Orpheus

  HO HO ho! I'm tired lol.

I think boredom has finally started to take seed within my like, soul. Or maybe it's just cabin fever, idk. But uh, the holidays have been chill! I find myself struggling to peel away from playing games. As if that were a problem, but lately it's like... I wanna do more than that.

There's a lot I wanna do. But things have to be put on hold for right now. It's cool tho! Christmas was nice. We technically celebrated two days of gift opening. One of which is lost to me forever, no thanks to Jackie D. Aside from inebriated escapades, the chill remains chill, and we've just been enjoying food and each others' company.

Homdray's been experimenting with different flavors for chicken wings. We have a stash of various sauces from different fast food places. It's been a trip lol.
I also bought a mint plant for mojitos. I cheated. We have mint seeds, but... I just gave in and bought a plant.

I forgot how light and cute mojitos taste.

I also made tallarin verde. It'd been a while.

Present opening was especially fun.

I just like seeing peoples' reactions to stuff more than anything.

Weird brain meat thing:
I saw someone on twitter mention a christmas list they made when they were younger. And it dawned on me that I never made christmas lists. And remembered that my high school bf one year had one that he gave to whomever. I spent christmas there (my fam celebrates on christmas eve at midnight) and yeah... i just remember him and his cousins and stuff having christmas lists... and it confounded me.
Honestly, the idea of a list of things to expect to be given still comes across to me as kind of impolite. idk.
Maybe it's because I wasn't raised with that practice. For christmas, I would just get stuff that my parents or family thought to gift me. sometimes they'd ask, but it wasn't often.
and then I saw this list on twitter. It had so many lavish things on it. expensive things. and like, i shouldn't judge, but it kinda grossed me out.
i say this as i just recently readjusted my amazon wish list (that only my bff and fiance have access to)
- but it was at my bff's request. otherwise, i don't expect anyone to get me anything off of it. it's just stuff i make note to eventually get for myself.
idk. the point is... christmas lists are weird. i don't like the idea of basically demanding something be gifted or bought- demand is a poor choice of word, but that's pretty much what's happening.
I think it's more awesome if people gift you something because they thought of you or found something they enjoyed and wanted to share that enjoyment.

One year for my birthday, Suna got me a giant shopping bag of different brands of ramen noodles and a chipotle gift card. it was hilarious and amazing and thoughtful.

thoughtfulness is dope.
obviously if a wishlist online is the only access you have to putting a smile on someone's face at the moment, that's completely different than accepting a teenagers christmas list to fullfill

Anyway... that's my dumb tangent that in the grande scheme of things doesn't really matter!

I got Chicken a space lego cuz he a space boy :3

And one of the things Lifa got Homdray was a pineapple rofl

He was so annoyed lmaoooo

Our little fam

Homdray and I had gone to costco earlier in the week, and he saw this box of 6 jack daniels bottles and was like I NEED TO GET THAT FOR LIFA and I was like omg no
He did anyway lmao

I got fun stuff ^_^
Board games, nacho cheese and kit kats lmao
lots of books and a jacket

Chicken and Homdray immediately went to play with their toys

We played Life. It's been 84 years! We talked about this before and finally are able to play it :D
Homdray was so annoyed with the pineapple that he wanted to throw it in the bonfire outside. It burned the entire length of time the log allowed, and still said fuck you

If it had been more ripe, it would've been delicious lol. The smoked flavor was really good!

We finished season 2 of the mandalorian over hot cocoa and panettone.
Good shit.
The most important thing for me that entire episode was Jango's actor and the after credits scene. That's it. lol

Chicken bought himself a pressure washer so he can detail our cars.

And Lifa taught us how to play poker. I learned a little bit from playing Yakuza looololol, but this was a good refresher.

Chickeng!

Since we didn't have proper poker stuff, we used taco bell diablo sauce, kit kats, mints, coins, and chik fil a sauces to bet with

And uh, I turned into a drunk feral cat, scratched everyone and black out.
Merry Christmas.
It was my fault because I hadn't eaten much that day, and Lifa was excited to do jackie d shots. I get chihuahua syndrome sometimes where I forget that I'm much smaller than them and can keep up.
The reality is no. No, I can't.

The good news! We opened more presents, and I got another book! And a cool bat shaped keychain holder thing. I probably jingle too much lol. 

I have plenty to keep me busy. I'm already halfway done with ZOO- intermittenly reading between breaks between Hades and Genshin.

I finally beat Hades 3 times now! Cleared on the sword, gun, and shield. It's hard! But am getting the hang of it. Honestly I just wanna see the storylines progress.
There's a character and storyline that I think my bff would really like, but he doesn't wanna play video games. He likes mythology, and named his two tarantulas after Greek peeps. Iphigenia and... I forget the other. I think he'd appreciate Orpheus and Eurydice's storyline unfolding in the game. But alas... I'll never see his reaction to it all.. Damnit lol. It's so good.

Lament of Orpheus is so pretty. ugh.

I really like Dusa, too. I wanna make a stuffed animal version of her and her bonus thingie. Like, not urgently, but I think if it boils over, I'll reach the point I did with Gastly during Pokemon Go, where everyone was catching a Gastly, and I wasn't, and I got so upset that I made myself a huge Gastly plushie. He lives in my car. Coping mechanism...

ANYWAY

I wanna dooooo stuff. But I caaaan't. I mean I can but it'd be a hassle.
Yesterday someone purchased something from me out of nowhere- I got a thing from paypal with a payment for one of the clay baby bat things I used to make a long time ago. I don't think I ever listed them anywhere... but it was made out to my store name. Was really weird. I had to refund her and tell her it wasn't do able. I don't even know where she could've even made that purchase from, considering my etsy has been inactive for years. Idk, was weird. But it made me reconsider making stuff again.
At least my little baby bats.
And I saw someone making candles recently. It reminded me of the soy candles I used to get from small artisan vendors- they smelled so good and lasted longer than my beeswax candles. I wanna play and work with my hands again.
I think that's why gaming keeps me content- my hands are always doing something that corresponds with my focus and concentration. if I idle too long, I'll doze off and lose interest.

Welp, in a few days, it'll be the new year and.... will change nothing at all. Though, I did keep to my resolution from last year lol. Which was to actually use facebook. and I did. I did it. tadaa! And somehow, I don't feel any better. Rigged!

Jk idc about resolutions. I just wanna get to a point where I can nest lol. Getting there! But for now, Hades and steam sales are juicy :P

This is late. The days blur together lol. here's hoping to a chill new year and... not contracting COVID-19. So far, so good. I keep telling myself if I just stay home, I'll be fine. And that's really all I can depend on. Sigh.

2020 wasn't that awful for me. I was one of the few fortunate ones who find solace in isolation, and had safety nets when work from home was implemented. Guess we'll see how the next few months go. A lot is going to change- for us. But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

HOKIE DOKIE
be safe

don't go out to large NYE gatherings for fucks sake
wear a mask

happy new year i just want orpheus to be with eurydice again
Don't look back

Decided

    "Self-censoring is the worst kind of DRM", Chicken says to me this morning. To which I responded with, "that's a good opener." So here we are.
Are we gonna get into some stuff?
Yup.

My head is kinda everywhere atm trying to collect my thoughts and how I'm gonna even try to address what I'm feeling. But for starters, very important.

HELLO AMELIA MY PRECIOUS SWEET BEAN FRIEND
I hope this dumb post finds you well. If you find yourself indulging in a glass of wine this weekend, I send you a cheers. CHEERS QORL. I'm there with you ;)


Earlier in the week, the house was tiki-fied, all thanks to Blizz. THANKS BLIZZ.

This year the holiday party, like many other things, yielded to the realities of everyone's favorite politicized pathogen! And even still, it was a lot of fun ^_^

Saw some fire dancing performances, a sick magick show, listen to peeps go off on karaoke, trivia games, and enjoyed the evening trying out a yummy tiki cocktail kit Blizz sent out to their teams. Given the circumstances, this was really cool. It made me miss everyone so much.

Since I've no Hawaiian shirts, I wore a tshirt with a graphic that resembled something to a flower lei, kind of. It's actually a circle of bones from an ossuary we visited in Rome, but from far away it looks like it could maybe be a circle of desaturated flowers..!

I tried.

Into the night, we played Bostonopoly.
It'd been years since I played a game of monopoly.

It probably went on for like 2 hours, and I basically went bankrupt lol before we decided to call it.

And last weekend we went on a hike!

Dead trees are so pretty
Look at all the intricate patterns of twists and curves in the branches. We can only see them when all the leaves fall off. They resemble veins and arteries. Idk. There are so many patterns in nature that align similarities between earth, fauna and the creatures inhabiting this planet- and that's so cool to think about.

Rockclimbing r hard.

I wanted to go in there, but there was glass everywhere :(
And Chicken said if I don't get an updated tetanus shot, it's too risky. Sigh.

On our way back, Chicken pointed out this broken down thing in the brush a ways back from the road. I was like OOOH

It looked like a water tank or something. And behind that was a shed.

OOOHHH WHATS IN IT

See, were I to be in a horror movie scenario, I'd probably be one of the first, if not the first, to die. Because I didn't see this barbed wire until Lifa gave me a heads up to watch out for it while I aimlessly wandered around the shed. And that's why Chicken is right about getting a tetanus shot, but the last time I got one, it left my arm sore for several days and it hurt really bad and I'm scared and I don't like syringes and and and and :(

Yep, this would've sucked to step on or run into

But inside the shed looked to be like something of a generator

I wanted to move stuff around, but that's why I'd die in a horror movie. So I didn't.
:(

That evening, I had Chik-fil-A for the first time in my life. No reason in particular other than Taco Bell and McDonald's have more locations and better hours. The sauce to me tastes like thousand island dressing and honey mustard mixed together. Was good. I wouldn't swear on it like some people do, but it was aight.

Ah, and Lifa's back on his foodie stuff. He's been bitten by Thai and Malay stuff lately, so he whipped up a street Thai food dish. Not even gonna attempt to spell it, but it's basically pork with tons of shit, over rice, with an egg.
The biggest hurdle was uh, the Thai chilies he threw into the wok and almost suffocated us all with.

He virtually pepper sprayed us lmao

That ... was painful. Damn. I'll never forget it lol.

Pro Life Tip: Do not pour all the minced Thai chili peppers into your sauteeing ingredients all at once. You might feel death in your nose and throat. Those little fuckers are ANGRY.

He looks so much like his one of his sisters in this picture omg

Homdray found a cute Oogie Boogie ornament for the tree! And we feasted deliciously.

Before they began fucking around with the nerf gun he also bought

heehee ^_^

Ah yes, this week we also gave Chicken a haircut
He was over it lol

It'd been so long since he had a haircut that I forgot how good a buzzcut looks on him uwu

Followed by Homdray's array of chickang wangs. Varying flavors. Mmpf!

I love the holidays so much.

That black and white candy cane is Oreo flavored btw.
In this house, licorice is a subordinate, unpalatable experience that only serves to offend everything it touches.

OH. I don't even know what to say about these burgers that Lifa prepared for us last night other than omfg.

Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Ramly burger. Like, holy shit. This is the most amazing burger. Umami Burger's truffle game aside, this is like... home made god-like perfection. He wanted to make these because he's been watching too many youtube videos of streetfood lol.

The sauce. THE SAUCE. He used curry powder, cumin, garlic and onion and some other stuff idek but OMG. The burger is wrapped in egg. And it's messy and delicious and amazing and and

I had two. Sigh. I want more.

And I guess since the last episode of Mando season 2 is out, we started watching it last night. But, turns out a bunch of extended universe stuff got retconned, so my suspicions towards a familiar-faced, certain character now have been compromised. Ugh. Whatever.

Aaaannnnd, Chicken's sister sent us this to eaaaattt :P

We're gonna eat it closer to Christmas. I can't waiiit. I wanna eat it now lol

ALRIGHT. SO.
We're at the part of this post where I'm gonna talk about some stuff that went kinda haywire that affected a lot of people.

The most important thing for me that's happened this past week was the absolute shitfest that went down with Red Candle Games and their scheduled release of their long anticipated title; Devotion 還願.

Some quick background:

Detention 返校 by Red Candle Games (January, 12 2017)

 I played their first game Detention in '17... and fell in love with it so much that it made me a fan. They happen to also be a small Taiwanese game studio. I looked forward to everything they would put out.

Their new game, Devotion 還願 was finally announced, and first launched in Feb 2019.
Within it, there was a placeholder asset (poster image with a joke about Winnie the Pooh) that bypassed into the final product. This got them a metric ton of backlash from Chinese players. Devotion and Detention's reviews were flooded with negative ratings laced with vitriol. Devotion was removed from the hosting site, and Red Candle Games was cornered into making a public apology to their audiences and CCP for their production oversight. They went silent ever since.

Recently, Chicken told me that Netflix had released the Detention series! A series inspired by Red Candle Game's very own game by the same title. (There's also a film, but we can't access it). This was on December 9th.

We binged the first few available episodes.

Now, I'm not sure if it's just my bias for Red Candle or if I genuinely enjoy the show lol, but I didn't hate what they did. There are spins, and they made the story different, but kept the elements that the game was passionate about conveying. Some things, Chicken had to explain to me because I sometimes process stuff too literally, but so far it's been a dope watch.

It's suspenseful, not too scary. There are subtleties and twists, with disturbing moments and visuals, but I wouldn't call it scary. At least not yet.

The game itself is horror and scary as all fuck.

But like the game, the viewer is immersed into how things were in Taiwan with marshal law.

So what happened?


December 18, I wake up with Chicken telling me that Red Candle Games announced that morning that they'd be re-releasing Devotion 還願! We would be able to get it through GOG; CD Projeckt Red's hosting platform. Considering CD Projeckt Red's very recent release of Cyberpunk 2077, this was big news.

A few hours later, GOG announces: "After receiving many messages from gamers, we have decided not the list the game in our store."

water is wet, and GOG blaming gamers = vindictive Chinese players who don't want Devotion 還願 to see the light of day flooded them with vitriol, the same way they did to the other host site back in Feb '19.

Like, I think I went crazy on social media that day. It was fine, because many others felt similarly and voiced their frustrations without filter. Not only because of GOG's knee-jerk decision to succumb to pressure from CCP, but also for their irresponsible management of giving Red Candle Games (and their fans) the hope of a much anticipated re-release.

We followed the shitshow all throughout, taking solace in the flurry of outcry for doing Red Candle Games dirty.
Note: Devotion 還願's controversy in '19 wasn't something that was swept under the rug. It was a very public and debated turn of events many games journalists covered. To even imply that GOG was unaware of that is doubly incriminating. Like, no. That's bullshit.

The most irritating thing of it all is..... whoever or however many higher ups approved this tweet to go out found it completely okay to blame gamers in general... for their own decision to back out of their contract with Red Candle Games. The gall and cowardice to not be forthright with their hesitation; offend CCP and have their hosting platform potentially pulled from China... it's understandable. But to gaslight gamers just did it dirtier.

While the influx of vitriol from us is now flooding GOG and CD Projeckt Red, there's little remorse I have for the head people. Someone there made the decision to back out, and they fucked up in how they did it. In more ways than one.
I don't condone cruelty or treating devs with malice. That's awful. It's not their fault. But what I will absolutely be vocal about is bullshit scapegoat tactics at the whim of PR heads who got wet feet and spread cheeks to keep CCP's market.

The cherry on top of all of this the fact that CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077 title released in such an unfinished state that people demand refunds. That's not the cherry. The cherry is that... Playstation got so much backlash about their refund policy (that didn't coincide with CDPR's refund promise) that they took Cyberpunk 2077 off of their store.... after receiving many messages from gamers.

And someone framed it perfectly.

I'm not trying to bash or shit talk. I'm gonna be frank about this whole thing, because it's bullshit.
If we're gonna flip it in blaming Red Candle Games for everything because they released a game with an offensive asset. "The internet never forgets."

That's true. The internet never forgets, and is the most unforgiving entity in existence.
That only leaves with the option of trying to rectify the situation in any way possible, and attempt to move on.

/okayand?
The asset has been removed, the apology was made, Red Candle's social media was banned in China, they took their own game down, and went silent until now.

Now, CD Projekt Red/GOG wants to blame gamers.

Yeah, I don't think so.

I honestly don't care about CD Projekt Red. I didn't play Witcher, Saints Row, and I'm not gonna play Cyberpunk 2077. Not because I had anything against them, but because I genuinely don't give a shit.
What really hammered it into the ground, before all of this went nuts was how they marketed themselves at E3 2019.

Compared to Ghostwire Tokyo's showcase... where they have two devs announce their project. One comes out to introduce the other, who is a stranger to us but genuine and happy to show what they've been working on.

At the end of the day, I don't care.

I just want Red Candle Games to not be treated like shit, and to play Devotion.

A good way to speak with your wallet is... if you got Cyberpunk 2077 for PC, Chicken got a refund from GOG, and instead bought it from Steam so only a percentage of the profit goes to CDPR instead of 100%. He still wants to support the devs, while also expressing sentiments. It's small, but it's something. I found that both petty and compassionate.

This week is the start of Chicken's holiday break. All this aside, there's a lot of good to look forward to. I'm excited ^_^

As much as I love Genshin Impact, I burned myself out lol. I'll still log on to do dailies, but that's pretty much about it. Been really enjoying Hades tho! It's a lot more fun than I was expecting. I'm not a fan of roguelikes. But there's a cleverness in how the story advances that I find charming.

These two are my favorites :D

And... Sakuna of Rice of Ruin is also burning me out. But I keep going back to it because it's so chill and beautiful

Just trynna plant rice and survive, man.

So I've been playing Shadowlands! lol...
.. Admittedly, I've allowed myself to wander away from it for stupid reasons. I can't get over the fact that Jim Cummings is voice acting everything ever and it fucks with how immersed I get into the game lmao. IT'S STUPID, I REALIZE. But I can't turn it off.
So, I've been watching youtube videos while playing lol. I'm enjoying it tho. Caught some cool pets and have a pig mount. He's beautiful.

Ahh, this post is already late and super long, so I'll end it here.
Happy belated Friyay! I send out all of the happi wavelengths and energeeeezzzz.
Be kind, and patient (with yourself as well!) and remember to wear a mask
Please support indie devs too. They're wholesome!
OKIE BYE

(Cheers Amelia!)