End Of The Year Update Post

Well it’s been a long time yet again between posts, so I felt with the end of the year coming I should get around to writing something even if it’s just an update on what’s going on with both the blog and myself! First though, please believe me when I say I’m still here and still going to blog; I’ve been blogging on here for a decade and before that for 8 or so years on blogspot or blogger or whatever, I’m not going to stop now.

Sorry again for not posting almost ever, the reason for this is stress, illness, and – honestly the BIGGEST problem – having nothing to write about. I’ve mostly been re-watching films, re-playing old games, and not experiencing much worth talking about on here. I pick anime but then I don’t watch nearly any of it, even falling behind (or throwing on my plan to watch list) on shows I really love or am excited to try out. This is where the ‘stress’ and ‘illness’ parts come in. When my head isn’t in a great place watching new stuff becomes really hard for me, in fact just watching anime at all does. While I would never accept such an excuse from someone making a living from this shit, I just do it for fun, so I have 0 obligation unlike those types to force it when it’s not fun.

I view hobbies as something you do because you enjoy them; I don’t use anime or video games as ‘escapism’ like a lot of people. I think it ruins the hobby for you if you do that, so I always avoid doing that as much as possible. Anime is something to enjoy because I enjoy it, games are something to enjoy because I enjoy them, these things aren’t to be used as therapy or medicine, so when I’m stressed too much I don’t do well at consuming them still. With my truck needing several thousand dollars of repairs this year, my income and benefits getting screwed with due to the fake shortages and illegitimate inflation, and needing to go to doctors constantly, it’s been hard to use my time on anything new and not just relax – I suppose the closest I get to ‘escapism’ with them (I guess I do it, but only after I’ve enjoyed the thing properly once?) – through re-enjoying old games, anime, and movies.

I feel like most of the few posts I made this year say this, but I will again – it’s easy to blame the Youtube stuff I’m doing, but honestly sitting here recording myself playing fucking Final Fantasy 7 isn’t exactly hard work nor a lot of thinking, it’s just relaxing with a game I haven’t played in a long time that I already know I love. If you actually look at my channel I’ve done nearly nothing except Let’s Play style content the past few months with very few other videos, so no, it’s not the “vtuber” thing getting in the way either. In fact, I play those games months in advance; for example upcoming is an original PSP Crisis Core playthrough. I finished it the second week of December but it’ll be uploading for a few months. I have so many other things I’d love to do with the the channel but because of the same reasons none of that is happening. Hell, one of the things I was looking forward to most since starting was doing some big GOTY/AOTY videos…and I probably will have neither. Even just getting in VRChat is an extra pain in the ass now that I just can’t deal with especially with my neck having a lot of pain lately, and I have to be in VR in order to record the way I do (aside from Let’s Play content), which is why, again, there’s basically nothing the past few months aside an FF7 playthrough I finished before November and didn’t upload until now. There are a few shorter videos I recorded a month ago that will go up soon too, but that’s all I’ve got.

Plus, apparently I knew what was to come way back in 2009 so I must continue working on the Youtube, for it was prophesied by myself. What a weird fucking coincidence. That same year I also made jokes about being a juggalo a few times which I didn’t even really know what that was until over a decade later aside retarded clowns to laugh at.

The past months I’ve spent days and days working on a special Atelier video AND a massive Atelier 25th anniversary blog post for here, but it just didn’t pan out. I was fine with the content of both the video and the text, but I got so frustrated with trying to find any screenshots or videos of the REAL games and not those godawful fucking bastardized pieces of shit that are the DX games that I just fucking couldn’t take even working on the post or video any longer and gave up. These still might eventually happen (I hope), but it’ll be a year behind the actual anniversary because it’ll be some time in the upcoming year. I even made a simple world in VRC just for the video, I put work into this thing! So, hopefully it’ll happen at some point, including the written one. Along with that I’ve been (slowly) working on putting together primarily a written post about Giant Bomb, but it’s such a big thing to really talk about (both in terms of the history and what has happened recently) that it’s been really challenging to even figure out where to begin beyond what I posted already some months ago. So, in some ways, there IS some stuff to look forward to…if I ever manage to be happy with what I get written down. Which, that’s another thing; less giant bomb means less gaming on my part, as they did sometimes help lead me to games I’d otherwise ignore (usually with them hating them, but still showing them at least in a QL) – the economy is also to blame on my gaming though, as I have less money.

Another problem I’ve been having is that what I usually use to calm down, and where I spend most of my time and typically always have, has been ruined. My anonymous political ‘friends’ have become complete fucking retards obsessing over a goddamn rapper because he said a word a few times while otherwise representing everything that /pol/ goes against typically. Their morals, values, and beliefs have been erased with ease by a very simple psyop put in place by the very same people he ‘names’, and it has made the place uninhabitable alongside all the retarded ass russia-ukraine threads which is not even a real conflict but theater for the masses, yet they of course buy into that too. While I still check there I last about 10 minutes before I’m stuck on a board about cooking and looking at webms instead, and while I enjoy both of those the speed at which they move is so fucking slow it gives me nothing to do most of the day but sit with my anxiety and stress.

If you’ve stuck with the blog for several years at least, then you should also be familiar with these types of years for me where it’s just really slow on here because of a lack of things to speak about or being too stressed to write about the things I did get around to. As for that aspect; the stuff I DID play or watch, I considered (still am, at this point) writing up a GOTY/AOTY post but I didn’t really get around to enough to justify one. It doesn’t make much sense to name an “anime of the year” if you watched like 3 total. I’ll have to go over what I did watch because I feel like early in the year I did actually pretty good at keeping up with a new season again finally, if there is enough I’ll try to get something written up before 2023 and the same goes for games.

Again, thanks for still sticking around (I doubt anyone has, but oh well) and sorry for not writing more, I’ve just had a hard time consuming anything to write about in the first place. I still like typing out my long ass rants about shit nobody bothers reading and, as I’ve said in the recent past, I’d love to get back to doing more of it again, it just depends on how my life is going though (and how much Final Fantasy XIV is consuming my time).

Edit: I’ve also been cooking a lot and learning stuff in that regard, so it’s been fun and taking some of my time as well.