Incomplete

   A preface, dear reader; Because I'm about to go off. But before I do, let it be known that I admire and love all of my friends who contribute and work tirelessly within the parameters I'm about to diss. You are talented, hard working, diligent, and it's very clear that ultimately, none of the issues I take are yours to blame for. The blame. It's not yours. So don't take it, qorl. Just sit back, and read the mad ravings of a neurotic, over-analyzing potato. And enjoy the... wordy show.


"Free DLC" they said.

This was the first thing I saw that immediately like, annoyed me. Because I'm seeing a pattern. Standards are changing. Which is fine. But now it's....
Launch an early access unfinished game in increments and refer to the unfinished portions as "DLC" even though you're charging people full price for.... an unfinished game.

But that's not my only gripe.

In order to sell a shit ton of your product, you have to have a monster marketing campaign. Hype. Get people really excited for something. And what better way to do that than to aggressively push PR and pander with celebrities.

Fine. I don't like pandering. But from a marketing standpoint- ok. Gross, but I get it.
But then... release something, broken, and then drop that there's "free DLC" coming soon. Which only tells me that obviously your game isn't finished. You dumped all your resources in pandering, and now you're charging people full price for an unfinished early access game.

Is that what's happening? Are studios now releasing stuff incrementally under the guise of "bonus content?"
It bugs me because... games are releasing buggy as hell, when this wasn't a thing years back. We would get one final, polished, completed product. And it was great. And if there was more stuff, it wouldn't come 2 months after. It would take time. Because it was new content lol. Does that make sense?

It's not just this game, but this is a tiny thing I'm noticing. If you're gonna charge people full price for a game, make sure it's not a flaming dumpster of bugs. That's embarrassing. At least, it used to be. Bethesda used to get so much shit for teh bugs they had- have, in their games. But they weren't game-breaking. Or even bad. They were aesthetic and funny. But the standard now with launching games feels like just ship it, we'll patch it later

Authenticity is important to me as a consumer. So this shit, this whole marketing over experience shit just... it's disgusting to me. And insulting.

But then, while expressing this, Chicken kindly had me sit the fuck down and check myself. I like being checked beyond argument. Reader, this is why I'm marrying him.

"Finished, polished games came at the sacrifice of people doing several months of overtime"

I shut my mouth. There's no arguing that. Crunch culture is horrible. And I felt awful for not having considered that. Naughty Dog is notorious for it. But it made me question why development times aren't extended instead of catering to public demand. Angry fans demand urgency. And water is wet. Like, what else is new?

then Lifa added;
"There's also poor time and project management from higher ups"

When Lifa said that, it kinda validated what I felt, because yeah- absolutely. If you're gonna promote aggressively, and dump a shit ton of money into making something LOOK good enough to sell, then yeah production better be just as good. Instead, games get rushed, and employees suffer for it. The end result is an insult to everyone.
This last big launch was in development 9 years. It got announced last year. And still got delayed a few times. It wasn't ready. But because they had a big mouth, they shipped an early access game.
I mean I guess 9 years is better than 1 year.

You can't make a baby with 9 women in 1 month.- Homdray passing along the wisdom of something he heard long ago.

Then, during the game awards, we got into the topic of marketing again. Damn, what an entity- that marketing. How much can you make people talk about your product? Not even buy, but talk about.
What if... your product had a low bar of entry? So much so that if streamers played it, it'd be cinematic and narrative heavy enough that onlookers would feel as though they don't even need to play it. They can watch the entire thing- and experience the narrative in its full complexity- which is what carries this winning title.
Play a game with a controversial narrative.. without playing it.

Voila.
Conversations, heated debates, hype, memes and everything in between about the duality of sympathizing with revenge, murder, and hypothetical what would you dos?.

Last year's winner came up. But the bar of entry for that title was unforgivingly high. How does that work, then? I was unaware that that it didn't even sell that many copies. It was streamers that carried it to the win.

So here we are.
"i didn't play it but i watched _____ play it" = award worthy (?)

Several arguments were made in contrary to this year's winner. But it no longer matters. None of this matters, really. Because.... the 1.2 update for Genshin Impact is gonna be out soon and I'm ready.

Note: Genshin Impact is a free to play game. The option to spend money on things offered in the game is there. But it can be played completely free if the player so desires. I am not that player. I was once upon a time. But this game took me by such surprise; the scale, the charm, the story, the game play, the art, music, characters... they are all well worth rewarding. So I probably bought at least 3 AAA games worth ... just on Genshin. Willingly. Happy to support development and a product that is delivering without forcing itself into my life with mindless gimmicks.


That was a whole opinion. Can be totally wrong. To me, it feels justified. That's the beauty of opinion, it doesn't have to carry the weight of anything other than how one feels. BUT LOOK. CHOCOLATE
Welcome to the picture segment of this post.

 So this was from one of Chicken's sisters'. I didn't... idk... chocolate isn't my favorite, but these are really good? Gourmet chocolate! The eggnog one is my favorite :3

Family dinner ^_^

It'd been a while since I had beef noodle soup. Hnnnnngggg so guuurd

And uh, a lot happened this week. But can't talk about it.
We did have lots of yummy food and fire pit time tho

Lifa prepared some yummy steaks with caramelized onions. And I prepared a stewed beef thing my mom would make.

It was a day of celebration. For several things.

Remember this face. And how not shiny it is.

Cheers to good things in the future ^_^

Salad Fingers is still up there. I added christmas lights to his ugly tree. Makes the barren land seem a little more jolly.

And I'm happy to say that Lifa now dove head first into Genshin.
This fool.... likes Amber.
He loves her lmao.

He got some stuff and rolled. We were talking about how funny it'd be if he got constellations for Amber because he loves her so much. Or Keqing.
HE PULLED AMBER

I screamed. He was so happy lmao

It's a good thing too because I told him if he pulled Qiqi, I'd probably have to strangle him in his sleep
Amber is goofy and pretty much useless, except for puzzles. But he genuinely loves her. This was pretty enjoyable to watch lol.


And yesterday, a gift arrived for Chicken and myself. I said to put it under the tree with the other presents, but today he looked at me with that face. The "can we?" face.

It was a gift from his cousin in Boston!

Lol, I was just mentioning to them how we should get monopoly! We've been playing some board games and this is actually perfect.

An engagement gift!

Very sweet gesture. I hope to one day visit Boston. Lotta cool stuff there. Like tea. I like tea. But I want Boston tea specifically. Like, we could go and shop for it in the little shops with his cousin and fam. In the winter. All bundled up and stuff. omg. uwu.

That was nice to start the day with. This week has been exciting. Lots of stuff to look forward to. And! The semester is finally over! Good grades all around. I'm a happi potato.

Support your passions and stuffs that make you happiiii
I still gotta play Hades lol
Stay safe
Wear a mask! Happi Friday!

Merry

  Tis the season to beeeeeeee jolllyyyyy falalalalalallalfkdjalfkjdsalfkjdlaskfjldksjaflaskdj

I don't even know how to start these anymore. It's just brain poop.
But hey. It's December! And that means holidays for the whole family. Which instantly made me think of cartoons on Nickelodeon from back in the day.
I learned about Chanukah and Kwanzaa through Nickelodeon lol. The most passive way possible, and was like, pretty cool at the same time.
Growing up in a (passive) Catholic household, Navidad (Christmas) was pretty much the only thing I knew of around the holidays. Idk what I'm trying to say, other than Rugrats and The Proud Family were cool for demonstrating other holidays to kids. Passover too! Celebration of Jewish slaves being liberated. That's dope. THANKS RUGRATS :D

Also, I used to work at a Jewish bakery several years ago in Canoga Park. And uh... Challah bread is fucking incredible. Now that I think about it more... Jewish peeps got fucked over twice in history. Correct me if it's more- I hope it's not. First slavery, then the holocaust. That's messed up. We should like, notice them more. In general. Within media. Just sayin.
Like, yeah Christmas is dope. but uh, other holidays are dope too.

ANYWAY

Chicken got Bugsnax for free for PS5, and it looks like the kiddiest game of all time. Lifa said it got good reviews and like, people were saying it's a legit, decent game. So we gave it a go.

BRUH.
THIS IS THE GREATEST GAME.
I can't. I don't even know how to start to describe it? For why I like it.
Chicken, Lifa, and I (mostly me lol) devoured this game over 3 days (when I wasn't guzzling Genshin Impact). Lifa and I were more into it, Chicken just kinda helped us figure stuff out (mostly me uwu) but omg. It's SO FUN. And like, there were a surprising amount of adult moments and jokes that were pleasantly sprinkled. And a lot of deep drama shit that just... doesn't come across in first impressions. But man. So good. If you have a PS5... this title. Worth playing.

I loved it so much that I ended up making miniatures of two of my favorite snax :3

I was stupid and couldn't figure out how I wanted to make a raspberry until 2 hours in and realizing I could just cover the thing in little black clay beads....
And for Strabby; the little strawberry snax, I made a billion seeds to put on it that took me 948579247 hours. Only to scratch them all off because it didn't look right, and made indents instead after Chicken's suggestion. I hated everything because it felt like I wasted several hours just.... figuring out how to execute shit.

You'd think something like this would take 20 minutes.
no.
No. it never does. Because I overthink everything. This took like... a billion hours. And I hate it. lol.

At some point during all of this, I turn around because I hear Chicken moving stuff, and

And then I turn around again lol. He's always messing around with stuff.

DECK THE HALLS
WITH BALLS OF
MY BULLSHIT

So Chicken and I got Christmas decorations. eeeeeee! So happiiii!
I started singing that one Mariah Carey Christmas song, "I don't want a lot for Christmas" and Chicken said "okay"

:(

It's fine. I nagged everyone into going to Joann's. Because I am a good housemate. And we will have fun. Or I will drag them down with me. Into Genshin Impact. Until they like it. (It's kinda working loooololol)

While there, they picked out two fabrics that they liked!
Whyyy?
Well, to make our very own Christmas stockings of course!
WEEEEEE, FUN!

And, since we had a Christmas tree to decorate, I also nagged them into picking out ornaments ^_^

Chicken got a ..chicken

We also put on Fifth Element. Chicken good.

Lifa got a bear

wao handsome Chicken o__o

Homdray kept screaming about how shitty my black Christmas ornaments were, so I told them they could decorate the black ones with the glitter pens we got lol

"DOPE" - Lifa

These fools

We were hungry, so while Lifa was making dinner, I got a craving for spam musubi. He was down, so I started prepping everything for them, but then Homdray started screaming about Salad Fingers. And by that point, Maker's Mark had been in my veins for well over an hour. And I had no choice but to pick up those crappy dry erase markers and go to town

He's still down there. I hate us.
Lifa was forced to finish my bullshit in the kitchen looolol my bads. It's cool tho, he's a pro spam musubi maker.

We ate.
And then it was time to make stockings!

So, I'm dumb and impatient and decided to make my own stocking pattern. Which was made from paper towel in all of 15 seconds earlier that morning. I made the mistake of not including the trim when we put the two sock pieces together, but it's fine. We hide that shit.

He was so excited

LOL that pattern omg
When Chicken chose his fabrics at the store, I just... wanted to pat him on the head.

Everyone else used a glue gun (because I threw my old sewing machine away and frankly no one has time for all of that), but he decided to hand sew his sock together
what a cosplay boyfriend thing to do lol (fiancé, but you get it)

"my hobbies; space and cars"
precious nerd. just precious.

I chose spirals because that's festive, right? Spirals? And a green trim

Lifa was having so much fun with his lol
He was like a little kid in 2nd grade doing arts and crafts

Homdray picked out dope expensive fabric with super pretty astrology stuff on it, and crazy soft trim fabric. I'll scream if Lifa accidentally spills on it somehow from like 3 miles away, cuz it's really nice LOL

His feels like he skinned beanie babies to make it

Waaaoooo

I was so proud of them!!
They did such a good job! ^_^

Lifa had a lot of fun with the glitter pens on his Marvel sock
lmao

gaudyyyy

moar glitter

JOYFUL AND TRIUMPHANT

waaaoo festive

L O L
I forgot to take a picture, but my ornament was a bottle of soy sauce

The splendor
amazing
We would've put them over the fireplace but there's no room lol

This was so much fun. I'm glad they went with it, because it looked like they were all having a good time. ^_^
We didn't do anything for Halloween, but this month it was nice to nag everyone into coming together for cute stuff heehehe


SO. Chicken made me cry.
School stuff has become insanely dumb and complicated because of COVID-19.
TLDR; I can't do anything until August- at least not in regards to my major. I was supposed to start this next spring semester, but because it's a hands on field, classes are canceled.
The alternative that was suggested turned out to be a huge miss as well. Because they only take people in the fall, and I guess that wasn't communicated well between departments.
I'm really, really, reallyyy bummed in regards to school.
Chicken then said "are you feeling discouraged?" to which I nodded brattily. He then pulls out a package and hands it to me, "this might help"

When I open it... it took me a moment to figure out what I was looking at

He surprised me with a Japanese talisman (Omamori) from the Yasui-konpiragu shrine. Blessed by a monk.
It is a talisman for luck with school, studies, entrance exams, etc.
And I started crying.

He's seen my frustrations trying to get everything set up for next semester, and then to have it all fall apart, and then fall apart again. This was so thoughtful. Everything about it. I love it so much.
I'm not sure when he meant to give me this, but that moment was probably the perfect time to do it.
It's hanging on my PC tower.
I'm not forfeiting school, as I will still be taking more semesters of Chinese language classes, but things will definitely change moving forward.

And lastly, this morning I woke up to a Steam notification...

Damn. Thank you!

Now I guess I can judge Hades adequately :P
This should please Homdray, I guess. He's obsessed.

Anywho. Here ends the thingie. So many people on fb showing their beautiful decorations! I love it all ^_^
lol my Halloween decorations are still up. And will be. Forever.
It's a Friday in December, and California is on fire again

Merry Holidays and stay safe!