#a lot of how that amv went just happened because that's how the footage happened to fall when i first gathered all the shots

[zak-kondo]

Can't do it anymore. Have to say something. I don't care if I am a small channel. It's been an uncomfortable topic in anime circles for a while now. The fall of Ygg Studio, or Digibro, as she was in another lifetime. Something is wrong. I am concerned. This fall from fame, and disturbing turn into more drugs and incompetent and disappointing content has been painful for me to see. I first found Digibro around 2019. I had never seen someone talk about anime the way Digibro did. I felt inspired enough to try and do this myself, because I felt I had something to say too. Questioning, and going against public opinion with honesty and valid points, and as degenerate and controversial as it all was, there was passion, Digibro had fangs as a anime analysis content creator. All that has been lost with Ygg studio, and the now existing Beatrice the Golden Witch.

People are angry at this individual, because many of them care. They have seen the drop in quality in content and in her as a person, it almost brings a tear to my eye seeing what she was become. She has to know what her audience wants, but doesn't give it to them, or rarely does. Has she realized yet that it is not working? That something is not right? Why not make a separate channel to talk about whatever she wants? Look at the consequences, what has happened. With this video, I am exiting out of her content. I can't do it anymore. I tried to still keep up with her content, but I can't watch her continue to spiral downward. She can take her so called big announcement, which she is also late on, by the way, and take it elsewhere. I don't care anymore about her channel.

Just look at the descent. Her subscribers continue to fall, and went under 309,000 thousand recently. Today, I saw that it fell under 308,000. Her patreon continues to decline, dropping 50 dollars recently. Does she not see it? Does she not care? Is she doing this on purpose because she wants a hate following? Or have the drugs done her in enough?

Some may say, "Why are you being dramatic." Check out her recent comment sections. Check out her recent comment sections. Now, I don't go along with all the offensive comments. However, the criticism is there, there is a lot, and it is valid. Beatrice won't always answer them, as her annoying guard dog Riley will take it up upon himself to make a fool out of himself trying to defend all this. Even some of the people who have been supporting her are starting to slowly complain, and rightfully so.

The 1 vlog a day from last month felt like the last test for me to see if Beatrice still had it. I was disappointed again and again, and stopped keeping up with it for a while. The daily vlogs were not on time, they were constantly late and being uploaded at random times. The anime reviews were many times not even her, but other people talking, some who don't even know what they are talking about. The low production values throughout were frustrating to see because she has done content with good production values in the past. The decline continued. My disappointment continued.

The final video from yesterday with the 420+ anime recommendations is another low point. Why start it by yelling into the mic? She called it "extremely edited," but I disagree. I picked up editing on my own 3 months ago, and taught myself how to do it. I don't even watch AMVs or am influenced by them. Why couldn't she do that too? She's been doing this much longer than I have. Putting thumbnails for every anime can be repetitive, but it's the bare minimum to at least look acceptable and to show what you are talking about. It's low effort. There's no way to go around it. she could complain that it's 420+ anime, but to pick up a great project like that brings along all the hardships you must put work into it to show that you care and want to put effort into it. All she had to do was use random footage of the anime. That's easy compared to when you need specific footage to flow with what you are talking about. Instead, it's mostly her talking into a camera for hours.

I'm frustrated. Me talking about anime Youtubers in videos in the earlier days was because I felt inspired when she had done it as Digibro. It's important to hold anime content creators accountable, and to criticize them, document them. I still plan to talk about anime youtubers one last time eventually. At least there are other people doing this, fortunately, who are much better than me at it. Still, I never thought I'd talk about one specific anime content creator like this, and more surprisingly is the fact that it ended up being her.

Thank you for watching.

[dj-scratch-trax]

FAQ

What on Earth compelled you to make an hour-long dance mix based on a 10-year-old cartoon?

Fittingly enough, it came to me in a dream! During early lockdown, I dreamt of a Gravity Falls-themed party held in a big secluded cabin. The DJ strung together remixes of songs by Vance Joy and Of Monsters And Men — songs the fandom latched onto in its heyday. 

I looked for similar remixes for kicks after waking up, and not only do they exist, but there’s an entire subgenre with the same sound! Then I realized I had all the programs needed to make what I’d heard in the dream a reality — and in time for the show’s 10th anniversary. Two years and a lot of pulled hair later, here we are!

How did you make the mixset and accompanying video?

All the songs and sound effects were arranged, spliced, tempo-shifted, and bass-boosted in GarageBand. I’d never really used it before, but YouTube tutorials taught me everything I needed to know!

All the show footage was screen-recorded from Disney+. (I’ve bought the boxset, it’s fine lol. I would’ve used that instead but my Mac doesn’t have a disk drive. Also somehow the tech they use to block screen-recording didn’t kick in for me until I’d finished everything, I still can’t believe my luck tbh?) I cut as much of it into loopable segments as possible to save memory, then arranged it all in time to the music in Photoshop. 

Finally, I made the audiovisual bars from a template at Vizzy.io, then layered them over the Photoshop render. (The site’s capable of way cooler effects, but it’s also very fickle with videos over a certain length. I really wanted the footage to shake with the bass like this, but in the end I had to render the bars separately, and even then in short chunks.)

How did you choose which songs to use? Are there any that didn’t make the cut?

In a very happy coincidence, Gravity Falls' initial run lined up with a boom in indie folk bands on the radio. Many of their songs happened to match the show’s themes (and the style of Brad Breeck's background music), and the fandom went to town with AMV’s and song-comics galore. Later, some of these songs got club-worthy remixes, either at random or as part of the folk house/folktronica subgenre. 

Excuse the history lesson — basically, I chose songs that’d gone through this pipeline to form the bulk of the mixset. Then I brought in different-sounding songs to reference certain episodes or fandom in-jokes (more on the second one below). Finally, I added two remixes of songs from the actual show.

I have a very long list of songs that were cut for various reasons. Some had tempos I couldn’t work with, and some didn’t have enough bass, but most of them I just left out because the mixset was getting too long. My favorite has to be Swamp Thing by Pegboard Nerds; I wanted to pair it with clips of McGucket dancing and the Gobblewonker chase. Honestly, I might still make it as a standalone video. Maybe I can add the screen-shaking effect this time, too!

Any content warnings (naughty lyrics, frightening visuals, etc.)?

The entire mixset contains a single swear word that’s mostly obscured by a drumline (and a sound effect I added). 

Some of the songs used are themed around paranoia, and are paired with some of the show’s more body-horror-y scenes. If you’ve watched the show before, you should know what to expect and what you’re comfortable with; please listen and watch with caution.

I included two songs in reference to the fandom’s humorous side, but the specific things they reference are outdated and not quite safe for work. (One was a YouTube Poop, and the other was a fanfiction. If you know, you know.) The songs themselves are completely clean.

And finally, without giving much away: the mixset follows the structure of the show’s two seasons, and in turn the video shows footage from later episodes as it progresses. I don’t know why anyone would read this far if they hadn’t watched the whole show already, but just in case: Beware of major spoilers. You have been warned.

Why are you using Tumblr as a home page?

Back in the day, Tumblr was basically the site for GF fans (sorry, Mystery Shack forums). I lurked here for most of the show’s run, but it was almost over when I finally made an account. GF was one of my favorite fandom experiences ever, but I never really got to contribute to it; I guess this is my way of making up for that.

Why did you make a side blog instead of using your main?

So you can read this without digging through a hundred Sonic the Hedgehog posts first lmao

Do you plan on using this mix at a real event?

My original plan was to time-travel back to when Cipherhunt was solved in 2016, rent this place that’s across the street from Confusion Hill, and throw the GF-themed party of my literal dreams. But since that’s probably impossible...

Follow-up question: Can I use this mix at a real event?

Sure, why not? All I ask is that you send me footage of the party as proof! Hit me with that FOMO!

Why don't you post the full video on YouTube or [insert video-sharing site here]? Can I post it for you?

Thanks to copyright law, I can’t post it to YouTube without it getting blocked worldwide. (This is also why the sneak-peak is so short 😭) As for other sites, Dailymotion has a too-short time limit, and I'm not paying Vimeo monthly just to keep one video up at constant risk of a DCMA.

If there’s a better site out there, please let me know! In the meantime, I ask that you refrain from posting the video anywhere, especially without my permission. Aside from being just plain rude, you’ll likely run into the same issues I did.

I noticed a visual glitch at [insert timestamp here]. Do you plan on fixing that?

Gonna be brutally honest here: no, I don’t plan on it. Any visual bugs you find, I can guarantee that I tried to scrub out and nearly bit something when I couldn’t. Also, rendering the video nearly killed my Mac and took an absurd amount of memory and time. I’m unhappy with the bugs too, but it was honestly the best I could do.

Do you plan on making more dance mixes in the future?

Maybe? Nothing nearly as long or complicated, that’s for sure! If I ever make anything similar, I’ll probably post about it on my main. Speaking of my main, I actually prefer making fanmixes! Here’s a list — it’d mean the world to me if you checked them out. (There’s some GF onesss 👀👀)

(Last updated: June 5th, 2022. Thanks for reading!)

#how to dj-r-r-right #faq

[hua-fei-hua]

i think nbmk was a good choice for a first amv bc there’s just a lot less footage that can be used for them compared to like itfs and so i didn’t get overwhelmed by the everything

#a lot of how that amv went just happened because that's how the footage happened to fall when i first gathered all the shots #i also considered making it angsty but then i was like haha nah we deserve nice things #花話 #also omg my parents said they were gonna start teaching me to drive early this morning but then i woke up and they were like #sike the insurance hasn't added you yet so we're waiting for next week

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S5 Ep 36 Part 2: It took like 100+ Episodes, but We Finally Found Seto’s Dead Wife

For April Fools I decided to actually make an update on this blog in a timely matter from the last update. Consider yourself Pranked.

So Shada and Seto are having a bit of a fight about how Seto’s just kind of throwing everyone into prison and we’re running out of essential workers. Not that much of a surprise that Shada and Seto don’t like eachother, but it does make you wonder--does anyone in the cult even like Seto other than Aknadin (which...that’s stuff we will get to later at the end of this episode) honestly, it’s kind of hard to tell.

Oh and PS they’re being carried on one of those hand held chariots which makes this whole segment just a lot more funny.

(Even in the past, Seto largely is being used for a ride).

Anyway, he exits the roller coaster and is like “For your information, I’m NOT a mass murderer, SHADA.” In front of like allll these people standing behind him within earshot. To which Shada was like “but you can calm down, youknow? Like can you ever calm down? A little bit? Maybe?”

It was a conversation that does not matter because Shada decided to go along with it anyway, and is now going to help Seto for the rest of this episode just slurping up soul demons, as you do.

Freakin Shadi, man. To think he was just always like this. Helping people one moment, screwing people the next...whatever Shadi, you do you.

(read more under the cut)

During this Episode, Bakura did a lot of artsy shots for the commercials, just shooting his own music video, doing things that really had like...eh no bearing on the plot but I’m sure they looked cool for the trailer.

Here he got really wet and then was like “Time to go kill everyone else, I guess” and then exited the scene.

That’s it, that’s the whole scene, and I’m glad that the creators of this show knows what the fans of their show want: wet Bakura with little reason as to why.

So Seto decides to do some public trials with Shada just square in the middle of the street. A very Monty Python “bring out your dead!” moment because I’m sure everyone just started chucking their neighbors onto the pyre. Like I have this neighbor who has this brand new lawn mulch and bushes they put in because it’s a freakin drought, and they stuck a bunch of signs on it that say “Do Not Poop Or Pee. Be Respectful.” with a picture of a dog with an X over it and also a picture of the police and also a picture of a security camera (which I guess they will hand over to the police? Not sure). That guy would hand over like half the town in a heartbeat.

Really want to know what “disrespect the pharaoh” means in this context, especially since their current Pharaoh has been Pharaoh for 5 minutes and has already burned down the town once and then the next day put the entire city under martial law.

Right about the time Seto was about to give up and go home with just a single dumbass clown in his arsenal, Season 2 happened.

Some footage for your AMVs. Yugioh knew what teens wanted in 2003.

Speaking of over-done fx and what teens wanted in 2003, did you hear that the Avatar the Last Airbender live action Netflix remake cost 15 million dollars an episode to make? :) :) :) :) :) :) Only a matter of time before it gets cancelled and we’re one adaptation closer to an absolutely terrible Yugioh one, you know it’s going to happen. :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

Anyway it’s been five minutes and Joey ran out of snacks.

(right after I made this post PS, I went onto twitter and saw a tweet that said “You ever open a TinTin from the 80′s that looks like it was drawn in 1870?” so like apparently I was being way more gracious than I thought.)

I figured I’ve used enough TW’s for one Yugioh blog, lets just crop out his entire face, because that’s funnier. Honestly the worst part of him is his accent, and thankfully that can’t be truly expressed with written words.

Besides, we gotta get sidetracked from the genie and meet the wife, who is getting literally stoned to death.

Kind of a lot of whiplash this episode, huh!? But it wouldn’t be an anime without whiplash, would it?

Joey remarks “oh, that’s why the rocks aren’t hurting me like at all.” And it was like...Joey.

Anyway, welcome to Seto’s girlfriend. From what I can gather this episode, this girl is constantly in a state of distress. Like honestly I don’t know much about her, but I dunno if there’s been a single moment in this girl’s entire life where she isn’t in the process of getting killed or being killed, except when Seto is around or when she is a Dragon.

I get that her having the worst monster around means no one likes her, but also...she should just eat them. Like I can see why people like this ship--I don’t want to sound like a ship hater--because she lacks security and he can give her security, and that’s very much part of writing a romantic lead. You have to have two people that lack something that the other person can give them for the audience to fall for it.

But this is very much the token girlfriend that you fall in love with because she needs to be saved by a powerful man, however, she’s already the most powerful monster besides the God Cards. Like she’s freaking buffed as hell, man. So...maybe it made more sense on paper. Maybe it’ll make more sense next episode.

Overall, Yugioh ain’t great at writing girls (or romance) and that is nothing new. They had SO MANY EPISODES of building up this girl, too. But my expectations were low, and they were met.

Anyway Seto arrives and is like “oh crap I know this girl from my childhood oh crap.” and suddenly has a moment of “should I steal her soul demon like I said I would, although no one actually wants me to do that at all, or do I...not?”

Remember that like 10 minutes earlier Aknadin and Shadi and basically everyone was like “just stop taking the demons for five seconds you have enough monsters in your obelisk” but like...Seto promised to do this, because in Seto’s mind, he’s doing this soul stealing to help the Pharaoh, after all--the Pharaoh who is Yami and absolutely doesn’t need him to steal a damn thing because he already has God Cards.

Bro was like “Seto might be ripped but look at the bricks behind him” and yeah. Basically everyone in Egypt lifts in their spare time. Life before the internet, man.

That’s also what I assume everyone in the 1980′s was doing too, instead of sitting around writing Yugioh blog posts and eating these offbrand thin mints.

(You wouldn’t believe it but I drove all the way to Safeway in This Economy and not only is Girl Scout season over, but all of the Keebler grasshopper cookies were gone, so I had to get the Safeway storebrand of the offbrand thin mint and it’s fine. It’s a fine cookie, but it has an aftertaste that is very weird.)

And so Seto whisks away this girl while Shada just kinda lets it happen, because Shada just does whatever.

Not sure why he needed to keep it a secret from Pharaoh though. Was he worried that Yami would be like “No saving dying girls in this house, Seto!” Because while everyone else seems to know about Yami’s personality and overall willingness to save dying human beings--Seto seems dubious.

But Seto is a sort of paranoid person anyway so that tracks.

Next time we find out more about dragon girlfriend and if she ever had a good day in her entire life and you already know, she has not.

Anyway, here’s the list of each episode in chrono order for you if you want to read these from the beginning:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

#yugioh #Yu-Gi-Oh #YGO #episode recap #photo recap #humor #S5 #Ep 36 #Seto Kaiba #theif king bakura #Pharaoh #Yami Muto #yugi muto #joey wheeler #tea gardner #tristan taylor #Shadi #BEWD #Blue eyes white dragon #I apologize it's been so long since she was introduced I have forgotten the name of this ship.

[clevercatchphrase]

2019 year in review

So… The 2010’s are almost over. Huh. What a decade it’s been. Hard to comprehend how much has changed in 10 years. I can barely believe that I was in high school at the beginning of this decade, and now I’m a college graduate with 2 degrees who’s been working at the same job for the last 3 years. But trying to summarize the past 10 years in a single post is a good way to give myself an existential crisis, so let’s not do that! Instead, let’s just focus on 2019 because there has been more than enough shit that’s happened to me in this year to talk about.

PART 1 OF 2: 2019 AND 2020 GOALS AND RESOLUTIONS

Huh, looking back through my archives, I apparently didn’t make a tumblr post about my goals this year. I definitely had some, though. Lemme list ‘em off real quick, and then we’ll go through them point by point.

1)      Pay off all my student loans 2)      Finish some song comics 3)      Make art for my Redbubble account 4)      Finish the first rough draft/script of a game I wanted to make 5)      Practice ASL 6)      Sew some stuffed animals 7)      Finish some fan fictions 8)      Work on Ghost Switch 9)      AMVs 10)   Do some original writing 11)   Make illustrations for my fan fictions

Okay, first off, the student loans. I was actually SO CLOSE to successfully completing this one bUT THEN MY CAR HAD TO BE A WHINEY PISS BABY AND HAVE ITS ALTERNATOR DIE ON ME WHILE I WAS ON THE HIGHWAY AND THEN A BLOW OUT THREE WEEKS LATER.

GOD, if I had to summarize this year in two words, for me it would be “Car troubles”. I swear I spent more on auto repair in the first third of this year than I ever have just freakin’ OWNING a car. All four of my tires had to be replaced, my alternator failed and my car literally just SHUT OFF while I was driving, and I was barely able to coast into a gas station. Both my front breaks and rear breaks were worn down the metal and I only learned this when my car was barely able to stop after I had to slam the petal down full force!  I went in for an oil change, and they found some problems and then I didn’t get my car back for three days! I don’t even like owning a car! I hate driving! I hate my country’s refusal to provide universal, free public transportation! I NEVER ASKED FOR THIS!

Oh-kay… number 2. Finish some song comics. I didn’t finish any. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t work on them. I have made tiny progress, but that’s certainly better than no progress. One of these song comics I hope to be realizes is going to be a collab with one of my friends. It’ll be a long-time coming as it’s pretty low priority for the both of us, but if anyone else out there was disappointed with KH3’s ending, we’re gonna have ya’ covered… With SONG!

3. Make some redbubble art. I actually did this one! Not in the way I expected, but I added (technically) 3 new designs to my redbubble in the middle of the year. If you like butterflies and dragons, I got some product for you~!

Number 4, finish a script for a game I want to make. I… thought about this. I thought about this a lot, but I never put pen to paper, so… oops. It almost happened! I debated making this my main writing project for NaNoWriMo this year, but ended up having more inspiration for another story. Maybe next year? (god, I hope not. I don’t want to wait a full year just to write something)

Number 5, practice ASL. I just straight up didn’t do this and I only have myself to blame. Still keepin’ up that Danish Duolingo streak, though. 4 years going strong and not a day missed yet.

Number 6, sew some stuffed animals. Again, another one I just straight up didn’t do, but I have an excuse of trying to save money while my car crashed and burned in every other sense except literal this year. Hopefully 2020 will be different. I’ll definitely be able to pay off this last loan within the first half of 2020, and then I can start saving for whatever I want to buy.

Finish some fan fictions was number 7, and I did this! Well, I only finished, 1, but it was a story I’ve been working on for over 3 years, and it came out to over 200 THOUSAND words long, which is the longest thing I’ve ever written, and I’m quite proud of myself. Now that the big story is out of the way, and I’ve gotten into a good rhythm of working on Ghost Switch, maybe I can squeeze in some short writing sessions more frequently. (either that, or just wait for my car to break down again and then go on a writing spree in a pepboys. The lord and the fan fic discord know that’s solely why I finished my other fic this year)

Speaking of Ghost Switch, working on it was a goal this year too, and I did that! I kept it up all year and took a vacation in November and it was wonderful. While the major plot points have been in place since before I started drawing, I still need to script each arc beyond Snowdin, but hey, by the time we get there, it’ll be 2022 so I got time. (Note, don’t do this, kids. Script your stories and comics thoroughly before publishing. The road I’m on is paved with misery and pain and it will only end in tears unless I change lanes soon)

Number 9, amvs. Do people make AMVs anymore? Idk… the last one I made was... Jesus, 5 years ago? (it was a gravity falls/fall out boy crossover, if you were curious) I’ve been wanting to do 2 more for just as long, but in order for me to do that, I’d have to spend time re-watching the shows to find the footage, and then actually edit them together, and I just don’t…. feel like it. Maybe someday, but not any day soon.

10; do some original writing. I did this! For nanowrimo! I wrote the first draft of some original fiction I’ve been planning for a year or two now and it completely sucks! But it’s on paper now and I’m happy. Will I revise and edit it? Sure, but not for a while. I want to let it sit and forget about it and look at it with new eyes months from now so I can be sure I can make it better when time comes to rewrite.

11, make illustrations for my fan fics. Now that You Monster is done, I want to go back and add pictures to it. I didn’t do any this year, but I did keep a list of scenes I wanted to draw, so I have plenty of ideas to do as warm up sketches next year~ I kinda want to stream them~

So, that was 11 goals, and I successfully fulfilled 4 of them! That’s! Not a very good ratio… QmQ So, goals for 2020. Some I’m gonna keep from this year, some I’m gonna drop and some I’m gonna add. In short I would like to,

1)      Finish paying off that last student loan 2)      Put more stuff on my redbubble 3)      Illustrate my own fan fics 4)      Sew at least one stuffed animal 5)      Make an enamel pin 6)      Read one new book a month 7)      Write one page a day/Complete at least one new fan fic 8)      Learn Python or C# for the game I want to make 9)      Finish fully scripting Ghost Switch 10)   Boost my patreon

Most of these I think are pretty self-explanitory, but I’ll go into detail just a bit because I’m on a roll and typing my thoughts helps me feel less alone in the middle of the night when you’re super tired and you know you should probably go to sleep, but the toddler in you is throwing a tantrum and doesn’t wanna go to sleep just yet, but you can’t fight the progression of time either way.

Number 1- I should be able to reach this goal by the end of March. End of June at the absolute latest. Once that goal is met, my secret new year’s resolution will be unlocked as well!

Number 2- I want to put more art of my OCs on redbubble. These OCs are tied to the game I want to make. There’s already some art of them up there, but I want at least one piece for each character.

Number 3- Mostly for You Monster. Embrace the cardinal rule of fan fic and apply it to fan art. If you want to read about see art about certain ideas, scenarios, or what-ifs, you gotta make it yourself.

Number 4- I have 3 potential ideas to sew. One is definitely leagues easier than the other two and will probably be chosen if/when I have the time and materials.

Number 5- This year I got really, REALLY into the idea of making enamel pins. Unfortunately it’s a pretty big investment (like, $350 to make 100 pins you  might not even sell). If this happens, it’ll probably be towards the end of the year, and if I get enough interest. I’m currently torn between making an original enamel pin and one based off Undertale. We’ll just have to see where this goes.

Number 6- Back in 2018 when I paid off one of my many student loans, I rewarded myself by spending over 200 dollars in used books. All these books had a theme; they were focused on dragons because I have a problem. I have not yet read a single one of these books I have bought, and I would like to fix that. I have, like, 20 unread dragon books, and even if I only read 12 out of 20, I would consider that an amazing accomplishment and money well spent.

Number 7- I currently have about 8 different WIPs I could work on. (well, I don’t know if I can even call them wips. More like, a general idea and a title written down.) I want to build good writing habits, and if I can write just 200 words a day, hell, even 200 words a week and just one of my 8 stories done, I would consider this goal met.

Number 8- I’m torn between making my game in unity or ren’py. I know jack shit about both. Ren’py is more user friendly, but unity will allow me more customization. (Lol, can you guess what kind of game I want to make yet?)

Number  9- I really just want the full story to be done and written incase anything goes horribly terribly wrong in my life and I find myself unable to continue making ghost switch in comic form. Then at least I can finish the story by other means, you know?

Number 10- It always surprises me every month when I get that patreon email saying I got paid. Sure, I don’t even make double digits on it, but it still awes me enough to know that people out there like my work enough to throw me a tip. I can’t thank my patrons enough for supporting me and I hope to one day be in such a good place I can update my comic/song comics/writing frequently enough without need for goals or milestones. But until that magical day arrives, money is always a great incentive for anything, I suppose. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 ALRIGHT. PART 2 OF 2: SHIT THAT HAPPENED TO ME IN 2019

Cheesus crust what a year. This year started off great! Back in late January Kingdom Hearts 3 FINALLY released, and let me tell you a little story. Back in the summer of 2006 I was a 13 year old middle schooler with no way of making money other than by doing house hold chores at a rate of 25 cents a task. A few weeks ago, I had a sleep over at a friend’s house and they let me play this weird game called “Kingdom Hearts” and god, I was instantly hooked on it. That summer, I did over 800 chores, enough to earn myself 200$ and buy myself a playstation 2 (just in time for the ps3 to come out, gg me) The only games I had for the ps2 were KH1, 2, Re:CoM and Okami, and I beat them all… except Okami. Miffed that the PS3 wouldn’t allow for backwards compatibility, little 13-year-old me made a promise. I looked myself in the mirror and said “I will not buy the next playstation console until KH3 comes out, AND BOY that was probably a good choice for me to make with my level of gaming. I’m even less of a casual gamer than the average casual gamer, but I have been waiting 13 years for this piece of closure, and I even told my friends and family that “the day Kingdom Hearts 3 comes out is the day I will buy a playstation 4”. My dad apparently thought this was the funniest shit, because he literally took the day off from work that Friday to drive me on base to get the game and console (he thought it would be less crowded than a regular walmart, I suppose). I paid $400 on a ps4 pro while he bought me the game. Again, I have an impecible sense of timing seeing as the PS5 is now right on the horrizion, but just like before, I’m not buying a new console until the next KH game is released. See you in 2045, sony~. While I was at the gamestop on base, I also picked up Okami HD and The Last Guardian. For all of February and even early March, I took my time playing through KH3. And…! It was the best disappointment I’ve ever played. After a month away from gaming, I started The Last Guardian and finished it in a couple weeks. I love trico and would die for him, but trying to get 100% completion on that game is udder insanity. Okami, HD, however… again after a month break after finishing TLG, I started replaying Okami. I think I had only managed to get about halfway through the game before I just… stopped playing it on my ps2 version. I am currently SO CLOSE to getting a 100% on the ps4 version. In fact, I’ve beaten the game. I only (techinically) need 2 more trophies to be done; 1st, escape the water dragon without being eaten, 2nd, I need to beat that dumb stupid race with Kai, in order to get the last bead on my rosary, as well as the top dog trophy. I hate her so much. I hate this race so much. It’s awful and bad.

Flash forward to December! Earlier this month I was at Barnes and Noble, buying myself a planner for 2020. I exit the store and notice that there’s a gamestop across the street. For shits and giggles I go inside to look at their game selection, and I find KH 1.5 and 2.5. Now, my PS2 died a few years back (it just won’t read my discs anymore, I don’t know why) and I haven’t been able to replay any of my other kingdom hearts games since. If you had seen me the day I finished kingdom hearts 3, after the ending credits rolled, you would have heard me say “Man…. I wish I could play kingdom hearts 2 again”. AND NOW I CAN, ALONG WITH BBS which I had never even played yet, but knew the story of. I’ve restarted playing kh1, and I was so happy to hear that familiar music when I booted the game up for the first time. While at the game stop, I also picked up Rime and Tearaway, two games that had looked interesting to me. At the time of writing, I’ve finished Rime and am 25% done with tearaway. Rime was…. An interesting experience. I learned about it through Jacksepticeye’s channel a couple years back and thought the art style was enticing. For a super casual gamer like me, I found the puzzles just the right level of challenging and exploring was a blast! The music gave me VERY strong Princes Mononoke vibes, but the overall story left something to be desired. Overall I had fun, and enjoyed completing this game to 100%. Now for tearaway. Can I just say this game is super fucking adorable? I know the original was on the ps vita and the gameplay there was arguably more diverse and imaginative, but this game is just so fucking cute I don’t care?? ALSO, this game’s sound track is ABSOLUTELY incredible and I’ve only heard the first fourth of it! Listen to The Orchards, Pig Riding, and Gibbet Hill Pilgrimage for a taste of their wonderful beats and fantastic use of string and woodwinds! God, I’m so excited to get some more games in 2020. I’m proud to say I currently own more ps4 games than I ever did with my ps2 (and now the majority AREN’T Kingdom Hearts titles!), and I’m still hoping to play Journey, The Witness, and Abzu before everything becomes ps5.

What else happened to me this year. Oh, I went to a doctor for, like, the first time in seven years. I also had my blood drawn for the first time ever, and the nurse said the most disturbing thing to me while she did it. Now, whenever I get shots, I refuse to look. I did that here. So she thought it would be appropriate to say to me “Can you feel your blood leaving your body?” Lady… You can clearly see I am uncomfortable with what is happening here. Why, of all the things you could say, did you choose to say that. Unfortunately, while my doctor is nice, she keeps wanting to run tests on me, that I just cannot afford with my current salary, and my monthly insurance is about to go up to 200$ a month, so I’ve cancelled my next appointment with them, and don’t plan to go back until it’s absolutely necessary. Capitalism is fun, guys. Preventative healthcare is for wusses.

I started going to a chiropractor on a monthly basis. Story time- I don’t know when it started, but sometime late last November I began to notice that I had a headache that just... wasn’t... going away? And each day it was starting to get a little worse. It made it hard for me to find a comfortable position to sleep, it made it hard for me to be in bright areas or move fast. So I said to myself “Okay, if this headache persist through the month of december, then something is proooobably wrong and I should go see someone about it. And hoo-boy were thing wrong with me. By the time this January rolled around, I couldn’t even stay on my feet for more than a few hours without it physically hurting to just BREATHE. So I started going to this chain called The Joint (A+ name, I know). THey aksed me “How are you doing?” I said “I’m in pain” and they said “We can help fix that!”. I’ve only been to a chiropractor once before in my life a few years back after my freshmen year of college because I began to notice my hips weren’t able to support me? LIke, I would lie on my back, and I couldn’t push my hips up when my feet were flat on the floor. I also couldn’t climb anything steep, because my legs just couldn’t push me up if my knee had to bend more than 90 degrees when I lifted my leg up. (Turned out both my hips were apparently out of place). This time only one of my hips were out of place (which they fixed. they said one of my legs was an inch “longer” than the other because I had been leaning all my weight on one leg when I stand). But two of my ribs were apparently “Stuck” which was why it was hurting for me to just breathe, and one of my shoulders was missaligned too, causing one of my trap muscles to constantly be streched, which was pulling on my skull, and causing the headache. Anyway, after they popped all my bones back into place, I still felt terrible, but by god, that night was the first time in weeks I was able to sleep without a migrane. A chiropractor can’t magically heal your arthritis, or fibro, but I definately think they have merit to keeping your posture good and helping your body with things like circulation. 10 outa 10, would recomend. It’s all the fun of getting your neck snapped without the dying!

Earlier this month I got together with two of my friends and we baked Christmas cookies. It was a lot of fun, as well as a great learning experience. A member of my family has a gluten allergy, so we used rice flour for most of the cookies. We learned this is a bad idea! The cookies will just fall apart! A few member’s in one of the friend’s family have nut allergies. Other friend and I knew this and were careful to avoid cookie recipes with nuts, bUT THEN COMPLETELY FORGOT THAT ALMOND MILK AND ALMOND EXTRACT COUNT AS NUT. IN FACT, ALMOND EXTRACT IS PURE CONCENTRATED NUT JUICE AND WE FELT SO BAD FOR ALMOST ACCIDENTALLY POISONING THE FAMILY.

Earlier this year me and these same friends took a field trip to Hobby Lobby and just dicked around the store for a couple of hours. It was super fun, 11 outa 10, would recommend, a great date idea for your artsy S.O.

Back in May I went to a wedding for the first time in my life. (well, not true, but the first one I could remember) we left at 5am, drove 5 hours to get there, hung out at a zoo and spent the night in a la quinta before the wedding day. I slept on the bathroom floor because my mom was snoring too loud in the main room and keeping me awake, and the rest of the day was just spent me trying to keep myself together because I was pissed off and tired.

Other than all of that, nothing really major happened to me this year. I guess one more thing I’ve tried to do this year is started the process of breaking certain internet addictions so I can use my free time for more personal projects. Seriously, I found myself watching way too much youtube and following blogs that didn’t even make me happy. I had a personal intervention with myself where I sat down and asked myself, “why do you watch these videos and youtubers? Why do you follow these blogs? Do you really enjoy their content? Do you really care? If you stopped watching/following them, would you even notice?” After critically thinking it over, I’ve found myself unfollowing several channels and blogs and suddenly I feel so much happier. I thought I would miss it, but I realized I didn’t really care if I saw their content or not. I wasn’t missing much. And now I feel like I have more time to draw, read and write. If you think you spend too much time consuming and not enough time creating, I suggest you try and de-clutter your internet habits as well. It’s done wonders to un-fuck my headspace.

And… well, that about sums up my year. How are your holidays going? Anything fun, exciting, dramatic happen to you this year? I hope your new year is warm and safe! Good night, everybody!

#new year's resolutions #year in review #long post #(seriiously this think is like 3k words)