giuliachenportfolio

[wordup2007]

I relate to this as the days pass (Episode: My Dad, My Teacher, My Dad, My Teacher)

[dearlexies]

if you are a REAL ENGENE read this until the end, it's long but so so important!!!

I need Engenes to start supporting enhypen the same way they do with us, and I'm being serious.

I warn you that there will probably be some spelling mistakes because English is not my first language, but honestly at this moment I don't give a damn about that I just hope you understand what I have to say.

I'm so tired of seeing other fandoms talking bullshit about the boys, and dragging the group and members at every opportunity. This is not the first, the second, third and definitely won't be the last one. I'm not saying for us to be like them but for us to start being better, and not in a way that they talk shit about enhypen and we just let it happen without saying a word but in a way that they talk shit and we show the results!!!

WE ENGENES are the ones who make them break records, WE ENGENES are the people who should support them on this path, WE ENGENES are the people responsible for voting and streaming their music and honestly we are not doing this well. Romance : Untold was a perfect album, and Sunghoon said he expected to get 3 wins with this album; instead we only got one. and sometimes it feels like it was purely luck. we had a goal for the XO mv to have 40M views on the first month, now 3 months have passed and we are still at 33M. XO and BTHB had the chance to trend on tiktok and we let it pass. How do you expect Enhypen to be known? Honestly Belift doesn't promote them too much, and in the few times that it happens y'all let it pass and act like it didn't happen. So the only ones who can ACTUALLY promote the group are us engenes.

The ones on Tik Tok are useless, most of them don't vote, don't stream, don't watch mvs, are only there for interactions and comment "who's your bias??" at every video. The ones on Twitter are fighting with each other all the time. The few on Tumblr are only here for fanfics. And not to mention the fake engenes that are LITERALLY telling us to boycott the group which is honestly the worst thing we can do for them!!!!

So please, all I'm asking is for y'all started acting as a FANDOM. we need to unite, connect, whatever, to help the boys to grow. Can we please do this???

ENHYPEN already warned us that next year's schedule will be super busy, that means they already know their plans and have accepted the challenge. We should match their pace in terms of working hard all year. ENGENEs I ask you, are you ready?

let's support them with whatever we can and I ask all the Engenes to kindly stream we need to go on a steaming lockdown. Every Engene who come across this comment kindly stream to their fullest, collect rewards for music shows, Stream music videos etc.

But let's not start it next year, let's do it NOW!!! as we know enhypen will probably have a comeback in November so download higher, all charts, idol champ, mubeat, mnet plus, upick and star collecting for the voting, you don't need to download all of them just one or two is already good enough to help. Just download the app, do your attendance, watch some ads, and when the voting stars just vote for enhypen, simple like that. We have one month to collect so when it starts we're ready.

ENHYPEN has a chance to take AOTY to this year's MAMA, we urgently need to increase streams in romance:untold, listen to the album as much as possible, let's give them this award, please!!! Moonstruck is kinda trending on tiktok right now so let's keep it that way post videos with the songs, do edits, dance challenges etc

and also, enhypen is the only bg of the 4th generation to have four songs with 300M on spotify and I know in the future there will be many more, but right now we need to make given-taken have 200M on Spotify so here are some playlists for Romance Untold and Given-Taken

R:U & Given-Taken 2 hours

Given-Taken to 200M

Given-Taken to 200M + XO focus

Romance Untold 8 hour stream

as Engenes we need to support our boys they not rookie's anymore they are Senior now. They have big goals in 2025 ENGENES need a mindset like ENHYPEN.. ENGENES also need a Big Goals to our boys like Deasang!!!! let's work hard

[amalgamateofficial]

A Quick(?) Update

Hey, everyone. I never know what to say, and then because of that, day after day passes in silence. I guess I just want to say that yes, I’m still working on chapter 21 of Amalgamate, and also that I’m sorry for the absolutely ridiculous amount of time that’s passed between chapters. I know I’ve been “absent” a lot online, too. Rarely commenting on fics, taking days to respond to DMs, hardly livestreaming…

I’m sure it’s a no-brainer that the kind of person who writes a story like Amalgamate isn’t exactly a “well” person. Those who follow me on social media for my cosplay and art content see such a small, curated snapshot of reality. The smile doesn’t exist until I hit record, and it ends when the video stops. So every day, my followers see videos of me at my “best,” but I film as much as possible on a single day because the next “good” day could be weeks away. Sometimes I worry that the next good day isn’t going to come at all.

The most frustrating thing about it is that I’m well aware of the cycle. Every year, starting in August, the darkness starts to creep in. By September, it takes hold. By the end of October, it’s inescapable. November passes, then December. Last year, December almost ended in the worst way possible, but as cheesy as it sounds, Amalgamate convinced me to turn it around. I thought, “What kind of example am I setting here? How can I let people down like this?”��

So this year, I tried to prepare for the inevitable… and failed. I thought if I could post chapter 21 before the end of August, I could just curl up alone and wait for 2024 to be over. But then everything went to hell and I missed my goal, and when the darkness started to creep in at the edges, I tried to make another goal, and then another, but every single time, I was dragged right back down.

Then a mini cycle started to form within the larger cycle. Every day that goes by in which I don’t post chapter 21, I think the chapter needs to be even better to make up for how long I’ve kept everyone waiting. Then the pressure overwhelms me, and the terrible thoughts creep in, and then the guilt sets in, and then I’m curled up in the corner again with nothing accomplished. DMs are left to fester. Fics I want to read collect dust. I drift away, and I let everyone else drift away, and I sit and stare and wish things could be different. 

I suppose it’s not all doom and gloom though. I tried really hard to work on myself this past month, and I was actually successful in a few ways. I tried to clean myself up, and in some ways, I did a lot better than expected. I’m hoping that means I can turn things around again. I want to finish chapter 21, catch up on all the fics I want to read, start drawing regularly, and be an active participant online instead of just tossing out content in a desperate attempt to keep up appearances.

But it’s such an uphill battle. I feel worse now than I did last year, so I’m trying really hard to cling to that self-awareness and prevent things from going the way they did in 2023. But I know that’s not realistic. Everything in life is worse than before, and I see no evidence that it will improve anytime soon. So that means it’s on me to simply power through it and do the best I can.

So, for the sake of my own sanity, chapter 21 will get finished as soon as possible. I don’t know how much longer I can survive with this awful feeling, and that feeling will go away once the next chapter’s posted. In the meantime, I’ll try not to miss the mark with all my other goals. No matter what, I’m going to finish my Halloween cosplay special for 2024. Last year, I had some funds to help me. This year I don’t because I dropped out of most of my conventions, made a lot less art, and overall just kinda gave up on everything. 

But it’s not too late. I’ll dive into as many dumpsters as I have to in order to make a Halloween cosplay that will hopefully be as good as Mangle. This year, I’m gonna be cosplaying Spamton NEO – which is probably cheating since I’m already a failed content creator past their prime who has no choice but to wear clown makeup and wave their arms at anyone who happens to scroll by.

I never know what to say, so I guess all I can really say is that I’m trying my absolute best. I know my best is often really disappointing, but it really is the best I can manage sometimes. Even when I’m distant, just know that it doesn’t mean I love you all less, or appreciate you all less, or feel any less gratitude. It just means I’m in the dark, and I’m trying to crawl my way back. Which is very tiring. And overwhelming. But I never stop trying. In part because you all mean so much to me. Last year would’ve ended differently if that wasn’t the case.

Anyway, I don’t know what else to say other than thank you all for your continued support. I’ll try to make it all up to you and then some. Maybe this year I can end things on a high note for once. I’ll certainly give it my best shot.

Uuuh… I guess if you do want to see me at my best, though, you can always follow me on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. That’s the best version of me in between Amalgamate chapters, and I recently shared a ton of Danganronpa cosplay videos because of Dragon Con. I have a Patreon now too, and even though it’s a ghost town, I’m still posting as much content there as possible. I’ll keep dancing until the stage lights are forcibly shut down. I think that's the best way to guarantee that I can turn this ship around.

[rivetgoth]

New Releases of 2023

Was waiting until the last few stragglers I was excited for were released lol but here is my list of LPs, EPs, and singles that dropped this year that I adored. I am probably missing some! But I’ve TRIED to keep it somewhat consistently updated. Just for fun, asterisks are next to artists I also saw live this year 🖤

I loved this year for music. Some absolutely insane new songs and albums this year.

Albums & EPs:

January 20: Ladytron — Time’s Arrow (synthpop, electronic)

*February 3: DIN — Up (synthpop, electronic, house)

March 24: Debby Friday — GOOD LUCK (dark electronic, industrial hip hop, darkwave)

*April 7: Shrouds — Grimoire (post punk, goth rock)

*April 21: Lead Into Gold — The Eternal Present (electro industrial, dark electronic)

*April 28: Male Tears — KRYPT (darkwave, EBM, dark electronic)

April 28: Bellwether Syndicate — Vestige & Vigil (darkwave, post punk, goth rock)

*May 11: Madeline Goldstein — Other World (synthpop, darkwave)

*May 12: IAMX — Fault Lines1 (dark electronic, darkwave, electro industrial)

*June 2: Puerta Negra — Playa Sola (EBM, electro industrial)

*June 3: ¿La Pregunta? — EP 2023 (EBM, electro industrial)

*July 28: MVTANT — Low Culture Metal Bodies (electro industrial, EBM, dark electronic, darkwave)

August 22: Patriarchy — Forcefully Rearranged (remix album) (dark electronic, electro industrial, darkwave)

*August 31: Hallows — A Quieter Life (darkwave, dark electronic)

*September 15: Sextile — Push (electro punk, electro industrial, techno)

September 15: Nation of Language — Strange Disciple (synthpop, new wave)

*September 22: Choke Chain — Mortality (EBM, electro industrial)

October 27: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard — The Silver Chord (neopsychedelia, synthpop, disco)

November 3: Deceits — If There’s No Heaven… (darkwave, post punk, goth rock)

November 8: Panther Modern — Deluxe (techno, dark electronic, EBM)

December 7: HEALTH — RAT WARS (dark electronic, electro industrial, noise rock)

Singles (not otherwise on albums):

*May 19: Harmony Index — Rainbow’s End / In My Dreams I See You Again (synthpop, trip hop, indie)

*August 9: Void Palace — Machine of Vision (EBM, electro industrial)

August 15: Vision Video — Normalized (darkwave, post punk)

*September 21: Pixel Grip — Bet You Do. (darkwave, EBM, industrial pop?)

*September 22: Sacred Skin — Bitter Heart (dark synthpop, darkwave)

October 6: I Speak Machine — BRING ME THE GIRL (dark electronic, electro industrial)

October 10: Grizz — Frightening, but blissful (darkwave hip hop)

October 20: Sleek Teeth — Gone (darkwave, EBM)

*December 13: TR/ST — Robrash (darkwave, dark electronic)

Artists w/ Multiple Singles:

*Catherine Moan Singles (synthpop)

January 13: Pavement 2

August 17: Jawbreaker

October 27: Undo Undo

*Some Ember Singles: (darkwave, New Romantic, dark electronic)

March 9: Love Comes Quickly

May 20: Touch

December 7: Pendulum

*Touching Ice Singles: (dark electronic, techno)

May 5: There Is So Much Pain in the World / Praise Kink

November 29: Jersey City / 2k14 soft grunge 

*Male Tears Singles: (dark electronic, EBM, darkwave)

July 7: sad boy, paint my nails

July 28: Switchblade

August 4: in this house

August 25: you are your posts

September 29: delete this conversation

October 1: IF YOU WANT, I’LL LET YOU

Bootblacks Singles: (darkwave, goth rock)

September 23: Forbidden Flames

December 1: Wilderness

[c-is-for-circinate]

On one hand, there's definitely more of this to be written, and possibly even more of this scene.

On the other hand, posting now means it gets posted at all, and I also happen to think that the place where it ends is very, very funny.

In short: Dustin is a smart kid with a lot of good ideas. Unfortunately, he knows this about himself, which is also his greatest flaw. Set somewhere between Stranger Things S3 and S4.

---

Dustin shows up at Family Video on a Wednesday night. Steve never works Wednesday nights -- slow enough that Keith can spare him, late enough in the week that most girls are actually wiling to consider it a date night. He's seeing the second Nightmare on Elm Street movie, which Dustin is maybe a little annoyed about because it's only been out for a week and the Party needs Steve to get them into R-rated movies, he knows that. But Steve just said something about horror movies being essential opportunities for girls to cuddle in close so you can protect them, and completely ignored Dustin's totally reasonable comments about how Steve is the one to freak out at jumpscares most of the time when he watches horror movies with them, and went anyway.

Which is so stupid, because there's literally nothing real to protect a girl from in a horror movie. Steve has literally protected Robin from actual Soviet torture, with his actual face. Dustin saw him through that concussion! Dustin knows perfectly well that Steve probably drew the Russians' attention on purpose the whole time he and Robin were in there!

And somehow, he and Robin still aren't dating. If that isn't enough, then Dustin really doesn't see how putting an arm around a girl to save her from Freddy Krueger is going to do any better.

So Dustin bikes his way to Family Video, in the dark because it's November in Indiana, and when he gets there he folds his arms on the counter and gives Robin his brightest, most patient smile. She takes one look at him and rolls her eyes.

"He's not here right now," she informs him. "So if you want to badger him into renting you an R-rated movie, you're going to have to come back tomorrow, I'm not your babysitter and I'm not doing it."

Dustin just keeps grinning at her. Broadly.

"You know, Robin, we never talk," he says. Robin groans.

"Oh god, what now?" she asks. "And get off the counter, Keith's in the back and if he sees you he'll throw a fit."

"Keith is taking a nap back there and we both know it," Dustin scoffs. As if he doesn't know Keith's habits. "He only ever comes out of the back when Steve's working because he likes to make Steve do menial tasks while Keith hits on the hot girls that he thinks come in here because Steve's working."

"Fine, whatever, it's creepy that you know that," Robin sighs. "What do you want?"

"So I've been talking to Steve," Dustin says. "You know, our friend Steve. Pretty face, good hair, excellent reviews on the kissing front."

"Ew," says Robin. "Ew, no, you're twelve, don't talk about Steve kissing. Don't talk about Steve kissing at all!"

"Excuse me, one, I'm fourteen years old, I am in high school, where I just saw you earlier today, so it's not like you're that much older than me," Dustin says. "Two, if we don't talk about kissing Steve, how are we going to get you two over this weird little speedbump you're having where you're somehow not dating yet?"

Robin groans again. It's louder this time, and she also tips her head back to the sky while she does it. Dustin waits patiently.

"I'm not going to date Steve," she says. "Please stop bugging him about this, it's not going to happen. I don't want to talk about it, he doesn't want to talk about it, can you please just let this goooooo." She groans the last word, drawing it out like Mike when his mom tries to make him clean his room.

"Not until I see you two happy," Dustin says firmly, unmoved thanks to many years of being friends with Mike. "Steve is one of my best friends, and not only are you his other best friend, we've been through the heat of battle together, which means you're my friend too. I want both of you to be happy, and clearly there's nothing you like more than spending time together--"

"Yeah, because we're friends, Dustin, that's what friends do," she says, but Dustin has proof.

"Friends don't have to get jobs working at the same retail store even after their old one burned down," he begins.

"We're good coworkers and otherwise he'd have to break in a whole new set of coworkers who haven't had to deal with Dustin Henderson already for months," she says.

"You work well together, you compliment each other, you already get along with his other friends..."

"Not sure if 'getting along' is the right phrase right now," Robin mutters. Dustin ignores her.

"He's always giving you rides places, he's literally left a date to give you rides on multiple occasions --"

"Like he doesn't do the same for you!"

"Robin," Dustin says pityingly. "Leaving a date? When it's not the end of the world?" It's so obvious how much Steve likes her. Dustin's never seen him act like this with anybody since Nancy. Not that it's exactly the same as Steve used to act with Nancy, but clearly that's just because he's had time to grow and mature, and Robin's better than Nancy for him anyway. She keeps him from stressing out too much. "Driving you to school every morning even though he couldn't even get there on time most days when he was a student himself?"

"I don't have a license!"

"You really don't have to worry about it," Dustin says. "I happen to know for a fact that Steve would date you in an instant if you said yes."

Well. A strongly-supported scientific theory, anyway, which is basically the same thing. Anyway, it should be enough to get Robin spilling whatever self-doubt she's bottling up -- she's too nerdy, Steve only dates slutty cheerleader girls, whatever -- so Dustin can explain to her all the ways she's wrong, and they'll finally be taken care of.

"And I happen to know for a fact that he wouldn't, so how about you take the word of the person he's actually not dating and drop it?" Robin demands. She sounds on the verge of actually upset with him.

"But why?" Dustin demands right back. Which is really the crux of it, isn't it? Dustin has been asking the world why at every turn for fourteen solid years, and he has never let it back down without a fight.

"Steve likes you! You're at least as pretty as all those other girls, and it can't just be that you don't think you're cool enough for him, because lest we forget, the last time he was actually in love instead of just being kind of easy for any girl to look his way twice was with Nancy Wheeler, who is by definition a nerd!" Dustin lays his most damning evidence out rapid-fire, taking down Robin's arguments even if she hasn't made them yet. "He's a hot guy! He's kind of a catch! You're a cool girl! You actually like him back! What is the problem here!"

"Not every guy likes every girl just because they're a girl!" Robin fires back at him. "Not every girl is attracted to every guy! And you know, the fact that you think that is insulting and reductive, when some guys and girls don't even like girls or guys at all, and what would Suzie think, Dustin? What would Suzie think if she heard that you think every guy should date every girl he's friends with just because he's friends with her?"

"First of all, Suzie thinks you and Steve are destined to live happily ever after once he saves you in another bold act of heroism," Dustin informs her. Obviously. "Second of all, what do you mean, some guys don't like girls and girls don't like guys?"

And then Robin gets a look on her face. Dustin might have let it go, if Robin hadn't gotten that look on her face.

It's a split second of sheer panic. Robin ducks away from him, turns back to the Family Video checkout computer like she's trying to be casual, but her hands are anxious, picking up a stack of videos just to put them down, and she's not looking at him, and Dustin saw it. Dustin saw.

"It's just a thing, that happens sometimes, right?" Robin asks. "You can't just assume you know what somebody wants, that just because two people are both attractive they're going to want each other. You don't want to date Max, right?"

"Actually, yeah, I had a crush on Max when we first met, and I reconciled myself to her choice of Lucas in favor of slightly strained friendship until I discovered the love of my life in Suzie," Dustin informed her. "Much like Steve reconciled himself to Nancy's choice of Jonathan, until he met you and suddenly started spending all of his time with you. And anyway that's not what you said, you said that some guys don't like girls at all, which sounds like you're talking about gay people, which doesn't even..." Except that Dustin's thoughts are starting to catch up with his words, and he's trailing off, because. Because holy shit.

Steve dates so many girls. So many! He's constantly hitting on them and striking out, almost like he's just going through the motions, like he's not even trying except for appearances' sake. Even when he goes on actual dates they never last more than once or twice. And he's been doing it like that since high school, exactly like that. He's blown off dates to give Robin rides places. He's blown off dates to give Dustin rides places. He once blew off a date to sit in Mike Wheeler's basement and doze off on the couch while the Party spent three hours building D&D characters for their first-ever Hellfire Club campaign.

And Nancy? Nancy Wheeler, who Steve was totally in love with, except that according to Mike they started having problems basically as soon as the very first demogorgon fight was over and didn't stop for the next full year? Nancy who left him for Jonathan, who Steve is still friends with. Steve and Jonathan are better friends now than they were before he and Nancy broke up. Or at least they were before the Byers left for California, anyway, and that's basically the same thing, Jonathan was probably Steve's best friend actually his own age before he met Robin which was really sad, actually, but--

Steve getting super close with Robin after getting dosed with Russian drugs that were meant to make them tell the truth! Robin and Steve acting like they knew a secret that they couldn't tell anybody else or else!! Robin swearing up and down to the ends of the earth that she knows Steve doesn't want to date her for a mysterious reason she can't and won't explain!!!

"What, no, who said anything about gay people?" Robin is babbling, collecting more and more videos in her hands like a nervous D&D player who thinks hoarding dice is going to save them from a red dragon, but Dustin ignores her. "I just meant that attraction is complicated, and--"

"Holy shit," Dustin breathes. "Holy shit, is Steve Harrington gay?"

Robin drops the tapes.

[suratan-zir]

post regarding my sims content (or rather, a lack thereof)

Short explanation: I don't play the sims anymore. The last time I opened my game was in November to take these screenshots of a seafood restaurant I built a while ago:

I didn't like it at all. It's ugly, I couldn't even be bothered to do a decent job at landscaping, and that used to be my favorite thing to do :(

Nowadays the only game I play is The Long Dark. I still sometimes really miss simming, and I sure didn't quit it because I don't enjoy it anymore.

The main problem is - we still have a power outages every day, not as bad as it used to be, now it's usually only every 4 hours, but sometimes more often. But if (or rather when, and I think very soon) there will be another mass shelling of our power grid, if it is "successful", we will be left without electricity for who knows how long.

My sims take around 30-40 minutes to load, add to this the loading of CAS, loading screens between lots, an hour of picking a "right" color for the countertops (you know what I'm talking about)… The point is, sims take a lot of time. So to waste my precious time just on loading screens - it feels unfair, it makes me not want to even try to play. I hope this makes sense.

But every now and then I still get new simmers following this blog, even though I get a lot of unfollows too. So to my new followers: sorry there is currently no new sims content :( Sorry that there's more war posts in this blog than anything else, it's probably not gonna change until the war is over, until Ukraine wins. I already restrain myself and post a lot less about the war, russia, russian crimes and propaganda. I try to keep my cool as much as possible.

To end this on a positive note, you can check out these blurry crappy videos of my sweet rat boys. One of these videos started randomly showing up in people's recommendations despite having exactly 3 views before that. And because of that I somehow got a whopping 10 subscribers on youtube, lol. But seriously though, please don't subscribe to my youtube because I'm not a youtuber nor do I plan on making any sims videos. Tumblr just doesn't allow to share more than one video per post.

[kitekki-khaos]

A Year of Khaos: 2023 Review

Welp. 2023 is officially over and we're onto another year. I wanted to put together some kind of year in review thing and since I didn't get a chance to do it during my final stream of the year, I thought I'd just put it all together into a blog post. So here's an overall look at the year:

2023 was my "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" year in an attempt to really feel out what I wanted to do with streaming. So my plan was to pick a Thing for each month, really go all-in on it for the month, and make something focused around that by the end. Then change for the next month, rinse and repeat.

I've always been a Jack-of-all-Trades, which is as much a blessing as it is a curse. I CAN do just about anything if I decide I want to do it, but that also means there's no One Thing I'm really good at. The only One Thing I have is something that's borderline impossible to stream, which is writing. So... Project Year. Try everything, see what sticks.

So I present, the various skills I attempted to build throughout the year and the final product they produced:

Projects Completed:

January: Fashion Design - Ironmouse Outfit Contest Entry

(List continues under Read More)

February: Blender - New VNyan Throwables

March: Variety Streaming - Trying different Stream Categories

April: Game Development - Ludum Dare

May: Sewing - Summer Wardrobe

(horrible failure, just ended up making things in blender, instead)

June: Traditional Painting - Minis

July: Minecraft Redstone - Basics

August: Minecraft Map Building - Halloween Adventure Map

September: Stickermaking - Sticker Chat Banner

October: Dance / MMD - Halloween Transition & Halloween Stream

November: NaNoWriMo - WIP

December: Thankmas & 3-Year Debut Anniversary - Charity Streams and 3.0 Reveal

In addition to the projects I was working on throughout the year, I was also working on the 3.0 model at the same time. Throughout the entire year. Which, I came to realize was kind of a mistake trying to do both. I just barely got the model done in time because my time was so heavily split between so many things. Especially when you add that I was ALSO still editing videos for Youtube all the way until September. (which was a full 12-hour day, twice a week) So I was working on completely rebuilding my models from scratch in a program I was wildly unfamiliar with (blender), doing a new project every month, streaming 3x's a week (usually upwards of 6 hours), AND editing 12-hours a day twice a week to post 2 videos and 2 shorts every week.

It was... a lot.

Last year was a lot.

Too much. Even for me.

There were even a few more things on the list that I wanted to try out this year, but ended up not being able to figure out how to stream it. Baking, for example.

But I'm hoping to find something I can really focus on for the coming year and lessen at least some of my constant uncertainty about what I'm doing with life. And maybe ease up on the work, in general. If I was awake, I was working last year. I was so burnt out and exhausted by the time December rolled around, I had no energy left for my biggest event of the year. Honestly, I'm still exhausted. I wanted to get this post out ages ago but I just had no energy to write it.

I need to ease up a bit next year. Figure out what I actually want to do. But I feel like I have a slightly better handle. Maybe.

We'll see how it goes.

As a final note, here's a list of every game I played throughout 2023, which was honestly a lot. I try to finish as many games as I can, especially the horror games, with the exception of co-op games or sims. Some unfinished games (like Hollow Knight and A Hat in Time) I plan to finish at some point. Others, like Digimon Survive, I've decided to drop for good. Whereas yet others, I'll probably finish on my own as an off-stream game. (Slime Rancher 2 I'll probably play by myself but I've played through Ni no Kuni like 3 times in the past so I'm fine leaving that one where it was).

Games Played - 53 Total

( * - Finished / + - Co-Op/Sim )

My horror game backlog is massive so Indie Horror Nights are guaranteed to return in 2024. Obviously. Horror is kind of a thing. Variety Night is also guaranteed to return because I like having a day where I can just do what-the-fuck-ever.

However, I don't know if Project Night will be a set thing in the future. Additionally, I'm considering adding a fourth stream day but I haven't committed to the idea yet. I want to get back to fashion design but I don't think I'll be picking the seasonal collections back up for this year. Maybe just do themed outfit sets, instead. I may also try making them in blender instead of VRoid this year, as well.

There are a lot of decisions to be made about 2024 still.

I'm not sure what I want out of this coming year yet. But thank you to everyone who puts up with my perpetual indecisiveness, there will be more in the future.

Here's to a new year and new possibilities.

[bihansthot]

Tomas and Hallvard will have to wait until tomorrow, I didn’t nap but I crashed hard after watching nearly 2 hours of pointless nonsense to see the new trailer. I did take Denny to the park for a bit despite my lack of sleep because I try to be a competent dog Mom. It occurs to me though that I did an Understand My Ship in 5 Minutes for Bi-Han and I but I haven’t done one for Syzoth and I so I suppose I should do that too. I wonder if there are polyamorous templates? That would be the easiest but I guess it doesn’t really matter if I have one for all the combinations involved in the Polyship? I got a really lovely message earlier that I really am looking forward to replying to but I want to wait until I’m a functional dinosaur again because 4 hours of sleep is not a cute look for me. My body is broken though and despite being exhausted I still won’t be able to sleep until 3 or 4 am, stupid circadian rhythm. If I get a second wind I might post the Understand My Ship thing for Syzoth and I since I already have the little doodles done? Or I might end up passing out on the couch for three hours, who knows! The possibilities are endless! I wish it was the weekend though, I need a get drunk and be silly night and Friday is perfect for that. Friday is the 25th anniversary of my heart transplant and in my personal quest to be a less miserable human being I’m actually going to celebrate it this year. I’ve made it 25 freaking years with someone else’s heart! Not many people can say that. It certainly hasn’t been easy, particularly not these last 7 out of 8 months we’re into this year but I didn’t die and I didn’t give up and the way I see it is I deserve a little treat. Drinking and being silly is that little treat. I might get sushi and really live it up! My partner and I are going to celebrate for real for real sometime in November with my first ever trip to Las Vegas. I’m very much looking forward to eating all the things and drinking all the drinks. We might see their favorites Penn and Teller too, all depends on timing and finances. It was supposed to be a group trip with some of my IRL friends but sadly the one has lost both her parents in the last 3 months and my other one is the one who had the heart attack. So, it will probably just be my partner and I. I wish life wasn’t so unfair to people who are important to me lately, it seems like all of my closest friends are going through just awful things right now and it’s things I can’t physically help with, of course I do my best to emotionally and mentally support them but like come on universe leave my friends alone! Go back to picking on me! I’m used to it! I’m rambling now I just figured I’d post a little update about MK stuff and the post got away from me. Oops?

Last thing I just got a text from my older brother and it has me crying from laughing. When I was a tiny thing probably about 4 I used to freak out when you could see the sun and the moon at the same time and I used to sing at the top of my lungs “sun out and the moon out”. My brother’s video was of the sun and the moon both visible and him singing the song 🥰🥺 The fact that he remembers something so silly after 35 years is so touching 😭

[angstics]

a long introspective post because i know with time i will forget this and i want to remember it all.

night of june 30th, technoblade's death was announced. i didnt believe it for a few minutes because i couldnt watch the video (i still havent). but it was true -- he passed away age 23 from cancer he discovered *less than a year* before his death. i keep quiet about how much i liked minecraft youtubers 2020 - 2021 because that turned out to be a DISASTER. but technoblade was one of the shining beacons. genuinely always the best, completely outside of post-death rose-tinted glasses. always.

before that, i was kind of getting into my chemical romance. id known of them my whole life. from dan and phil references to annoying ass g-note jokes to the twenty one pilot's cancer cover. i heard the Big Three hits but couldnt tell you what they were (except for "welcome") before listening to three cheers for the first time at the end of june. i dont know why i decided to start them. i wasnt really into music -- my top albums the last couple years included burnham's inside, starkid's twisted, and falsettos (2016). i wish i remembered better. if listening to them for the first time isnt a core memory, this is:

after 6 months of relative stability, i understandably hit a depressive episode in july. i would lie on my couch into the early morning for no reason. i wasnt trying to distract myself from his death ... there were no thoughts to be distracted from. it isnt a headspace i understand, especially since i never left it.

but for another unknown reason i thought to watch those mcr live shows. mind, at this point id only listened to three cheers. no exaggeration, i was betwitched by their performance. i most vibrantly remember gerard's eyes. crazy fucking eyes.

i'd forgotten cancer was an mcr song. when top released their cover, i listened to the original. i decided i liked twenty one pilots' more. i switched on that when i saw my chem on snl (i didnt watch BPID all the way through til a week later). it's the stripped down song, it's the direct lyrics, it's the crazy eyes. like he's trying to communicate EVERYTHING through his eyes.

the intro to BPID was like that too. when he ripped the hospital dress off and did the ghoul scream. had that feeling when i saw frank perform vampire money in glasgow. just. completely uninhibited. performace to say something truthful. unlike anything ive ever seen. from someone who wasnt very into music or live performance or theatre, much less the mechanics of it, i suddenly understood it all.

that screenshot is an abridged version of my actual search history. this is how it went.

june 26 i watched ->

side bar, thinking about it now, my interest in pink floyd directly lead to my interest in mcr. early morning july 1st, this is what i was watching (alan parsons project great reccomendation from my friend bink bonk):

july 2 i was watching videos a friend of techno's publicized to commerate him. the mcr video was in the reccomended tag -- a combo of the live pink floyd video and the im not okay mv. crazy how influenced my life is by where youtube leads me.

then i saw a LITTLE bit of BPID before seeing my chem in 2022 for the first time. this was just weeks after bonn. i didnt watch the full eden either. but i did watch all of "welcome" at milton keynes, based on the time stamps

this whole fucking day spent watching mcr videos. reading 2011, zack sang clip frank iero explains reading 2011 drama, mcr iceberg explained, "mcr best perfomance", "mcr best moments", mcr on letterman, mcr snl, "understanding the black parade" (i had not listened to black parade) -- then i left at 4pm. probably to sleep.

july 2nd was The day. i remember while watching these videos a realization hugging me. i knew that i was struck. from july until november, the majority of my conversations had something to do with my chem.

at the very beginning, i texted people about them to gage modern attitudes. growing up, they were adjacent to bands i thought sold out or lost their spark -- panic!, twenty one pilot, fall out boy. as ive said a million times, there is a Reason i didnt get into my chem earlier. just the other day on a SPECIFICALLY EMO SUBREDDIT there were people talking about how they "weren't ashamed to like mcr". where does this shame come from!!!!!! too mainstream for punk, too punk for mainstream. everyone knows this.

well anyway, july 2nd was just the first layer: the performance. july 11 (/early july 12) was another big day. the second layer: gender and sexuality. literally my tags on the first mcr post i reblogged ->

then i saw the great collection by flockofdoves and. well.

same day i found out about "i wanna be your joey ramone" and sleater-kinney, though i wouldnt listen to the song for a short while. that's layer 4: branching out to other music.

layer 3 was music appreciation. i listened to each of their albums in full sequentionally (KIND OF since i relistened to bullets 3 times were i only listened to the others in full 2 times max), purposuefully holding off for weeks between each album. i remember the first time i sat down to listen to black parade. i was buzzing at like 12:30 am because id decided that was the night. the end -> dead rocked my whole world. never got the instinct to bang your head around til those songs. the whole album was fucking amazing but something aboout famous last words got to me. id be sitting in the car with my sister and singing the bridge over and over. the perfect string of words -- with words i thought id never speak: awake and unafraid, asleep or dead.

i used to hate live performances because the music sounded worse than the studio version while giving me nothing performance-wise. id never wanted to go to a concert in my life. but not only did they sound GOOD live, it was a whole different experience. an adaptation that added to the experience in ways entirely different to what is lost. like i said, crazy eyes. and smiles like flowers and the audience louder than the amps and movement led by sound and memory. like. like nothing else. you cant understand this unless youre in love -- completely dedicated to it.

sometime in august i discovered they were coming to my town the next month. the first concert i ever wanted to go to. my parents were a nightmare about it the whole month until i got the permission to go. ive said also said this a million times: it was like rapture.

i dont understand why you would want to do anything that doesnt work towards that same feeling. my parents didnt get that feeling and i couldnt go to another show. it's been months and it still drives me insane. it drives me fucking insane. it drives me insane.

so those are the core memories related to my chem that got me here. it's a lot of love. love so big i cant even hold. it's belief. something close to religious. it's a lot of fear too -- fear the feeling will go away, that i'll "wake up", fear that they'll be taken. one reason i dont like music is the feelings i attach to it are so profound that i cant listen to it without feeling what i felt in the past. it's why i limit how much i listen to my chem. that's another fear -- though i attach positive feelings to the band, im engaging in it while depressed. more than engaging, obsessing. i cant focus on much else.

i hope as i get better mentally, this doesnt leave me. i got into it to cope. it showed me another dimension of art and life and emotion. it's a hard thing to navigate. i want the good, healthy parts of this to be my life. i hope i can figure that out. i hope it works out.

july 26 2020, i looked this up:

i have no memory of this at all.

the night before, i was on a technoblade binge that ended with me watching one of his seminal videos that i remember beat for beat.

i love technoblade forever. i cant watch his videos right now, but i hope i can someday. i love my chem forever. i hope-

[canadian-riddler]

I haven't been able to start love as a construct just yet, but I'm absolutely obsessed with your behind the scenes work on it, and your general thoughts as someone that writes fic. From how you present yourself here, youre very down to earth and that's a breath of fresh air

I once found a comment on the Portal subreddit about LaaC that went something like, 'The fic starts off very good, then gets very dry, then gets good again. And then the author puts Claptrap in.' so if that doesn't sound appealing to you then you don't need to start it. I also can't promise it will never go on hiatus again

I can't show the titles because they contain spoilers (assuming you didn't read the ask where someone asked the remainder of the fic to be spoiled lol) but here are the last modified dates of documents I have for the final arc of the fic (which I am not using all of, but they stay in the 'Last Arc' folder until I get there and figure out what I am using):

I posted the first chapter for LaaC on November 1, 2013. The document at the bottom is called 'The End' and as we can see I wrote it about a year later. The gap between 2015 and 2018 is from when I put it on hiatus the first time (because I was mad at the Portal fandom on Tumblr and moved on to a different video game)

I probably take writing fanfic too seriously but it's basically my primary hobby (other than video games) and it's been so long that yeah I have thoughts about how I saw things when I started and how I see things going now.

Thank you! I'm not very funny so I have to come across as something else instead lol. It's been mentioned now and again I complain too much but meh. I make a post and then I forget about whatever I said almost immediately. Better than stewing about stupid stuff IRL.

[iantimony]

accidentally back to tuesdaypost

despite my best efforts, shabbat came and went and i did not make my post. oops. trying a new heading template this week as well.

maybe not this week but i am thinking of starting to host images for the making section somewhere else...maybe on gdrive? or postimages.org? imgur? just so that if my tumblr ever breaks the images in dreamwidth won't vanish.

listening

partizan! halfway through episode 12 right now, which means, according to where i was last week-ish, i am averaging about one episode a day LOL. extreme sport FatT speedrunning. also relistening to all is as all should be recently, just scratches a brain itch for some reason. it's very brain-worm-able to me, i've been humming songs from it all week.

reading i was going to say fallow and then went. hooold on. i've been reading SO many things just not, like, books.

wikipedia articles of the week: Naomi Shihab Nye, Rachel's Tomb, Matzevah, Alexandre Cabanel, Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud, Leo Africanus

because it's november and i'm nostalgic for nanowrimo (and considering doing it again once i'm done with classes and therefore homework), i went and reread some of my nano from when i was in high school and WOW. nostalgia!!! some of it is very very bad, unsurprisingly, it was almost 10 years ago, but some of it is actually quite good. very fond of the comments left by a friend on it that were preserved when i downloaded the google doc a billion years ago to save on my external drive, including one that said "your prose is crisp like an autumn apple" or some fucking thing like that. truly delightful. i'd also somehow forgotten that i'd actually hit the word goal? the document is about 60k words give or take, the story was not finished though which is probably why i misremembered. i should start writing again.

in my quest to populate my inoreader with blogs and other such things i've been delving into my bookmarks and re-found this delightful site, their most recent article is just the world's most specific niche horn memes it's so funny. like this is absolutely meaningless to literally everyone else that it passes back into absurdity and probably funny to non-horn players again. i am VERY excited to peruse their pdf library though.

playing pokegoooooo. i am visiting my grandma and going on long night walks around the old people development with pokego is very elite. i am a little nervous that someone will call security on me though because i frequently just stop (often like...in front of people's apartment buildings....) and stand still to catch pokemon if a bunch have spawned in one location...

watching i have not watched it yet but i am VERY excited to start season 2 of the tgcf donghua!!

watched kurtis connor's "deep dive into potterheads" and literally cheered out loud at the end when he mentioned the snapewives. that made me want to watch strange aeons so i also watched her video on msscribe and snapewives.

i wasn't On Livejournal or active in fandom while everything was going down but i remember learning about it a few years after it all happened so seeing comprehensive deep dives now is very, very...satisfying isn't quite the right word, but i am a messy bitch who lives for drama especially when i'm not involved in it. what a mess.

making pottery!!! i have a bunch of stuff coming out from a glaze run that i'm very excited to see but it will have to wait til saturday when i get home from visiting my grandma for thanksgiving. i do however have pictures of this little box i made:

it was a gift for my grandma, and i glazed it all the way back in the beginning of october i think? the kilns got monopolized by some other stuff for the owner's business (which is super fair) which means we didn't get a student project run until literally friday, two days before i was supposed to leave town, so after some texting with her she was able to put it out on her porch around 11pm on saturday when the kiln cooled down enough so i was able to pick it up at like 5:30am on my drive to the airport LOL so all in all it worked out! next roundup post will have pictures of some of my other glazed pieces, i'm very very curious how they do!!!

i've been playing with underglaze because i was like ohhhh i love the look of carving designs into underglaze...and i bought some fun colors when i went to The City a few weekends ago...so i have this mug that needs its first fire, i also have some fun eye-motif ones in the works at the moment! i also added some underglaze color to my dragon carving from last week.

finally this bowl already had its first fire but i painted underglaze on over white to try and get a watercolor-type effect? i put lilypads on the inside and painted koi on the outside (no picture of that yet)

misc not a whole lot else! since my summertime trials and tribulations i have unfortunately become the kind of person who gets tummy issues when my stress levels get too high. i have always become a basket case in the ~24 hours before i have to travel somewhere so that's been less than fun but i'm figuring it out. also trying to switch psychiatrists right now is sooooo fucking aggravating i will not get into it but ughhhhhh.

[breakingarrows]

On a Decade of Creating

Today, the day I’m writing this, is November 6, 2023. Ten years ago on this day I published the first post and first podcast episode of what would become ten years of writing, recording, editing, and publishing reviews, essays, videos, and audio podcasts about video games. I did it because my dream was to work at IGN, an outlet I had a lot of love for throughout my adolescence. I never had any real expectation that it would happen, just a hope, and I also just enjoyed the process of creating these things. Running a tumblr account, a podcast, a YouTube channel, was a good excuse to get my friends together to create content but also just to hang out. I got to learn how to record audio and video, how to edit audio and video, and how to think and write about games in different ways from the standard format I had grown up on as my appetite for criticism changed and grew from different sources over the past decade. The episode in question is no longer available online as I no longer pay SoundCloud or Libsyn for the hosting. I have the MP3 file copy, and an incomplete archive of the entire podcast that I will eternally beat myself up for due to not properly archiving my own work, something I know is common in all industries it seems.

Building a portfolio did get me some work within the industry, I freelanced for a few sites in late 2014/early 2015, two of which, B-TEN and Current Digital, are no longer around though the third, LoadTheGame still exists. I remember being “fired” from LoadtheGame due to the owner or editor or whoever somehow misreading a post about the Sons of Anarchy mobile game being a post about the tv show itself? It was dumb and not like I was being paid anyway. At least my author profile still functions. Somehow my Facebook account still has me connected as an owner of the B-TEN.com page on Facebook and I never found a way to completely delete it. I don’t even use Facebook much anyway so I’ve let it be as a relic of the past. Gabe Carey was the founder for B-TEN and Current Digital and a friend who has gone on to have a successful career in the tech industry.

Attending the PlayStation Experience in my hometown of Las Vegas in December 2014 was probably one of the most exciting events of my start. I had reached out to various attendees in order to ask for interviews and also knew that various game industry people would be around to pitch work to. I was able to talk to Harmonix about Amplitude, Behold Studios on Chroma Squad, Greg Kasavin on Transistor, and my partner and friend Trevor Thompson talked to Greg Miller. Little did we know that both Greg and Colin Moriarty, from our favorite podcast, IGN’s Podcast Beyond, had decided behind the scenes to quit IGN at the end of the month to do Kinda Funny full time with Nick Scarpino and Tim Gettys. This meant their live panel at PSX was the last live panel appearance they would do as the Podcast Beyond hosts. While attending the show Trevor and myself met and talked to Vince Ingenito of IGN (the same one Kallie Plagge accused years later of sexual harassment) who gave us some advice on working for IGN and recommended business cards, which I slapped together and printed out that very next morning for the second day of the convention. We also had a friendly interaction with Nick Robinson who would be quietly removed from Polygon after accusations of inappropriate behavior with fans. We were really knocking it out of the park in terms of engaging with people who would later turn out to be not so great! Sadly we also did an interview with Alex Preston of Heart Machine about the then unreleased Hyper Light Drifter that became corrupted and unusable. This is mostly sad as it was a game that would go on to become an all-time favorite of mine and the demo itself was very different from the final game itself.

In March 2015 I would apply and be accepted to do work for Dualshockers, a role I would keep from April 2015 until August 2020, though there would be a break year in 2017 and the last years would be more features than daily news writing. I really enjoyed the time I spent working for Dualshockers. I always described them as a mid-tier site in terms of popularity. We had enough accreditation to attend E3 and be invited to various preview events by publishers, though never PlayStation as they had blacklisted us for almost its entire existence. We were not, however, large enough to really do anything in terms of payments or be recognized as fellow games media by the larger sites such as IGN, Polygon, Giant Bomb, etc. The comradery with fellow writers existing under a difficult (and tyrannical) editor formed bonds that continue to this day in our own private discord group. I got a lot of opportunities I would have never had without them: got to attend the last great E3’s (2015 & 2016), got to attend preview events where I got to shoot the shit with the likes of Jeff Gerstmann and Arthur Gies, and played more games than I probably ever will again in the span of a calendar year.

PSX 2015 was in San Francisco and home to one of the strangest events of my life. After PSX closed a lot of industry people hung out in the bar of the W San Francisco, right across from the Moscone Center. I ended up talking to Nayan Ramachandran of Playism and Alex Rubens of Red Bull. At some point the location was closing up and we ended up joining Adam Boyes of Sony and Dan Ryckert of Giant Bomb and the entire group made its way to Adam’s hotel room nearby where we just drunkenly hung out talking until the early, early morning. Key memories is Adam being insistent that I looked like a younger and more handsome Ted Price, Dan trying to convince Alex to let him pepper spray him in the face in exchange for letting Alex punch Dan in the face once, and me betting Dan a Taco Bell dinner there was no way he was actually going to replay The Last of Us Remastered by the end of the year (a bet that is unresolved to this day). It was wild and I never got into a situation like that again sadly.

Late 2016/early 2017 was one of great personal turmoil and probably the worst depressive episode I’ve had since high school but also yielded the most successful piece I’ve done, a video covering Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, a Toonami favorite, which has reached 203k views as of today. My second most successful video is one titled: “Modern Warfare 2 | 1 Hour of Ambient S.S.D.D. | Basketball, Helicopters, Radio Music, NPC Chatter” and was a byproduct of working on a video version of my essay on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Things have significantly slowed down since these earlier times. Pumping out articles to meet a quota, reviewing, coming up with features, and recording, editing, and publishing videos is long exhaustive work when you want to make it really good, and even what you would think is simple guides work of cutting up a gameplay recording into easy-to-follow segments is tough and time consuming. And IGN will overwrite your contributions to their Wiki Guide anyway with their own official videos so why bother? Just to get that view count higher than usual? Nowadays I’m much more satisfied simply writing and making a video when inspiration hits than to conform to the formula established and required by the sites I once longed to be employed by but are no longer recognizable compared to the versions I daydreamed about.

I’m glad that I stuck with it, even during the off years, when I wasn’t sure that what I was doing was going to be any good. I now have ten years to look back on fondly and continue to contribute to the ever growing body of work, a body that I’ve been slowly compiling into a completed works document to eventually print as a physical book, a collection of my work made physical as a symbol of growth and commitment to doing it for the love of it. Despite my post count wavering over the years I still have boundless ideas popping out of my head all the time in terms of things to do with writing and making videos about video games. Things have changed but thinking about, playing, and making things about video games continues to ceaselessly drive me to create.

[clockworksteel]

Haven't really been focused on gender in a while, huh? I'd honestly like to get back to it. I feel like there's a certain spark I had in September through November that has been lost. Even if I'm still unsure of what I want, the idea that I could change things represented a certain hope for the future.

Somehow the beginning of the year is always stressful at work. That and it was the Winter months. Plus I needed to do taxes, my driver's license needs renewed and I needed to look into getting a RealID this year, and I took an extra trip to my parents' near the end of February to celebrate a family event. Visiting my parents tends to have me focusing more on exmormon things for a while. I haven't really left that mode since I'll be visiting again for Easter. Then after that I should have a break from visits until at least July 4, possibly late August since I only visit for July 4 if my brother with a July 3 birthday is going to be there, although if I don't go then I visit for one of the August birthdays.

It was an alright trip with no sudden questions about why I don't believe anymore, but I was still worried about it, especially since I intended to leave before church on Sunday instead of going with them and leaving in the afternoon, but they didn't even argue with that. Maybe since it was an unusual trip they figured I had to get back and do things. My mom did make fun of my hair within minutes of my arrival though, simply because it had been 2 months since the last haircut (a buzz-cut at the time: it's not even that long now nor was it then). Then she did it again to my oldest brother once he arrived. It makes me feel like I can't ever do anything interesting with my hair, considering I visit pretty much every 4 months, plus an extra visit for Christmas.

I have still had small random thoughts that do indicate my thinking has been changed, if only slightly. Still wearing my oversized T-shirts at every opportunity. Kinda wanting to get back into voice training a little, just in case it's needed (although there's less reason now since I finished The Knight Witch: Freedom Planet 2 is already voice acted). Thinking I should get more info on laser hair removal. Considering a few other purchases but also not really wanting to commit money to things. I also definitely had a dream about a tool that could remove leg hair without even causing pain.

I used a they/their pronoun for myself in a Youtube video. In Hollow Knight Randomizer episode 1 near the start I said "I am a fool who is trying randomized nail for their first randomizer ever." It was nice to do after having just used a he/him the previous time I'd referred to myself in third person back in Axiom Verge 2. Didn't miss the opportunity this time. Also in a Discord server I joined to do Archipelago Randomizer stuff, I have my pronouns visible as he/they, which also feels like some sort of progress on public presentation.

In trying a nonbinary identity I keep not being sure if I'm doing it right at all. It feels like either I should be identify something important besides pronouns that's different between my masculine self and nonbinary self. Or, alternatively, if I've just always been nonbinary without realizing the proper pronouns, something that would need to be different for me to be properly masculine. This whole line of thought may need deprogrammed rather than being a healthy way to think about gender though. That, and most men probably don't daydream about finding an outfit sufficiently androgynous to have random strangers think they could be a woman, then just dropping into a feminine voice and never correcting the stranger.

My notes for this post contain the phrase "She, like a computer". A cool possibility for sure. I guess one attractive thing about a feminine identity, despite the wide array of practical problems, is that at least it's a clearer target to aim for. But, uh, that only helps if it's where I'd definitely want to be.

I guess the most interesting thing to conclude these past few months is that even without visiting any transgender-related subreddits or discord servers over the past few months, this sort of stuff is still on my mind.

[chrimsone]

I'm feeling helplessly sad today. I want to cry, I almost did. I talked about my cats. I got to Toby. I remembered the day he died. What's funny is he hasn't even impacted my psyche the way Willow did. He lived a long, happy life. One I had to witness the end of, but I knew he was loved for so long.

He's not the reason I feel this way though.

I just, feel so useless? Insignificant, I guess.

We're not even a week into November and my life has turned into work then sleep. When I find the time to be on my computer I just stare at the screen, not mustering up the courage to even play something.

I can't even try to enjoy work anymore. A new manager did a complete 180 and probably hates my guts. I feel nervous whenever I'm around her, I'm constantly walking on glass because I can't stand the way she tries to boss me around but if I defy her it's ultimately insubordination. I hate this job but I don't want to get fired.

Maybe, what triggered this was my attempt to work for Bungie. I took a look at their list. Narrative Design. Sounded like it was gear and bounty flavor text. Something not daunting. Something to get me out of retail and into something I might actually enjoy.

I spent nearly a week slaving over a cover letter. It was my only chance. I have no credentials. I'm just a high school graduate working the same job I first got when I was seventeen.

I have no passions. They all died by the time I graduated. Art? I have fucking aphantasia. No matter how hard I try it never looks right. I couldn't, and can't, afford a mentor. I liked space. So Astronomy? I barely passed pre-calculus. I dropped out of the real thing only one trimester in. I hated my teacher, but mostly myself for not being able take in any knowledge. By then, I was hopeless. I've considered veterinary work, with my love for cats. I know I'd see them in pain, it's why I never considered it when I was younger. Maybe that's part of why I never got too serious. You need licenses to practice. More education that I can't afford. Recently I've gained a minor passion for writing. I've made little stories in my head since elementary school, developing them better as I grew. I wrote some fics in high school. Kept most of it to myself. I stopped until earlier this year. And I realized, I could convey my thoughts in this artistic way much better than when I tried to draw. I loved finding the right word to convey the emotion I wanted. But whenever I made something, inside, I nagged at myself. What if I try to take writing seriously? Will I go into learning how to do everything properly and realize I'm just missing some vital brain composition just like I am with drawing? I'm scared. Scared that the one thing I'm clinging onto for a future will make me fall just like the rest. Of course, there's video games. I'm always tempting just throwing it in, essentially selling my body like some shitty v-tuber on twitch because dudes are horny. Maybe QA testing. But even then I worry that I'm not skilled enough to try and break a game for release.

I got advice from my friends. Bugged them the whole time, sending them paragraphs and asking for advice. I wanted this to be perfect. It was my only chance. I was so anxious to even send it, but I managed to late last Friday.

I never got an email back. I actually just wondered if maybe they called instead. I haven't checked my voicemail in months. As I'm writing this, I finally looked, maybe they called me instead? Still, nothing. I wasn't considered. I'm not good enough. My letter did nothing. Something I worked so hard on, something I wrote specifically for other eyes, failed.

I hate this world. I hate having to ask for help. I want to be self sufficient. I wish I never existed. That someone else was in my place. I'm not worthy of having a soul. Someone else with more will is deserving of my life. I'm just merely a husk, wasting precious resources.

Y'know. I'll post this. And usually I feel like a weight is lifted off my chest. That I got these awful thoughts out somewhere. Maybe, someone'll come across them and learn of me. They wont plague only me anymore. But I'll click the button, and still feel awful. I won't hop into my clan's voice chat and act like I wasn't crying to myself for an hour. I won't simply get up and do something like eating or laundry before bed. I'll just sit, staring at the dashboard I don't even look at anymore, until it hits the time I'm supposed to go to bed for work tomorrow. All while listening to shit that keeps me in this awful mood.

[areallybadwriter]

11/2

ew it’s november! i feel like i should probably try to write once a month (maybe more if it’s other stuff like reviews or connection tings) but i obviously cannot stay on an organized track to save my life. 

school has been good and somewhat put on a back burner (don't blame me its my last semester!) but ive been trying to contribute more brain power to my classes and really work my ass off. we’ll see if that continues. i think in a way i am less inspired to jump into things and really saturate within my classes because im only in three and thus my brain is not busy enough for it to thrive. i really enjoy my classes, especially the one in which i watch & analyze horror films for the whole semester. which speaking of, when did ghostface become kinda hot? i realize there’s a resurgence of this attraction through tiktok (I feel embarrassed that these videos show up on my “fyp”) but we had to watch it for class the other day and i was like wait...holy shit i get it. i don't personally know why i understand, but im guessing its probably some deep seated issues from the past. get help people. grow up.

im also actually excited and passionate about my last couple of projects in relief printmaking because i think im leaning more into my style and what i like to create. maybe ill include a scan of one of my pieces at the end of this post. we get to do an experimental project for our last piece where we can literally choose anything we want if we propose it and explain why so i think that i’m picking up a ton of underwear (bras, sleepwear, panties, maybe a binder?) and printing images of weaponry on them. i like to explore a lot of gendered issues, especially women’s issues because i obviously relate to it more so i want to take the idea of weaponized genitalia literally and explore the politics and feelings behind that. i definitely want to touch on transness as well (you can't really talk about weaponized genitals and not talk about trans people) but i don't want to offend or talk about issues that i have no stake in. i might ask Ren for help and see what they think. 

Ren is my step-sibling (previously Lauren) who is exploring their gender identity and figuring out what they like, who they are. i try to offer support from where i am (about an hour and a half from home) because my parents are definitely less than understanding and don't respect what Ren is going through. last i heard, they want to start hormone therapy - they’re already using a binder and leaning towards male presentation - but my parents are unwilling. i have to admit that i was at first not fully with it too, but i think i knew myself pretty well (at least who i was) when i was their age. i don't think they’ll be able to try hormones until 18 at least, especially because their biological mother is even less behind it than my mom and step-dad. 

Wyoming and i have since jumped back into our friendship, which went on break in January after his girlfriend of the time expressed concerns about our relationship (which is fair). after they separated in august, we came into contact again and have since been very close. our relationship always puts me on edge a little because of its origins and its importance in my life but im trying to appreciate it for what it is. like it feels weird to even talk about it (out loud to people or online) because i feel as if i need to preserve it and not talking about it will do that. we’ve always known but recently we’ve admitted feelings we’ve had since we were sixteen and it feels good to make that concrete. there's a certain promise in the way we talk about things and how we feel about each other so im excited for that to happen eventually. we’re away from each other right now but after we relieve ourselves from all obligations (school, leases, work, etc.) we want to get together one way or another. i think ill go visit him next year when im graduated and make enough money to take a little trip by myself. nothing has ever been that certain with him but i feel like we owe it to ourselves to try it out before we get too old and involved in other things, other people. 

speaking of kind of, im thinking about getting a certificate in ESL (english as a second language) so that i could potentially teach English abroad for a stipend (and a work visa!). i think it would be a really great way to complete my travel wishes in a responsible manner and if i end up really loving it, i have a work visa that can better allow me to stay longer and experience everything! i would prefer a european or european adjacent city because i think it would be an easier adjustment for me (as ive only travelled to south america). my mom’s coworker also mentioned that her daughter attends grad school in germany for free and has sent me the information and it seems too good to be true but what an amazing experience that would be. i would be really terrified to go about it alone so i would welcome another person into that world easily (wyoming or ollo seem to be up for the challenge) but ultimately i will push myself and go at it alone if i have to. but either way im really, really excited. 

today after class i think im going to rid myself of a lot of old clothing and possessions to make way for a cleaner and less chaotic environment (although thats my essence in a way). recently ive been investing in more valuable and meaningful pieces of clothing (a nice way of saying ive been truly terrible with my money lately) that i think will stay in my wardrobe for a looooong time instead of the whole cycling thing. and i finally got mason soksi tights which im absolutely thrilled about. i know that i definitely need to work on my money and budgeting skills (especially with the upcoming loom of debt and student loans) but we will worry about that next time. 

the friends sector in my life is pretty swell right now surprisingly, which is very different from how it was going a couple months ago. my bestie who committed some atrocities over the summer that caused a break for a few months is still my roommate and no longer considered a threat. we have been hanging out and talking more frequently and we even got dinner together last night. we haven't brought the situation up to each other and i don't know if its needed. i have since forgotten (forgiven) most of it and don't hold any animosity towards him and there's a certain weight off my shoulders/cloud around my relationships gone after becoming besties again. i think the only thing that has truly changed is my desires for the future, as we were supposed to move to chicago together with our other roommate but i don't know what i want anymore with all of the other factors and my desires. 

until next time.

xoxo anonymous 

[dimples-of-discontent]

Oh anons flooding my inbox to tell me that I’m a conspiracy theorist for thinking there’s more to this finale than meets the eye and/or that it’s totally the writers’ fault, you have no idea how much I do not care! I’m tagging anything related as “finale theories” and you should feel free to blacklist it using whatever method you so choose. I’m staying away, until the dust settles, from drawing any conclusions about what exactly happened to the script (either to make it what it was pre-covid or post-covid) or what cut scenes might have contained, or who was at fault for how it all turned out.

To the anons who think I’m reading too much into Jensen and Misha’s relative “silence” on the finale, I have some comments. With Misha it’s harder to tell, but I am completely convinced that Jensen is deliberately not engaging with finale-related content because he’s so alienated, angry, and disappointed. I think Misha is finding ways to talk about it that he thinks will support the fandom, rather than the network, and frankly he is far more used to having to deal with the feeling of being screwed by the network but still loving the fans. But Jensen really trusted them and they did him really dirty.

Leaving aside the fact that neither Jensen nor Misha was in the CW “thank you” video--which is LOUD AF of them--let’s look at the social media angle. We already know that Jensen wasn’t happy with the finale as it was written (which likely included Dean dying and, yes, that was probably his biggest beef, but I’ll bet he had some words about Misha’s character too) and talked to several people about it. He was then told to accept it and make his peace and he did that and did the best he could. Now, since November 5th we’ve heard very little from him and definitely not in the ways you would expect to hear from the star of a long-running show like SPN.

He’s been much more forthcoming about how proud he was of the scene he shot with Misha in “Despair.” Jensen and Misha both posted about 15x18 and Jensen happily talked about it on a livestream. It meant so much to him personally (as the last scene they’d film together, or as a momentous moment in the show, or as something else) that he had someone film it on his phone just for him and admitted breaking character. They talked it through beforehand a lot. They talked about it after a lot and texted each other fan reaction videos. They were glad to be able to do something that meant so much to us and that brought the story to this point.

Over on Twitter, Misha seems pretty much his same self, using the proper hashtag (which in the old days of Twitter he used to mock Jensen for not knowing how to do) and RTing nostalgic comments from Kripke, Jim Michaels, etc. His personal tweets just tagged Jensen and Jared. The set pics he shared were from 15x18. Jensen just gave Entertainment Weekly a RT for the finale. He’s pretty much full-time on Instagram, but that’s still pretty little engagement. He liked two tweets, both on 11/5 when 15x18 was airing, by Misha and Bobo Berens, but zero tweets related to the finale. (Jared tweeted during the finale a few times and then sent some comfort to the fans. FWIW he also didn’t RT or tag any network folks. I think he’s probably less happy than he seems, but he’s a company boy doing a new show with them so his hands are tied.)

Over on Instagram, on the day of the finale Misha was busy. He posted a pic of Maise “Spon on-set props assistant” in a trench coat robe. Jensen liked that. He also posted a video recapping and asking people to tune into the finale. Jensen did not like that. THEN he posted a pic of him and Jensen filming 15x18. Jensen liked that. Pic of Misha and the kids about to watch SPN? Jensen likes it. Pic of Misha crying during the finale and saying how much he’s going to miss Sam and Dean that actually tags Jensen? Jensen does not like it. The gist? Jensen “likes” all Misha’s posts from that day except the two related to the content of the finale (rather than watching it with West and Maison...and besides, soft boy Jensen isn’t going to not like a pic of West and Maison!).

And here’s Jensen’s account. On November 3rd, Jensen posts to thank TV Guide. On the 19th he posts to thank Entertainment Weekly. On the day of the finale, he posts a pic of Dean’s boots and a video of him getting dressed as Dean “for the last time - for now.” (I think that was a clumsy attempt not to spoil anything but I will also hold onto the idea that maybe he will do his own version of a sequel. The day after the finale he posts a slightly salty photo of the piece of rebar (aka “the rusty nail”) that killed Dean captioned “Excuse me....uh, ‘set dec’!!! Can we get this removed please?!?!” and uses the hashtag “spnfamilyforever.” That’s the hashtag for us--for the fans--rather than anything official. Those posts were both for us too, showing him loving Dean and loving being Dean and being just as pissed as us about his death. (For the record, Jared posted a pic of him watching the finale, also hashtagging the spnfamily, and Jensen liked it.)

All the people that he’s not thanking reads very loudly. Contrast to all the thanks he (and everyone else) were throwing like roses at the 300th episode party. Jensen is a generous guy. He’s professional, everyone likes him, and he likes to credit everyone for their accomplishments. For him to be this silent and not write a single caption thanking ANYONE aside from TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly (who he needs to keep on his good side for his own production company)? IS SO OUT OF CHARACTER!!! Every con, every interview, he talks about how they couldn’t do what they do without the help of all these other people along the way. To not have it in him to thank those people? He must be hurting so incredibly badly.

He cares about us so he’ll do what he can for the SPN family. But it won’t surprise me if the clusterfuck of an ending alienated him so much that we don’t get things we might otherwise (more panels, for example, or cons) because he is just done working with the people who hurt him. I’m glad he was smiling in that most recent livestream because he sure doesn’t seem happy right now.