january 18, 2025

what i was listening to while writing this: lady gaga - artpop

in less than 48 hours, trump becomes president. just hours ago, tiktok went offline. i am not feeling great about it, soley out of fear for all of those who are not in safe, blue states like i am. i know california will be fine and relatively unaffected by whatever this fascist does, but i have friends all across the country in lots of different places, places that aren't as safe as here. but i also don't want to dwell on it too much. there is not anything productive that i can do here in this post other than to try and remind that we can get through this, because we have each other, and nothing can ever get in the way of that.

it hasn't even been two months since my last blog post and so much has happened. the fall semester ended well and i applied for a few uc's. i lost friends but in the aftermath, have met a whole bunch of wonderful people instead. i have played a shit ton of games and consumed a bunch of art because art is the greatest thing what to do. i currently have a week left on my public speaking class which i have been taking during the winter session, i have tackled two weeks so far, in the first week i gave a speech about gerard way, in the second week i gave a speech about password creation and management, both speeches went well. there has been a whole lot of anxiety, but i think i am out of the woods and there only remains somewhat easy assignments. in general i have felt an underlying layer of anxiety about my life as a whole as this year has progressed. i am unsure what my life looks like when i transfer to a four year. if none of the colleges accept me, then i will just roommate with a friend somewhere and just start a new life, chicago seems like a nice place for that and i have a good amount of friends in that area. after this class ends, i want to start self learning japanese, working on my writing/drawing, and hopefully travel and see some friends. i have at least one confirmed trip so far: a trip to sacramento for a Labyrinth screening, which should be very fun! i have only seen that film once, but really enjoyed it.

my drumming practice has progressed nicely, my instructor is helping me work through My Chemical Romance's Teenagers right now, i have like 80% of the song down, but there is a few sections i need to work on. i have gotten several calluses on my hands from practicing and it is a wonderful feeling.

ok now its time to talk about video games. since my last blog post, i have finished Celeste's Farewell chapter for the first time, played all the crash bandicoot ps1 trilogy games, beat Fez, tried Phantasy Star Online a few times, and played Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon several times in just only a few times. just today i started a Cuphead playthrough with a friend, and the progress we made just in this session was really nice! we managed to A+ every boss in the first area. it was a remarkable feeling going from stumbling our way through these bosses, to locking the absolute fuck in and sweeping them at the end of our several hour session. both of us have experience with it previously on the switch, personally it has been years since i played it, i remember getting it pretty soon after it launched on Switch. i don't think i ever quite beat it, but now i can right that wrong. Farewell was an incredibly satisfying chapter to complete, that was the one chapter i never managed to beat on my old playthrough of Celeste on my Switch, also back when that hit Switch. still working on the C-Sides on this current playthrough, and after i am done with this i plan on playing the Strawberry Jam mod. half way through December, i decided to start playing Crash 1. i rolled credits 3 days later, but then spent 7 sessions after that going for 100%. i don't think Crash 1 is a particularly great game, it certainly had great potential (which was obviously realized), the platforming feels like a promising starting point, but i struggled a lot with minor hitbox stuff. i am happy to report that Crash 2 was a much nicer experience, that game only took me 4 sessions to 100%. Crash 2 is definitely the peak of the trilogy, just some great platforming with not a lot of gimmicks, outside of that annoying as hell jetpack used in the last hub. i don't think i am going for 100% on any subsequent playthroughs. Crash 3 had too many gimmicks for me to enjoy more than Crash 2. the underwater sections, the racing sections, all just annoying side quests. didn't care enough to 100% tha tone. Fez was a WONDERFUL experience, in 5 sessions i got like all items except like 3 or 4 anticubes. i had to look up how to figure out the alphabet of the game (i would have NEVER got that myself so i don't feel bad for looking it up) and i also looked up that one riddle block puzzle (another thing i would have NEVER got, but also it doesn't even show in the collected items menu so did i even look it up at all? real philosophical hours.) i still have yet to figure out how the numbers work. figuring out how the tetriminos worked was the greatest feeling in the world maybe, what a bit of design. still waiting for my number epiphany. i even 3d printed out the number and letter cubes after i found models for them on the internet. they don't help with anything, but they are cool to have on my desk. playing Fez also got me to finally find a use for the second diary i bought, as a location for game notes! so far i have used it for Fez, Nier Replicant, and Metroid Prime 2, which I would love to talk about but we are going in an order here so we gotta stick to that!! my friend and i found some people to play PSO with on r/transgamers, and PSO is neat! it is hard to find time that works for all four of us, but when we have been able to play, it has been a wonderful experience each time. i have had Curse of the Moon for several years now, even before i had Ritual of the Night and played that to completion. Curse of the Moon hooked me in a really strange way. i don't have any prior experience with the classicvania castlevania games, so it was a pleasant surprise. soon i will pick up CotM 2 and play that, but i also have Azure Striker and Blaster Master Zero 2 on my account and those need playing at some point. inti creates is so neat, i really look forward to the mega man zero games when i get around to those.

i am currently eyeing Blade Chimera, Kingdom Hearts, and Devil May Cry to play soon. Blade Chimera is going to be my After This Class Is Over treat. i played the demo in a night a while back and had a total blast, team ladybug will not disappoint. i also have their other titles to play still, including Pharaoh Rebirth+. too many video games to play! i wanted to play Super Mario RPG at some point, but i think i should just get back into Dragon Quest XI and see that through to completion before jumping into SMRPG (the original version because i prefer its visuals.)

the switch 2 finally got announced, thank god. at this moment i don't want to get one, but they are obviously gonna announce a new 3d mario soon and i might find myself with no choice but to get it. considering i am going to a four year college in fall, it honestly wouldn't be that bad of an investment (or maybe i should get a Steam Deck lolol i don't know)

i hope after this current class is over, i get back into doing browser game stuff. it has been a god awful amount of time since i did anything for flashpoint. there are still plenty of browser games for me to experience and plenty of browser games left to preserve. i want to start documenting more games on my site also, stuff like Dwarf Complete and Skrillex Quest. in general actually i think i want to redesign this site and just use a standard sadgirl layout or something similar. i never planned on having my current design for as long as i have, and i think it would be good to do that before i start adding a bunch more documentation to my site. i still have to finish my Scarlet Stranger level editor page also... although i have forgotten why i haven't added it's link to the games page yet. i have had an itch to do stuff with Everybody Edits, maybe something like individual level reviews? campaign reviews? not sure yet. i think while my work with flashpoint has been good, i think it would also be benefitial to get more into the actual history side of it, like with interviewing developers. doing the actual storytelling of history as opposed to just ensuring the thing is readily accessible. theres some browser game engine documentation i have been meaning to do for months now, it truly feels like all my productivity has been thrown out the window and i am not sure why.

currently, i have just about a 1000 pages left in Homestuck. in the past month, i have read Homestuck on a few days and made a crazy amount of progress. Act 6 Act 6 has been wonderful so far. (my personal favorite act still remains as Act 5 Act 2 ^^) it will be a surreal feeling being done with Homestuck, and that reality will happen sometime in the immediate future. i can finally play hiveswap! and pesterquest! and namco high! and do stuff! i wanna cosplay as vriska.

it has been too long since my last post and i will try and be better with posting. obviously not for anyone's sake but myself. this recent tiktok shit has made me really appreciate the value of having your own corner of the internet independent of social media. bluesky's domain username thing is a really neat thing and hopefully a sign of good things in the future. a way for everyone to easily find our own corners and allow them to become part of our identity in other spaces. i want there to be more substance to this site, for there to be more meaning here. i want there to be more me here. some more raven for the garden.

anyways, see you next time!