst Anime of the Year above.

4.- Fruits Basket season 2

3.- Ishuzoku Reviewers

I had trouble deciding on whether or not Ishuzoku Reviewers or Fruits Basket season 2 would be third place.

On one hand, Ishuzoku Reviewers is the most risk-taking and controversial ecchi series I’ve seen with very good hentai-worthy sex scenes and the series really speaks out to me the most since I’ve grown to have a very NSFW image, particularly with my few Custom Order Maid 3D2 content as well as my daily retweet spam of everything NSFW. With Fruits Basket, the story and character development continues to fascinate me and I can’t wait to see the final season next year.

But on the other hand, and mainly with Ishuzoku Reviewers, there are the cons like the show being biased with disgusting fetishes and even elfcist (That’s kind of a weird word I came up with. To put it better: elf discrimination), with Fruits Basket, I really don’t have much problems with the series overall except for the Student Council characters, they’re the absolute worst (Except Machi, she’s a good girl), and then there’s episode 9 of the season with Kyo talking to Akito and that was absolutely painful to watch (The main reason why is because the episode was too dark for me idk).

2.- ID:INVADED:To this day I still can’t get over how amazing the series is, from its animation from a struggling studio, to its story which actually got me a bit into theory crafting, my theories didn’t get paid off nor they were answered in the series which leads to plot holes, but I was very fascinated for the series.

1.- Akudama Drive: This is my grand savior of 2020, this is the one Tookyo Games project I was excited the most since the studio was founded and announced three other projects! Yes, call me biased due to my old love for Danganronpa, but I love this show! So much so that I would occasionally tell an old friend of mine to watch the series, I haven’t asked him too much about it nowadays, but I doubt he would still watch the series because he’s quite busy.

Honorable mentions

Sakura Wars: The Animation and Argonavis from BanG Dream: Counting double because they’re both Sanzigen shows. And they probably would have been in my main list, probably make one entry focused on all Sanzigen shows, but I had to pick Bandori season 3 and D4DJ separately if only Sanzigen didn’t abuse the hand drawn background characters way too much in Sakura Wars: The Animation, and the atrocious episode 13 of Argonavis.

Heya Camp

Nekopara

Brand New Animal

Attack on Titan The Final Season: I’m not convinced this has got to be Best Anime of 2020 material based on 4 episodes alone, I’m still going to wait until the series ends so I can officially declare this as Best Anime of 2021.

Aggretsuko season 3

Munou na Nana

Arknights Holy Knight Light: This came out in the 1st anniversary livestreams for global Arknights, which was around Christmas Eve. But despite the timing of the release, this is actually more like a New Year mini anime special, so it’s definitely worth rewatching a billion times every New Year!

Fate Grand Carnival: LAST MINUTE POST-PUBLISH EDITING BUT YOOOOOOOOOOOO, A BRAND NEW CARNIVAL PHANTASM WITH FGO SKIN?! SIGN ME UP!

OH WAIT, THERE WILL BE A SERIES TOO IN SUMMER?! LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

(Source)

AFTER A YEAR WITH A DISAPPOINTING FATE SPECIAL IN 2019 WITH NOTHING BUT PURE FGO BABYLONIA, NOT ONLY THEY DELIVERED A TOTALLY NEW FATE SPECIAL ANIMATION, BUT ALSO A BRAND NEW CARNIVAL PHANTASM SERIES!!! BEST OF ALL, IT’S LERCHE THAT’S DOING THIS SERIES AGAIN! THE KING RETURNS!!!

OF COURSE THIS OVA ITSELF IS S TIER AND I’LL INCLUDE IT IN THE WINTER 2021 TIER!

Dishonorable mentions

Donkyuu Hentai HxEROS - Worst: This is my #1 dishonorable mention because, first of all, I should point out that pretty much the entire series is rather okay, in fact, it’s got some pretty good fanservice scenes (despite the jarring censors), I did like the series a bit and shouldn’t be considered the “worst” of the year, but there’s one character in particular who pretty much kills my interest in the series:

I stressed enough how much I hate Kirara to death! I’m not even gonna go bother going into details as to why do I hate Kirara, you can either read my previous anime review posts to see why do I absolutely hate her. She was truly painful to watch.

I have quite a list of waifus but I never necessarily hated a waifu ever, sure, there are those I don’t like or care but they’re not hate or worst worthy, but Kirara has become the first waifu I would officially call her as the worst waifu EVER. End of story.

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Danmachi season 3 and Castlevania season 3: Both have delivered some storylines I wasn’t particularly fond with (In the case of Castlevania S3, this is my unpopular opinion given that it was otherwise well-received), but that doesn’t mean they’re flat out disappointing like the following list.

Top 6 disappointing and worst anime of the year

6.- Welcome to the Japari Park season 2 - Disappointing: For a while I was kinda sad and wondering when will there be new episodes so the series can continue where episode 24 left off with Ceval being launched into Riukiu region, that is until on April 26th, I randomly found out the series was continuing, I was really excited to see the series continue! I was quite happy with the series returning and all, but what’s the catch with this second season (?) being so disappointing? Well, for the sole reason that this season is one cour shorter than the first season, lots of plot holes and rushed pacing that makes this final season unsatisfying (Given that this is a short series after all),

The problem is I didn’t know this was going to be the final season of the series, although I should have seen it coming from the very beginning but halfway through, it was time for the endgame.

So, after Welcome to the Japari Park ended, what about the future of Kemono Friends in the anime side of things? Should we expect a third Kemono Friends season this 2021? Although there hasn’t been signs of a third Kemono Friends season coming and it’s still debatable whether or not it should be a continuation of the first two seasons or make it an adaptation of the game with the same name, which it’s extremely baffling that the game called “Kemono Friends 3″ exists in the first place (Maybe it is the third Kemono Friends game in the series? I don’t know).

5.- BanG Dream! Garupa Pico Ohmori - Disappointing: I never watched the Garupa Pico series, so when Ohmori was announced, or rather, announced that RAISE A SUILEN and Morfonica were announced to appear in the series, I had to binge through the first season, and it was... Okay? I mean, it seems like a good series but I wasn’t really impressed.

I never knew there was a second season happening, that is until I randomly checked AIR’s Twitter and they posted a tweet of Garupa Pico Ohmori having a new visual that features RAS and Morfonica, which that means RAS and Morfonica are confirmed to appear in the series. I was of course excited to see RAS in this comedy spin-off, along with a band I haven’t seen in the main anime series yet, but one of the upcoming movies is going to feature Morfonica. Now, after seeing that AIR tweet, I don’t want to get into detail, but I saw a reply of some rando saying “The good Bandori series is here!” and I went into an argument with the guy, and the dude annoyingly repeats the word “Forced drama” to the main Bandori series. I was quite pissed throughout all that morning, but thankfully I didn’t become spoiled and my opinion on the main Bandori anime series hasn’t changed.

Anyways, moving on to actually talk about the series, it started quite strangely with an alien artifact of a guitar and all of a sudden the town where the girls usually go to CiRCLE has turned into a city with CiRCLE being nowhere to be found, the next few episodes were nothing really special, but then we finally got into episode 7 where it finally introduces RAS and Morfonica, I was so excited seeing my girls RAS appearing in the chibi spin-off series, episode 10 came out and it had Rei, which was nice and all, but then as more episodes went on and on, there was another episode that featured CHU2 and Pareo which is episode 22, the finale came which the RAS girls showed up again, and... I just realized... THEY ABSOLUTELY WASTED RAS AND THEY NEVER GOT A DEDICATED EPISODE! Even Morfonica of all bands actually got a dedicated episode for fuck’s sake! (Episode 19)

This is an absolute embarrassment, I grew to love RAS so much since Bandori season 3, I didn’t know the second season of Garupa Pico was coming which was announced for some time and they happened to reveal RAS and Morfonica, which leads me to believe they were never meant to have as much screentime like I hoped they would be, but they absolutely did RAS so dirty, I hate this!

I may be fixated the new characters, so what about the rest of the series with the original characters? Well, there’s not much to say other than for this season, I couldn’t care less for the OG cast as much as the new bands like I wanted to, and sometimes I did laugh into some episodes, but I wasn’t really impressed with the series AT ALL, like about 80% I didn’t find the humor at all.

So yeah, this was quite a disappointing season with not only being not very funny and interesting, but also wasting new characters, especially the one band I grew to love in Bandori S3. And to the guy I argued about the main Bandori anime series where he constantly said “forced drama” and he called the Garupa Pico series as “the good Bandori series,” I’m sorry but this ain’t it, chief.

One thing I do gotta compliment the series for is how nice the animation is, but also introducing Morfonica into the anime media before the main series did and after the Second Live film, I really hope Sanzigen could make a fourth season so it’ll properly introduce Morfonica into the series and that’s where I would start caring about them.

Speaking of Sanzigen, for some reason I always neglected this series in particular when talking about how many other shows Sanzigen released this year, at least the CG ones. And yes, believe it or not, the Garupa Pico series is actually made by Sanzigen, or at least co-produced by Sanzigen since there’s other studios attached, so this is more of a miscellaneous release compared to the rest of Sanzigen’s library that came out this year, the CG shows.

4.- Toji no Miko Tomoshibi - Worst: The Toji no Miko franchise continues to fail to impress me, and this OVA doesn’t really do any favors, the second part of the OVA completely bleed out my interest for its horrible writing and animation.

3.- Guraburu - Worst: Throughout the year, Cygames has released a couple of trash adaptations this year, but first let’s talk about Guraburu.

At first I thought this is the most offensively bad Cygames anime I watched, but it’s a little extreme, the better word I would describe this series is “bland” because everything about it is bland. The tone and direction seems awkward but the animation is almost Queen Bee-tier bad.

This is one media I truly think it should have stayed as it is and didn’t need to be brought to life in anime.

2.- Princess Connect Re:Dive - Worst: At first I thought Guraburu is the more offensively bad Cygames anime I watched this year but bland is kind of a different level of bad, but this one gave me a sour taste in my mouth. The series is pretty much a Konosuba wannabe, from the tone and goofy minor character designs, it just really turns me off, it just feels like this is not for me.

To make matters worse, it’s getting a second season this 2021, well, let’s see if this will make me feel better or worse with this adaptation.

One person who randomly found me on Twitter told me that this anime is more of a prologue for the non-Priconne players and doesn’t spoil some of the major arcs, I’m not sure if I can verify that since I haven’t really played Priconne but I’ll take it as a solid opinion to attack me for talking shit about the Priconne anime.

I’ve kind of come to realize that Cygames and their IPs don’t really resonate well with me at all, I’m probably not the biggest Cygames person or maybe I’ve grown to have a very complicated relationship with Cygames as a whole which makes me think I don’t even like how they’ve grown into. Probably the anime I’m okay with is Manaria Friends, in retrospect before I rewatch it, I think it was an alright series, but what I will never forget about the anime is how the series was originally gonna come out in 2016 but was delayed for 3 long years and I think that fact alone is more interesting than the series itself.

And for one last time, don’t even get me started on the Shadowverse anime, the way it is, is automatically trash because it’s not like the Shadowverse game I’ve seen my older sister play occasionally, and they even made a game based on this and I’m even shocked the series lasted this long. Glad I didn’t even watch it and thank god it’s about to end soon.

Interestingly, the English version of Priconne is coming out in 2021, with Crunchyroll Games handling the localization. While it’s interesting the game is finally getting localized after 3 years the game came out in Japan, but Crunchyroll Games doesn’t have quite a good history with their games, especially since the whole Danmachi game censorship false advertising controversy from 2018, so I don’t think I might have high hopes of playing the game if they might have any potential features removed, not to mention having THREE years of content behind from the JP version, this is worse than waiting 2 years for FGO content from JP to EN. Besides, I don’t even have space to play the game on my phone because it’s saturated with FGO, Azur Lane, Arknights and 5 thousand screenshots (Which I stored in my laptop because I didn’t have enough space. Though the only way to fixed the low space was just uninstalling and reinstalling Azur Lane which I did but I wish I didn’t drag all my 5k screenshots and I was trying so hard to put them back but it would take forever, so might as well save my 5k screenshots in my laptop and start from scratch).

1.- Isekai Quartet 2 - Disappointing: If Bandori Garupa Pico Ohmori’s waste of new characters wasn’t bad enough, Isekai Quartet season 2 does it a lot worse and this one in particular completely broke my heart the most, this is indeed the most disappointing anime of the year.

Just the #1 thing to explain why Isekai Quartet 2 let me down: WASTING THE SHIELD HERO CHARACTERS HARD!

Both Garupa Pico Ohmori and Isekai Quartet 2 just wasted the new characters so bad I have trouble on deciding which one’s worse, or if I would make a tie, but I had to go with Isekai Quartet 2 because the more I think about it, the more painful it gets, even more so than Garupa Pico Ohmori.

Garupa Pico Ohmori broke my heart the most because I’ve grown to really like RAS with Bandori season 3 the season prior to Garupa Pico Ohmori, Isekai Quartet 2 broke my heart the most because I binged Shield Hero In December of last year and I really liked it months prior to Isekai Quartet 2, BUT THE WORST PART IS that they COMPLETELY overhyped the Shield Hero characters and they turned out to be minor characters! I can’t believe I’ve grown to really like characters only for their potential in sequel appearances to be absolutely wasted in just a span of months! Not to mention both of the shows are absolutely unfunny and couldn’t care less for the OG cast more than the new characters which I wanted to like so bad if only they didn’t fuck up with their poor screentime.

With Isekai Quartet 3 coming this 2021, even though I will continue watching the series regardless, I don’t have high hopes for the series anymore, if they’ll continue adding new characters from properties I don’t know of or care to even bother binging their anime of origin, they’ll always end up overhyping them only for them to become minor character status.

Most anticipated anime of 2021

There’s like a lot of anime coming out next year and I kind of lost track of what’s coming out so I had to research and refresh my memory, there’s also other announced anime that are yet to resurface into the light of day (And no, don’t expect Girls’ Work, we all know that’s never gonna happen 100%).

In my previous HajiKo Anime Fall 2020 post, I mentioned my anticipated Winter 2021 releases, you can check that out as well, but what I’m going to talk about here is a general most anticipated anime of the year coming out.

Azur Lane Bisoku Zenshin: I talked about this in my previous post which I suggest you to check it out for more in-depth details as to why is this my most anticipated show of the season, but in this case, let me simply put because I love Azur Lane and I want more Azur Lane anime in my life, even if people would hate them or not (Preferably don’t hate on them).

Dr. Stone: Stone Wars: I was seriously amazed by the series and I wish I had watched it sooner or even completely binged the series when I did the first time with the first 3 episodes at some point, although having binged the first season early this month was a pretty good time to do so as the perfect prep for season 2.

Shield Hero season 2: Isekai Quartet 2 may have disappointed me with how hard it wasted the Shield Hero characters by overhyping and making them minor characters, but by surprise, we’re getting the second season which really deserves it!

Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Hopefully no last minute delays this time, and it’s actually about to be screened in Japanese theaters soon, but what matters to me the most is whether we’ll see it just in time for the Mexican release of the film. I’m pretty sure every Mexican is gonna be thriving so hard seeing this film given my some of my previous anime film experiences in the cinema.

There’s no way Mexico wouldn’t have Evangelion 4.0, it’s one of the most celebrated franchises in the world, probably not in the same vein as Dragon Ball which is overly popular in Mexico, and Evangelion 4.0 probably won’t have that high of a marketing or having a lot of cinemas available to my theaters, even with just one or two cinemas available, they’ll end up being filled to completely and a lot of people will scream their asses of in what’s going to happen.

Fate/Grand Carnival (Series): The best and most insane Type-Moon comedy series returns! But this time it’s all FGO-centered now!

Given that the old Carnival Phantasm was all Fate with Melty-Blood, not everyone may like the direction of this series given that FGO is a huge success. BUT WHO CARES?! I LOVE FGO AND I LOVE CARNIVAL PHANTASM, THIS IS A DREAM COME TRUE!!!

And why is the second season coming out in my older sister’s birthday, August 25th, of all things?!

Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Train film: Just hoping for the film being released in Mexico. And I really hope ufotable can continue making seasons or films of the series given that the manga has now ended this year.

I just really hope they don’t make the Kimetsu no Yaiba franchise as another vaporware like Girls’ Work and the Katsugeki Touken Ranbu movie, although it’s unlikely they’ll do so given that Kimetsu no Yaiba has become a huge blockbuster series as of late, from topping One Piece’s manga sales to the Infinity Train film being the #1 highest grossing film in Japan OF ALL TIME, it’s crazy a Shonen series got to this scale! Fate (specifically the Stay Night series) and Kimetsu no Yaiba are ufotable’s cash cows, so it’s unlikely they would drop them and make them vaporware like their other projects.

Tokyo Babylon: This and Winter 2021′s Project Scard are actually two of GoHands’ TV series I’m excited, although I’m more hyped for Tokyo Bablyon than Project Scard because I would occasionally forget Project Scard’s name, at least the full name, that is until now which I haven’t been forgetting about it.

There’s something I have to address first because this was supposed to come out on April but it got delayed because of costume designs being referenced without permission for some reason, I find this reason incredibly weird and I don’t really understand what the hell is that supposed to mean.

As far as the trailers go, the animation is looking akin to the K series, not exactly the same but somewhere...? Which I think that’s what people are gonna like unlike Project Scard which is in the vein of Hand Shakers and W’z, but I don’t really mind, though.

The fact that this is an adaptation, an anime adaptation of a manga by CLAMP to top it all off, is quite surprising. I haven’t really watched any of GoHands’ adaptations and I’m not sure if I would have the time to do so, but I’m more biased towards the original stuff, and come to think of it, this is actually going to be the first adaptation by GoHands I’m ever going to watch.

B: The Beginning Succession: It’s been 2 long years (at least at the time of writing and publishing of this post) since I watched the first season and I really liked it, back when it was released in 2018, they even announced season 2 was happening and I completely forgot about it for so long!

World’s End Harem: I may or may not have heard good things about the series, probably the tone of the negative reception of the series is more like people are meme-ing this series in a terrified way for its concept or something, all of it in a very funny way, so I’m definitely checking this out. What could go wrong? And I really hope it has better waifus than HxEROS.

Fruits Basket The Final: Now we’ve finally come to the point where this anime is definitely going to adapt the manga finale for good where the original 2001 series couldn’t because the manga hadn’t ended at the time.

As I was researching in the Fruits Basket Wiki, there’s a three chapter arc focused on Shigure, Ayame and Hatori which takes place around the same time as the manga’s finale. This was actually published around the same time the first season of the remake had started airing, I don’t know anything about this and I haven’t read it yet, so I can’t assume if this is worth reading and even worth adapting, although I do wish this is actually adapted in the final season.

Uzaki-chan season 2

Zombieland Saga Revenge: I may have a complicated relationship with Cygames nowadays with their premiere IPs, but the most decent IP they made is this one, and as a birthday present in 2018, I was impressed. Not actually quite what I was expected from looking at the first promo poster, but it was quite an entertaining idol series.

I’m of course excited for the second season and what I’d really love to see the most is paying off the teaser from the final episode, that teaser is too good to be wasted in this season.

SSSS.DYNAZENON: I’d still watch this because it’s a follow-up of sorts to GRIDMAN, but my main gripe would be the character designs, some of them look cool but I’m not very impressed, none of them scream absolute material like Rikka and Akane because boy, there’s really a shitton of fan art and cosplays of them.

The Way of the Househusband/Gokushufudou: I’ve seen a lot of people talking about the manga, they get hyped about it a lot, it’s got a live-action series and now it’s finally getting an anime, so might as well check it out.

Godzilla Singular Point: About time a Godzilla anime that’s not made by Polygon Pictures, and to make things better, this is actually made by Bones AND Orange, talk about a dream team!

Speaking of Polygon Pictures...

Pacific Rim: The Black: This is what Polygon Pictures are currently making, which is coming to 2021 and I might check it out as well, even though I’m pretty lukewarm with Polygon as a studio and the Godzilla films were an absolute mess, what the hell were those? After the widely hated sequel of the original film (Though I actually liked it) and with this upcoming anime, I hope the future of the Pacific Rim franchise can be in good hands, even if it’s from a studio I may have a mixed relationship with.

There’s just something about Polygon that doesn’t sit well with me. Sure, the CG animation can be absolutely gorgeous and even I can admit that they’re way better than Sanzigen and Orange where they don’t even do hand drawn background characters, but something still feels off with me, like the tone or whatever. I’m probably just blindly hating on Polygon years after watching the Godzilla films and I should at least check out HUMAN LOST to get a better impression on Polygon overall.

Kaguya-sama season 3 and OVA: I was very impressed with the second season, so might as well follow the Kaguya-sama series now.

Dragon Maid S: Hopefully what I’m about to say isn’t of bad taste. The Kyoto Animation arson was one of the worst events of 2019, while the majority of the staff members are safe, there are those who did not, including the director of the first season of Dragon Maid.

One year later after millions of dollars in donations, KyoAni seems to be doing fine as of late, with their latest release being Violet Evergarden The Movie which was released this September.

Although I haven’t seen any footage of Violet Evergarden The Movie for me to judge how KyoAni’s animation style after the arson would still hold up. And that’s where the second season of Dragon Maid comes in.

Even though KyoAni isn’t my most favorite anime studio, I do hope they have recovered well and got a handful of new and good staff members so they’ll keep their magic going.

Okay, I’d better stop right there before it can get any worse. NEXT!

Shenmue anime: Shenmue 3 finally came out a few years ago but literally nobody, at least from what I know, have even talked about it, whether it was worth the wait or not, just nothing.

Given that people hate video game adaptations, this in no way shape or form could regain interest in Shenmue, or maybe it will by making people play the games in order to forget about the anime, however it may end up being.

Speaking of video game anime adaptations...

The World Ends With You anime: I never played TWEWY in my life and a lot of people really love the game, and 2021 is looking to be the best year for TWEWY fans with not only this new anime, but also a long-awaited brand new game! (Not sure if I would call it a “sequel” of sorts but it’s 100% a brand new game).

Since this is a game adaptation and usually people hate video game adaptations, I never played TWEWY before and this is my one way to experience the story, and the animation is looking nice too. So here’s hoping for me as a non-TWEWY player that I wouldn’t be gatekept by hardcore TWEWY fans with how terrible the anime is and whatever, I don’t care!

Now, like I mentioned earlier, there should be anime that have been relatively recently announced or has been announced for over a year, and they should resurface into the light of day this time. Starting with...

New Touken Ranbu Hanamaru anime: For a while I always thought the Touken Ranbu franchise is dormant at this point, mainly with no new anime, especially the Katsugeki Touken Ranbu movie being another one of ufotable’s vaporware works or they probably ditched it for good in favor of Kimetsu no Yaiba and who knows if we’ll ever see anything from it.

Not that I think the Touken Ranbu series is dead, there’s still figures and other merchandise and most importantly, the game is still alive, although I don’t hear much about it but it’s definitely still alive thanks to fujo power, but I think the anime is probably what keeps me intact about the franchise’s relevancy. (And this is coming from a guy who’s hardcore into stuff for male demographic with lots of female characters and has a strong thirst for them. Hey, I gotta change teh pace every once in a while, okay? I do care about male characters sometimes, even my own)

One day, in January 2020, I randomly came across a post from Crunchyroll that a new Touken Ranbu Hanamaru project is coming! Finally, about time for some more Hanamaru! Now I should point out that YES the post explicitly says “project” which it could be an anime, a game or whatever, and I said that this could possibly be an anime, but I still want to hope it is a new anime because that’s the #1 thing I want the most.

Now that I think about it, since this was vaguely said as a project which means it can be a different media... Is there by any chance like some sort of manga or whatever media has actually been released throughout this entire 2020 and I may have never heard of it? I really hope there isn’t any other media that I might have overlooked, and if I do find out it exists, I’m going to be utterly disappointed.

Magia Record second cour: Given that this is a Madoka Magica series, I expected Magia Record to be an all two-cour series... But unfortunately it’s not, and to make it worse, the second cour wasn’t even made until the first cour finale aired and they announced it’s in production. Like... Really? Even some ufotable shows and even the second cour of Re:Zero season 2 wouldn’t announce something like that!

Inferno Cop season 2: I honestly kinda wish this shouldn’t made because it’s been so long since they announced it and no new information has come out of it so far, but my main reason why I don’t want this to be made is because the seiyuu of Inferno Cop himself passed away, and hearing Inferno Cop with a different seiyuu may not feel the same.

Megalobox season 2: I’m still wondering if this is even needed given how the first season ended and how much TMS has been working on Fruits Basket and even Dr. Stone.

Made in Abyss season 2: With the film recently being released, it is now confirmed that season 2 (?) is a go. I can see this being potentially released in 2022, but I’m still going to mention it anyways.

Anenarumono OVA: It’s been forever since this was announced, like very early into 2020 in fact and when we get to 2021, it’s going to be a full year since this was announced and so far nothing has come of it.

This is most likely going to be an adaptation of the SFW manga series since there is an R-18 doujin series as well, if this would be a hentai OVA from the R-18 doujin series, I probably wouldn’t have seen big anime news sites like Natalie Comics, AIR or even Anime News Network reporting on it and Pochi herself would have tweeted or retweeted the trailers of the hentai OVA or something.

The animation in the Okaa-san Desu Ka (Isekai MILF) series was absolutely garbage, so I really hope the animation in this one is good.

And finally, I decided to put this one to last because it’s something that it recently just got announced, it may or may not come in 2021 but I’m very excited might as well be my #1 anticipated anime of 2021:

Chainsaw Man: A while ago, I read the first chapter of Chainsaw Man a while ago, and I thought it was cool and stuff but I wasn’t sure if I would read it for my entire life, as of late I’ve been seeing quite a lot of fan art

The announcement of the anime as well as the manga ending as Part 1 were actually all leaked a few days prior to the release of the final chapter of the manga, which was December 13th, later I started hearing stuff about how the editor is straight up telling people and news pages to not do any reports about it until the official formal announcement, which that definitely confirmed it was a thing, it was pretty much an open secret.

The funniest thing is, as I was reading the manga a while ago, I thought to myself “I kind of see Chainsaw Man getting adapted by MAPPA with the looks of Dorohedoro,” I never watched Dorohedoro but from what I’ve seen with how the series look with the CG and its aesthetic, it’s perfect for Chainsaw Man, and now... The dream of MAPPA adapting the Chainsaw Man anime became true, so it’s either a dumb fantasy that came true or I actually predicted MAPPA doing the Chainsaw Man anime, you can interpret however you’d like. But with that being said about MAPPA doing the Chainsaw Man anime, it may or may not look like Dorohedoro, I don’t think I would mind if the Chainsaw Man anime wouldn’t look like Dorohedoro.

Now my biggest concern with the series is that it might get heavily censored because it is a pretty grotesque series and sometimes sexual, but for the most part it’s absolutely gorey, and that’s the kind of series I like. In my Fall 2020 anime review post, in my review of Akudama Drive, I criticized how Japanese media can be inconsistent in how much can they get away with gore in some cases, and in others they’ll just paste black blurs. If the censorship can be extremely bad in the Chainsaw Man anime, it would probably be the one thing that would disappoint me so bad, and I don’t want them to tone down the gore either because it would be equally lame, if not, lamer. When I read the manga, every time I see the blood, I always think of the red blood given that it’s usually colored in black, but when I see colored promos and stuff, I see the blood in various different colors other than red, I’m not sure why it is, but if that’s what the series in full color is, especially for the anime, I think it would be perfect for the anime to be censorship-free but it’s still unlikely, who knows, we’ll see what happens.

Around the time of the announcement of the anime, I made a rant about how MAPPA can be a hit or miss for me in terms of their animation, and now that I think about it, their portofolio even, but the animation is a bigger issue for me. I also thought I would see MAPPA as a somewhat alternative to Madhouse, which is funny given that it was founded by a former Madhouse producer, but at the same time that’s not enough for me to care about MAPPA as I do with Madhouse, or old Madhouse, I’m probably not a fan of current Madhouse, and this goes back to their animation styles. Even if I’m lukewarm with MAPPA, their Chainsaw Man anime is something I’m genuinely excited for, it was something that randomly came into my mind and somehow it became true.

I might have a really high expectation that the Chainsaw Man anime should look like Dorohedoro, I really should try to lower my expectations and try to not care for how would the anime end up looking. Something with the likes of Kakegurui would be nice, maybe Jujuutsu Kaisen too (Even though I don’t really watch the series but it seems like it’s quite popular right now), I just really don’t want something like Granblue Fantasy season 2 because that show absolutely made me sick.

Anyway, I really love Chainsaw Man now, I wish I had read the manga sooner, especially when it came out, but now having read the manga now was a good time to do so given that the manga ended (at least in Part 1) and the anime being announced. (Although I probably forgot what the story is at this point (Except some “key moments”), so the anime can help me refresh my mind)

Top 4 best video games of the year

This is my least favorite list to make in these New Year posts because I never play a single new release because for years I never had a PS4 and even now I still don’t have money to buy games or to buy a Switch and games if I want to, so whenever I make these lists, I always tend to watch Let’s Plays from YouTubers I like the most (GTFO Jacksepticeye), I rarely watch all cutscenes only videos nowadays, and doing so makes me feel like this is cheating because doing these lists is more about experience by one self. Sure, some people would say you would still try to like a game just by watching, but in my honest opinion, it’s just not the same. But now this list is going to be different!

So for this list, I’m only gonna choose the games I actually happen to play for once, I usually make these lists by including a bunch of games I haven’t even played at all, so it’s finally time to make an unbiased list of video games of the year, not including ports and/or re-releases of old games or an obscure game suddenly getting attention, even if this list is awfully short but it’s the bare minimum I could make.

I’m not sure what to make of this list, I haven’t played some of the games in this list but I’m just gonna put them for how impressive they are even by just watching anyways:

4.- Helltaker: This game became quite a sleeper hit amongst the internet, spawning countless fanart and Helltaker dance parodies. The game might be very short, but the future of the characters doesn’t end there, as the creator would occasionally make comics and sometimes small art with the characters.

3.- The Henry Stickmin Collection: Believe it or not, I grew up with Newgrounds during my childhood, but I’ve never really played a Henry Stickmin game EVER in my entire life.

2.- Arknights: Over the last year, 2019, I’ve been seeing quite a lot of fan art of the game, there’s a lot of really good character designs, I really like them all. The game at the time was only released in China, however, at the end of 2019, I was hearing that Arknights was being localized into Japanese and English simultaneously, a “global” release, if you call it. It’s localized none other than Yostar of Azur Lane fame. Anyways, enough with that talk, let’s talk about the game.

I did get to start playing the game on day 1 launch, I was quite intrigued the story, the characters, etc. Although I was at a point where I wouldn’t play the game as much and only do logins, but after a few months, as I was progressing through the game and when the Grani event came out, I actually quit playing the game because... It was very hard! There’s a lot of strategies I have to do because there can be really hard enemies, not to mention I was quite underpowered with operators not well leveled enough.

I stopped playing Arknights for a while, that is until late April to early May where my older sister has started playing Arknights, that’s where I immediately decided to play Arknights again, and now it has become my third game I religiously play, the first being FGO and second being Azur Lane. Over the course of the entire year, I’ve been leveling up some operators and as of now I have 10 operators I have E2′d, so I made some significant progress, although I’m still rough in having fully built operators because grinding for the materials is a huge pain in the ass, but sometimes it can be rewarding.

My luck with the gacha is hit or miss, sometimes I get the characters I wanted, sometimes I don’t for the absolute worse. Now with the first anniversary coming, my most wanted operator is W, she and Ch’en are my most wanted operators, but after trying to get Ch’en so many times with definitely NO LUCK AT ALL, but my greatest disappointment was W yesterday, I never got W at all and only got a Phantom and TWO Weedys for six stars and I was so furious! I’ve been wanting her for so long, and the saddest part is that she’s limited and I won’t be able to get her ever again! After all my efforts in saving a lot of orundum, materials and even making this meme, everything has gone into an absolute waste and I really bummed out!

On a lighter note, W was originally going to be a Girls’ Frontline character but she was scrapped, which makes her a lot more interesting. (Someone even made this). I gotta say, releasing chapter 7 and W now instead of actually waiting until the day the game launched which is in January 16th, they certainly ended the year with a bang! (And with a bummer of not getting W, but still...)

UPDATE - JANUARY 2ND 2021: SHE’S FINALLY HOME!!!!!!! OFF TO A GREAT START INTO 2021!!!!

End of update.

In fact, Arknights was created by former Girls’ Frontline developers, quite surprising. I wouldn’t say Arknights is a competitor nor a spiritual successor to Girls’ Frontline, both have completely different concepts, also, I wouldn’t expect for them to ever make collab events for each other in either game. Then there’s the character W which I mentioned previously, she actually happens to be spawned from a scrapped Girls’ Frontline character for the AR Team, I like how people joke about W being the AR Team’s long lost sister. As of late I’m feeling really obsessed about W, and for a while, the fact that she was a scrapped T-Doll makes her a lot more interesting.

Given that Arknights was released last year in 2019 and we got the global versions early this year, having 1 year away from content isn’t necessarily bad and I’m better off playing the English version right now, but as of late, Yostar appears to be rushing some content released from CN into global, which that’s a plus for me, they’re slowly catching up to CN, just like how EN Azur Lane started with slow content but recently they’ve been releasing content ALMOST simultaneously (Not that I particularly care for EN since I’ve been playing JP a month after launch back in 2017 anyway), but the biggest problem is as I started following some Arknights dedicated accounts where they report stuff from CN and even took a bit of some livestreams, recently CN’s going crazy with amazing content that it may take a few months or a year for global to catch up, so I really hope Yostar does their best to try to release content for Arknights semi-simultaneously between CN and global a la Azur Lane.

I mainly play the EN version of the game and tend to follow the official EN channels (Though I follow JP’s too), but I found some problems with the PR behind EN. My biggest problem is that EN make some absolutely painful to watch livestreams with no seiyuu like JP does and having total nobodies as hosts (Except Intern-kun which he is kinda known and was a meme but I don’t think he’s quite a meme anymore), sometimes there were two other hosts with big animal heads, and some other plethora of issues addressed by Tectone in this video, in short, some of the exclusive YouTube content the EN Arknights channel comes up with like the livestreams can be absolutely garbage.

By the way, Arknights gave us a pretty good content creator who was quite a meme, he was actually sponsored and got his infamous ad which I didn’t even know this was a thing and still find it hard to believe since I use uBlock Origin to block ads. Even though he probably wasn’t the best go-to content creator for Arknights news and stuff, nobody agreed on what he says and he was occasionally criticized, he was especially fun to watch his suffering in every roll. At some point around the beginning of the second half of the year, he started to do livestreams and uploaded highlight clips of said streams of games like Fall Guys and Among Us, which I thought it was a nice change of pace considering there wasn’t much Arknights content at the time, but at that point, Genshin Impact was around the corner and he started making a lot of videos for it which now he’s pretty much become the Genshin Impact guy, and then he finally released that video completely declaring he absolutely retired from Arknights for good which I linked earlier in the PR issues, so after that, I stopped caring about Tectone completely. It’s a real shame because I actually wanted to see him pull for W this first anniversary, but there are some things that pissed me off about him, he never even cared about the story, or rather the game as a whole to begin with, talk about being ungrateful to the game that made you successful and get a cult following to begin with, but the dude was harassed, so I’d better cut him some slack.

Speaking of sponsors, I actually wished Yostar continued to sponsor Arknights but on better YouTubers like Whang, ThatGamerFromMars, the Vanoss crew, and all the other ones who get sponsored to death by Raid Shadow Legends (Raid Shitty Legends, am I right?), and the last channel they sponsored was fucking WatchMojo of all things. I mean, seriously?

Although not everything about the EN PR is bad, most of the Twitter and YouTube stuff is pretty much stuf about the game like upcoming new operators and events, and English subtitled trailers which for the most part is nothing really worth noting but this is pretty much my go-to for the news and trailers. They also have a Fankit website which I can download wallpapers and stickers, and yes, I do use the wallpapers, sometimes I do use some stickers but I like keeping them. They even team up with DJs and they actually release some pretty good music with cool CG animated music videos. Said artists happen to be from Steve Aoki’s record label Dim Mak, and even Steve Aoki himself did some music for the game and actually appeared in the Arknights 1st anniversary livestream from the EN channel to make comments about his latest track and saying he loves anime which I didn’t know Steve was a weeb. (Here’s the full livestream if you wanna watch it).

Anyways, enough PR talk, this is a pretty fun game! I probably never had prior experience in playing tower defense games, though the closest would be the PS3 demo of Plants vs Zombies, so I can say this is my #1 tower defense game and I’d absolutely recommend to everyone.

1.- Genshin Impact: My main contender for my #1 GOTY was No More Heroes 3, but since it got delayed to 2021, there was nothing else that’s #1 worthy for me, but enter Genshin Impact, a AAA gacha game at its finest, this became quite a big surprise of the year!

At first I wasn’t hugely interested in it, but then I was constantly seeing fan arts and people talking about the game in my timeline and I was feeling left out, so I tried playing the game a bit on my phone but I barely had any space left, so I had to uninstall Girls’ Frontline from my phone (sorry), so I had barely some space left, but the game ran extremely slow for my phone, as expected, it’s a very intensive game. Later I tried installing the game on my laptop, but because of my problem with my ethernet in my laptop constantly turning on and off, it took HOURS upon HOURS instalilng the game, that is until I got fatal errors at the last minute which completely made the installer download from 0%... TWICE! And I was done with it.

Then I was chatting with my older sister and she mentioned that the game is on Playstation, so she downloaded it, and upon seeing her play the game, it looks gorgeous, especially on her flat screen TV! It’s better having to play the game in better graphics and in a bigger screen, so I made a separate PSN account for myself and played it and I’m very hooked.

Probably the biggest things I’ve been seeing when the game came out were Paimon emergency food memes, I’ve been seeing a lot of memes and fan art related to these and they range from hilarious to downright disturbing (As people would meme Paimon as an “emergency onahole” as well). Nowadays I continue to see fan arts of Genshin Impact, particularly those of Mona, occasionally Barbara, Lisa, etc, but Mona is the most frequent.

But the problem is I'm so far behind of adventure rank and everything else from everyone else, even Ten and my older sister, I don't have a lot of characters and I don't have enough Primogens and the gacha system can really suck pretty bad with it being mostly saturated with weapons over characters. Not even FGO and Action Taimanin would they give me craft essences and weapons would be this bad, although in the case of FGO, I do get more CEs than Servants and stuff, but the way Genshin Impact presents me with low star weapons and literally no characters, it's just a hideous sight to look at.

The other problem is that since we only have one PS4 and our home consoles have always been shared, my older sister and I switch turns, but when it comes to single player games, we've always been using my older sister's PSN account, but with Genshin Impact, this is definitely our first time playing games on different accounts for the both of us for once. But the thing is, my older sister ALWAYS plays Genshin Impact, I admire her dedication but that barely gives me some time to play the game myself along with other factors why I don't do so, such as sleeping for hours, busy with other games and stuff, etc.

Playing Genshin Impact, given that it's an open world game, definitely reminds me of the good old days when I used to play Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, I destroyed that game with pretty much beating everything, but with Genshin Impact, I'm feeling like I'm out of practice with patience and playing games for hours due to my addiction of social media and other gacha games.

Then there’s also some performance issues specifically on the PS4, sometimes there can be quite the lag on location rendering (Like when I spawn in Mondstadt and textures take seconds to render sometimes), frame drops when I did co-op in the Unreconciled Stars event, etc. I don’t know about PC or PS5, but I’m pretty sure the game would run somewhat better on PC especially.

I rarely encounter bugs in a game, but Genshin Impact is the one game that I can definitely find more noticeable bugs and other flaws more than any other game I’ve ever played in my life.

Aside from performance issues and despite not playing the game as religiously like I want to, it’s still a very solid game. Gacha has been a genre that I’ve religiously been playing for 3 years and this really speaks to me, as I used to play a lot of video games for hours in the past and just a few months after playing DMC5 on our PS4, I’ve come back to the console and spend some hours playing on it again.

If I had a PS5 for myself but with a better TV in my bedroom right now, I would have absolutely made a lot of progress on my own and boy, my older sister must be way too far ahead with our adventure ranks, the campaign and even getting better characters than I do... ;-;

Honorable mentions

And here we are, the lamest part of doing these top game lists, whether main or honorable mentions, it’s always acknowledging games for their existence and sometimes simply from watching Let’s Plays which kind of defeat the purpose of making these lists based on actual experience, but who cares? Let’s talk about the games that I may not have played but peaked my interest in the least.

DOOM Eternal: Around the time of DOOM Eternal’s release, I somehow finally got into Doom by playing the classic games (Except Doom 3, I wouldn’t mind playing it, though), so I think I totally consider myself a big fan of Doom now (Even I played some WADs was breifly interested in wanting to make one), but what about Doom Eternal? Even if I had watched videos of Doom 2016, I of course liked the game for how it looks, but with Doom Eternal, it is absolutely better.

Based on what I remember seeing from Doom 2016 and with Doom Eternal, they’re like the modern equivalents of Doom 1 and 2, particularly with the final bosses being the Spider Mastermind in Doom 2016 and the Icon of Sin in Eternal.

When I first saw Doom Eternal being announced in Bethesda’s E3 2018 conference, as far as I can remember, I thought it would be like a random new game that has nothing to do with Doom 2016 or something, but as time went on and I kind of forgot about what I thought but now thinking back, looking at the trailers and even the actual game, my expectations have exceeded. Looking back at Doom 2016, it now pales in comparison towards Doom Eternal, from its UI to some of its more faithful monster designs from the classic Doom games!

Although even if Doom Eternal is great, there were some problems about Mick Gordon not being able to do the sound mixing for the soundtrack and all that drama, that could have ruined the game for being GOTY or something. (I’m exaggerating but it was quite a serious problem back then).

Speaking of Doom Eternal being GOTY, I’m seeing quite a lot of people saying that this is their GOTY, which is funny because I originally had Doom Eternal as my #1 GOTY in the main list which I later changed it to Genshin Impact in my TRUE best games of the year list with games I actually played, I still think this is GOTY, but without actual experience, it’s not worth counting it on the main list.

Resident Evil 3 Remake: Surprisingly RE3 Remake was rather divisive, probably the biggest reason I can think of as to why the game is divisive is because it’s rather short. Sure, the game is short but calling it a disappointment is an absolute understatement, as long as the game continues to have beautiful graphics from RE2 Remake, the gameplay is satisfying and has quite some spooks, it’s still good enough for me.

Call me crazy to judge the game this way considering I’ve only ever played the demo in my PS4.

Devil May Cry 5: Special Edition: I was quite surprised they actually went ahead in making a Special Edition of DMC5, I mean, I thought they wouldn’t based on what they said about “no more developments” for DMC5, but with the PS5, that all changed. And of course, it cannot be a Special Edition without playable Vergil who not only has a really awesome gameplay, but he has the absolute BEST theme that actually surpassed Devil Trigger. Man, Vergil always gets the best themes.

The only caviat with DMC5: Special Edition is that it’s only made for the next-gen consoles. or it has rather become the current-gen consoles as of now, that is all because Capcom wants to take advantage of the PS5 and Xbox Series’ technologies with the ray tracing and turbo mode, but not all hope is lost as they actually made Vergil available for previous gen consoles as DLC, so that’s an absolute win!

A few days after he was released as the DLC, I got a chance to play as Vergil and I pretty much speedran through the Devil Hunter difficulty in 6 and a half hours, and I think I’m almost not out of practice on playing Vergil since DMC3SE. By almost I mean that most of the time I was familiar with the controls and the movesets, but at the same time they tweaked a little bit of some of those familiar controls from what I remember and added some cool new combos. Oh, by all that I meant that he’s absolutely fun to play.

I kinda wish they did make Trish and Lady playable as well, just like in DMC4SE, but they kinda turned out to be useless throughout the story, so this could have been the only chance for Capcom to redeem themselves with the characters, but I guess not.

Among Us: The game came out in 2018, but out of the blue, it has now become a massively popular game. I had always thought Henry Stickmin was part of why Among Us is popular, but not really, it was a streamer with a lot of followers to make it happen.

To be honest, I kind of wish Henry Stickmin was as popular as Among Us, the only thing from Henry Stickmin that was apparently a big meme (Which I wasn’t even aware of and never seen such memes in my Twitter timeline) is the distraction dance.

Persona 4 Golden PC: For a while I’ve been seeing news about leaks and stuff like that, I was skeptical about it, but it has finally become real.

For a while I did want to buy the game, but I didn’t want to spend quite the amount of money and I was kind of skeptical of how demanding the game might be, but out of the blue, my good old Japanese friend gamer Hinosuna came to the rescue and gifted me the game (He also had gifted me Mortal Kombat 9 after it was removed from Steam a few months earlier, and with Persona 4 Golden, this is probably the last game he’ll ever gift me).

Upon opening the game, the first problem I immediately encountered is the cutscenes running extremely atrocious, they were running extremely stuttery, it was so bad I had to find an all cutscenes video with Japanese language (Since I had the game set in Japanese audio), but then when it was time for the gameplay, the game isn’t insanely demanding like I thought it would be for my laptop, it’s an absolute win! From what I heard about this problem with the cutscenes, it’s probably a problem that’s only affected on laptops, so I believe people must have the cutscenes running like normal in their insanely powerful desktop computers, lucky you.

A few months later, they eventually fixed the cutscenes... Supposedly. The cutscenes for me run a little better, but they still work just as badly. Instead of having the cutscenes extremely stuttery, like I previously had, instead I may have a bit of lag but the visuals can get very glitchy, like scratched DVDs.

By the way, this happens to be the most successful PC port on Steam, given how successful it is, I completely forgot that the Catherine PC port exists and looking back at it, I can’t help but laugh at how the PC port of Catherine wouldn’t get to this level of success P4G has, especially because it’s a fan favorite enhanced version of a Persona game and because you probably wouldn’t find a copy of the game for PS Vita if you still have a PS Vita lying around which makes this port ten times more accessible, this is how successful it turned out to be, in my opinion. I could be wrong and there can be other reasons why it’s successful, but this is my main theory.

Now, since I’m traumatized from my PS2 dying in 2014 when I was doing Shadow Yukiko or Kanji in New Game+ after doing the bad ending, this is my chance to redeem myself, I want to get the true ending this time, especially with a new port of the better version of Persona 4 Golden! ...Or so I thought I wanted to be.

When I was playing P4G, I was trying to get 100% on my first playthrough and it puts me quite a lot of compromise, there’s just something about playing the game windowed while looking through guides at the same time that not only makes it distracting, it completely slows me down, not to mention I’ve actually been burned out from playing the game overall...

As of now I’m on June 29th and already doing Shadow Rise’s world, I think it’s decent progress but that’s how far I am by early December this year after not playing the game for... MONTHS. At this point I also try not to care about following guides and just do whatever is best for me and I can try to do better when I do New Game+.

I want to go back and finish the game once and for all, but I’m very busy with other games and other things, I’ve been held back very much on them and even when I try to play the game, sometimes on midnight, I immediately lose my patience. I don’t know what to do...

Hopefully next year, I’ll try to go back and try to finish the game once and for all, I don’t want to make Hinosuna’s gift a waste, I’m really proud of him gifting me the game.

Final Fantasy VII Remake: I can’t remember when was the first trailer shown in E3, 2015? We’ve come a long way and FFVII remake is finally here. Apparently I heard this is a two-part game, so I hope we won’t wait for a really long time for the second time, probably not the same amount of time as we waited for the first part, but worse, perhaps even longer.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Action Taimanin (English and PC): I played Action Taimanin back when it was released on mobile in Japanese in 2019, but since I was done with the campaign and there was nothing else to do, I decided to stop playing it and uninstalled it from my phone to make space, but to my surprise, I randomly happened to find out that an English version AND PC port of the game was released on Steam in October 6th, I kinda wish it did came out on my birthday so it could have been more enjoyable, but whatever.

Having known that Action Taimanin was gonna be released on PC with English translation, that’s where I thought “It’s time to return to Action Taimanin!” unlike the one time I said I would because Rinko Akiyama was released as a playable character in the mobile game, but now I have her AND Mizuki Shiranui, which I got them both at their launch dates, I also got Emily Simmons as well but not right on time for her launch but it was still worth the wait.

Speaking of Asagi, one other surprising thing I found out about Asagi when I started playing the PC port is that they actually patched out Asagi’s voice by recasting her with a different actress, apparently it happened since late June for rather unknown reasons. For those who don’t know, Asagi was originally voiced by Ami Koshimizu and now she’s voiced by Sayumi Watabe (Who’s claim to fame is Els from Beastars and Manaka from Aggretsuko season 3).

Square Enix Avengers: I wanted to like this game because I always had thought this would be part of the Spider-Man PS4 universe, a Marvel Gaming Universe of sorts, even if it isn’t, I was still interested and I didn’t tolerate how people would trash the game. The game now came out, mixed reviews and a plethora of far worse problems, like how very little the game made and low playerbase on Steam and what not. None of that stuff is my problem, I would really love to play the game now.

Dishonorable mention (?):

This is hardly a dishonorable mention in an ill matter, but something that completely shocks me, so might as well be in a disappointing sense.

Cyberpunk 2077: I was never interested in The Witcher series, but I admire them as a video game adaptation of a novel which aspires me in wanting to write novels for them to get adapted primarily into games, however, Cyberpunk 2077 was the CD Projekt Red title I was genuinely interested.

The game came out and I saw a tweet from Nibel that it’s got quite some good reviews, but over the next few days... Things started to get very sour...

The game launched at a very buggy state, it even got removed on console digital stores, the game is unplayable on consoles and money loss... Everything just feels disheartening, and it’s not fair...

This is the one game from CD Projekt Red that I wanted to start caring about as well as the studio, but after the PR mess and constant delays leading up to a messy release (at least on consoles from what I mainly hear), and everything else that’s been happening, now it seems like people are turning against CD Projket Red which they were once highly regarded, I just hope Cyberpunk 2077 can recover so it’ll eventually turn into the next timeless masterpiece like it was supposed to be after The Witcher 3.

Although not all hope can be lost as I still see some people playing Cyberpunk 2077 fine, at least on PC maybe, and that’s enough to make me confident that not everything is all bad.

Most anticipated video games of 2021

Now we’re finally on my favorite category, and first and foremost, my most MOST anticipated game of the year is of course...

No More Heroes 3: With NMH3 finally being delayed to 2021, that was my last final nail in the coffin to care about 2020 as a whole, BUT, not ALL hope is lost! As on October 28th 2020, Suda51 actually released THE FIRST TWO GAMES into Nintendo Switch! This is an absolute win-win, I can finally play ALL No More Heroes games in the most recent console possible... Except I still don’t have a Switch and I seriously need it so bad now. 😭 (And now I’m hearing news that the first two games might actually come out on PC, which I don’t think I’ll need a Switch anymore, at least for this, I still need it so bad to play NMH3 on launch) I’m so glad Travis Strikes Again sold so well to make NMH3 happening, hell, it it didn’t, the post-credits scene could have been a total waste and I would have been forever heartbroken!

For a long time I was skeptical for the soundtrack, I always thought it wouldn’t sound anywhere near as good as the first two games without Masafumi Takada, but in reality, Takada never actually composed the soundtrack for NMH2 to begin with, in fact, he had already left Grasshopper around NMH2′s release. But regardless, I still thought the NMH3 soundtrack wouldn’t sound as good as the first two games (Sorry TSA, I haven’t paid attention to your OST), but then I listened to WILD TOKYO, the first album by RED ORCA, a band formed by composer Nobuaki Kaneko, and I was very impressed, so I guess it changed my mind. Actually, the album contains three tracks that have been heard on the trailers, like “ORCA FORCE,” “beast test,” and “Octopus.” That’s not to say that the album is the ENTIRE soundtrack for NMH3, only these three are what are currently known based on the trailers, so who knows if the rest of the album is actually the NMH3 OST or there’s gonna be entirely original tracks for different things.

However, there’s one thing that I’m scared the most is the probability of recasting Quinton Flynn from Henry (in case he might appear in NMH3 since Travis Strikes Again) due to some allegations towards him, I really hope everything that I’m hearing is just made up bullshit that people want to cancel others they hate for no absolute reason. Although I’m hearing all of this from word-of-mouth and nobody sources, if there’s something that’ll immediately convince these allegations are true, is by seeing legit sources like Anime News Network, OR EVEN other actors speaking about it (Though they would most likely easily jump into the conclusion and easily agree to the allegations without any solid solid proof (Yes, I’ve seen a screenshot but I don’t want to believe it)). If Henry does appear in NMH3 but he gets recast before launch or worse, AFTER launch, I’m going to be very sad and it’ll probably be one of the things that NMH3 may disappoint me.

And lastly, I̵ ̵S̵W̵E̴A̸R̴ ̶T̵O̸ ̸G̶O̸D̵ ̷I̷ ̴R̴E̷A̷L̷L̶Y̶ ̴H̵O̷P̷E̴ ̴T̴H̴I̵S̸ ̵W̴O̷N̶’̶T̴ ̶B̸E̶ ̴T̶R̴E̷A̵T̵E̸D̷ ̴I̸N̷ ̷T̴H̶E̵ ̶S̴A̶M̷E̶ ̷W̵A̸Y̵ ̷A̷S̸ ̵T̷L̷O̴U̴2̸ ̸O̸R̵ ̴T̷H̴E̸ ̷O̶T̷H̴E̸R̷ ̴T̵H̸I̵N̶G̸S̴ ̴F̸R̵O̸M̸ ̷T̶H̵E̸ ̵L̸A̵S̵T̴ ̴3̶ ̸Y̴E̵A̷R̸S̶ ̷W̴H̷I̸C̵H̶ ̴I̷ ̸M̴E̴N̵T̸I̵O̷N̷E̴D̴ ̴A̴G̷E̴S̶ ̸A̷G̶O̵!̷!̶!̶!̷!̴!̶

I̷̩̗̒͑ ̷̡̩̆̓Ã̴͉L̷̠̭̎S̷͚̊O̵̲̍̀ ̵͙̍͒͜D̸̰̈́͘O̷̻͌̽Ņ̸̎’̷̦̋̅T̶͉͐ ̶̪̼́́W̶̲͍̐̔A̶͕̠̓̊N̴͙̆̈́T̵̨̪̾ ̵̻̈̌N̷͚͛͐M̵̻̕H̸̘͋3̶̛̤͔̇ ̴̦̭̍̆T̸̠͒̉ͅÒ̷͚̬͠ ̴̲̥͗̍B̶͙̀E̵̛̘̋ ̷̰̗̽T̷̳̜̏Ŕ̸͙E̶͓̓A̷̻̽͘T̴̲̫̿̋È̵̯͝Ď̸̅ͅ ̷̺̽T̶̢͆H̴̰̕Ě̴̩̈́ ̸͎̇S̴̗̮̏͆A̶̫͌̏M̷̙̈E̷̟̍̓ ̵͈́̔Ẅ̶̢͔A̴̹̤͆̑Y̸͇̺͘ ̸̭̃̄A̷̜͝Ṡ̷̯̬̓ ̷͚͕̒͝T̸̗͋̕R̶̝̾A̶͓̚Ṽ̸̤͊Ǐ̷̗̟S̸͎̠̈́͛ ̴͈̅S̴̘͕̾T̷͘͜͠R̴̬̍̄Ị̸̳̍K̵͕̘̀͂È̸̼̱S̷̤͂͝ ̸̳̃̇Ä̸̞G̷̨͓̏͝Ȃ̴̰͘Ị̷͐N̴̚ͅ ̸̙̒W̷̻̼͐͑Ḩ̶̲̂̎E̶̼͆͂N̸̤̟͗͠ ̵̜̇T̵͂ͅH̶̘̉͒E̵̲̺̔͠ ̸̖͋̄G̷̲̑͊A̵̡̾͊Ṁ̵̡͋E̶͈̽ ̸̰͈̎̀Ḫ̷̤̈́Ā̷̼D̵̺̼͗ ̷̞̽Ḿ̸͎͇I̷͖̽͜͠X̷̤̘̒̚E̷͖͉͋D̴͎͒ ̴̹̳́̑R̵̛̘Ẽ̴͎̽V̶̙̎̈́I̵̧̤̔E̶̞̤͗͠Ẃ̷̨͊ͅS̷̫̕ ̷͚͆A̵̦̙̔̍N̷̡̦̂D̵̥͍̉ ̵̳̩̈́S̶͖̏̚T̴̬̠̒Ǘ̴͔̩̏F̴̡̣́F̴̰̝͒͝ ̸̹̫͂̕Ạ̷̧̈͂N̸̥̐D̸̡̤̃̃ ̴̦̘̇P̴̗̅͒E̶̛̥̠͗Ò̸̩̜P̴͕̋L̸̮̘͠E̸̺̣͝ ̴̫́̂S̴̨̰̊̓E̴͎̖̎͑Ê̶̠͚M̸͔̒È̷̺Ḍ̸͠ ̸̯̬͂̀Ț̷̮́̂Ó̵̱̽ ̶͙̃̄N̴͔̉̌Ǫ̴͂̑T̴̡́ ̷̻́͝Ç̵̙̾̋A̷̙͋͝R̷̟̥͌E̷͖̣̋ ̶̻̌͠A̷̝̞̽B̵͙̒͊Ō̵̭̗Ṷ̶̤͝T̷̥̓ ̵̩̤̐̎I̵̹͎̅Ṭ̸͍̈́,̵̺̳̽̉ ̷̪̄̔É̵̼̜V̶̭̆E̸̫̦̚N̵̜̰̅͠ ̵̼̪͝C̴̼̈́Ȧ̶̧̡̔L̸̟̼̿̄Ḷ̷̫͘I̶͉̟̋Ń̵͈͝G̷̦̦̎͝ ̷͔͗Ì̸̺̀T̷͉͓͂̒ ̷̤͘C̷͔͉̈́Â̶̗͓̂S̴̲͂H̶͛͜G̴͈͕̉R̶͈̕͝A̶͎͂B̸͇́ ̶̹͈͒Í̵͕Ň̴̖̊ ̸̻̪̎O̴̜̾͜R̷͔͌͘Ḓ̸͉̋͛E̶̬̒͘R̷͈͔̽ ̷̠̖̃̽Ț̶̓O̷̭͐ ̸̡̘̍M̸̛͙͐ͅA̶̳͐̓K̴̲̈́͐Ë̸̬̇ ̴̻̔N̷̢̰̄͑M̶͕̳͐H̸̳̎3̶̬̄͜ ̷̢̑͆É̷̬̩̕X̸̙́̓Ï̶̖S̵̘̙̉T̶̗̲̒,̷̹̻̋͝ ̷̧͎́͘I̸͔͂̓ ̴͕̚ͅD̴͍̟͆͝Ŏ̴̞͕N̷̞̫̓̊’̵͓̂T̴̡̰͛ ̶̧͕̐Ẁ̵̢̹͂A̶͕͐ͅN̶̪͆T̷̫̆ ̵̗̣̃T̵̤͈͋̎Ǒ̴̮̆ ̵͓̽S̵̝͓̊E̵͕̒E̴͇͂͒ ̸̟̫̄̚A̶̱̥̕͝Ņ̸̥͑Y̶̧͋́ ̷̠̑̒S̸̯͑I̶̩͇͑Ņ̵̯͑̂G̴̝͖̽̏Ļ̵̓́͜Ë̴̫̗́̕ ̶͔̅P̴̬͊E̴͍̐͛R̶͙͇̓̅Ș̷͝O̸͙̠̽̋N̸͍͒͛ ̷͔̥̀I̶̯̓ ̶̨̺͊C̷̡͛̕A̴̧̰̿R̴͙̍E̷͓͚͋ ̷̲̜̔̉A̵͈͜͝B̵͔͓̾Ǫ̴̟̿̓U̵̗̔Ṱ̵̀,̶̖̖̑̄ ̷̗̤͂̍W̵̭͝H̵͕̬̅̈́Ḛ̷̫̐Ṱ̸̛͇H̴̟̩͂Ḙ̶̒̈R̷̢͛ ̷̤̌͑Ỉ̵̆͜T̴͉͖͂’̴̠͒̈́S̵͚̾ ̸͎͈̿̿Å̶̪̈ ̶̧̦̏̇F̶̦́R̴̟̍I̸̢̻͛È̶͍Ṉ̵̋͠D̷̜̜̍ ̶̫͍̅O̸̰͌̓R̶̛̥͕͛ ̷̮̊̚A̵̰̹̓̏N̵͎͛ ̵̥̐͘Ȁ̴͈̪͝R̸̡̦̓̑T̶͚̕Ȉ̶̤̘S̴͉̣͆̽T̸̩́ ̷̊͑ͅI̶̝̿͘ ̷͚̓L̶̤͇̉I̴̙̋Ḱ̶̟͈̑E̴̱͊͠,̵͔̝͑ ̶̥̦͌͠T̵͔̙̉̽Ǫ̷̟̌ ̸͚̪̓T̶͍̒̈A̷̦̚͝L̵̨̡̃K̴̪̋̂ ̵̳̊S̸̗͔̆͘H̵͙̮̒I̴̫̎T̸̢̤̓̂ ̵̩̠̌À̴̪͕̑B̵̫͌̄O̸͇͆͂͜Ǘ̸̺̙T̸̛̲̅ ̵̳̂M̸̘̻̒́Y̷̿̈́ͅ ̶̪̌̿ͅM̷̦͗͑O̷̦̭̓S̴͙̞͋̂T̷̺̓ ̴̺̞͠P̴̗͋R̷̪͖̍͌E̷̫͝Ç̴̨̚Į̴͈̽O̷̡̒͆U̵̟̅S̵̟͋̾ ̸̞͊G̷͚͗A̶͊͜M̷̘̚E̵͕͚͑ ̵̼͇̋S̶͕͖̒É̷͎Ŗ̶̱̀̕I̷͇͚̎E̷̼͛̑S̶̳̠͗̈́ ̶̳̑À̸ͅN̸̦̟͝D̴͕̠̈ ̴̡͐T̷̛̩̯̃H̶̼̿̄Ė̴̕ͅ ̷̜̍M̸͍̓Ȍ̸͚̊S̵̳̈Ţ̴͝ ̵̘̼͌͝P̷̲̝̐̅R̵̪͓͛E̵͕̓Ç̴̳̌̚I̴̭̕Ö̷͔̀U̶͉͛S̷̙̘͑̕ ̶͕̺̊S̷͈͛Ě̴̖͒Q̴͎̇͝U̵̟̚E̷͔͓͌́L̷̟̀ ̷̡̫̀͋I̸̟͛̈́’̷̢̓͜V̵̧̪̆̅E̴̢͙̍͝ ̵̣̕Ḅ̸̰̋͐Ẽ̴̪̰̚Ē̶̯̺̃N̴̜̎ ̷̤̻̂W̷̡͕̐A̵͖̓̇I̴̥͋̍T̶͓͊Ị̷̛̿N̴̞̫̚G̴̡͕̒̓ ̷̦͘̕F̸̖̓̃O̶̠͆̚R̶̭̅̿ ̴͎͐͆A̵̻̽ ̸̥͓́̄L̷͎̰̚͠O̸̺̗͌Ñ̴͖̖̏G̴̳̍͐ ̸͇̻̽À̶ͅS̴̝̄S̷̛̙ ̸̨̩̇͊T̶̟̉̕I̷̯̞̒M̸̠̃̌E̷̫̚ ̴͖̅͂͜I̸̧͚̍N̶͕͍̂͐ ̶͔̒M̷͌͜Y̵̾ͅ ̵̛̬̻́L̸͓̫͒I̸͎̓̿F̸̨̳̍E̵̝̣̋!̴̹̼̿͌!̵̖̝͆̚!̶̦̏!̵͚̏́!̵̞̟̔͊!̷̱͌!̷̞̖̐̌!̴̻͐

¡̶̗͎̭̲̯̑̀̑̋̃͂̆̕͝¡̶͇̹̗̙̖̀̇͂̈́̚̚͝¡̶̜̀́̐͆̉͂̊͜͠͝M̵̢̰̭̪͎̥̩̂͗͋ͅĂ̶̻͗̕ͅĻ̴͉̗̼̤̈́͑D̶͓͎̋Į̶̨̛͔̝̫̳̝̭̮̈̈́̈́͊͑̂Ṱ̵͗͑̋̒͑Ȏ̷̲͌̄S̸͚͙̲̀͋͘͠ͅ!̸̨̖̠̮̩͍͒͝ͅ!̴̧̼̬̩̖͎̉̾̓!̵̨̛̝͓͎̙̺͉̃̔̒̏̑͒͒͜ ̷̛̘͙͈̰̦͎̪̖̍͊͋̈̾Į̸̠̝͙͖̙̗̏̓̓̏̋̂̚'̶̹̩̆M̴̭̠͈͈̐́̌ ̸̺̰̮̔͛́̂̊̂̄̑͘Ģ̵̘͈̳͎͇̰̮͇͗̑͂̉͘̚͠Ở̴̝͖̟͖̾͌͌̐̒̏͘N̶͙̽̇̾͐̐̆̐͗͘͜N̸̙͊͌̀̇͜͜A̶̢̜͉̣̘͖̹̎̃̈́̀́̂͆ͅ ̶̭͖̹̰͔͓̅C̶̛̹̜̉̂͒̀͋͑̔͠Ȕ̴͕̟͇̯̭̭̓͜T̷̡͖̱͇̳̗̺̓͂ ̶̗͕̩̘̀̈̍̆͋́̒̒Y̸̹̣̬̿ͅO̶̢̢͈̣͗̀̽͜͠͝Ų̷̗̺̩̤̹̙̤͎̍͐̚͠R̵̝̱̘̥͙̠͈͐̀͆̄͌̉̐͜ ̷̙̹͆̓̓̑D̵̟̺͇͕͌Į̶̨̡̬̫̞͍͋͑Ć̶̢͕͖̮͘͜͝K̵̰͍͑͑͗͆͑̂̏̚̕S̶̭̭̼̤͔̳͊̀̈́͋ͅ ̷̝͖͇̹̪̲̜͕̀͆̔͑͜Ơ̵̧͔̖̣͌̓͛̃̊̆̕͜F̷̛̫̙̣͖͊͛̾͗͌̈́̃̎F̶̡̤̭̟͔̬͖̼̙̎̈́̿͗̌͋!̵̢̛̪͇̣̦̥̿̌̊͆̔̒!̷̡̤̪͓̒̋̽̿!̸͓̻̱́̽̋̓̌̕ ̵̡̼͓̪̟̓͊́̚͝Ḯ̵̬̫̪̰̯͍̂̉͝ ̶̨̺̟̘̱̤͙̻̆̋͆͒̀̀S̶̪̪͖̩̮̗̬̰̉͒̓͗̚W̸̢̭͔̪̱̺̅̌E̴̯̥̿͛̅̔̋̎̿̕A̸̖̠̝̙͖͗̋̔R̷̼̔̌̀̿̈́̍̽͠ ̸̤̾̄̀̒̀̍̃͝T̴̫͙̦̗̦̤͌̔̈̈́͜ͅƠ̶̗̜̝̽̂̑̑̓͆ ̷͔͉̗̞̭̣̣̔̎̒̌͠͝G̸̢͙̅͐͆̐O̷̹̭̼͙̔̏̈́̔͜͝D̷̤͍̦͝ ̴̨̦͈̟͙̱̘͎̅̿̉̅̂̋̈́̄I̷̬͖̐̒͌̾F̴̜͉̻͈̟͍̈́͑̃ ̷̹͈̦͇͈͗̎Ÿ̶̛̬͇̫̼̝̤̑̎̂̐̕͘͠Ơ̸̢̙̹͉͉͉͙̠̦̂̍͂̄U̷̠̬̥̪̥̞͆̍̒̿̆̾̕͝ͅ ̵̤̀̄̆̍̐͂D̷͕̞̎́̍͘O̶̧̢̨̗̠͓̓̍͌̓͘͜ͅ ̴̢͖̟̗̭̦̱̦͊̏̉͆̊̓̐͜͝T̸̙̳̙̟̪̟̪̈́̽̌͒̅̅͂͘̚ͅH̵̘̤͎͎͊̅I̶̡̧͎̗͓͔͖͐̓̀̑́Ş̶͓̻͓̼͙̘̜̱̾͒̿̊̕ ̸̡͍͔̤̹͒̽̈̽͑̈́T̷̨̢̨͓͈̝͚͇̘̔̑̊̐̂O̴̖̎͆̏̇̐͐̄͘͠ ̶͔̗͉̩͕̒͗̄̒͛̈̎̚M̴͉̠̾̔Ę̵̤̼̲̘̤̜̈́̃͂,̴̬̦̳̲͖̖̲͒̾̏̔̌̉̽͐̚ ̵̡̨̜̤̯̬̌̾͆̿̓̉͝͠͝I̴̺̝̐̽̃̒̀͝'̴͎̂͐̿M̷̡̳̜͚͍̼̬͋ ̴̢̢̫͇̈́̐̓̀̅͝G̷͍̞̔͗͗͑̀́̏͐̾ͅO̶̠̐́́̓̂̊̈́N̶͓͓͔̗̪͍̈̂͑͝N̵̢̛̛̳͎̞̒̔͑Ą̵̒̆ ̴̛̳̝̍̌̈́̌B̴͎̖̤͎̜̟̳͇͋Ḻ̷̒̅̔́́O̷̖͑͆͑̈̈́̆Ĉ̴̨͖̪̪͇̣͎͚̘̀Ķ̷̼̺̝̠̮̥͓̈͐̅͆̎̀̚̕̚ ̸̡̘͇̣̹͇͌͊͛͠Ý̶͕̥̦̜̗͉̉̐̿̆̄̃ͅÖ̸̧̳͈̞̳̤̤̌͐͒̍͘ͅU̴̜̔͛͂͗͐͜R̸̨̫͈̥͍̰̀ ̷̨̩̘͓̇̽͘À̴͙̈̀̈̃ͅS̴̠͈̙̎̽̒̓͂̐͛S̶̡̼͉̟̝͚͖̔́̍̀̄̓̕E̷̳͍̞̊͂͝S̸̛̥̠̻̤͆̐̌̋̉̿͘͝ ̶̣̩̖̘̦̂̆̇̔̀̅̕O̴̦̬̦̟͆̂͂͋̈͂́F̷̡̛̠̝̹͖͉̱̗͌̿̀̎͆͘F̸̹̖͓̖̎̉ ̴̤̹̗̯̊̔̏̀͆͒́̅͝Ǒ̷͖͙̻̭͎͕̌͗͒́̍̚F̶̜̳̭̺̱̖͔̒͋ ̷̢̹̩̝̗̙̎͂̽̐͝M̵̫͓̮̪͕̹̳͗̽̔̈͊̓̎͘͝Y̵̡͙̟̝̓̊ ̴̻̪̗̙̭̊̓͌̈́̀̒͠L̷̢̠̩̳̦̺͚̦̚Ȉ̸̝̲͗͊̃F̴̺̘͂͑͂E̴͓̓͋̑̔̏̎̌̏ ̶̫͚͎̜͔͂͂́Ą̴̨̦͈͌̆͒ͅN̷̺͕̻͙̄̽̋̄D̸̳͎͖̰̎̑́̔́ ̶̦͉̘̖͍̹̏̆͛̍̑̎N̷̞̟͋͂̓̈͊͘͝Ę̶̤̟̠͉͇̓́́̄͝͠V̸̤͋͑͠͝Ě̵̛̬͕͒͆̒̽͑Ŕ̸͕̼͈̠̰̦̼͚̍̐͜ ̵̢̰͙̯͇̝͖̑̆͑̇͘͘͝ͅS̷̡̲̣̖͚͊̌͐̇̚E̵̟̒̇̈͂͂Ĕ̴͓̬̪͖̙͚͚̓̇͒͋̅͋̿ ̷̢̳͚̼͂̆͠Y̵͇͔̎̊͌̀Ơ̵̢̫̟̠͖̣͒̇͋͛ͅǕ̶̡̧͈͚̜̻͍̝ ̵̼̬̤̥͚̟̎͌͜A̷̧̪̰̻͓̗̿́G̸̜̠͓̙̜̬͇̭̒̐͠A̸̹̩̾͗͆̆̒I̷̹̬̗͖̐̽̈́̓̎̓͐͗͘ͅͅŅ̸̧͈̹̭̝͇̝͕͗̏̓͐̽͛͊͐̕,̴̡͓̼̜̖̮̮́͗͒̍̀̇̚ ̷̳̰́̉Ỳ̵̦͓̞̻̩̐͜ͅỚ̷̺̰̻̝̰̤̣͓̾̂͗̽̍Ů̸̢̡͈̟̪̬̜̝̼̈́̃̂̓̄́̚͝'̷̟̳̓͂́̅͐R̷̹͖̆͊̕É̶̛̯͈͆̓͒̄̂̈́͌ ̸̠͍͍͙̪̀̏̅ͅǦ̶̝̯̦͕͙̈́͛͛͝ͅÖ̷͉̗͎́̔̏̓̒ͅṊ̸̡̝̾̂̅̆Ǹ̸̢̗͖̲̋̂̿̽͝A̴̖̮̰͎̪͂̂̈ ̷̨͖̖̹̦̈́̉P̵̞̩͔̱͔̲̦̟̤͂̄̈́́̓À̷̺̽̄͌͋̃͝Y̵̳͓͐́͐͆͘ ̴̼͈̻̲̟͎̩̿̍͗͌́̃̄̇͛Y̵̱̲͐̒̌̕Ơ̶͎̫̦̠̈́̄̒Ử̷̜̙̪͉̪̖̓̒̚ ̵͙̗̫̉̒̓̐͒̂̓̕F̴̱̠͎͝U̷̦̬̘̓̽͐ͅC̵͍̿̈́̂͌͐̅́͋̚Ķ̵̨͂̈͐̔̆̒̔̅́Ǐ̸̧̱̻̪̪͖̈́̾̃̀͘N̴̟̭͉̲̰͉̍̽̊͒̕Ğ̸͓̰̖̎̂ ̴̧͎̥̜̹͒̃̑̌̈́̒̅̊C̷̨͈̪̫̥̲̜̱̿̐͋U̶̲̮͈̪͆͋͐̊́̍͌͐͘N̴̬͈̝͓̆̄̔̍͝T̸̙̖̼͎̻̬̀̌̃͐̔̅͋͗ͅS̴̨̰̋̆͒̆͝,̵̞̭̜̭̹͕̱̃̚͝ ̵̗̬̆̚͠ͅY̵̗͕͌̾͂̂͂̒Ò̶̥̙́̄͝U̸̗͗̂̐̀͐͜͠ͅ'̴̹̱̤̇̃̓̀̏̽̀̽R̵̡̫̙̙̯̗̒̉̾̔̎͗͋̈̇ͅE̷̖̒̒̒͑̔̇ ̴̯͑͜Ǵ̵̨̝̟̙̰͓́̓ͅO̸̡̘̤̗̭͔̬͖͒̎̓͗̊̇͐͘͘Ṉ̸̱̆̔͑̈́͘Ǹ̴̡̩̼̃̀̍̕ͅÄ̴͕̠̂ ̸̧͓̭̟͔̹̖̥̔̂͐̃͆P̶̮͎̫̳͚̃Ą̷̨̪̖̟͋ͅY̵̧̘̟͇̮̥̏͛̓͜ ̴̢̨̜̞̹̭̼́͑̽̀͜͝F̵̛̞̤̺̈́̆̇̋̋̔O̴̜̜͇̽́Ŗ̴̯̟͈̱̳̲͆͑̂͐̈̍͂͝ ̵̞̻̇̌̋͑T̷̝̯̭̖͖̼̏͐̄͆͗̀͠H̶̨̧̛̗̤̮͕͕̙̉́̊̾́̚͜͠E̸̗̪͉̩̤͖͆̅̐̄̎̂̃̾̚͜ ̵̧̪̱̦̪̞̫͔͕̀̋R̸̗̭͓̖͔̻̟̮̈́̀̅̋̀̇̒͜͝Ȩ̸̟͇̮͇͂̿S̵͕̯͕͌̓͂̀͊͒̀̊̍Ţ̶͇̭̖̰̊͛̓̅͒̈́͝ ̷̟̜͍̦͇͍͒͑O̶͎͋̊́̈͌̚͝F̵̨̧̖̯̗̞̯͎̭̌͊̅̾̂̂͌̕̕ ̶̤̹̖̱̦̐̆̓́̉̐̑̕ͅỶ̵̨̮̠̬͚̤̱͎̄̒̚Ơ̶̢̬̦͙͚̝̒̏̈́̚Ŭ̶͕̗̣̎͘͝Ŗ̴̨̱̪̹͉̰͆ ̸̪͓̱̒̀̊͑͑Ļ̵͖͖̉I̵̡̨̭̺̼̺̟͌̏̾̽͌V̴̢̢̛͚̫͌͗͑͜͜ͅẺ̸̮͖̹͇̰̀̐̊S̸̨̲̜̖͍͚̙͉̥͊̀!̶̮̱̻͑!̶̩̦̫̓͑̇̿͛ͅ!̵̹̲̯̦̗̹̗̹̃̈́͛̐͝!̵̼̿͑̃̉̕͜!̷͍̮̝͖̙̫̫̺́̅̐̔!̶̭̻̫̭̗̗̼̏̈̆͒͝!̷̗͚̣͇̑̓̒̂͑̔́̈̄

Ä̶͇̪̘̹̦̰̥̪̞̺́͆̉͂̀̆̈̈̈́̌̽͊̏͠Ą̶̨̧̪̻̗̯̘̭̺́̅͒͊͌̈́̑̈́̓̑̿͆̕͝ͅÄ̵̢͇͍̉́̿̔͋͌͛̾̿̂̚͝͝Ą̸̢̯̬̹͖͉̻͇̘̱̙̖́̓ͅĄ̶̛̯̝̰̜͍̬͇̹̈̀̋͑̅̉̚͝Â̷̢̡͈͍̞̮͖̥͌̊̈́͐͝Ã̶̛̦̠͕A̶̖͎̗̜̳̘̪͈͙̍̍̒̀̑͜ͅA̷͚̰͕̻̯̪̔͆͆͗A̶̘̝̞͖̹̙͖͚̥͎̫͈̓͗͐̒́̈́͌̊̓̇̽̒͌͋͝A̸̭͕͋͋̎̀͂͛̈́̕͠À̵̼̓̑͋̅̍̿̀͗͗͊̂̓̚͝Ạ̶̧̨̧̤͖̠͍̜̱͐̆̽̿̆̇́͗͝͝͠Ä̷̱̼̝͇̱͐̈̐̈́̏͆̽͌͂̏̈́̀̐̅A̵̛̛̱̥͐̂̈́̃̐̀́̏͝Ä̷̼͕͉̭͖̣̼̺̺̩͍̯̭́̽̒̎̑̓͘ͅͅA̵̳̰͋̌̀̍́̈͑̿̋̃ͅĄ̷͈͎̮̬̠̻̀͐Ạ̵̢̢̣̻̻̯̰̦͉̮͓̯̔̏́̍͒̋̀͆̓͒̆͝͝͝A̶̝̝̻͉̼̫̹̱͇̓̑́̌̌̐̍̄͝A̴̛͕̫̰̹͈͙͖̪͒͂͆̈́͋̚Ą̸̖̻̹̹̣̹͓̩̩̲̓͆́͋̇͋̃̽͝͝A̸̻͔̲̥̠͐̏̈̅͆̀̍̒̀͌̕Ä̸̮͖̱͐̅̀Ǡ̶̧̡̛͍͉̠͇̗̉̇̔̽̇͛̔̂̉̌̚A̷̛͈͈̫̲͙̾̈́͂ͅA̸̢̢̝͉̼̫̔̆̑͑̔̊̓̎̚͝͝ͅA̵̢̧̛̗̮̮̭̫̹͔̹̮̫͌͂͌̔̔̄͒̌͑̌͘͜͝͝A̷̠̋A̸̡̜̭̫̤̝̩͎̦͑̃͋̏͠ͅA̸̡̨̯̮͕̭̠̺͈̜͖̗͂͒̐̈͆Â̵̟͔̘͂̃̏͌̓͒͋͊̀̇͐̚̕̚A̶̡̲͉̗̲̬̜͈̻̟͚͈̠͉̩̋̌̈́̐͂̍̓͐̉̆̇̃̕͝͝Â̴̳̻͍̯̗͉̣̞̥̙͋͌͂͊͗̏̃̈́͘Á̶̢̧̧̠̞͕̞͎̼̪̻̠̩̫̄́̋̅͆̀̊̇͘͘Ä̸̢̡̬̬̜̻́͊̈́̇̌̂́̋́̅̍͜Ã̴͍̫̲̤͈̐̄͒͋͗̋͑̓̾̓͒̃͘A̴̢̛̗͕͔̝͖͛̅̀̍̔̑Ā̷̧̛̩̘̘̹̭͈͇̣̗͉͙̣̈A̵̮̣͙͊̑͐̈́͠Ą̵̛̠̖͍̥̜̟͇͎͎̅͆͐̄͋̊̌̔̋̾̒̚͝ͅA̶̦̖̗̫̜̼̦̯͎̲̔̀̎̂̅̔̍͑͑̂͗̈́̕͘͝ͅA̴̢̢̧̞͕̺͍̣̳̹̮̜̥̅̑̈͠Ḁ̶̛̟̘̉̈́͑̐̔̂̑͝Ḁ̶̥͕͓̩̩͈̘͒͛͑͝͠Ả̸̧̞͉͈̊̀̈́͐͊̐̉̀͒Å̵̳͕͕̼̦̜̱A̵̧͉̖̦̼̺͉̙̗͈͓̹̠̦̅͜A̴̩̓̂̌ͅǍ̶̛̗̬͕̼̩͙͎͐̓́̔̊̾̓̽̾́̚Ǻ̴͖̤̯̈̈́̉͗̊̾̍͘̕͝͠͝Ą̷̩̬͇̹̮̺̇Ȃ̴̳͙͋̓͌̌̆͐̂̄̚͠͝Ǟ̸̻̹̲̜͎́͐̃̓̕͠͝͝Ą̸̬͚̪̳͕͙͓͖͚̹̘͑̀̈̅͛̿͋̃́̋͘͠A̵̹̮͖̣̻̘̗̟̋̐̋̓̉̇̍̈̓́̔̅̉̊͜Ȃ̵̧͙̽͊̌̔̂͝A̶̮̒̔̂A̷̧̛͎̞̗̽̏̀̔͌̎̂̀A̶̤̻͎͌̊̍̒̀̓̅͛̿͂̊̀͘̚͠A̷̳̝̝̓̿͘Ǎ̶̛̖̜͕̖̤̲̣̠̥͚̆͑̏̓͂̌̈́͋̑͗̚͠͠À̶̢̢̙̩̟̖͔̳̎̈́̈̒ͅẠ̶̘̹̦͉̬̰̝̘̫̈̋̽͌͒̑͊̌̍̾͑͝A̷̡̢̧̙̰̮̠̠̫͈̯͗͊̀͗͒͋̄̑́̍͆͒͠Ä̷̧͕̖͖͕̗̲̲͓̞̟̣̲̙̐̽̊͝͠ͅA̶̛̰̝̙̣̤̙̝̗͋̆̓͊̀͘͠͝ͅA̶̢̢̯̰̜͈̭̯̰̯̫̎̔̋̀̌̇̓̽̽Ȁ̶̧̨̨̺̜̤̈̉̎̒̀͠A̵̪̩̼̮̻̜͕͍̓͒̓̉̈́̍̈̂͘͜Ą̴͖͙̜̦̄̏͗ͅA̵̡̙̱̳̭̪̙̰̐̄͋̈́̄̉̋͆̐̽̋̿͜A̷͉͋͑͋̂́̋̆̈́̿͛̂̚Ḁ̴̛̃̏ (Headphone warning)

Ahem, my apologies. :3c

Also, I ABSOLUTELY REFUSE TO SEE SPOILERS, I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THE GAME FOR A LONG TIME AND I DON’T WANT TO SEE ANYTHING UNTIL I ACTUALLY PLAY THE GAME MYSELF IF WE EVER END UP BUYING A SWITCH AND THE GAME! I’m definitely gonna try boycotting the internet, boycott Twitter, boycott YouTube, mute every news site and journalist, etc.

By the way, on the morning of the 29th, when I made myself breakfast, I happened to talk to my mom that I want to buy NMH3 so bad and we agreed that starting on January, we’re gonna start saving for a Switch and the game, didn’t expect to tell her about it sooner but I actually did it! We seriously need to buy a Switch ASAP, and I cannot afford to wait for a long time to buy a Switch AND the game even if it’ll come out in other consoles, I want to play the game right on launch, I’ve been waiting for this game for a seriously long time!

I had considered making this list with NMH3 as my only most anticipated game, but there are some other releases I should look out for (Which of course I’ll probably never play because of money):

Resident Evil Village: The remake period is over (Though it ended in a conflicted way with RE3) and we’re finally back on track with completely new games, especially the sequel to RE7.

Not only there’s a new Resident Evil game but there’s going to be a new CGI series following Leon and Claire on Netflix as well. So we’re getting new game that continues Ethan’s story and whatever the hell is happening to Chris, while we’re also getting a new series that continues Leon and Claire’s story.

Shin Megami Tensei V: It’s been years since we haven’t heard anything about SMTV until this July where we finally got a brand new trailer and teased to be coming this year. My older sister would seriously love to play this, but we don’t have a Switch yet...

MADNESS: Project Nexus (Madness Project Nexus 2): I really hope for sure they’ll release Project Nexus 2 this 2021, the game’s been in development for a very long time and it’s constantly getting delayed, so I don’t think I might have high hopes to see the game being released at this point, but even so, I’m still going to count it as my anticipated release of 2021 (Hopefully).

I played the demo of the game, however, and I had a blast, although it’s certainly a little confusing, but my bigger problem was the framerate I’ve been getting, which the game is a little intensive and I expected the game would perform well on low end computers, but at least I manged to play it.

I’m not very happy with how they changed the title, it went from “Madness Project Nexus 2″ to “MADNESS: Project Nexus,” the new name is absolutely confusing and someone might get mixed up with the original Flash game, or so I thought it would be as the original Flash game was eventually renamed to “Madness: Project Nexus (Classic),” which part of it makes me think it’s a remake of its own but at the same time there’s still new additions, like new enemies and new story campaign that kinda justifies that the new Project Nexus game is still a sequel.

On the topic of Newgrounds games...

Alien Hominid Invasion: With the Castle Crashers remaster, the next Behemoth remaster is the classic Alien Hominid. Depending on how much the game will cost on Steam, I will for sure buy and play it immediately. I think Newgrounds games are best played on PC.

Before you experience the Alien Hominid remaster, you should check out the original version available in Ruffle’s demo page, which Ruffle is a new open source replacement for Adobe Flash. (Be warned that the game’s one-hit death might frustrate you, it sure does to me and I really hope that’s not a thing in the remaster, if not, then I guess that’s Alien Hominid’s intended nature, although it’s probably what every side-scrolling shooter is)

Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery: Girls’ Frontline may not be my top gacha games I religiously play like I wanted, and then there’s a plethora of Girls’ Frontline games coming out sooner, some of them are spin-offs and then there’s Girls’ Frontline 2: Exilium, which I’m not interested in the least, to be honest, but there is one game that is now being re-released and localized for global audiences, and even getting retconned to be more connected towards Girls’ Frontline, this is a game that came out years before Girls’ Frontline and for a long time it was widely believed this game was a sequel to Girls’ Frontline, taking place over 30 YEARS after GFL and now it is indeed confirmed! I’m talking about Code Name Bakery, or originally called as Codename: Bakery Girl.

Even if I’m not a huge avid player of Girls’ Frontline like I wanted to since I’ve always been a gun aficionado and I almost don’t know much about what’s going on in the story (But there’s my Philipino friend, Ten, to tell me), I certainly wouldn’t mind to play Code Name Bakery.

Back 4 Blood: Everyone’s pretty much referring this game as Left 4 Dead 3 because it was created by the creators of the first L4D (While L4D2 was all developed and published by Valve in-house). I kid you not, when I saw the reveal trailer in this The Game Awards, I was definitely like “I’m getting some Left 4 Dead vibes” maybe because of the characters and the special zombies, and then the title “Back 4 Blood” was shown and I was like “Is this like a spiritual successor or something?” but now everyone’s calling it Left 4 Dead 3, so I’ll have to stick with it.

And to be honest, I’m not really sure if I’m really interested on this one. Even if this is a new Left 4 Dead game from the creators of the original game, now known as Turtle Rock Studios, there’s just something about the game’s identity that doesn’t sit right with me. And then looking at the pre-alpha gameplay, it just looks like any other generic first person zombie survival game with the modern graphics and stuff, the characters and the zombies don’t look anything brightful and special like the first two L4D games, I wouldn’t call the aesthetic bland, but everything about it just doesn’t do anything to me, at least it’s not a brand new L4D by name or even by Valve, which this is published by Warner Bros Games instead and I’m not really sure about them as publishers or their products.

As much as I’d like to get interested in this game from the creators of the first game and people call it Left 4 Dead 3, I’m better off with the first two games. Oh, even Left 4 Dead 2 even got updated a few months ago. Despite my skepticism, I will continue watching Let’s Players’ videos and see if it’ll change my mind.

Fate/Extra Record: This is probably gonna be a 2022 release, but I’ll be damned if it would actually come out later this 2021, so I’m still gonna mention it here anyways.

Tookyo Games releases: This one’s a little tricky because we all know Tookyo Games has a plethora of projects coming out, but what we don’t know for sure is when some of these will come out, maybe the closest one could be Tribe Nine, but I’m more curious about the other projects and hopefully they’ll come out this year.

And finally...

Tsukihime remake: HOLY SHIT! I can’t believe it’s finally happening after all these years!

Um... I always thought that whenever we see stuff about the Tsukihime remake, I would immediately play the original game. BUT I NEVER EXPECTED THEY WOULD ACTUALLY ANNOUNCE IT FOR THIS SUMMER!

Once I'm done with some things, I'm definitely gonna go play the original!

Top 6 best movies of the Year

At first I listed all the following films in a nearly chronological order from what I remember when have seen these films throughout the entire year, but I decided that maybe I should make this list as a ranked list, even if some of the films don’t necessarily impressed me so much in the least, if it weren’t for COVID-19, Venom: Let There Be Carnage would have been my #1, and Morbius would have been my #2. Anyways, let’s go:

6.- The New Mutants: I wasn’t able to watch New Mutants in the cinema the day it was released like I wanted, but some time later I was able to watch the film and it was pretty interesting, I liked it.

5.- Birds of Prey: Never knew I needed a full R rated DCEU movie (Though it’s not the first one. The first one is the R rated cut of Batman v Superman but I don’t know how it’s different from the theatrical cut), there’s still some ties but I feel like this kinda feels more like a standalone film, but it was quite fun. This kind of serves as a good road to The Suicide Squad.

4.- My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising: I mentioned this a couple of times because this is probably the only thing I can say about the film, but this is actually the last film I saw before the pandemic broke out.

Though one thing I have to say about the My Hero Academia movies is that I wish the manga can actually make references to the films so it would acknowledge they exist because sometimes I can’t thoroughly figure out the timeline or flat out call them non-canon (Which they aren’t), and the villains are immediately forgettable. Although given what’s currently happening in the manga (and it’s completely nuts), I doubt the manga would ever reference the films.

3.- Parasite: This was a 2019 release (I think), but after the Oscars this year, it was ran in my theaters so I had to watch it before I watched Sonic the Hedgehog next. After seeing the film, I find it pretty interesting, not to mention the ending shocked me, but in all honesty, I wasn’t like completely amazed as I was with Joker, even my family thinks that they prefer Joker over Parasite, that’s not to say it didn’t deserve to win Best Picture in the Oscars, but Parasite as a film doesn’t mean anything special to me.

2.- Wonder Woman 1984: I wasn’t looking forward to see the film in my birthday because I didn’t want anything other than Venom 2 since it got delayed because of COVID, but later it got delayed to Christmas and I was glad.

December came, the film comes out a week earlier in Mexico than in US and HBO Max, I saw the film and it was actually better than I expected, I think I like it better than the first film. Now that I think about it, maybe I wished Wonder Woman 1984 wasn’t delayed because my birthday was so disappointing and boring without anything special to see. Although even if I liked WW1984 so much, I don’t think it probably would have been the best birthday film I would have seen if it didn’t get delayed, but it was still worth it.

There’s one particular thing about the film I liked very much, but since the film recently came out, it’s too soon for me to put spoilers, but I’ll redact them in ROT13, you may or may not want to decode this, it’s your choice:

[V ybir jung gurl qvq gb gur Jbaqre Jbzna punenpgre, gurl jrag shyy pynffvp Jbaqre Jbzna jvgu gur vaivfvoyr wrg naq sylvat, juvpu vf fbzrguvat V unira'g frra irel bsgra va ure zbqrea vapneangvbaf nf bs yngr.]

But then there’s the moment when I start getting the feeling of wanting to pee so bad, and the worst part is it started around halfway or the quarter of the film. Then in the film’s climax, my bladder was dying so bad that... Believe it or not, I had to empty my soda cup and actually pee on it! I DIDN’T HAVE ANY OTHER CHOICE, OKAY?! Geez, I really should limit myself how much soda should I drink, but I even took a pee in my home before leaving! What an awful way to end my older sister and I’s cinema experience of the year, having our bladders nearly exploding.

When the credits started rolling, I was slowly standing up, I was putting my belt on and somehow I happened to see a mid-credits scene I never knew it would have, although it’s nothing hugely worldbuilding significant, but [Vg'f whfg n fznyy sha fprar jvgu Ylaqn Pnegre nf Nfgrevn.]

At this point the DCEU is definitely going to have post-credits scenes, maybe I should check the news beforehand whether the upcoming movies have post-credits scenes or not, I always thought the DCEU wouldn’t have post-credits scenes, but since Suicide Squad, Justice League and even recently Aquaman, it should be time that I should sit all the way to the credits, maybe just any other movie in general too.

1.- Sonic the Hedgehog: I had some fun watching this film and I think I actually liked it better than Detective Pikachu in terms of pacing. Can you imagine watching this film with the awful old Sonic design from the very first trailer? I don’t think I would have liked this film with the old Sonic design the same way as I do now. I’m glad that a sequel is even happening now.

Honorable mention

Promare: This was a 2019 release and I’ve been waiting for so long for it to come out in my theaters, Konnichiwa Festival disappointed me with the 2020 line-up and all of it was history for early in the year before the pandemic.

When the pandemic has broke out, I randomly happened to watch Promare in my house, torrented from the Blu-Ray rip, and BOY, I WAS SO AMAZED WITH THE FILM, SERIOUSLY! I think it was for the best seeing Promare at home in case the cinema might have had full of Mexican weebs screaming their asses off.

Around September, my dream of Promare coming out to my cinema has finally come true! The day my family and I went to see The New Mutants, we have planned to see Promare right after we finished watching The New Mutants, although we didn’t get to see TNM because there were some technical issues with the screenings in the cinema for some reason.

So we waited over 3 hours to see Promare, my older sister and I got into the cinema to see the film, and the experience... Was rather lukewarm.

In one hand, my older sister and I were the ONLY ones seeing Promare late that night, but on the other hand, the way the film was screened was an absolute mess. I don’t know what to blame, the aspect ratio or the subtitles because the subtitles were almost non-existent, it was as if we were seeing a raw anime film in Japan. It was so bad that my older sister did NOT understand what even happened in the story. Given that I had seen the film, I tried my best to try to explain her what was Gray planning with the Burnish but my brain pooped out and couldn’t continue. Later I told her to look for spoilery summaries or something and she says she may have somewhat gotten the context of the film, but it doesn’t feel right to me. I’m not sure if she has looked up on spoiler summaries now.

Things get worse when I realized seeing The New Mutants and Promare in the same day could have been the second time I could have seen two films in the cinema in the same day since February with Parasite and Sonic The Hedgehog.

Another weird thing I haven’t thought a lot is that this wasn’t actually distributed by Konnichiwa Festival like most other films, this was actually distributed by none other than Cinépolis themselves with the +QUE CINE thing, and that makes me lead to believe that either the screenings from the cinema or Cinepolis themselves butchered really badly the subtitles.

The cinema experience may have been an absolute disappointment, but it was no doubt a very good experience seeing the film upclose in the cinema with the gorgeous animations and visuals, and my older sister and I being literally the only ones who have seen the film, it makes a new record of seeing a film with my family all alone since 2017 with Kong: Skull Island with me, my mom and a random dude.

Most anticipated movies of 2021

This next list is going to be different, as I’m going to count a couple of movies per entry, more like categories for different kinds of franchises that I’m most excited to see, so here goes.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Spider-Man 3 and Morbius: Since 2018, this is the second best time to be a Spider-Man fan! (However, we won’t see Spider-Verse 2 until 2022) My #1 most anticipated film of 2020 was of course Venom: Let There be Carnage, I seriously wanted to see it so bad but because of COVID, the film got delayed until like June or July. I was seriously pissed as the film was gonna be released on October 2nd which that could have been my one chance to see a Venom film IN MY BIRTHDAY, ONE FUCKING CHANCE, and Sony wasted it! Given that it was October, it could have been a good time to have the film released but seems like the COVID situation wasn't getting any better.

There's also Morbius which I'm genuinely curious as to how they're actually building up the Sony Venomverse with the MCU since the end of the trailer features Michael Keaton's Adriam Toomes from Spider-Man: Homecoming. Yeah, so far this sounds really complicated, but I'm sure it'll all be clear once we see the film.

And lastly there's Spider-Man 3 (Working title) which is probably the hypest out of the three films on this list. For a while, the news I've seen were about the posiblity of Kraven the Hunter being the film's villain, and there wasn't anything else after that, there wasn't much special things for the film and I always saw it as a follow up to Far From Home which I would still see. Then there were news of Doctor Strange being the next MCU hero to be featured in a Spider-Man film since Iron Man in Homecoming and Nick Fury in Far From Home (who turned out to be Talos the Skrull from Captain Marvel throughout most of the movie), this was certainly interesting, but as time went on... Things started to get wild. There were reports of Jamie Foxx returning to Spider-Man 3 as Electro, possibly the very same version from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 or just an MCU version of Electro, who knows but the fact that they're casting Jamie Foxx since TASM2 was quite interesting, but wait, that's not the craziest part, later I started to see news of Alfred Molina cast as the Doctor Octopus AGAIN, and for the final blow... Rumors of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield possibly returning into Spider-Man 3 and a leaked video from an official Latin American Sony channel that said "Who's your favorite Spider-Man? You might see all Spider-Men at once, anything is possible" or something like that...

OKAY, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?! THEY'RE DOING LIVE-ACTION SPIDER-VERSE?! HOLY SHIT, DON'T DO ME LIKE THIS! I'M NOT PREPARED!

The rumors about Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield returning for Spider-Man 3 as their Spider-Men might be a hoax and it's all rumors, sure, but it might not even be a hoax at all! For more solid proof that this could potentially be a live-action Spider-Verse film, in the Disney investors meeting, they confirmed that Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (Which happens to be directed by Sam Raimi of all people, and it's coming in 2022) CONFIRMED that actually ties to Wandavision and... "THE NEXT SPIDER-MAN FILM." So there you go! That pretty much confirms it now that they might actually be doing live-action Spider-Verse now! This is actually going to be the BEST live-action Spider-Man film ever!

With all these Spider-Man 3 live-action Spider-Verse news, I completely forgot about the news that Kraven was gonna be in the film, I really hope they might still include him in some way in the film as Tom Holland Spider-Man's villain, and it isn't explicitly confirmed that Jamie Foxx's Electro and Alfred Molina's Doc Ock are either the same versions as their original versions or completely new MCU versions of the characters, who knows.

This is lowkey confirmed with the Disney investors meeting that the Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ties to the next Spider-Man film, but what if all the live-action Spider-Verse stuff may not end up being true? In case if it's not true and it'll be just like Far From Home where it can continue Spider-Man's story from where the post-credits left off, I would still see Spider-Man 3 anyway, I'm always down for whatever MCU or Spider-Man film may end up be.

I know I wanted to see Venom: Let There be Carnage so bad, especially for my 21st birthday which I didn't get anything to watch and my birthday end up being a disappointment, but the problem is, we still haven't seen a proper trailer or anything, even for a film that was supposed to come out in October before it was delayed because of COVID! So far they only released a teaser trailer of the title and the new release window, and I really hope early this year, we can expect some trailers anytime soon, although the first Spider-Man film coming out this 2021 is Morbius.

So yeah, since 2018, 2021 is going to be the second best year to be a Spider-Man fan!

Black Widow, Eternals and Shang-Chi: First let’s talk about Black Widow because I’m the most scared of how the film is gonna be received given that when the concept art was shown at Comic Con and then the first trailer was released, people absolutely hate Taskmaster’s design, I mean, sure, he may not look comic accurate but aspects of it still kinda look like the comics and HE LOOKS BADASS! WHAT’S WRONG WITH EVERYONE?! THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH TASKMASTER’S DESIGN! Another thing is that I’m feeling that Black Widow may become Captain Marvel 2.0 where people hate the film for no reason, for a while there was some hate around the film because of some shit with Brie Larson and whatever, but most of the hate I’ve seen all goes towards the film quality, I don’t really see anything wrong with the film when I saw it, it’s rather decent, but with that said, I couldn’t stop thinking for the entire movie that there’s nothing wrong with this, etc.

I don't think even my older sister would wanna see Black Widow either as she never even cared about the character in Avengers: Endgame and she liked a tweet where someone said "Marvel making everything military sucks so much" which NO, IT FUCKING DOESN'T! I LOVE MILITARY AESTHETICS AND SHIT, YOU JUST HAVE SHIT TASTE, MY GUY!

The next films coming out are The Eternals and Shiang-Chi, although there's not much to talk about them since we haven't seen any trailers or anything so far, but I'm definitely gonna watch them.

I'm of course gonna be watching every single MCU-related thing, whether it's the movies or the Disney+ shows, I will follow everything! And no, I don't do this out of obligation (Someone in the RPG Site Discord server told me that and I'm forever pissed about it), it's called doing things religiously!

And speaking of the Disney+ shows...

BONUS: Wandavision, The Falcon & Winter Soldier, Loki, What If?: This is kind of a miscellaneous list as these are actually series in a movies list, that’s weird but deal with it. Say what you want about Disney+, and there’s quite a lot of MCU Disney+ shows coming I’m losing track which ones are coming out in 2021, but I think these four are what are coming this year.

Probably the series I’m most excited to see is Falcon & Winter Soldier, I have no idea what is even going on with Wandavision and Loki, as for Wandavision, since that one’s coming out in two weeks, I have to watch it as a lead up to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in 2022, as for Loki, I don’t realy understand it in the least so far. What If, there’s not much to talk about, it’s literally just “What If” with alternate versions of the films’ events, although I do admire the animation, it’s not Spider-Verse tier but it looks very nice.

I got a mail from PayPal offering me 250 pesos to subscribe to Disney+, I don’t think there may be an expiration date somewhere in the mail so I really hope the offer would still last, but until Wandavision comes out, I’m definitely willing to pay for Disney+.

Several Warner Bros. releases: Around early December, it was announced that all of the upcoming Warner Bros films of 2021 will be released on theaters AND HBO Max at the same time! That’s insane! It sounds really interesting, although I’m not sure if I would watch all the films in HBO Max, I would still love to go to the movie theater, depending on how much HBO Max costs and when is it coming out in Mexico. Also, that’s not to say that I would like to see them ALL, no no, I will only see the films that I’m interested the most:

Mortal Kombat: I actually loved the original Mortal Kombat films when I was a kid, although I’ve actually seen the second one and I still have the DVD which I bought when MK9 was released, although even that scene with CGI dragon Liu Kang cringed the shit out of me when I was a kid. For a while I heard this would be coming out in January 15th 2021 but it’s now coming to April, which is for the best because I haven’t seen any trailers or anything from it so far.

Tom & Jerry: I’m not sure if i would like to watch this, I’m feeling that maybe I would like to do so, so far this is kind of a bizarre concept but what I greatly admire is how Tom and Jerry are animated, it makes me think of Space Jam.

Godzilla vs. Kong: I started following the Monsterverse since Kong: Skull Island and before I’ve seen Godzilla: King of the Monsters in the cinema, I saw the first film, I like this series so far, and I can’t wait to see this one.

Space Jam: A New Legacy: I’m surprised how secretive the news and the marketing has been, every time I’ve seen this trending on Twitter, I never see these big movie news sites like The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, not even IGN were reporting about a legit Space Jam 2 teaser trailer at some point, or the film in general as of late, for that matter.

The Suicide Squad: Just my usual tradition of watching whatever DC films, whether they’re DCEU or not, and this appears to be DCEU, or at least having the same actors playing certain characters. If there’s one thing I would complain about this, is the title, just “The Suicide Squad” when the first Suicide Squad film which is titled “Suicide Squad” is really stupid.

Dune: I just need something to watch on cinemas in my birthday, this year was a disappointment since Venom: Let There Be Carnage was delayed, if it weren’t for COVID-19, I would have gotten a great birthday film that might have even surpassed Joker.

The Matrix 4: This one I’m genuinely curious to see and know what the hell is even going to happen in the film considering how the original trilogy ended. And for a while before COVID broke out, it was originally gonna be released with John Wick Chapter 4 at the same time, it would have been insane to have double Keanu Reeves films being released simultaneously and I have to choose one over the other, but I’m glad both films got delayed and they’re not being released simultaneously anymore.

Justice League Snyder Cut: This one’s kinda miscellaneous since this entire list is basically the recently announced films that are coming to the cinema and HBO Max at the same time, and I actually kept forgetting about this one and this one’s treated more as a series. We’ve come a long way since the Release the Snyder Cut campaign happened for years, and by a miracle, it’s finally happening. This film, or rather series, feels more like a remake of the Justice League film with some of the archived footage from the Snyder Cut before Zack Snyder left the project from his daughter’s passing, but apparently new scenes are being filmed. I really hope this saves the DCEU because as of late I can’t tell if the films are actually connected anymore (With the exceptions of Joker, The Batman, etc).

Mission Impossible 7: Since Fallout, I think I’m going to start following the Mission Impossible series from now on. Note that there’s Mission Impossible 8 coming out in 2022 as well.

That's all I have to discuss about my best and worst of 2020 and my most anticipated 2021 releases, boy, I seriously wrote a lot for everything and that's probably what took the most of my time to write this post (Aside from my laziness), but I really hope you liked my best and worst of 2020 and my most anticipated releases of 2021. And moving on...

Now it’s time for the one category that it’s always all talk and never deliver, I may contradict what the following headline will be, but it's pretty much what's going to be true...

No more resolutions

Yeah, I can't even bother writing these same tiring resolutions I'm not gonna even fulfill over and over. It's an endless cycle.

Drawing every day.

Behaving better.

Working out.

Writing my novel.

Give me a break. Is there seriously a point in telling you all these resolutions that I supposedly want to do but I never end up doing anything anyways? And if I were to actually do these resolutions, I wouldn’t tell you about it. (I read a study with a headline “If you want to be successful, don’t tell others about it” or something like that, which I’m still telling you about these resolutions I want to do and end up failing anyways)

Let me break things down in parts about my expected future:

Behavior:

In terms of doing homeworks with my mom: Yesterday on the 30th, she just told me there's already homework but it's for January 11th and we'll do it on the 4th, it's not even 2021 and we're already off to a great start, although it's something that my mom has to read from, so I hope it'll be fine for now, but for future homeworks, I don't have the highest hopes for it because I'm easily trigger happy in these homeworks, there's seriously a lot wrong between all of us in how we do these homeworks, we make our lives miserable if it weren't for my older sister's stupid forced pension that she has to study no matter what, and then like my mom's pension, my pension or whatever there is that we get money, either they don't give us enough money or my mom always end up spending most of the money in groceries that would last for a week and other things, this is bullshit!

In terms of people's opinions: I seriously wish I could not give a shit about what literally everyone says about certain things, not even my family, but that shit is just everywhere and I really can't help but make at least one comment that something's not bad or whatever, I said this countless times but I'm very trigger happy.

In terms of artists: I'm going to continue be a douchebag and criticize their art and themselves behind their backs in my private Discord server, whether in public channels or privately if shit gets insanely serious.

Working out:

I'd seriously love to start working out immediately right now, but given how extremely cold as shit my country is, it just motivates me a lot less to start working out! Besides, my mom hasn't even bought the mat like we talked about for ages, she always forgets about it and I'm always waiting for her to deliver, but even if I would like to start working out, I would still have to eat fats instead of actually going in a diet, can't go back to the gym because of COVID, and most of all, I'm so fucking lazy. I always tend to do one workout for one day and that's it, I never do it daily. This and what I'm going to talk about above are something I can't develop a daily routine of!

My drawing skills and my future of my project:

I now have a Wacom Intuos that is bundled with 3 programs, but I only installed Clip Studio Paint because that's what I care the most, the other programs are trials and they're worthless as shit, I did make at least two pictures to mess around but as of late I've barely been touching it because I'm still having a hard time figuring out what to do with the brushes and stuff and I'm so obsessed in having the brushes default, default brushes with default settings, etc. I'm just not too comfortable tweaking the brushes to my preference and changing the sizes is gonna be extremely hard depending on what canvas size for my pictures would be and having to tweak the brush sizes for the canvas is so inconsistent!

As for the future of my project, I really want to continue bringing my project to life, and now that I have a Wacom Intuos, if I really put myself to try to sketch every day and everything in order to improve my art style, hopefully drastically, I can actually try to make my project in a much better format, especially comics, I would love to return to draw comics because, I said this numerous times, I used to draw comics mindlessly when I was a kid, but two years later, I somehow got a slump and just like that, I stopped drawing comics for good, but now if I try to figure out my story right, I may actually bring my project as comics, literature can suck my dick! And because I'm an artist, it's best to make art for my project all by myself since literally nobody I asked wants to work with me!

I seriously had no idea how to write, never even bothered to read books and everything else to even care about the basics and essential of writing, I always thought it would have been an easier way to bring my story to life and make adaptations of them as soon as possible. I seriously had no idea what kind of story should my project be, I was extremely unconfident about it and... I don't want to say this but I seriously hated what I was doing with my novel, my writing was obviously shit and it gave me nothing but headaches, I gave up. Although it's not like I completely cancelled the project and lost interest in it, it will always live on... inside my head with constant brainstorming and headcanons.

I had a plan to deliver my project and make it successful immediately overnight and try to make the series go big ASAP in 10 YEARS, but now after giving up writing the novel, I completely wasted 1 year, so now I have 9 years to do this shit. The reason why I want to rush now is because I want my franchise to exist, I want to work with my favorite actors and other creators before some of them retire or pass away, and I SERIOUSLY cannot let this opportunity and dream go to waste!

Even though I have Clip Studio Paint now and I would love to make comics, my copy of Clip Studio Paint that was bundled in my Wacom Intuos is Pro, the features are very limited, so there's not much I can do about that. My other options in trying to bring my story to life are either making visual novels or RPG Maker games, those sound like very valid choices, but there are still some limits. If I were to make VNs, I would have to learn how to use Renpy, my art has to be good and I have to hire some people to do some extra things like I don't know, backgrounds and even the background music and sound effects which I can't even afford to do all that. Then there's RPG Maker, I bought RPG Maker MV when it was at a crazy good discount in the Steam Summer Sale but I opened it for a few minutes and I have no idea what to do, I try to watch numerous tutorials on how to use it but I still don't understand, another thing that I don't like about RPG Maker is that some programming is still needed somewhere, I have no fucking clue about programming, and RPG Maker always advertises itself as a somewhat easy engine, talk about false advertising. Besides, RPG Maker games aren’t as relevant where they become overnight hits and turn into franchises as they used to be anymore, so it really doesn’t do me any favors. So I guess my only choice is try to continue creative writing in some form, I have a better way in how to do things without the old fashion boring ass way, I would have to indicate what character says what and everything has to be in present tense, kinda like the visual novel elements in some games, and I won't give a shit about what anyone says about my writing format, there's no other way.

Even though I haven't really abandoned the project out of my life and will always continue brainstorming headcanons and different stuff, I hate to say this, but I think my project has grown to have an identity crisis. Everything I brainstorm are pretty much copying from literally everything I see, like movie scenes or even the entire movies, especially the MCU movies with wanting to make my own version of Avengers: Endgame mixed with Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Another weird thing about my brain is that, for years, I've always had a mood on wanting to make a Kingdom Hearts-like series with my project and some other franchises, and believe it or not, my crossover candidates were Persona and Danganronpa. No, this wasn't intended to be for fanfiction purposes, I wanted to legitimately make them into a reality! One day I eventually dropped the Persona and Danganronpa crossover idea with my project and opted towards literally making Americanized discount rip-off characters to be copyright-free and to fit in my story (Although eventually they have evolved into their own characters). Everything seemed well enough but my brain is coming back to this fantasy of making a Kingdom Hearts series but with Arknights. There's a lot to discuss about that but I don't want to get into further details.

So yeah, pretty much my originality only resides within the characters and their designs, everything else like the stories and some elements, rather of calling them "inspiration," it's more like heavily borrowing or straight-up copying, so I have no idea what to do with my series at this point. Not to mention that I constantly brainstorm all these things which they're all for stuff that comes LONG after the first installment of my project which I'll never release, and it makes me not wanting to go back into that. Another criticism my older sister gave me about my project is that I tend to create a lot of characters only to show off their designs and never give them any purpose, and I guess it shows.

I said this before but I’ll say it again:

What I love about my project is that I always use my imagination, everything just feels satisfying when I can think of every scenario possible and even make drawings because pictures are worth a thousand words. Whate I hate about my project is the act of doing it, showing it off, explain to some people if you're prepared, something like that.

Maybe my project shouldn't exist. In fact, it already exists, how I want the video game and other adaptations, everything exists, inside my head. They have and will always be in my head, and there's a lot more stories and characters to come. I have seen everything and they're exactly like I always wanted, I'm completely satisfied. There's no need for my project to really exist, only for me to become poor, a total nobody, and even if it were a best seller, it might get adapted in the wrong hands, but in the end, it doesn't matter because I always know I won't even succeed, it won't be an instant crazy hit and it will never be as time passes.

(That two paragraphs above is pretty much my copypasta to talk about my project)

Another thing I'm questioning in my life right now is...

My future as a Custom Maid Twitter account:

Lately I don't really make a lot of Custom Maid screenshots on my own, sometimes I do but they're mostly collabs, and I would occasionally tell people to make collab pictures with our OCs together, sometimes it does happen but the frequency of these collab screenshots happening have decreased drastically, not to mention that there are some that weren't interested, which kinda sucks

To be honest, I really haven't been motivated on making Custom Maid screenshots at all. The game runs so slow given that I have a lot of the game's content and mods which most of them I barely use, and I have no idea what screenshots to make, even if I were to look at prompts, not to mention I created some characters which I barely ever used and I almost never get immediate attention when I post my screenshots. I seriously want to retire from doing Custom Maid because of what I just said with my motivation and stuff, and then there's the whole drama with maidin which I mentioned a long scroll up ago which really affected me so much. I even had prepared some legacy files compiling my presets and my screenshots.

Even if I say numerous times that I want to retire or I'm done, I'm still considering that maybe I shouldn't quit, but even if I'm not retired, I still have no plans or even interest to make screenshots again, so I'll have to talk to some of my JP mutuals and Ten about it. After what I did to maidin, I feel like I'm no longer want to be part of the Custom Maid community and I don't want to be a burden on it. Hinosuna who was the one person I followed the most hasn't made screenshots at all as of late for 6 months and I doubt he will ever return, let alone talking to the guy ever again, and there's another person who blocked me for no reason after telling him about my birthday a day later which I did tell him I was from Mexico, talk about being xenophobic.

So there you go, my not-so category talking about my resolutions, I seriously didn't want to talk about this since I'm not even gonna do shit about the things that I want anyway, but I did it. Still, keep in mind that I'm probably not gonna be able to do any of these because of my sheer laziness and gaming addiction. Please let me know what to do with all this and hopefully it can change my mind.

Conclusion

Phew! This was an insanely long ride! I never expected I would write so much shit, and if you managed to read literally everything, congratulations, you're a madman. This is definitely the longest post I've ever written in my life!

Pretty much everything I've written here have been made with a lot of thought and effort, most of the stuff I wrote on this post for a while was my Best and Worst of the Year and Anticipated Releases category, although most of the time I was kinda lazy and only wrote little by little with everything else, and hours prior to the publishing of this post, I kinda rushed on the very end of the post, but I think I did a pretty good job into everything I made. And no, I won't even bother making a TL;DR about it.

Although to make things short, everything was an absolute mess, but my personal problems are always the worst of my life which makes every year automatically bad for my health, but on the bright side, 2021 is looking to be the very best year with the best releases ever, so I'm really looking forward to all of that!

I did mention my private server, I wouldn't like to disclose anything about it, but as of late, it has become more like a home to me, I don't check Twitter as much like I used to and this server is why I rarely go to any other Discord servers ever. Always being on my Discord server and keeping an eye on it be like:

(I know I said I wouldn't like to invite anyone into my private server ever again, and I also choose to not make my server public, but if there's a mutual that I REMOTELY like, I can DM you the invite link, if you're someone I find meh or I don't like, you can fuck off)

As for my resolutions, and most importantly on what to do with my drawing skills and project, I guess we'll have to see if I can deliver or not.

Anyways, this was a really tough year but thanks for continuing to support me throughout this entire year, for better and for worse. Hopefully things will get better this 2021 and we can be free again.

Happy New Year!

My Carrd - I did some improvements as well!

Every image featured in this post in high resolution - Because if you’re reading this post from the link I send instead of the Tumblr homepage (which I don’t think anyone even uses Tumblr anymore), my theme makes the images look incredibly small and as much as I like this theme, this is something I definitely hate. (I’ve been redoing this album numerous times by fixing something and adding at least one new image)

[hey-angelle]

On the Film: “Bar Boys” by Kip Oebanda

© Bar Boys Facebook Page 

Sometimes in life, you have to choose whether you want to keep going or to stop. 

[ NOTE: These are my personal thoughts while I was watching Kip Oebanda’s film entitled “Bar Boys” on YouTube. Safe to say I was very emotional when I was writing this. I hope you enjoy and that this doesn’t change your view of me as much! ] 

TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of suicide. 

Word Count: 2752 words

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Past 9PM. March 23, 2020. Day 9 of the Quarantine. Out of the blue, I decided to watch Kip Oebanda’s film, “Bar Boys” on YouTube. Honestly, the first time I heard the title, the notion of grimy pubs with strobe lights came to mind. I thought the film would be about workers in a bar trying to keep themselves afloat. And of course, I was wrong. The film was about a group of friends who wanted to go to law school. I, for a fact, once had the thought of going to law school and become a lawyer someday, after I graduate accountancy. Yes, I wanted to become a CPA Lawyer when I was in junior high school. I even wanted to graduate with Latin honors… I remember asking my mom how I can graduate with honors in college, and to which, she replies: “Mag-aral ka lang nang mabuti. Kaya mo yun!” (“Study hard! I know you can do it!”) Oh, if only the little 10th grade Angelle knew. Come senior high school, I already started questioning if I really wanted to take up accountancy. Law school then was out of my mind. I ended up taking up accountancy during my first year as a college student. Safe to say, it was hell. I remember getting a letter from the College of Accountancy telling me that I am qualified for admission due to my academic performance. If I recall correctly, only a few were able to receive such letter. I took that as my motivation to not quit; I rationalized: “Pinili ako ng college na ‘to. Papatunayan kong deserving ako na pinili niya ako.” (“This college chose me. I’m going to prove that I am worthy of being chosen.”).

           Now, Carlo Aquino’s role spoke out to me during the entire movie. He’s surrounded by well-enough friends who are smart and actually know what they are doing: that even if they don’t exert that much effort, they pass. Yes, I was like Erik Vicencio – the not-so smart guy who has to exert more than 100% but still ends up failing. I also had my parents, who served as my motivation in trying to finish my program; like Erik’s parents, they work hard to send me to college. They are approaching their senior years and I cannot recall the amount of times they’ve told me “tumatanda na kami” (“we’re not getting any younger”) which reminds me that I should not slack off so I can provide for them when they’re in their senior years. Nonetheless, they were supportive of me, and like Erik’s father, they kept telling me to keep fighting… to keep going no matter what. But every time a quiz gets handed back to me and I see failing grades, I feel so ashamed and frustrated. I mean, how dare I get failing marks when my parents work so hard to make sure I am comfortable in my studies? They weren’t even granted such luxury when they studied yet they were able to finish and look where they are now. So, how dare I fail, right? I kept telling myself that all this would pay off someday, that I’d be rich and be able to give my parents the life they deserve. But as the weeks and months passed by, I felt drained… like I didn’t want to fight anymore. I was thinking that maybe this battle just wasn’t for me. Maybe I should just shift programs already, else I’m just jeopardizing my entire future if I push any further. However, I pushed these feelings aside and continued the battle. Finals came for the second semester. Grades were out. And for the first time in my life, I’ve gotten a failing mark. No, this was not just a failing mark on a quiz, but a grade of 5.0. I had no one else to blame but me. I blamed myself for my lapses and shortcomings. That maybe I should’ve tried harder. Maybe I shouldn’t have fallen asleep while reviewing. I failed and it was all because of me. When Erik failed Mr. Cruz’ class, he wanted to redeem himself and would do anything just to pass. I felt the same way too, if only teachers would give out extra credit tasks from where I came from… but they don’t. Even as our grades were released, we had no time for consultation with our professors since it was already the break. And so, I told my parents about this failing grade of mine. Needless to say, their reaction was not quite what I was expecting. I only had my dad with me during this time, since my mom was abroad, enjoying her Europe trip. It was also during this time that I had made the final decision to shift. No, I wasn’t shifting because I had a failing grade. I was shifting because I felt like I deserved more, and I wanted to be doing something I love; me failing was only my “breaking point” or “trigger” since I’ve already had thoughts of shifting prior to second semester. There was this scene where Erik’s now paralyzed dad told him to do things for himself, not for them or for anyone else. Again, this resonated with me because the moment I decided to do things for myself, I made a life-changing decision… and that was to shift programs. That part where Erik’s dad also tells him that he’d do anything to fund his studies takes me back to that time when my mom called me all the way from Europe to comfort me – that she’s okay with me failing and losing the chance to graduate with Latin honors (in our university, it is a policy that once you’ve gotten a grade of 5.0 in any subject, you are barred from graduating with Latin honors). She even told me to stop thinking so much and I knew that was her motherly instincts working, because during our week of final exams, she was already in Europe and during those times (and a few weeks prior to that), I’ve been having recurring thoughts of committing suicide. Just thoughts, not concrete plans on how I’d execute it. I began to withdraw from my friends. I felt like extreme shit and that I was a worthless, good for nothing, and mediocre accounting student. My mind was all over the place. It’s a miracle how I still managed to do good in some of my exams. This is why when I was watching the movie, I’d get anxious every time something bad happens to Erik. I kept thinking, “Hala, paano kapag nagpakamatay siya?” (“Oh no! What if he commits suicide?”) because when I was in his situation, I’d get thoughts of wanting to end my life. Thankfully, he never does. And thankfully, I never did. It actually took everything in me not to break down and cry while my mom was talking to me on the phone because one, it would be embarrassing to cry at my dad’s faculty room and have his colleagues see me, and two, I wanted to remain strong for my mom, whose voice was now slowly starting to break. I told her about my decision to shift and she told me she’s fine with it and that she and my dad would continue to work just so they can help me with my studies, even if I decide to take up my masterals… as long as I stay and continue to fight. Up to this day, I still hold that phone call conversation close to my heart. I don’t think I’ll ever forget how my parents were so doting and caring during those times. I remember how my dad used to ask me if I wanted to come with him when he goes out just so I don’t stay at home and begin to overthink things again. Also, a few weeks back, I had been joking with my mom to get me a pair of sneakers from the Harry Potter Vans Collection, and on the weekend when she came home, she and my dad immediately bought me a pair just to console me (even if deep down I knew I wasn’t deserving of such expensive gift). I then realized how privileged I am to have them, and I will not take advantage of this. Without them, I wouldn’t be where I am now.

           Now, let me also talk about how the friendship between Erik, Chris, and Torran struck a nerve in me.  As I’ve mentioned earlier, I kept having these thoughts of wanting to end my life since I felt like everything I’ve been doing and will be doing is already pointless. In their senior year, when the three were nearing graduation, Erik has failed a class and will be delayed in graduating. However, despite them breaking out into a fight, Chris and Torran still managed to find a way to make Erik pass. Eventually, he does and is now able to graduate. During those dark times of mine, my friends were there to help me stay afloat. Their mere presence alone was enough, and like Chris and Torran, they did something that I would never forget. It was the last day of the final exams and as I’ve mentioned in an earlier paragraph, I’ve been withdrawing from my friends during those times; what they did was that they surprised me with a compilation of letters that they’ve gathered from my other friends. All these letters were words of encouragement; some were even from people I wasn’t close with, which really touched my heart. Somehow, this ignited the almost dying fire within me. I’m reminded that I am not alone in this battle because I have my friends. Honestly, the amount of support I’ve gotten from my friends in general during those trying times never fails to bring tears to my eyes every time. There’s this scene in the movie where Justice Hernandez (played by Odette Khan) tells Erik that his friends and even her – someone who finds it hard to actually believe in people – has put so much trust and belief in Erik: that he can overcome whatever trials he may come to face… and all that he needs to do now is to believe in himself; this scene reminded me of how many people have my back, no matter what happens, I just need to put some faith in myself. To give myself credit for all the things that I’ve accomplished and are set to accomplish, no matter how big or small.

           However, there were also dark sides to this friendship. In the movie, Kean plays the role of their barkada who fails the law school entrance exam and took up modelling instead, his dream career. Somehow, I now see myself in him. As a previous accounting student, I can’t help but feel out of place among my accounting friends. Every time we meet up, all they’d do is talk about their accounting professors, their accounting subjects, law, tax, and the like. While me, being the Behavioral Science major now, cannot contribute anything to the topic except the occasional nod and smile. Like Kean’s character, I used to be a part of the “main” group of characters, now, I am just a side character in the narrative. He even gets to the point where he complains about not being able to see the three anymore because all they do is study. And yes, I’ve done something similar. In fact, there was a time where I got upset and disappointed because every time I ask my friends if we could meet just for a little while to eat, they’d say something along the lines of: “hala, may quiz kasi kami eh.” (“Oh no! We have a quiz!”), or “Sorry, busy kami eh. Rami pinapagawa.” (“Sorry, we’re busy. We have a lot to do.”), or maybe “Quiz week namin eh. Next time na lang.” (“It’s our quiz week. Maybe next time.”). Even our schedules don’t seem to fit in. You know what I’ve realized with this? It’s sad how the people you’ve wanted to reach success with is no longer in the process with you. This might seem selfish at first glance but let me explain it: see, as a first-year accounting student, I’ve expected that I’d be spending the rest of my 4 years with them, to share and relate with their struggles, failures, and victories. But seeing as I’m no longer an accounting student, I can no longer relate to whatever calvary they’re facing. Yes, I can still ask how they’re doing but it’s different when you actually know and have gone through their struggle because then it would give you a better vantage point to what they’re feeling. In Filipino, nararanasan mo mismo yung mga paghihirap nila kaya mas maiintindihan mo. The mere fact alone that I can no longer relate to their talk about accounting signifies that the only thing I can do for them now is to ask how they are doing, how they are holding up so far, etc. without actually getting the whole picture because I haven’t gone through what they’ve experienced. Alam niyo yun? Iba kasi yung feeling na nakaka-relate ka sa paghihirap ng isang tao kasi ikaw mismo, may ganung experience. Yes, I can make new friends in my new program but for some reason, it’s hard because everyone else seems to already have their friend groups and I don’t want to just force myself onto them like that. There’s nothing that can compare to the friendships you’ve already built and felt at home with; having to leave so suddenly absolutely sucks. But fuck it, as long as we’re still together towards the end, then I’ll take what I can get. I don’t want to be the friend who imposes as well. Towards the end of the movie, when all four of them are finally successful in their careers, I long to experience the same with my friends.

           Of course, even as a Behavioral Science student who, frankly, at this point is not even sure if she wants to become a human resource manager, a psychologist or a psychiatrist, or even take up law after graduating (in short: I’m confused and undecided), I take into heart what Justice Hernandez has said to the graduating class: “Buhay, Kalayaan, at Pag-asa ang nakataya sa bawat batas at artikulong binabasa niyo o hindi niyo binabasa.” In the event that I want to pursue the psychologist/psychiatrist field in the near future, it is very important to me to pay attention to whatever is being taught to us in class and to read whatever is asked of us. Working in the said field would mean that lives and the well-being of people are at stake, and as a practitioner I’d only want the best for them. More so if I ever decide to become a lawyer (which I highly doubt! I can hardly survive being an accounting student and after seeing the film, I don’t think I’m ready, let alone cut-out for such demanding pursuits). I remember during the first few days of class, some of my classmates were talking about authors of various accounting books (e.g. “Gamit mo ba libro ni Valix?”, “Sabi nila maganda raw yung libro ni Valix eh, kaya yun binili ko.”) and I was like “Who on Earth is this Valix guy?” only to find out that he, indeed, was a renowned author of various books in the accounting field. There was a similar scene in Bar Boys, when Torran photocopied various readings and Erik was surprised by the volume of the photocopies… and those were just for one reading. I don’t know if he actually felt disheartened afterwards because when I saw my classmates reading books before classes even started made me say: “Shit. Maybe I am in the wrong program.” because I was not full of vigor and interest in actually learning the subject.

           Maybe one day, when I am already successful in the future, I’ll rewatch the film and reread this write-up, only to smile to myself and be proud that I never gave up. To the Angelle reading this five years from now, I hope you’re happy with what you are doing.

I’m sorry if this little ramble of mine has went beyond the scope of the film. It has just incited in me these feelings I’ve kept suppressed for so long and it was time to let them all out.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧ 

“It doesn't matter where you start, it only matters how you end.”

“So, do you fight, or do you quit?”

[nothingneverforever]

Never Have I Ever (2020)

Hey, I think this is my first TV series ‘review’ ever! Well I did do a basically empty post on Unforgotten (season 1) back in Feb 2017, promising to write properly my full feelings down, but that was something I never got back to. It’s still one of the best TV shows ever in the whole world, so hopefully I have time for it some day.

Anyway, meanwhile Never Have I Ever (NHIE), is… absolutely not good. At all….

I’d decided to watch it after seeing Mindy Kaling’s Late Night (2019), which was surprisingly enjoyable and moving even, and not just because Emma Thomson is one of my favourite celebrities in this world. It was a fun movie, and it felt different (from other similar films) ! I say it was surprising because I guess due to misogyny or something, I never thought I had reason to take Mindy Kaling seriously. And I am so sorry for it! There were parts of the script (Late Night) that worked out so, so well.

Back to NHIE! First, here are some synopses I’ve found online of the series:

-        The complicated life of a modern-day first generation Indian American teenage girl, inspired by Mindy Kaling's own childhood.

-        After a traumatic year, an Indian-American teen just wants to spruce up her social status - but friends, family and feelings won't make it easy on her

-        Episode 1: After recent trauma, Devi starts her first day as a high school sophomore determined to shake off old labels and finally become cool.

So I guess my first complaint about NHIE is a bone I could pick with just about any American production from the last, idk, 8 years. You know how when (for whatever reason) every single character is ‘awkward’ or ‘weird’ or sooo idiosyncratic in general, they just end up all being… almost exactly the same? Where all the over-used tropes, every character’s too-loud too-colourful unique defining traits just end up reading the same way, to me at least.  

Need all characters be so strong, really? Strong as in, overly sapid, full-bodied, clearly defined, distinct in a way that actually isn’t unique at all… I mean I’m not asking for more Jack Maliks (from Yesterday, as reviewed here by me) cos fuk dat guy omfg hate him and his dull ass lol but … do you know what I mean? When every character has traits that are so instantly recognizable, so clear to the plain eye without need for any nuanced observation or interpretation that you can almost like .. see the literal line of text in Courier font for the character description in the screenplay flashing before your eyes? Like of course as viewers we do want to feel like we have some grasp of the characters we’re investing in and relating to but I think if traits and personalities and mannerisms are so simplistic (even if they are diverse) that the characters themselves can ve perfectly summed up in a nutshell then that’s not a good thing at all.. I don’t know, it just seems a very American thing that I’m tired of, where there’s just a complete dearth of authenticity and complexity. Because no one in real life is ever sooooo distinctly themselves 100% of the time you know? Sure, I haven’t seen something specifically catered for teens in a while so maybe it’s just genre-specific thing but I do think there was so much more room for more realistic characters here.

Okay but still, 90% of all comments I have trawled through (facebook, Instagram, youtube) seem to be from American teens, talking about how relatable the show is so I guess high school teachers really be out there acting like caricatures of their TV trope selves and friends are all awkward af among each other and quirky at home and quirky on the streets walking home and quirky in the corridors of their school and exaggerate every reaction in every ordinary situation. But here’s the thing, I don’t think people are actually this way. I think many of them pretend that they are, act like they are. I think here lies the danger: where the more media we have portraying this kind of intensely saturated characters and personalities, the more young people will think that to be ‘themselves’, they have to raise the decibels of each and every trait of their own… I dunno if you understand me?  I think it’s an insidious feedback cycle not dissimilar to the manic pixie dreamgirl effect, not in how women’s quirkiness serves to bring out dormant sides of men but just in how people (especially girls because due to society-enforced insecurities are more susceptible to taking influence from popular role models) have to BE SO *INSERT ANY ADJECTIVE HERE* … I don’t know… it’s just inauthentic and tiring. So NHIE is okay, as long as it is makes clear that it’s caricaturizing different examples of how some people may act in different circumstances… but it doesn’t do this. Aiyah I know I’m making a huge deal out of what some people will obviously just take as entertainment and gags for laughs etc but… it’s annoying to me…

Okay

Next

So I’m not sure if you got this from the synopses I’d copied above, so, again: NHIE revolves around a nice girl, Devi (15), who lost her father (heart attack, in the middle of the school hall where he was watching Devi perform at her school orchestra concert) last year and is now starting a new year of school, coping with the incident by stifling every single traumatic memory. Also there are some random throwaways here and there about her having literally become physically disabled for 3 months after her father’s death where Devi lost the ability to use her legs (psychosomatic reaction to her loss) but it’s only ever joked at in insignificant ways so I guess… we shall never know that side of her grief? But all this (grieving over dead father, impersonal relationship with stern mother etc) is mere backdrop, joining other backdrop themes like being a shitty friend from start to end in unbelievably shitty ways etc – the main ‘plot’ instead is made up of Devi’s desperate quest to have sex with Paxton, a 16 year-old ‘hottie’ from school who she likes, erm, because, hot.

Yea that’s it…… that’s the critique. She’s a 15 year old girl whose everyday actions (for the most part) are calculated to lead up to her deflowering by her crush. Not to be a prude but… is this an okay storyline? Like are 15 year-olds legally allowed to have sex? Lol… Am I under any misconception about what teens all over the world get up to? No. Do I think that the law plays any useful role in preventing young girls and boys from sexualizing themselves and wasting their time on sexual pursuits when they can and should be developing literally any other interest and skill? No. Am I still unhappy that this was the main motivating factor for Devi to get up and out of her home each day, unhappy that for this reason (her goal of sleeping with Paxton), unhappy that because of this she morphed into the worst, most unreliable and unrelatable friend ever to her besties who needed her badly??? Yes!

Look, I’ve covered relevant topics in my 4 years of social work education to understand Devi’s actions as unhealthy, maladaptive coping behaviours – we see Devi exhibit behaviours / thoughts etc evocative of basically all 4 stages of the Kubler-Ross grief cycle, besides the final stage of acceptance: denial, anger, bargaining, depression. If we look at Virginia Satir’s coping stances instead, (different types of behaviours people exhibit when under stress), Devi again displays all 4 stances: super reasonable (i.e. over-rationalizing something so as to avoid confronting/acknowledging the emotional truth), irrelevant (distracting, changing the topic, inappropriate jokes), placating (self-explanatory)  and blaming (again, obvious). So basically, Devi does, says and feels anything and everything besides maturely coping with the loss of her father. Is this realistic? Yes! Does everyone work within their own timelines before finally coming to that final Kubler-Ross stage of acceptance? Absolutely! And I am not at all rushing Devi to act ‘normal’ or to display healthier coping mechanisms. I just wish the grief was handled so so so much better by Mindy Kaling and whoever else was involved in developing this story - this story that is honestly full of promise. In other words, how Devi fails to handle her grief could have been written so much better, so much deeper instead of her failings itself being the central form of entertainment for much of the 10 episodes.

Anyway, also, besides it being morally not okay for a 15 year-old’s thirst for sex to be an accepted plot point (accepted on- and off-screen I mean), the actors playing Devi and Paxton are 10 years apart in age. Devi (reminder: age 15 on-screen) is played by a lovely actress who is currently 18, and Paxton is played by someone who is currently 29. So like….. she would likely have been 17 at the time of shooting? That’s just not okay and I don’t think I need say more lol. Shit like this, miscasting your key heartthrob, is just so… cheapo and so late 90s/early 2000s you know where the actors are so so clearly adults playing high schoolers, it’s just… cheapo af and absolutely inexcusable now.

Okay, everything up to this point in my ‘review’ has just been small here-and-there thoughts I had while watching it, and I’ve dedicated fluffy paragraph after paragraph on them so as to delay speaking about my main issue with the series: how the central trauma is dealt with... insomuch as it isn’t, at all.

And I’m not just saying this as someone who’s fresh off having just re-watched A Single Man, because they are obviously intended as very different works and intentionally made of (made with?) very different calibers but there are, surely, much much better ways to handle grief than what we are given with NHIE where Devi tries her darnest to have sex with her dreamboat bae. Okay so early in the series (second episode), Devi actually does get with Paxton in his garage after propositioning him (by ambushing him outside school after he finished swim practice or something), but when he takes off her shirt she’s like ok nvm I cant have sex now bye. So yea, it doesn’t happen. But it continues to be her main source of distraction from her grief, so it does remain a central plot point. Anyway the therapist character in NHIE is a joke, full of age-old TV-therapist lines like “So how do you feel about that?” etc, other platitudes and hollow-isms. She does try to tell Devi that it is not in her interest to be putting her sense of self worth on being “bangable” (I do believe this was the exact word used, cant be bothered to find the exact minute in the speicifc episode but yea trust that Devi and her therapist are candid with speaking about her plans for deflowering and Devi is never willing to talk about anything else but), but … I don’t know, Devi’s schtick gets tiresome, not because I’m neuronormative and want to see more normal behavior from the dear girl or because I’m annoyed with how badly she’s handling her grief, but more because of how badly they (writers, producers whoever etc) are handling it.

Like, up till the very end, we see her irrelevant stances or proof of her denial as fodder for lame jokes and utterly cliché dialogue, in what should be a genuine and ‘real’ scene. It’s annoying!! See below for screencaps from slightly over halfway through the FINAL episode of the series - in other words, way, way too late for a joke to be made out of how Devi resorts to the same poor coping mechanisms in distracting from her grief. I’ve screenshotted only parts of the convo, leaving out the parts where this serious convo turns into a joke about Eleanor, that itself pretends to be deep and serious but it isn’t at all...?

Devi’s friends confront her about the most serious thing in the entire series (her needing to go down to her beach to meet her mom to scatter her dad’s ashes, something she hitherto has rejected as she is unable to face this final step in accepting his death but masks with more irrelevant excuses), and she’s still coping poorly by ‘deflecting’, as her friend rightly says. I don’t know about you, but this was not a scene I needed jokes in at all.

But then, like… suddenly…. Immediately after this she starts crying and everything is good for the first time and there is acceptance within her and some semblances of healing of the fractures in her relationship with her mom etc… I dunno, it’s just not cathartic at all, because Devi hasn’t been given enough of a journey at all. The 0 to 100 thing doesn’t work here because it’s not satisfying (for us) or realistic (for Devi) at all.

Re: the grief, I dunno, if we look at another, equally popular Netflix production, The Haunting of Hill House comes to mind. Yes, obviously not at all a meaningful or fair comparison to make but again, if it’s about a family dealing with grief and loss, why can’t we expect that NHIE carry the same gravitas? In Hill House, we see our characters fumble and lash out and ‘pop off’ (a term used in NHIE which I found strangely out of place) at one another, often, but never are manifestations of their grief, never are clear mishandlings of their grief on display for our entertainment in the form of laughs or ‘cringe’ purposes. It’s just...not everything has to be funny you know? Even if it’s a teen show. I think there are ways, subtle ways, expert ways for something to be serious without at all needing to be heavy.

Again, like my gripe with the childish and/or cheap caricatures of human personalities which would be okay if this series was clearly presented as light entertainment to fill gaps in one’s day, not handling the trauma and grief could (perhaps) be overlooked if it didn’t pretend that it would in fact handle it. But everyone’s discussing the show as if it genuinely was an incredible take on dealing with loss and trauma, as if it’s contributed significantly to understandings of how a young, beautiful lovely ‘normal’ schoolgirl can live and learn through extreme trauma… BUT THE SHOW DOESN’T DO THIS LIKE IT LITERALLY DOESN’T AT ALL I FUCKING SWEAR…. Please watch all 10 episodes and show me even just ONE minute where we come full circle from anything, where Devi grows through her pain and where her journey is developed over more than just literally the last 7 minutes of screentime in the very last episode of the entire series. And I’m also seeing soooooo many comments from people who have enjoyed the series mention how fun and lighthearted it was, how comfortable they are to categorize the series as comedy and how great a time they had binge-watching it. But… it’s not funny? Like it’s really not lol… Devi is dealing with a most painful, urgent grief, having lost her father tragically a year before (and having to see him go before her very eyes). Her denial, her various-aforementioned-unhealthy-coping-mechanisms-and-maladaptive-behaviours made for painful watching for me. It shouldn’t be funny for us to see her abandon her friends when they most needed her; it shouldn’t be fun to see her lash out at her mom and dream of Paxton shirtless, these shouldn’t be comedic externalities of her situation at all. Does this mean I want an utterly dour, extremely humourless NHIE instead? Not at all! I just wish scenes / examples of her mishandling her grief were not the same ones that are supposed to make us laugh and think that everything is light and fun. Like, we can have other funny scenes featuring Devi instead you know? Things that aren’t actually incredibly harmful to her psyche.

ANYWAY

Some positives, cos I did enjoy this stupid series lollll and I did cry and I did laugh and I did look forward to watching it every evening while I exercised, okie? :)

There is one honestly genius thing that I like, where the genius lies in its utter randomness. The series (save for one episode which I will not talk about cos I don’t really give a shit about Andy Samberg and whoever his inclusion was pandering to) was narrated by John McEnroe, who, er, apparently is a well-known American tennis player. The only tennis player I know is Andre Agassi because for some reason in 2016 I borrowed from the library and read cover-to-cover his autobiography omg actually why on earth did I even do that lol I must have read somewhere that it was good perhaps? Anyway it is still recognized as one of the most ‘interesting’ or iconic sports autobiographies of all time so. But yea John McEnroe who?? He (John) is mentioned here and there as having been Devi’s late father’s favourite tennis player – which still does nothing to explain how and why he is narrating the whole series, which is great! I do enjoy the no-attempt-made to connect the fact of his narration to anything in the plot. But it’s not done in an annoyingly absurdist way either, you know? It just it what it is. I mean I guess if I’d written the screenplay which was in part autobiographical, I’d too love to have LeBron James or Megan Rapinoe narrating it, just because!

Ultimately, I think we must all acknowledge how fucking epic it is for Mindy Kaling to be where she is today. That Netflix approached her and asked for a story from her heart, drawing from her own life, and gave her the boundary-less freedom to write what she wanted is cool. She may not be the voice I think teens (or any audience really) may most need but they certainly do want this voice – NHIE is so so so loved and appreciate across the board – by adults, kids, diasporic Indian girls, normal non-minority-race girls etc, with everyone calling (begging) for another season, and anyway Mindy Kaling is probably about 1000000x better anyway than others who have been granted the same stage and presence as her before, like, I dunno, Michael fucking Bay or fucking James Cameron so yay her !!! For the sake of us all!

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update, a few hours later:

so since forcing Jade to read my post the second it went up, i have learnt that:

So there goes the one singular uniquely cute thing I did appreciate about NHIE then i guess, seeing as his random feature throughout the series isn’t unique at all... seeing as unexpectedness makes for a predictable part of his record, it is no longer charming to me.  lol bye!