Been a while huh? Last post was in July. Seems like there's quite the barrier for the me of now in keeping an actual website updated, versus just lazily writing microposts on Social Media. Bad girl, you are losing the good habits.
This summer I could and should have chronicled many things, especially on the sports' side of things! Euro 2024, Paris 2024, but also Pokémon Worlds (yes they count, shut up, I watch them with the same sentiment as a good football match), or the amazing draw Inter pulled against Man City in CL, or this start of Serie A, or Spalletti's first successes in the first matches of Nations League, or the Luna Rossa team trying their hardest (and failing) to conquer the access to the America's Cup actual final vs New Zealand, losing to Ineos Britannia. Consider this as a recap of what I did this Summer and early Autumn: sports, sports, sports! God, I love this shit.
Well, not just sports. I also devoted some time to the Ribbon Master Challenge. For those not in the know, it involves playing through several different Pokémon games, carrying the same exact Pokémon through all of them, in order to collect all the ribbons available to that species. I was evaluating various different creatures, but in the end I decided to choose Metagross, like the good yume I am. Even here, I had a doubt... going for the full experience starting from gen 3, or skipping the gen 3 ribbons to go through the challenge with the Beldum Steven trades you in Silph Co. in HGSS? Eventually, with a sigh, I decided to go through the "Full Ride".
And BROS WHAT A RIDE. Colosseum is... quite the experience. In all honesty, while it might have some good things going for it (art direction, general concept, Pokémon animations), it's one hell of a slog because of how slow the animations are (despite the engine being actually snappy and responsive, especially for the time). I eventually rawdogged 50+ hours, including the highlight of the whole ride: an EIGHT HOURS LONG run through Colosseum Mode Mt.Battle's 100 levels to unlock Ho-oh (and Celebi and Jirachi, after converting my games' saves to American and Japanese), only for the emulator to refuse to save at the end because I had made too many crutch savestates (which I didn't even really need, I never used them. It was just a psychological safety net). It's apparently a bug Dolphin has. Thank goodness, a good friend of mine saved my ass, helping me salvage the whole thing. After that, I traded my Metagross and all the other Pokémon I had caught to my Sapphire cart, effectively COMPLETING A LIVING DEX IN GEN 3 LEGIT(which is a damn achievement on its own); then, I trained a team composed of my own Ribbon Master Metagross, Latios and Suicune, and beat the lv.50 Tower (50 wins straight); then I transferred back my Pokémon into Colosseum and completed the "Double 100" as I nicknamed it, which meant beating the actual in-game Mt.Battle on top of the Colo Battle Mode one I had already beat. So, Earth Ribbon, Winning Ribbon and National Ribbon secured. Then... I'm done with Colo, right? Nah. After this, I need to bring Metagross, Suicune and Latios to lv.100 for the OTHER climb to the top of Sapphire's Battle Tower (let's nickname this one the double 50...?) for the Victory Ribbon. Also I need some berries from Colo to bring my Metagross to the best possible condition for contests. My battery in Sapphire is toast. The idea of putting timers on an emulator to grow the plants kinda stresses me out. I hate this shit and I've been procrastinating it.
THEN, IT WAS ANNI TIME! I'm referring to Pokémon Masters's anniversary. My husband got deified?! What the hell. I love to give my whole self to imagination and think of fantastical stories in the Pokémon world, and I was a bit ashamed of a certain concept I had cooked, which involved characters receiving a gruesome blessing from Legendary Pokémon, effectively treating them as deities, with the people blessed getting special powers. I thought "oh my god, this is so high-schooler of me!"... just to see Dena and Tpci pull this exact concept, in an even more extreme form, in their character-focused gacha game.
WHAT IN THE WORLD DO YOU MEAN THEY GET A HENSHIN?! Steven, Lance and Cynthia get a magical girl transformation and obtain divine power. When they use their sync moves, you see them focus, a light shining on their back, and suddenly, like wings, an Arceus-powered aura of their type of choice appears; then, they power up their Pokémon. There's a lot more to say, but this is the gist of it.
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...THIS SHIT IS INSANE, am I on crack, did they spike my drink, did I lose my mind, is this a product of an hallucination? Nope. Nope, all canon to this OFFICIAL SPINOFF. Holy fuck. Yeah, I'm still not over it. And no, this isn't me complaining: this is the most amazing shit I've ever seen done in a Pokémon spinoff. Involving my favorite character, too. AND I now feel authorized to create the craziest shit in my mental scenarios. Merry Christmas!
...well, would have been a Merry Christmas if people didn't start bitching about the "greediness" introduced in the game by those particular banners raising the spark cap. Wish they knew there's plenty of games out there that have no spark, with people spending thousands dollars for a single unit with no guarantee of even getting it. We have it good, and a f2p game HAS to be greedy at some point, if you want it to live. Where do you think they earn money, if not from your pockets? A live service is expensive to maintain. Also, ALMOST NOTHING in this game actually "requires" rolling, technically. You can chill with your husbands and wives at no cost by just saving and pulling for what's actually important... and, if you're ACTUALLY GOOD at the game, you can even clear any content without pulling that much. So yeah, despite everything, it was a shitty anni for me because I just wanted to fangirl, smile, laugh, be happy about something that, duh, MADE ME HAPPY, but no: I was surrounded by people screaming as if they had killed their own very firstborn. Wish they had this energy when it came to politics and activism. But, in both cases, it's just 100% bitching with 0% actual actions taken. What do you expect will happen if, instead of providing actual feedback to the developers (via the purposely made in-game tool) and ACTING against something you disagree with, you poison the FANDOM, keeping players away, influencing other people (because let's keep it real, out there a lot of people just align with other people's ideas with no original thought of their own), ending up estranging players with no actual effect on the devs other than making the player numbers dwindle thus making them consider cancellation of the project? Close your wallets when it comes to Arc banners, and send feedback, if that's really how you feel (and you didn't just rent your opinion from someone else). Poisoning social media only keeps other players away and kills games: I saw it happen so many times I'm already waiting for the EoS date/maintenance mode, at most in 2026, if this shit goes on. People are stupid as all hell, especially on Twitter. More people really should learn from football supporters: whether the team wins or loses, we always support the team; but hell if we will ask for their heads when they don't give their hearts on the field. That doesn't mean not rooting for the team anymore though, or telling other people not to.
Last update! I am meant to receive a NEWOLD PC that is much, much more capable than the one I already have. Thing is, that might be a boon or a bane. A boon because MORE POWER! Maybe I won't have the system get completely stuck when I try to use a big brushy to draw a background. A bane for many other reasons, though... namely, the fact I'll be able to play much better videogames (so, more time wasted...); also, because from now until the day I get it, I will feel like I'm in limbo; finally, because I feel like I just finished setting my shit up on the laptop, and now I have to do it ALL OVER AGAIN. Uuuuh, please kill me.
And, back to today. 6 AM, mindlessly typing at my keyboard, listening to rap. Kinda pissed, kinda anxious, kinda confused.
I have too many hobbies, hobbies I accumulated through the years, hobbies that were born from a life with no internet access. I don't know how to distribute them throughout the day! Having responsibilities also sucks, and I'm even being very lazy with them...
First things first, I should really archive and sort all the pictures I have saved in the past few months. I save so much fanart and take so many screenshots... It will take days. But I know I will thank myself.
Second things second, I really should update this website more. The thing is, having custom html makes me very, very happy, because there's nothing like having full control over everything. On the other hand, though... as I said in this very post's intro, I feel like I can't really update how and when I want? I'm always on my phone (I'm writing this on my phone, on Notion, actually), but I rarely make the time to actually sit at my PC. I miss the practicality of being able to update very fast, but I definitely don't miss the lack of customization (because let's be real, all minimalistic themes look the same), the clunkiness of "premade services" like WordPress & co, the unsupported themes...
Third things third: as also said above, my Ribbon Master Challenge!
Fourth things fourth: I want to study better how to draw. I realized I will never, ever be a professional or do commissions, because I have a strange ailment... No, not being a fucking cunt, that was in the base package. I realized (or better, re-realized) I only draw what I feel/when I feel. I absolutely can't draw something just because it looks pretty, or because it's popular/trending, or because someone asks me to (with some very rare exceptions): I can only draw when I really "feel it", the so called "inspiration". Thing is, drawing is very hard for me! So, if on top of doing a hard thing, I don't have a strong motivation, I won't be able to. I really like drawing... when it comes to an idea that really, really inspires me and that I really, really want to make come to life. When this happens, I can bear with the difficulties, the long process, and everything. Otherwise, I'll just give up. And yeah, I know, I always draw the same characters I like... Even in high school, my desk mate looked and me and said "there she goes, drawing another kiss". Autism? God knows! Lately I have very distinct ideas for more characters, characters of my own that I really want to bring to life... but I really lack the skill. For this reason, I want to learn how to draw better... I don't want to be Kim Jung Gi, but I want to be able to actually make my ideas come to life. Recently, I found myself very frustrated, and I was surprised I had forgotten some basics I had studied... Then I realized: I studied those things 8 months before, and I never really went back to practice them since then! Oh my god... What do I do? How do I do all this shit at the same time while juggling chores and the family? Hell, I've been typing this very post for two hours now... why does everything require so much time? Studying art is the most time intensive activity of all those I'm listing, too.
Fifth things fifth: reading, playing and watching! There are many manga, anime and videogames I want to experience/re-experience. When? How? I can't even keep up with gacha that require 10 minutes a day!
So yeah, I'm having this big first world problem. On paper, it feels like an easily solvable issue, but I have several problems that prevent me from actually DOING things. I get very anxious very easily, and I dread being interrupted (...and I know I will), which prevents me from doing things. This is the worst...
And, we are at the end of my blogpost. Lots of complaints and hate for humanity, par for the course. Time to CTRL+S and move to work on other sections of the site... hopefully.