#there is a lot of things i am salty over with regards to the pandemic | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

oneweekoneband · 3 years

Text

her Nebraska (1982)

In July I flew to Massachusetts with a plague on, and I felt that it was wrong, but my mother had begged and I’d been out of work for months. Mornings there I ran in long, uneven ovals on the same roads I’d memorized in high school. There’s no sidewalks, but the few feet of dirt between the craggy pavement and the open mouths of the fields serve all right for a single body in motion. When a truck comes up close from behind, the ground shakes, and I step away bouncingly from the street toward thigh-high yellow weeds and grass, and keep going. I was slowly picking my way back in that dirt, sweat-slick from only a plodding couple of miles in peak summer heat, and sucking the wet cotton of my mask in between my teeth on every inhale, when Taylor Swift announced she was releasing a surprise album produced by the guy from The National. Not the guy from The National, like, the voice, but the guy from The National whose photo was circulated on Twitter earlier this year as some kind of antifa super soldier, which isn’t the case, but would’ve been rad. First, I stopped dead to send some outraged, misspelled text messages, and then I ran home faster than I’d moved in years.

Tall, blonde, patrician pop star Taylor Swift is to me something like a cross-between a wife and a boogeyman. Bound we’ve been since we were really children. Time and its changes haven’t rid me of her, and what’s worse is I have never quite been able to wish they would, though I claim as much all the time. Countless hours of my one wild and precious life have been spent on endlessly analyzing the minutiae of Taylor Swift’s music, the mind that made it, the real world events which influenced it. And though all the while I have known she is only a person, and that people, while each strange and lovely in their own ways, are, in the end, mostly dull, needful in just the regular manner, the fantasy is better, the sick dream of a megalomaniac songstress, curious, thrilling, probably evil, and I choose that. I don’t know Taylor Alison Swift, born to this world in, I presume, the usual way. But my Taylor Swift? I’m a renowned expert. I’ve always eaten up stories—movies, music, celebrity news, the one my grandfather tells about falling off his bike once in Ireland as a boy and his face “cracking open like an egg”—like a starved dog. I’m obsessive about my interests, but not inclined to intense fandom, and certainly not fandom in the mode of the stan. For one, I’m too self-absorbed. But caring intensely for a famous person is falling in love with a ghost, and that’s all right—I mean, what the hell? We’re here together just dying... Let’s enjoy—but is an affair best undertaken with the knowledge that everyone alive has their own complex interiority, as unruly as your own, and that you, a stranger, are not in any real way connected to the lawless, blurry middle of that celebrity, and will never be. It’s freeing and fun to know this. I mean, these people are basically in your employ. Glamorous dollhouse dwellers. Acknowledging that uncrossable distance allows for a different, healthier closeness of pure imagination. My feelings, then, can comfortably be at once both fiercely intense and entirely silly. I am a foremost scholar in the art of the Taylor Swift who exists in my head. The real person raised in Pennsylvania I don’t know at all. I have some conjectures on the matter, and, as with all my conjectures, every hackneyed theory, each picky little opinion, I’m sure they’re perfect, brilliant, just absolutely right, but that’s still all they are. Taylor Swift, figure of the cultural imagination, is the Jodie Comer to my Sandra Oh in Killing Eve, annoying and pretty in frills, taunting me endlessly and holding us trapped together in a dance of most enchanting death. But the real Taylor Swift has favorite bed sheets and a social security number and a British boyfriend, none of which I have any desire to know about, and if I saw her at a restaurant I’d politely avert my eyes before, yes, dive-bombing the group text. There’s nobody on Earth I’d stand in line to speak to, but then I’ve been speaking to a certain figment of Taylor Swift for nearly half my life.

I went to a Taylor Swift concert the night before I moved into college in 2009. My father’s work friend, firefighter by day, near professional gambler by night, got comped tickets to the Fearless Tour stop taking place at the nearby casino, and he let me have them as a reward, mainly, for happening to be seventeen. Live in-person and performed acoustically, “Fifteen” made me cry. A few years after that, in the thick, sticky part of my first post-college summer, I wrote approximately twenty-three million words about her in these very pages. (”Pages”) At that point, Taylor’s most recent release was 2012’s Red, and the work I produced that long ago July about Taylor and her career, writing I was fairly pleased with at the time, feels now, besides just being extremely clearly written by a twenty-one year old, strange to me for the way it favors the sweet over the sour almost uniformly. There is a wholesome kind of ardor in that writing which maybe I’ve outgrown the ability to hold. Or maybe Taylor just proceeded to spend the next half a decade plus releasing one bad single after another, and it was taste—and trespasses against taste—and not some shift in my nature which altered the tenor of our bond. I have real love for my particular image, gleaned from public statements and published art, of smart, bizarre famous woman Taylor Swift, and I admire the bulk of her output very much. I’m just no longer so inclined to fawn. This is not to say I am here to offer a Taylor Swift hate screed. I couldn’t swing it, and, anyway, I’m not a pop feminist-for-hire circa 2010. But we’re older now. Things are different. At twenty-eight, twenty-nine this month—Taylor will, also this December, turn thirty-one—I regard Taylor Swift warily, like an ex with whom you have a tentative friendship, perpetually on the brink of falling one way or the other into hatred or delight, only to wobble back the opposite direction again at the slightest provocation, but still, despite best efforts, even, I regard her all the time.

folklore was released at midnight on July 24th 2020, but I was at a cabin in rural Vermont without Internet or cell service. I drank Bud Light seltzers with my mother while watching the eerie pandemic return of Major League Baseball, and when I got into a strange bed there I stewed, knowing there were people out in the world all over who were hearing Taylor Swift songs I never had, and that this was a fundamental wrong, a disruption in the balance of the universe. I listened to it the next morning in a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot.

And folklore is great. That’s the terrible thing. Slightly less great, maybe, than some people have insisted, tricked, I think, by just the pronounced shift in sound. But it’s great. A little gift I asked for a thousand times and was still surprised to get, like a wife who didn’t expect her henpecked husband to ever follow through and buy the paraffin wax hand bath as-see-on-TV. For years, I’ve been halfheartedly insisting that Taylor had a great album in her. I’d say it even, perhaps especially, while she stubbornly fed me gruel. Or worse, gruel with the occasional whiff of something better. With a ripe, little raspberry dropped into the slop. The bright, villainous thrill of “Getaway Car” made me believe Taylor, my Taylor, was in there somewhere under the lacquer of sequins and synth, which, while not objectionable by default, seemed a costume, and an ill-fitting one. The lived-in world of “Cornelia Street” made those old scars sting. That gay “Delicate” video. When she did “Call It What You Want” on SNL and played guitar while wearing an ugly sweater. If the abominable “ME!”, lead single off Lover, was the stick, 1989’s “Clean” was the carrot. I was Charlie Brown, and Taylor my Lucy, yanking the football back again and again. Over drinks I still yelled that Taylor Swift’s next album would be, “her Nebraska”, referring to my favorite Bruce Springsteen record, and learned to live with that egg on my face for good. I suppose I even came to like it. There was something inherently funny in taking up, like, “blind faith in the as of yet untapped greater artistic potential of massively wealthy and popular singer Taylor Swift” as my totally inane personal cause du jour, and eventually it was a bit, a gag I performed to be obstinate and didactic, but way down somewhere awful near my kidneys I meant it the whole while. And then she did it. A pandemic befell the world and amid a sea of human suffering Taylor Swift remembered she can write. She wrote, and with a massive, crucial assist from Aaron Dessner, whose music on this record is sometimes so beautiful it actually angers me, as the last thing I needed in already perilous times was to be made to try and marry my uniquely perverse emotional responses to beloved divorced dad band The National and fucking Taylor Swift, she made an album which, if not her Nebraska, per se (I’ve come to realize that a major part of believing Taylor Swift will one day make an album I find as quietly devastating and gorgeous as Nebraska is knowing that no album will ever actually be Her Nebraska... That each will, rather, to me, be more and more evidence that it’s coming still, more proof that the limit is untouched, on and on ad infinitum, or at least until the seas take us into a place of salty peace.) is a shocking credit to all my hard-fought and deluded confidence. folklore is great. This fact has made me feel almost equally as disoriented from my understanding of the world as the time-melting COVID-19 lockdowns have, and it turned my Spotify year in review annual collective AI humiliation kink thing into a glaring indictment of my mental state, but still, I mean... It’s great.

In talking about folklore a bit this week, there are a number of specific topics I intend to cover—what a thrill it is to hear Taylor say “fuck”; Taylor’s terrifying birth chart; the astoundingly perfect bridge of “the last great american dynasty”; “because my ass is located at the back of my body”; the bit in last year’s “Lover” where deranged WASP Taylor Swift implies that to “leave the Christmas lights up til January” is some signifier of being a love-struck bohemian, when actually everyone who doesn’t employ domestic staff to take their lights down does this; how reputation is the best of the Taylor Swift records released in the latter half of the 2010s, actually, and the people who can’t see that are cowards—but intend mostly to let the muse move me where she will. Against the advice of my better angels, she—that tie-in marketing eldritch terror—always does.

#taylor swift #folklore

31 notes · View notes

banana-with-a-bow-tie · 3 years

Link

The world hates the church. If it could have its way the church wouldn’t exist.

I don’t think this should be a controversial statement. History proves it and most importantly the Bible proves it.

Satan is the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4) and Satan hates the children of God. He wants to destroy and devour them (1 Pet. 5:8).

The world hates the truth. It suppresses it because it wants to sin freely (Rom. 1:18). The church when it is being faithful is fighting against the course of this world. Therefore, the world wants the church to stay quiet. If it could the world would close every church, burn every pulpit and destroy every Bible.

Little do they know that God’s wrath is upon them (Rom. 1:18) and without the church they would be already consumed.

As we see the world react to this Covid situation, we are starting to see the hate for the church come out.

If a ruler knew his Bible, he would quickly realize that it is in his city’s best interest not only to deem the gathering to be essential, but to be begging Christians to meet together, evangelize and pray for their communities.

As I was reading Romans 9 the other day, I was reminded about what Paul wrote in Romans 9:32 where it says,

“If the Lord of armies had not left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, and would have been like Gomorrah.”

This is of course a loaded verse and one could preach several sermons on the truth found therein. But I would like to emphasize one simple truth this verse contains.

Paul says that a country with enough believers keeps God’s wrath longer at bay.

Or the opposite, that a city without enough Christians obeying the Lord will decay much faster than a city with Christians.

In other words, there better be churches meeting in your city or it will end up being like Sodom and Gomorrah.

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is renown. They are no longer around today because of their rampant wickedness. But it is a conversation between Abraham and God just preceding the destruction of those cities that teaches us an important lesson regarding the importance of having enough “righteous people” in a particular city.

We find Abraham bartering with God.

The Bible records the conversation in Genesis 16:23-32,

“Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous people within the city; will You indeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing, to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?” So, the Lord said, “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare the entire place on their account.” And Abraham replied, “Now behold, I have ventured to speak to the Lord, although I am only dust and ashes. Suppose the fifty righteous are lacking five, will You destroy the entire city because of five?” And He said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” And he spoke to Him yet again and said, “Suppose forty are found there?” And He said, “I will not do it on account of the forty.” Then he said, “Oh may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak; suppose thirty are found there?” And He said, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.” And he said, “Now behold, I have ventured to speak to the Lord; suppose twenty are found there?” And He said, “I will not destroy it on account of the twenty.” Then he said, “Oh may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak only this once: suppose ten are found there?” And He said, “I will not destroy it on account of the ten.” Genesis 16:23-32

This is one of the most fascinating accounts in all of Scripture.

Here we find Abraham negotiating with God to help spare Sodom and Gomorrah. And we see God acquiescing to Abraham’s demand. If there had been ten righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities would still be around today. But the fact of the matter is that they did not have that many righteous people and so, they did not survive God’s wrath.

Jesus tells the disciples the same thing when he calls them the salt of the earth (Matt. 5:13. He is telling them that they are the agent that is keeping the world from decaying as fast as it would were they not there. In fact, the whole point of losing your saltiness is that Christians begin thinking and acting like the world, therefore losing their power to preserve and to influence. The influencers become the influenced and therefore are casted aside by God himself.

There’s a lot of talk about loving your neighbor through this pandemic. Some Christians on social media have been very vocal about the importance of abiding by all government regulations.

In other words, they believe that Christians shouldn’t gather (or should limit the gathering) out of love for their neighbor. The potential of spreading this virus, if you gather, means that not gathering is the way to love. That the church should keep to the 15% gathering limits imposed by government; that if told, they should refrain from singing and taking communion.

Some people point to the fact that if bars have to follow rules then the church should abide by theirs as well.

The problem with this way of thinking is that bars don’t have the ability to keep the world alive by being full, while the church does. God hasn’t ordered the bar owner to gather and sing. It is more than essential for the church doors to remain open. To continue in a business-as-usual type fashion. It is the oxygen that lets this world breathe a little longer. It is the reason why God delays his wrath from being unleashed on the world. It is the reason for his overlooking wickedness in towns, cities, and countries.

What’s fascinating is that the world tries to silence and kill the very thing that is keeping them alive.

It’s like an astronaut in outer space trying to yank his helmet off because it’s bothering him. Not realizing it is the only reason he is able to live.

Of course, they killed Jesus, despite the fact that he was feeding thousands, he was healing every disease and he was casting demons. He was only improving their lives.

The world doesn’t know what is best for them.

The world has killed off Christians before. It has tried to silence the gospel. But it has never been successful and will never be successful.

I don’t write this post to criticize pastors for abiding by their city’s and country’s rules. I write this to encourage you that the world doesn’t always know what is best for them, and we should always follow God’s word above the science of the day.

I think you can be faithful and limit the amount of people who come into your doors for a time. You can be faithful and meet on zoom if you believe it is best for your church for a time. You can even do 7 services to comply with the 15% gathering demands if you want. But what is important is that you realize that the church is more than essential and that especially in times where government tries to limit churches that we understand how dangerous it is for us to limit our gathering.

It is not only dangerous for our own souls, but it is dangerous for our society.

Many pastors and parachurch leaders have been critical of pastors who don’t abide to the limits imposed by the government. One of these, James Coates, a Master’s Seminary graduate is now in jail because of his conviction to meet at full capacity.

Many Christians have been quick to criticize him for being unloving and to say that what he is facing isn’t persecution.

What they might be forgetting, perhaps because of a lack of persecution over the years, is that the Devil hates it when you gather. The Devil hates when you sing. Demons are rampant and influencing society. Demons have used and will try to use this pandemic to try to stop the church.

If there is anything the Devil loves is when he has muddied the waters so much that when Christians are persecuted, and the church is shut down, that the world will be cheering it on and will not see it for what it truly is. Persecution. And the Devil certainly considers it even more of a success when some in the church side with the world and turn against fellow Christian that they will spend eternity with.

I would just implore the Christians, not to side with the world. You may disagree with some strong stances but don’t forget how essential the church gathering is. The world as I already said doesn’t know what is best for them. The church gathering in full is what is best for them. The church singing in full chorus is what is best for them. Pastors preaching the Bible faithfully is what is best for them. The full church gathered to be equipped to go out on Monday and preach the gospel is what is best for them.

No one can destroy the church; the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. God will win. But he will do so by empowering faithful pastors like James Coates, who has seen through the false masquerade of “loving your neighbor” and refuses to give in to overbearing self-harming limitations imposed by demonically inspired governments. He has done the most loving thing he could ever do; call his church to assemble each Sunday and equip them to fight against the devil and his lies, to live holy lives, and to preach the Gospel to a quickly dying and hell-bound world.

#long post

13 notes · View notes

shinwhoohoo · 3 years

Note

Boy do I have so much to say about the whole jinyoung thing. generally speaking, I never read too much into Jinyoung( and baro) leaving WM. I have been a kpop fan for well over 10 years and while I haven't really loved a group as much as i love B1A4, I have seen a number of groups and their members leave. So when I read things of people seeming so salty and mad about the whole split, I can't really relate./1

Ultimately, both Jinyoung and Baro did what the believed was the best for themselves and what they wanted in their career. I believe when it came down to contract renewal, Jinyoung being the generally ambitious person that he is, was basically sweettalked into Link8 with slightly empty promises( and maybe even asked to contribute some funds to the creation of the company). 2/

Link8 just generally didn’t seem like they knew how to manage an artist like jinyoung who wanted to work as an actor as well as still work on music. Like they had a general idea but I don’t believe they knew to what extent how much it would take. They essentially just fumbled, like a lot. Like sure he did a few things here and there but honestly when you hear that an artist or even actor has an exclusive contract with a company, you kinda just expect more. 3/

Like hey they’re going invest so much money into promoting their talents, get them as many great roles as possible, etc. And that kind of just didn’t happen. To add onto that, jinyoung had to enlist. And they definitely weren’t as prepared as they could of been. (there’s the excuse that they were a small newly established company but ultimately that’s just an excuse). In addition to their only talent and source of income not being able to work, the pandemic started in 2020.

So that’s an even bigger strain on the company. So, hearing that Jinyoung left Link8, does not surprise me. They generally let him down as well as his fans. I think it was silly in the first place for him to not sign with an acting agency( though I’m assuming he wanted something that was more tailored to who he was and what he wanted to do as a celebrity) 5/

While I don’t think he will be returning to the group anytime soon, I do believe perhaps there is a chance that eventually they will come back together. being apart of B1A4 is not something he can easily erase and it is where a good bit of his fans came from. He did make a lot of promises about B1A4 always being one and the like, which I’m sure is why there are fans who are still bothered or upset. But alternatively think about if he had been more realistic about everything? 6/

fans would of been bothered by that too. Maybe he shouldn’t of talked about it as much as he did and that would of made this entire situation better. All in all, I’m a BANA that is more bothered by Link8 and how they approached and handled a lot of things concerning Jinyoung more than I am at Jinyoung himself. 7/

He could of done better with how he decided to go but I don’t believe he ever wanted to flat out drop B1A4, but if anything he wanted to put some distance between that part of his career and what he wanted next. ultimately. A3 is great and all of them together is great too. I hope whoever he signs with after his enlistment is just generally better and more experienced. Not simply recycling ideas for promoting their talent. 8/

Wow, now I think this is the longest ask I’ve ever gotten! haha thanks for sharing all your thoughts~

That’s good you can distance yourself from it. Admittedly that’s probably the most ideal way to handle it, but I guess it’s easier said than done for some of us.

I agree, Baro and Jinyoung did what they thought was best for themselves. And I’ve never faulted them for that. My only critique has always been in how they left, and the pain we can see from CNU, Sandeul and Gongchan over it. But I’ve written enough posts and answered enough asks about that 😅

LINK8 has just always seemed a bit of a mess. I mean, it seemingly popped out of nowhere, and the timing of its creation and Jinyoung joining just all seemed a bit suspect. Again, I’ve talked enough about that but I’ll just say I essentially agree with your points made in your 3rd through 5th paragraphs regarding how LINK8 just was not good lol. And personal opinion, but I think a lot of how they ‘dropped the ball’ goes hand in hand with him having a more prominent role in the company, and then just not being there during public service to run it. And by ‘it’ I mean his own promotions, not necessarily the company as a whole. But who knows, he could have been helping run the company as a whole too. There’s just so much we don’t know about LINK8, and with it seemingly ceasing to exist, we’ll probably never know.

The point you make about Jinyoung talking about Bipo always being one vs. him being more realistic is something I haven’t talked about as frequently as the other things, but I did mention at least once here. Basically, I agree he was kinda in a ‘damned if he did, damned if he didn’t’ situation. I understand why he felt the need to continue on the ‘7 year curse? I don’t know her’ train despite the fact he probably already knew he was gonna be leaving. Like I get it, I really do. the Kpop world isn’t exactly the kinda place where he would have had the freedom to actually be transparent, for the sake of the fans. The only thing I can say about that is looking back, I wish he wasn’t just so intense about ‘B1A4 being one forever’... like he was mentioning it even up until their 7th anniversary VLive, a mere two months before he actually left. But I understand his reasons.

Regarding you last paragraph, “...but I don’t believe he ever wanted to flat out drop B1A4, but if anything he wanted to put some distance between that part of his career and what he wanted next” idk. I guess this is where I may have to disagree. Of course, at the end of the day all we’re doing is sharing individual opinions, we’ll never know for sure, so no one is right or wrong. But I don’t think I can truly agree with this 100%. While I don’t think someone ‘wanting distance’ is the same as ‘flat out dropping’, I do think it’s a very fine line to walk. If Jinyoung (or Baro) didn’t want to actually drop the group, then why did they leave in a way that made A3 so upset? Them leaving WM and signing to other agencies was more than enough to distance themselves, if that’s all they really wanted. However, it always seemed there was more to it than that-- Sandeul tweeting about how shocked and confused he was mere hours after the news dropped, not leaving his house for a month, Gongchan completely breaking down over it, how apologetic CNU was that he couldn’t keep them together as five, idk. This just seems more than just them leaving the company to create some distance. This to me signals it went down maybe in not the best way, that while they ‘didn’t technically leave the group’ it certainly might as well be that way for A3. This seems like a complete break to me, not just a distance.

But again, just personal opinion based on what we have seen and heard. I’m never going to say there’s no chance they won’t all get together again, just that it’ll definitely be some time. I don’t think any of them want to all get back together right now, including Baro and Jinyoung. (Obviously, if B1A4 was their top priority, then they wouldn’t have left in the first place, so this makes sense and I respect that). The best for Jinyoung though, hopefully if he is actually signing with BB Entertainment, they can give him what he’s truly searching for. And hopefully we’ll see Baro in some acting roles soon, too! I always loved his acting, so I’ll be looking forward to that~

Thanks for sharing all your thoughts again, I appreciate you taking the time to do so.

#b1a4 #cnu #sandeul #gongchan #shindeulchan #jinyoung #baro #wm entertainment #link 8 entertainment #bb entertainment #text #ask #reply

9 notes · View notes

garrettsthings · 6 years

Text

My Reaction to the 9-13-2018 Nintendo Direct

Like I did with the E3 presentation, I plan on going through each individual game showcased here and posting my thoughts on each. Then I’ll summarize with my thoughts about the entire thing. So without further ado:

Luigi’s Mansion 3: Back from the dead, Luigi has sworn to destroy the monsters that were briefly his brothers. In all seriousness though, this game was completely unexpected and I think it looks great. I like the fact that it seems to be hotel setting this time.

Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn: I did not own the original game, though I did play it and I loved how stress-free and charming it was. I might even get this one.

Mario and Luigi Bowser’s Inside Story: I’m a little salty they skipped Partners in Time. That one was one of my favorite Mario and Luigi games. This one looks good though, and I like the idea of a Bowser Jr. focused mode.

Luigi’s Mansion 3DS: I actually can’t wait for this one. I only very briefly played the original one, but I loved its creepy atmosphere and sometimes legitimately scary moments. I’m absolutely getting this version.

Yo-Kai Watch Blasters Moon Rabbit Crew: I actually got this game a little while ago on a whim, and while it hasn’t wowed me yet I also haven’t gotten super far. I’m still not 100% sure what Moon Rabbit Crew even IS yet, but if its a free update there’s no harm in getting it.

Splatoon 2 Ver. 4: I don’t play Splatoon anymore, so this trailer didn’t really mean anything to me, but I loved how they went full anime with it, and I absolutely adore the effort and creativity that Nintendo is putting into this franchise.

Mega Man 11: I’ll admit that I was never a fan of old-school Mega Man due to its difficulty (yes, I know. I’m the worst), but this was my first time seeing any footage of Mega Man 11 and I liked what I saw. I might need to try out the demo.

Mario Tennis Aces Ver. 2: I didn’t wind up getting this game, but I’m happy it’s getting tons of post-launch content. I just hope the Switch eventually gets a Mario Golf game with the same treatment.

Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle: This is probably one of the highlights of this Direct for me. I did not grow up near an Arcade so I never played any of these games, but I was aware of a few of them. So this bundle will be my first time playing any of them and for $20 that’s a steal. I just hope there’s a physical release.

New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe: I might skip this one since I prefer modern Mario games to the classic side scrollers (I know. I’m the worst.).

Katamri Damacy Reroll: Oh boy! I have never played a Katamari game, though I have always been aware of how delightfully bizarre they are. And now you’re telling me I get to play the original? Oh you better believe I am getting this.

Nintendo Switch Online: I’ve seen a lot of people upset by this and I get why, but this isn’t something Nintendo just sprung on us. They’ve made it very clear before the Switch even launched that a paid online service was coming just like what Xbox and Playstation have. So while it does suck that we have to pay for something that has been free for over a year now, the jaw-droppingly low price of $20 a year (I’m an unemployed student and even I can afford that!) and bonus NES games are enough to make me be alright with it.

Pokemon Let’s Go: Already got my copy pre-ordered (Amazon had a price error so I got it for $20 less), so Nintendo doesn’t need to sell me on this game, but I’m still excited for it. I don’t care how kiddy or easy it looks, the game looks absolutely charming and I love it! I do hope those Pikachu and Eevee Joycons are sold separately though, because I want them.

Diablo III Eternal Edition: I’m not a huge Diablo fan, so I don’t know if I’ll get this game, but I just want to bring everyone’s attention to the upbeat Nintendo Announcer saying “The Burning Hells”.

Super Mario Party: I’m getting this. I am making my friends play it with me. We will never speak again. It will be glorious.

Town: To quote the best character in Monster Prom: YAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSS!!! I am a huge Pokemon fan, so Game Freak has my loyalty 100%. Especially after how addicting Pocket Card Jockey was. This trailer only showed us a little bit about the game, but I am already all in.

Cities Skylines: This game isn’t really the kind of game I usually go for but I’m happy for people who enjoy city simulators.

Daemon X Machina: This clip didn’t give us any info we didn’t already know from E3, but the game still looks great and I have every intention of getting it.

Yoshi’s Crafted World: I don’t know what Nintendo’s obsession with handicrafts is, but if it keeps resulting in charming, clever looking games like this, I hope it never stops.

Asmodee Digital Board Games: I’m all for digital board games, especially since they’ll likely be more affordable and less reliant on human deck-shuffling than regular board games. I would love to play Pandemic, but since that would probably work best online and since I refuse to use voice chat when playing online (see my above comments regarding my being the worst), I doubt that’ll work out well for me since Pandemic kind of requires a lot of coordination and strategy between players. That Munchkin Dungeon Crawler sounds great though!

Civilization VI: The only Civ game I played was Civ Revolution and I was absolutely enamored by it. I would love to play Civ VI on my Switch, since my PC is not even close to Civilization capable.

Starlink: I don’t know if I’ll get this game, but I do like the Star Fox content. I especially love Wolf’s voice in this trailer. It reminds me of Beast Wars’ Megatron.

The World Ends With You and Xenoblade DLC: My excitement for TWEWY dwindled considerably when I found out the game relies on touch and motion controls, but I still kind of want to get it. And the Xenoblade DLC looks great, but I need to get back in to Xenoblade.

Normies Showcase: Out of the third party games shown here, the only ones I feel like I NEED to get (and definitely on Switch) are Team Sonic Racing and LEGO DC Villains.

SO MANY FINAL FANTASIES: GOOD LORD. I’m not going to go through every single game shown here but... damn. Way to justify putting Cloud in Smash. And yes, I am very tempted to get all of them. Especially Crystal Chronicles.

Isabelle for Smash: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

New Animal Crossing: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

So in conclusion, I was very, very happy with today’s Direct. There were so many games that I wanted that I can hear my bank account actively weeping right now. If I have one complaint though, it would be the lack of information about Fire Emblem Three Houses. Nintendo has been so quiet about that game since announcing it that I’m beginning to think that all of us collectively imagined it at E3.

Jokes aside, I’m sure they’ll reveal more information soon, and we have plenty to tide us over until then! Now, to play Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon until the 3DS version of the original comes out.

#Nintendo #Nintendo Direct #nintendo direct 9-13-2018 #Nintendo Switch #Nintendo 3DS #reactions

3 notes · View notes

lawrencedienerthings · 4 years

Text

Trapped in a laid-back paradise, my coronavirus anxiety still shone through

more news https://northdenvernews.com

Seeing the world now in this pandemic crisis has made me realize that people have many different reactions to an event. Because I’m stuck on Hawaii, an island archipelago in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I feel a great deal of stress from being far from home in Colorado.

I’ve come to realize that in chaotic times I fear not having control and it stresses me out a lot. Being here on essentially a family vacation, in an island paradise feeling the tropical heat of the air sting my skin, tasting the saltiness of the ocean water, and the sweet, fragrant scent of plumeria blossoms makes me feel like I’m in a dream.

Amidst the chaos of COVID and its effects on everyone else that I hear about, I feel that where I am in the world is near completely isolated from the fears of the pandemic. It’s as though I am hovering above reality waiting to return because I know I have to wake up from this blissful dream of island beaches and smoothies and come back to the real world that is locked down from the virus.

People are happy here and very relaxed, and it’s terrifying to think it’s OK to be calm in this pandemic. This projection of people is unfathomable to me.

MORE: See all of our Write On, Colorado entries and learn how to submit your own here.

“Maria, ” my dad explained to me, “this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and if anything I’ve learned in life that it’s better to take these chances while they’re there.”

My dad and I had this conversation about the coronavirus and how I was unsettled. In truth, I didn’t want to go to Hawaii and when the trip was sprung on me after I came home from working, I was pretty upset. This trip was spontaneously planned in one day because the plane fare was cheap and we had the means.

However, I found my dad’s take on this pandemic pretty interesting. He turned it into something more optimistic, which you can’t find so much of these days. Most people have voiced frustrations about their situation.

Over the passing months, I gave a lot of thought to the “opportunity” that my father described to me in that conversation. The striking statement left me in complete awe as to how this global crisis could deliver opportunity.

I found in my case it was an opportunity to live somewhere that would normally be impossible. The Hawaiian Islands are often regarded as a paradise, or at least the most tourist-attractive state within our country.

I was able to gain the perspective of people who live there and I learned the social culture that goes deeper than what visitors experience. Time, in a sense, goes slower in the islands. People are much more laid back and the normal worries and business of societal life can hardly be found.

Yes, people are struggling to make ends meet and the pandemic has changed people, but despite that fact everyone still lives on and makes the best of what they experience every day. The COVID-19 pandemic presents an opportunity to discover subtle things that we never noticed in our normal lives.

You can still look beyond the insanity of the situation and find that time has stopped. Such serenity helps us understand how much we have and take for granted. So I’ve given my best effort to enjoy where I am, despite any underlying concern I’ve expressed while trapped in paradise.

The questions I ask myself are different from my family and friends: “Will I ever get to go back home?” “How long can we stay here?” “Is everyone else OK?” “What is the COVID situation there?” These questions I ask myself every day and can never really get a clear answer. Being on an isolated island is somewhat different from the lockdowns I hear of at home.

Already registered? Log in here to hide these messages.

Stay on top of it all.

Let us bring Colorado’s best journalism to you. Get our free newsletters.

UNDERWRITTEN BY TOBACCO-FREE KIDS ACTION FUND

OUR UNDERWRITERS SUPPORT JOURNALISM. BECOME ONE.

Here we are not on lockdown, just an advisory to stay at home; a lot of people are out and about getting essentials and going to the beach. Now, being on the beach is actually illegal, unless you’re in the water, so oftentimes when policemen come around, people scatter.

Social distancing is somewhat practiced but I learned that most of the people here and around me don’t really care about it. I’ve met a few individuals who continue having fun with their families at home and talking to random passers-by on the beach.

To some extent, everyone is panicked and nervous about this virus and people tend to de-stress in different ways. It so happens here in Hawaii, not many cases of COVID have been found relative to other states and countries; so they aren’t taking the same depth of precautions like in Colorado. As a result, people are more calm.

As much as I love being here in such a beautiful place, it worries me that I won’t be able to see any of my friends or family for a long time.

I’m still stuck in a dream and I can’t wake up.

Maria Prosperi is a high school student who lives in Littleton.

Already registered? Log in here to hide these messages.

Stay on top of it all.

Let us bring Colorado’s best journalism to you. Get our free newsletters.

The latest from The Sun

Cheyenne Frontier Days canceled for 1st time in 124 years

Coronavirus deaths at Colorado nursing homes slow, reach 737; outbreaks at restaurants, stores continue to climb

Colorado, Denver join 25 other cities and states in suing EPA for relaxing clean-car rule

Safety and stoke: A-Basin’s coronavirus reopening provides glimpse of what next ski season may look like

Democrats approve rule to allow lawmakers to avoid Colorado Capitol, cast votes remotely during coronavirus

from https://ift.tt/2TLNE1n https://ift.tt/3gF32q6

#Straight News

0 notes