Burnout While Still Inspired as Gosh Dang Hecky

 This is going to be kind of stream of consciousness. I feel burned out. I don't know what else to define it as other than "burned out". Lately, my days have been consisting of fucking around with things I shouldn't be working on until mid-to-late afternoon, forcing myself to eat dinner, and then trying to sleep so I can have the same defeatist cycle the next day. A few days ago, I woke up around 9am and didn't do a whole lot of anything until 8pm. I worked on mixing the music I'm putting out this year for about an hour and then Reaper crashed a few times. That broke my entire source of energy. I was just done and this is not the first time something like this has happened. Probably even within the last year. Incomplete sentence. Oopsum.

This is not going to be a "woe is me" blog post. This is just a genuine thing in hopes to inspire someone to overcome this or realize that you don't have to go 200% every day. And people will say "there has to be a balance" to which I say "no, there fucking doesn't". I think if there is any point to this post, that's it.

Time was invented by humans as an organizational tool. Because we don't have a definition for what we perceive as the foregoing of existence, we just call that feeling time. I actually think there is a term in-between there but I don't feel like looking it up right now. You probably don't know that term. Most people don't know it. On the other hand, if I say "the old 9 to 5", you know exactly what the fuck I'm talking about. Time is something everyone fucking loves. Time is a thing the government, corporations, and the 1% of people sucking the dicks of those two fucking love. They love time because they don't need as much of it as you do. As I do. Don't worry, this isn't going to get political. Not that there would be anything wrong with this post if I were to go down that route, of course. I just need to set this up to prove my point that labor has been pegging time for centuries. Some people would deny that statement if I just said it outright. I had to preface it with all those other words to nullify that denial. Until time stops or humanity goes extinct, this is probably going to be true. That's just the way this goes now and I cannot do anything about it. Sorry.

So I write stories and blog posts. I write, record, and mix music. I used to make videos and want to make more. I stream on Twitch. These are things I enjoy doing but none of this can take me anywhere on its own. Where is a place I would want something that is not a vehicle to take me to? None of these things I do can take me to a physical place, so what state of being am I striving for? One with money? I suppose because again, the whole 1% thing. If "the 1% thing" wasn't an issue, I wouldn't have to put up such a fight to do things that people would benefit from.

When I'm not writing stories, writing blog posts, writing music, recording guitars, recording singing, mixing music, mastering music, editing some video, or streaming on Twitch, I'm grinding a job I do not want to do. I tolerate this job because it fits where I am at right now. It is as comforting as it is fucking sickening, tedious, obnoxious, and in my case, physically destructive. This has been a decent approximation of my state of being for the past four years.

"Take some risks". "Make a change". "Do that grind". "Go somewhere for a nice vacation." "Go on dates". "Buy a house". "Change your diet".

Shut the fuck up?

I do not think, for a goddamn minute of any given day, that I am the only person currently hitting this wall. Still, I think the fact that I cannot overcome it every minute of every given day is part of the reason why it takes me longer to put out things that I am genuinely passionate about. See "take some risks", "buy a house", "move to a new location", "see the world", "get laid", okay maybe not that last one; these are all things that would actively hinder me from what I want to do. Now, I think that these things would be good advice for someone who doesn't know what they're doing. Not in a quirky millennial "lol I have no idea what I'm doing with my life so I bought a gummy bear the size of my golden retriever" way. I know what I want to do and at this time, I know why I cannot do half of it. Outright. Cannot. I have a decent grasp on why a lot of it can be done but for the same reasons I cannot do these other things, this half of the aspirations will take so much more time. Unfortunately, a lot of this simply boils down to money.

So I should work more hours. Welllllll fuck it is physically hurting me. I'm weirdly physically resilient for a human stick bug. That said, I have started noticing pain that I haven't noticed before and it doesn't go away after one day. A lot of the time, it takes two or three days. I only get three days off at this. The other four days of the week are spent getting ready to spend my entire fucking day at this place and then spending the entire fucking day at this place. So my three days off must require some form of work on Lexi Karma or anything else I might want to get done. In between, I also have to do basic stuff we all do like basic hygiene and cleaning up my living space. I have been slacking on the latter. I'm still weirdly hygienic for being this fucking depressed. 2020 didn't even keep me from that. Laundry kind of sits between those two doesn't it? I drive to a laundromat to escape my awful neighbors. Other than the trek, it would cost about the same anyway. When I wait for the washing and drying cycles, I'm on my iPad, often working on something. Not thinking about breathing in fresh air. I am not thinking about mindfulness or how in love I am or where my "career" is heading. I am just thinking "I have to do these things I want to do because they will not be fucking done if I don't do them and nobody can help me because I can not afford to compensate these people fairly". This isn't an invitation for free work, by the way, fucking respect yourself.

I am dropping down from full-time to part-time at my job because I got a raise. I will now be able to afford basic living expenses while breaking my body less. Note: "less". I have a degree now but it's like, what am I even supposed to do with that? Get a job that will fire me in three weeks anyway? This is my mindset. The real thing holding me back from job-hunting is that even with a Bachelor's, I'm still underqualified for shit I know I could do. The tasks needed to perform these jobs with flying colors are tasks I could knock out of the park but I am "underqualified". So I stick to physical labor.

The other day, there was a guy there I had seen around. They had him in a wheelchair for a bit. He was on a walker that day and it looked like he could barely keep it together. The guy had to have been no younger than 70 years old. I don't think I'll be that guy but I also don't have any solid proof that I won't be at this point in my life and that kind of scares me. I'm not trying to be a tough guy here, it doesn't keep me up at night. It really just scares me at the "kind of" level.

All this to say, what the hell do we do with this wall then? You sat through all these words and it can't just lead to nowhere. It can't just lead to nihilism. Well, it can but it won't. Most of the time, like right now, I'm really stuck on something that I really want to show the world. But there's that wall. I guess I pick out pieces of that wall that I put there myself. That's my best advice. It might not sound like enough but you would be surprised. I can't do anything about the US having a fucking inhumane health care system. I can't do anything about the pompous fortress that is trying to make a big production out of something with other people. I can't help that I don't have the money to hire people to help me do these things. I don't have that ability because of the problems I pointed out right before this issue. So you see, it trickles down. You break down more and more of this wall or at least outline how to. Then you start to see "fuck, this brick is made out of tofu". That tofu brick might be sexual trauma or just a basic fear of failure. Tofu's a bad analogy because those two examples can be absolutely paralyzing.

And here's another important point: sometimes making a blueprint of what to do with that wall is okay. Some days, that is what you had to do and you can bulldoze tomorrow because the weather today isn't good for it.

The main inspiration for writing this is that I feel lately, it is getting harder and harder to start that bulldozer up. I guess if you're reading this, you are also having ignition issues. Especially after 2020, I think a lot of us feel like we need a blueprint day every fucking day. For this, I don't have an answer and even if I did, it wouldn't work for every person. No way in Hell. For me, and hopefully, this works for a lot of people if not for everyone... For me, I have a day like this and realize I didn't do the dishes, I didn't vacuum the carpet, I didn't record voice-over, I didn't record that one guitar track, I didn't write a single fucking word of this glorious web-comic that will probably never fucking come out at this rate but when that day hits I remember that person who will berate me for this. I remember the cloaked man with a hook for a hand and a pistol in the other and he's just waiting outside my bedroom window waiting for me to fuck up. When I finally have mold growing in the sink while I'm watching the 80th let's play video I watched that day, that dude is going to come in here and wear my face on his abdomen. If you haven't caught on yet, this guy doesn't exist and you probably don't know him either. So any version of that is all in your head. Fuck that guy. He doesn't get to exist but you do so you're not the biggest waste of flesh in the universe. You just want to watch that kid's cartoon you've already seen five times all the way through. That's fine.

As an end note, I don't like telling people how to live their lives. If you want to amputate one of your hands and replace it with a fucking hook, buy a gun, and hang outside my apartment with a clean shot for when you can see the dishes from the next building over, fucking go for it.

The Queerness Saga Ep182: Face Goop

 There aren't 181 other episodes of this, I fucking lied to you all.

I just tried makeup for the first time ever. Unfortunately, I don't really like putting my face online in public spaces anymore. This is (probably) not for dysphoric reasons, I just don't particularly like doing it.

As of now, I get pretty bad beard shadow. My facial hair is fucking violent. I shaved around noon or so and just put on makeup around 7:15??? Close enough. So here are the results. And what I did. If you're reading this far, you probably have some passing interest or you're looking into something like this for yourself.

It has been about 45 minutes now and my beard hair decided to say "fuck you" and starting poking out a lot more than it did when I finished applying makeup. So there is a noticeable bit of darkness there or at the very least little hairs. However, it's still better than nothing to a point where I can tell. Makeup doesn't magically make your facial hair cower in fear at the idea of feminization and I knew that going in. Given that this was my first time and I haven't even ordered makeup brushes yet, I am pretty pleased with the results.

I ran some room temperature-ish water on my face and neck first because I had been out for a bit earlier. I wasn't filthy or actively sweating, I just thought that a bit of water would be better than sweat or some other gross thing I'm unaware of.
I used my CeraVe daily moisturizing lotion "for normal to dry skin" as a moisturizer. I've been using this stuff for a long time anyway. It's pretty great stuff. Works like magic as long as you use it consistently and it's non-comedogenic so it can be used as a moisturizer in the makeup process.
I used setting spray that is designed to be used as a bit of a primer. It's called Black Radiance long lasting setting spray. It claims it can be used as a primer and a setting spray. Again, this is my first time so I can't say much about the validity of this. I just got it as a cheap thing to know how this whole process works. As far as I can tell, which is not very far, it did its job on both accounts.
Next was Covergirl Clean Matte BB Cream for oily skin. BB Cream is pretty multitalented. I feel like most people would recommend using a dedicated foundation instead of this or using both. But hey, I don't know what I'm talking about and this worked for me. I still haven't ordered makeup brushes. As such, I just kind of took a finger or two to rub the stuff in. It probably looks a little trashy to an expert but I think it worked out really well. One side note of advice: check and see which skin type your BB cream is made for before you order it. I goofed on this one. I honestly don't even remember if my skin constitutes as oily. It probably doesn't. Do some more research before you pull the trigger on something like this. It's actually important.
Next up: Covergirl Smoothers concealer stick. I'm not sure how much of this stuff to use but after I put this over the BB cream I was like "ah fuck, now we're doing makeup, bitch!"
As soon as I could after that, I spritzed on more setting spray. This is where I feel like I don't know what I'm doing the most. It kind of wet down some of the stuff I laid down so much that it kind of fell off. Weirdly, I just kind of rubbed the stuff in again and it was fine. I just wasn't expecting that. I'm sure I'm just doing something wrong. In any case, I let that do its thing for a few seconds and then sent some video/pics to my friends.

All of the items I mentioned are relatively cheap except for the CeraVe lotion. That lotion will last you a long-ass time though so I recommend that above anything else here. Also, I'm enby and probably won't go for anything too fancy anyway. That is to say, everything mentioned here is probably pretty great for newly-hatched trans girls or other people wanting to go all out with pretty makeup. I don't know jack about that but I wish you luck anyway. These products I mentioned should be a good starting point though.

CeraVe Daily Moisturizing Lotion for Normal to Dry Skin
Black Radiance Long Lasting Setting Spray
Covergirl Clean Matte BB Cream for Oily Skin (though I probably should have got one for normal skin)
Covergirl Smoothers Moisturizing Concealer Stick
Black Radiance Long Lasting Setting Spray again
Get some form of makeup remover or you will fuck your face up

There ya go. I probably won't post too many makeup posts because it isn't my forte. I would not be in the least bit surprised if this is the last makeup post I ever make. However, researching this for myself has been kind of a pain in the ass. Most of the articles and YouTube stuff you can find on this sort of thing, though informative and perhaps adorable, is useful for the same reasons it's overwhelming. These people have done this a million times over. Today, literally day one, no idea what the fuck I'm doing, and I got results I liked. You can do this too and you can probably get everything you need to start out for less than $50, shipping included. Do it. Look luvly.

Lexi Karma Releasing TWO New Projects in 2021

 Lexi Karma is my music moniker. My one-man-band, if you will. I haven't released any actual music under Lexi Karma since 2017 and there was about a three-year gap between releasing anything on the Lexi Karma YouTube at all. But 2021 is the year it comes back, as announced this past week on May 6th, 2021. Why is the prose of this like a press article for Lexi Karma? I don't know why it came off like that. Let's stop that now.

tl;dr:
Sometime in Autumn 2021, I will be releasing a full-length album and an EP under Lexi Karma, hopefully on the same day or at least in the ballpark. The full-length album is called "Self Titled Again" and is a remake of the first album from 2016. The EP is called "Fake and Stupid" and will be comprised of all synths, vocals, and various sampled instruments. If neither is done by Dec 31, 2021, I'm just going to bounce them both and release them before the year ends.

That's all you need to know. I guess I'm going to keep going though.

Fake and Stupid

Fake and Stupid is an electronic EP for lack of a better term. It will have six songs on it, none of which have any guitars on them. I say "for lack of a better term" because compositionally, they are still pretty much rock songs. The first song is called "Clingy", which I showed a demo of last week. "Clingy" is about the closest thing to what most people would expect from electronic music on the whole EP. They are all electronic by the pure instrumental definition but it probably won't feel that way to people who frequent the genre.

The reason the EP is called "Fake and Stupid" is that this is probably what I would have called it if I could go back in time and show this music off to myself in high school. I was a stupid metalhead and listened to a lot of rock and metal. I thought the only good keyboard and synth stuff was stuff that was technically impressive or fast like Children of Bodom. Yet I still didn't listen to jazz until after high school. Idiot. The title also falls in line with the story being told across the EP.

The concept of Fake and Stupid is my love life but wait yeah I know it's fucking lame wait just hold on! I'm a virgin in my late 20s who has been tossed around and fucked up for as long as I can remember. At the same time, I wasn't perfect in this field either and I wanted to throw some elements of that into the lyrics too. The EP is organized to reflect how a lot of this works psychologically. It also linearly tackles a story that lasts about a decade and attempts to sum it up in under thirty minutes. So the EP takes adolescent obsession and slowly injects ideas of abuse and gaslighting as I grow into my early-to-mid 20s. The end of the EP takes place around 2017-2018 where I spend almost an entire year trying to undo a lot of psychological damage others did to me as well as damage I did to myself. I'll talk more about that later this year when it's all out though.

"Clingy" is a perfect intro to this concept. It is a kind of first-person sarcastic vantage point of a lot of men I knew in romantic/sexual relationships that would fuck up the ABCs of dating at every turn. Imagine the lyrics are being sung by a bunch of puppets at a puppet show and I am giving them all voices. This is more accurate to how the lyrics to Clingy work. I feel like a lot of people are going to misconstrue the lyrics as me being quite the filthy misogynist. This is understandable. I just think it was a fun way to depict it. Sometimes we don't understand how stupid or harmful some of the stuff we say is until we hear someone else say it, which is a large point of the song. I should probably release that demo on YouTube sometime soon.

When it's done, I will probably release "Clingy" in its finished form on YouTube and perhaps another song as finished promotional material to tell people to go listen to this thing already. Don't hold your breath for a second song though. It seems kind of weird to release two songs before the whole thing since the whole thing only has six songs. It will be on Spotify. I am also going to try Bandcamp this time. You can support Lexi Karma in advance on Ko-fi but you can always do that. Bandcamp has a kind of "pay what you want" feature and I want to play with that. I'm not sure why I shied away from it when I released that album. Oh, speaking of that thing.

Self Titled Again

I'm remaking the Lexi Karma debut album Self Titled. It will be called Self Titled Again because there's only so much you can guess from that title. I will probably talk more about why I decided to make this when it comes out. I showed off a demo of "Crystal" last week. That has always been one of my personal favorites from the album. Someone somewhere might find it interesting that it was also pretty much the inspiration for making Lexi Karma and committing to it. I think it might have been the first song I actually wrote for the purpose of being a Lexi Karma song but I don't remember that for sure.

Anyway. Self Titled is something I'm proud of myself for making but I'm always kind of embarrassed to show it to people. The vocals are mostly on key but they suck. There's no pitch correction. The guitars are typically layered pretty okay because I at least understood subtractive EQing but beyond that, I didn't really know what I was doing with mixing. I'll be honest, as a certified audio engineer, I'm still flying by the seat of my pants. Every time I sit down with the express purpose of mixing something, I feel like the biggest fucking idiot on planet Earth. This is one of many reasons why I decided not to do it for a living early on. Anyway, the problem with Self Titled is that I love the songs. I hate that I'm embarrassed by them because I think if money was no object, I would have put out a great piece of art in 2016. But studio time is expensive and I was making less than $9/hr at the time. The fact that I put that out with almost no help and a budget of $1k was impressive. Unfortunately, that spirit doesn't make the mix any fucking better. The mastering engineer I commissioned tried but he could only do so much with that awful mix.

So Self Titled Again will come into the fore-front with the hopes of at least remedying the sonic quality of the music I released in 2016. I miiiiiight put out "Masked Appeal" as a kind of "almost finished" tease since that and "Crystal" are the ones closest to "finished". A lot of quotation marks, I know.

"So what makes it new? What makes it better? Isn't it just a remaster lol?"

It's a remake. Calling it a remaster ignores what I'm going to be spending the vast majority of my time doing for this album along with what I have already done. Over 90% of the vocals and guitars will be re-recorded, all of the bass tracks will be re-recorded, all of the synths will be re-programmed/re-arranged, and all of these tracks will be mixed and mastered with an entirely different digital setup than what I was using in 2016. Oh, and now I have pitch correction.

As of writing this, I still have a decent amount of vocals to record. However, that's the perk of these being previously released songs. I don't have to mull over "should I add this, should I take away that" so much. As is apparent on the "Crystal" demo I released, I am making a few minor changes to some of the arrangements but I'm not doing anything compositionally drastic. Easily 93% of the guitars are done being recorded. I think there are only two songs left that need any more guitar work. About 99% of the bass is done. There's a really bad take on the beginning of "Selfless" that I still need to re-record.

That said, most of this is really going to come down to me being consistently happy with the mix and how fast I might come to that point. I have no idea when that point will come. As I said with Fake and Stupid, I am placing a hard deadline for Dec 31, 2021. Wherever I'm at with Self Titled Again and/or Fake and Stupid in December is just what you all are going to end up with. Then we can move on to more new stuff.

Normally, I'm the kind of fuck that says "never say never" when it comes to just about anything. In the case of Self Titled Again, I can safely say I'm never going to do anything like this again. At its worst, Fake and Stupid will sound "okay". In their unfinished forms with a little bit of leveling and panning, some of the stuff I'm doing for Self Titled Again already sounds arguably better than the versions that are currently out. So it's going to be very hard for me at this point to slap out anything that sounds more amateur than Self Titled in its original form.

One other major difference I want to mention that some people might honestly not even fully notice: key changes. Four of the songs are going to be in a different key, I will probably talk about this more in-depth when the album comes out. I used a pretty decent amount of different physical guitars along with two different basses on the original Self Titled. None of these are current gear anymore. I now have an Ibanez SIX7FDFM, a Chapman ML1, and some cheapo Ibanez 5-string bass. They are all tuned a half-step down from standard tuning. I could have tuned them to different tunings for different songs or just learned new fingerings for the songs that relied a lot on open strings but I didn't want to. So without going into every single tuning of every single instrument I used in the original version; "Mendax" will be in Gb min (was in F min), "Selfless" will be in Bb min (was in C min), "Masked Appeal" will be in Eb min (was in E min), and "Six Minutes" will be in C# min (was in C min). "Six Minutes is the only one out of these four that I feel sounds significantly different because of the different chord voicing. Perhaps, most people won't be able to tell either way, they'll just know that the song sounds better than the original. The other three sound just as different as the songs that didn't go through a key change, except for the blatant key change.

Release

They'll be on Spotify and hopefully Bandcamp. I might put them both out elsewhere too depending on how I do distribution this time. I might release each individual track of Self Titled Again on YouTube as well. I probably won't do that with Fake and Stupid, or at least not right away.

Future Lexi Karma

I already have the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Lexi Karma projects fueling up on the strip. The 3rd one is going through little tweaks in writing but is almost done as far as writing goes. I haven't written all of the lyrics yet. A good portion of them is done though. I have fucked around with recording the vast majority of these songs already. That said, I wouldn't be shocked if another major Lexi Karma release drops in 2022. Just set a more realistic expectation of 2023. The 3rd Lexi Karma project is more of a progressive metal kind of thing. Other than the fact that I made it, it has a gratuitous amount of vocal harmonies at times, and there are synths and fake drums, it is nothing like Self Titled or Fake and Stupid.

The 4th Lexi Karma project will be another prog-rock project but then again, arguably all of my stuff is. It won't be as aggressive sounding or spastic as the 3rd project. However, it will still try to cram genres into each individual song. This one is more jazz fusion-y than it is trying to be particularly heavy. It still has its heavy moments but it will be significantly more melodic than the 3rd project. The 4th project is also a concept album that I'll talk about more when it becomes relevant. Almost none of the lyrics are finished for this one but roughly 75% of the music is. I'll end this point by saying this; I have written a lot of music in my life thus far and this stuff is collectively some of the best I feel I have ever made.

The 5th Lexi Karma project will be some prog-rock but with a lot more synth implementation. It will be much less stand-offish than the 3rd project. It will have plenty of heavy moments but that's not really the point. The 5th project is mostly songs I have already been pretty much done writing for years. I won't lie, I just felt more immediately inspired by projects 3 and 4. Originally, I wanted this to come out around the same time as Fake and Stupid. I am glad I held off on that idea because both this project and Fake and Stupid had some true garbage on them at the time. Thus, this fifth project is almost 100% done being written across the board. This statement will hold true until I finish the lyrics and the melody line for one part of one song. I might also write and add a new song into it since right now, it isn't a very long thing. I really like these songs and in much worse condition than they are now, friends I have shown them to thought they were really cool. I wouldn't expect this one to come out for quite a few years though.

After that, I'm going to start making Lexi Karma releases with more specific gimmicks, namely "what if this genre was tackled by Lexi Karma" kind of releases. That won't be all though. I have other ideas that aren't just genre-bending.

That's it for now. Damn, this one's long. I'll come back with another update sooner than later.

-Ayden
sleepy musician and insane person

Transition-y

 Can't sleep. Thinking about the queerness. Haven't typed a blog post in a bit so let's see if this one makes it past draft. (seriously, you have no idea. at one point I had like 12 drafts on here. trust me, you don't want them to go past draft. just thinking about being bored by them is something I wouldn't wish upon you all)

So last year, I came out as a "non-binary man" so for all intents and purposes I'm enby. And pretty happy about that. Thinking about it still gets me pumped. I get why a lot of people don't talk about this too in-depth but so far, I have had no issue answering people's questions about this sort of thing. Again, I want to make absolutely clear: nobody should feel pressured to be the queer bible for anyone who doesn't know about how any LGBTQIA+ stuff works. You don't have to be the gay encyclopedia. Anyone who expects you to be that is an asshole. As for myself, I just like talking to people about it anyway. Yes, they can just fucking look this kind of stuff up online for themselves but if they ask me in the moment, even if it comes down to what's happening with my crotch, I usually feel pretty comfortable answering.
[edit: I now just identify as non-binary, not a non-binary man. I am still okay with he/him pronouns as well as they/them pronouns and don't hate she/her pronouns but aside from that I really don't like masculine labels anymore]

Anyway, god that was a fucking tangent. What even is the point of this blog? Huh?!? I titled this entry "Transition-y"! What does that even mean?!?!

I think putting out my current goals or even fleeting thoughts could help someone else who is struggling with this sort of thing feel nice. Maybe someone who is mostly pretty content with their gender magic will like this post too? I don't know, haven't gotten that far myself. And of course, any shade of ally might get some insight on some stuff that will spark a good Google spree. I'm happy to provide that spark.

So what have I really done in terms of transitioning since I came out last summer? It has almost been a year after all. Well, the name change, but I was thinking about doing that for a long time anyway, gender notwithstanding. I can't say in full honesty that facing my gender head-on didn't sway that decision thought. If I was 100% manly man, I would have picked "Brutus", not Ayden, and wouldn't have picked a purposefully feminine-ish last name. Since doing stuff with my name in various systems and with various companies was such a huge bitch to deal with, I have become more adamant about people not deadnaming me. I have a semi-decent arsenal of women's clothing now. Not a lot but enough for me to feel good about. Beyond that... eh?

And before I continue, I want to point something else out that will probably be a no-brainer for freshly out genderqueer and trans motherfuckers: this part of the human experience is about being comfortable with yourself. So if you're AMAB, come out as enby, and then get mad at yourself for not having six-inch-long eyelashes and Jessica Rabbit bod, just take a step back and appreciate what you have accomplished. If you haven't made any large steps since then, appreciate the sheer thought of being who you want to be. Accepting yourself is the most important part. There is absolutely no fucking checklist for this sort of thing. However, in direct hypocrisy to that heartfelt sentiment, here is stuff I have been trying to do and want to do because I have a checklist!

Voice therapy

I'm putting this first because I have actually tried it. The only reason I'm not doing every 1-3 weeks is that the insurance I grind away for doesn't cover this shit. However, I have worked that out to where some of that will be covered. Safely feminizing my voice was going to be back on the menu but even the covered costs will be above $40 a session, it seems. Haven't landed an appointment since then. I tried and nobody got back to me. The only person who has talked to me was the one in charge of billing that fought for me to get my insurance to cover my stuff in the first place. I still have a few sheets to help me out with exercises and stuff. If you've heard my voice up until recently, testosterone has fucking decimated my throat and life. I have a lot of work to do. I know it can be achieved and if I just *did* the voice exercises once or twice a day, I would probably be farther along by now. Knowing that just isn't enough. It's probably the most dysphoric thing about me next to facial hair. Even having a typical speaking range of like three semitones higher would probably give me a fighting chance. Knowing that androgyny is a pipe dream fucking sucks. But I keep trying to trick my voice into being higher anyway. I know that if I rush it, my voice won't be helped in any way so I don't strain or use falsetto to talk. The best part (not being sarcastic) is that I know I'm mostly doing it for me. I'm not doing it to "pass" as anything because testosterone has already made me fail. I'm doing it to make myself feel better. If it takes ten years, it takes ten years.

HRT

Haven't done it yet because I'm afraid of sliding scale fees. It's the only way I will ever be able to afford this sort of thing and I'm still not 100% sure if it works the way I think it does. If it does, I should have started it in 2020. If not, I'm glad I waited in utter fear. I'm thinking of taking spiro. Full-on estrogen might be using cartoon spring shoes for a 1-foot hurdle for me.  My first "appointment" is in a month from now.

Makeup

Still don't know how to do this. I was going to experiment after getting my tax return and the IRS is absolutely ravaging my asshole. They currently owe me a little over $4000 and I don't know how to tell them to get their shit together. Even if I wanted to tell them specifically "get your shit together", I  wouldn't be able to. I've been trying for months. So no makeup time for me. I don't want anything huge anyway, just stuff to cover up hair shadow and all that. Too bad I guess because I'm not even allowed to have my money that I haven't spent yet.

Voice surgery

This is the fucking dream. If money were no object, I would go through the risk of fucking up my voice for the chance of a minute rise in pitch. Anterior glottal web formation is when they put a big icky scar band in your inner gob to raise overall voice pitch. You can already learn a lot of how to do that from voice therapy without hurting yourself though. The difference here is that you wouldn't have to try anything. Once the admittedly long healing period is over, your voice will just magically be higher. The caveat here is that this is right in your pipes so breathing might actually be a little harder. I don't know to what degree. Fun fact: a lot of people confuse this process with a tracheal shave. Tracheal shave doesn't really do this. Tracheal shave surgery is for a more cosmetic purpose. Glottal web doesn't work like kids' cartoon body-swap episodes either. You still have to maintain the "feminine" voice you desire. I mean, at the end of the day, it's your voice so if you're perfectly content with just a little pick-me-up, this could work. For me, most of the time, the deep, gravelly voice you hear me scream at video games in is not the voice in my head. I genuinely fantasize about getting glottal web. It's arguable I've wanted this before I even knew that it was a real thing you could do. To those who are not transitioning to a more feminine state and don't already know how much this sucks; this is not a popular procedure but it is a tried-and-true option. What I'm saying is, most of these people sound the way they sound through dedicated training and research. Transmasc people on the other hand have a lot of the work done for them by taking testosterone. This is true of those who are taking testosterone anyway, as a generalization. Even in these more typical cases, relearning how to speak is a mentally fucked process that transmasc people still have to go through. I'm not really saying anything anymore at this point, just kind of spitting out info that I've looked up on my own because a lot of people still have no idea about this kind of stuff. It's cool, right? Yes? I thought so.

Electrolysis

Weirdly enough, this seems more realistic than ever getting voice surgery. That said, it still won't be cheap, especially because I want to zap pretty much everything. I have tried at-home IPL and it didn't work for me. This isn't to say IPL doesn't work (when applied correctly, it does do something), my face and body hair follicles are just too resilient. This is important to me because my facial hair is one of the things that makes me feel the most uncomfortable psychologically and physically. It's also something I have to slice my face open for every day

Clothing (last one)

Half of my pants are men's with a few pairs being women's and two pairs of sweatpants that are maybe technically unisex? I'm not actually sure if that's how that works. I didn't like sweatpants growing up. I like the women's pants though. You're probably thinking "duh". I don't like them because they make me feel "girlier". I like them because there are just more characteristics about pants that I like in general that those pants happen to provide over what I have experienced with years of wearing regular fit men's jeans. I still wear men's shoes and socks because I don't like the idea of heels and my feet are pretty big anyway. Women's tops are where it's at for me now. I don't get super frilly though. I've tried some pretty feminine-looking stuff and the vast majority of that category has been pretty uncomfortable. A lot of the stuff I've liked the most has not been too far from what I was wearing before. However, I feel way more confident with women's tank tops than I do with men's tank tops. Women's graphic tees look really good on me. In addition to all these gender-annihilating shenanigans, I bought my first necklace. To clarify, I've had necklaces in the past but they were all cheapo family gifts that didn't feel personalized to me at all. They would be like arrowheads and stuff that didn't even look good on me. I bought a Persona 5 "Point Up!" music note pendant thing. I will buy more when I'm more comfortable with money. I have already worn the Persona 5 necklace in public several times and I will continue to do it a lot.

Well, that's all out there now. I will probably talk more about this sort of thing in the future but not as in-depth. Lengthy. When I said "in-depth", I meant "droning".

I set up a Ko-fi and I can't do word play because the site has a "Berenstain" of a name

So here it is:

https://ko-fi.com/randomrings

and now I have to talk about it.

I have been wanting some kind of tip jar thing out there for a long time and didn't think Ko-fi would be as easy to set up as it was. Seriously, it took me maybe a half hour to make the account, confirm all my info, make my profile look less botty, and make it easy on the eyes on here and on Twitch. I've never really found any great way of doing this and just slapping my Paypal on everything seems like a recipe for disaster.

At this point, I don't really have a big enough following to justify Patreon. Even then, I hear of Patreon, as a company, doing stupid stuff every once in a while anyway. Don't know if that's still accurate. Maybe Ko-fi is just as bad and I don't know it yet. Either way,  I chose Ko-fi over Patreon for ease and safety for myself. Also, Ko-fi implies less to all of you or so I think.

This probably has more to do with all of the stuff I make, how it's made, and how frequently it's made more than it has to do with anything objective on Ko-fi's end. I just think Patreon, based on what people know it for, implies "subscribe to my stuff with money now!" At one point, I think Patreon could just serve as a little tip jar too. People still don't have to make monthly contributions but they also don't get as much cool stuff. I think? I think that's just how it universally works with Patreon regardless of the creator using it. It has been quite a while since I have researched this. Anyway. Sometimes I release a fuckload of stuff over the course of a month, sometimes I consistently release monthly stuff at least, and sometimes I basically don't post anything and disappear without a trace. I feel like I'm always putting out "something" even if it is just a blog post. Now that I'm streaming, I'm at least dumping off stream archives regularly. But to me, that's not the big stuff. That's not why I'm on YouTube or making music.

That's another thing. I have to work horrible jobs to make ends meet so I can make this stuff. So I can't work on Randomrings, Lexi Karma, and unrelated stuff I'm writing at the same capacity. I would literally never get anything done. As such, I go through phases where I'm balls deep in Randomrings or Lexi Karma or Randomrings Let's Plays or something I can't really talk about yet because the internet is a scary place! This is also why Patreon doesn't work for me/ for us. I don't feel bad saying "if you want to support Lexi Karma, that would be great". I don't feel greedy saying "if you want to help me make more Randomrings stuff, I would really appreciate it!" I feel like a massive jackass saying "support me" to a bunch of people I don't know, even though I'm semantically saying the same thing.

Basically, and I probably don't have to spell this out but I will anyway; the more money I make completely unrelated to my shitty grind-job means less time I have to spend at that job to fund Randomrings and Lexi Karma. So any help is greatly appreciated already. But I really need to stress that there should be no obligation or even a passive push in the direction of tipping me or donating to me. I just put it out there as an option if anyone feels inclined. Before I set up this Ko-fi thing, there was no option. Now I feel confident enough in myself and in my work to at least give people the option.

Wow, I really wrote some paragraphs for this one. Anyway, thanks for reading. I'm always grateful for that. I don't know why I get any traction on Randomrings Blog but I do and it feels really cool. If you're into my usual stuff, thank you too. I know most people say this but if you want to tip but it's not financially wise to do, just tell someone else about something I'm doing or did that you like. That's plenty good enough for me.

The New Videos I'm Writing

 The new videos I'm writing are pretty different from what I've ever put on the channel before. Basically, I have been taking writing more seriously over the past few years. It was always one of my favorite parts of doing Randomrings Channel in the first place. However, I want to actually work in writing. I'm trying to speed up this process because my current line of work, though lucrative enough to live off of, is physically shriveling me. I don't know how much more constant physical labor I can take.

What does this whining have to do with Randomrings Channel?

The new videos I have been thinking about putting out are going to be like storyboard sketch comedy? Kind of? If that makes sense. I'll still be doing reviews if I get the time to actually finish them in between. I've been wanting to write a few recently for a while, I'm just physically and emotionally broken. I am very inspired but my brain and body can't catch up anymore. And I'm not even 30. I'm fucking scared. I don't like this. That is to say that I need portfolio work and YouTube is a place to put a portfolio where I don't have to pay to host said content. The way it looks now, I can probably technically put this kind of thing on Newgrounds as well. If I understand the terms of service right, I can and will.

So instead of boring you with, I dunno, just raw script drafts, I will be writing stuff and then drawing it out like previous videos I have made over the past 2 years or so. It won't be animated. It won't be amazing to look at. It won't blow your fucking mind. But it will be a visual representation of something that I thought might be entertaining at one point.

Anyway, case in point to my body and mind not catching up with my ambition, I need to force myself to eat dinner and go to bed soon or I won't eat dinner and/or stay up all fucking night. I hope you enjoy what I come up with and here's to me actually finishing this stuff instead of just talking about.

Name Change Vent Part II

 Hey, I pretty much did it, everyone! There are a few little hiccups right now but my name is in all of the important systems it needs to be in. Except... fuck... the IRS? Let's not think about that right now.

Here was the first chapter of this garbage quest:
https://randomringsblog.blogspot.com/2020/11/name-change-vent.html

Last time on this 3-6 week process taking a little over 3 months:

Had to pay an arbitrary fee just to update this with the county I live in. Despite this info being directly linked to your social, this information doesn't automatically just update with all of the important things that are directly connected to your social. Even getting to this step is not clearly spelled out but the government thinks it is, so if you don't get the imaginary memo, it's on you. Every step of this was also made exponentially harder because of the virus so fuck all of your anti-masker friends and family, they fucked me in the ass. And, y'know, endangered a lot of lives and such.

The court order form they gave me to give to these important places (employer, DMV, social security administration, bank, others I probably can't immediately think of) gives you 10 days to change your driver's license. This court order comes to you in the mail so you can give it to the DMV. In my county, I didn't have the proper credentials to do this anyway because you also need a social security card. That process takes at least two weeks. So basically 7 days to do a two-week thing.

USPS and local social security office kept juggling my birth certificate and old social security card back and forth while giving me different middle fingers every time I tried to figure out where my legal identification is. During this circus act, other administrations and corporations were like "you don't have any other forms of identification? Ohhh that's weeeeeeiiirrrrrddd". FUCK YOU!!!! Anyway.

Because of the driver's license hold-out, I couldn't change my name with my bank account. I also had to make a new bank account anyway because I've had a joint account with my emotionally abusive mother for over a decade.

on with the show!

So one of my original fears was confirmed by the USPS. They wouldn't put letter from the Social Security Administration (SSA, I'm not typing that out every time) in my mailbox at my apartment building because it had my deadname on it. Okay. So I took it off entirely. That didn't fly either so I had to do the juggle and dance again to get my birth certificate and new social security card sent to me. "Duh" Shut your fucking mouth. I had lived in the apartment for 4 or 5 months by this point and since then, I have had mail for at least 5 different names either outside my mailbox but addressed to my apartment or physically inside my mailbox without my actual fucking name on it. I've had important documents sent from important places that, if taken, probably could have taken my identity or fucked me over in other thoroughly irritating ways. But nah, this stuff is what we won't give you the benefit of the doubt on. So I made my own little label on the outside (and two more on the inside, I'm not fucking joking). I go out to put them on and at some point within the past few days that I didn't check the mail, someone had already put up a new sticker saying "Ayden Iona/[deadname last name]". So, huh? Give me my social security card and birth certificate while you're at it, yeah? No? Okay.

So finally, it comes in the mail, I finally have the legal credentials to say "hey, I'm me, sluts". Now, I can use these things to get a card that says "I'm me and I still know how to drive". I had to make an appointment to show up. I showed up once all the confused people who didn't make appointments went back to their cars and other people were told to wait for their actual appointments. I go in, wait behind someone else for a bit. Give them the stuff that their website says you need for this. "Wow, that's great that it was so easy for that step" HAHAHAHAHAHAHA the woman said "aaaand you need a recent piece of mail with the new name." You. Fucking. WHY?!?!?

FORTUNATELY, I happened to have the letter from the SSA that came with my new social security card that she had on her fucking desk. "Here, motherfucker, ya need a blood sample with that? Cum in a jar?" She typed stuff for a while and then slowly printed out my new card. I was officially not a fucking technical fraud anymore. I was finally legally myself.

However! My employer is made of stupid.

So to get in the building, I have a nametag that has my login ID, first name, last name, and a barcode. The login ID is a permutation of your first and last name that you don't get to control at all. It's automatically generated for you when you're hired. "Why did you wait until now to update your job?" Because these fuckers fuck up someone's paycheck weekly without people changing their names. I wasn't risking jack shit. So after the bank account thing, which weirdly went well, I went to get my name changed in their system.

"Hey HR rep, my name is different now."
"Well, you can change your preferred name with us online."
"Nope. This is my legal name and it links to my insurance through here so you have to fix it in your system or it's legally incorrect."
"Ugghhhhhh FINE!"

It wasn't that bad but kind of close. Finally, the HR rep asks for my driver's license. This is after I show him that I already changed my "preferred name" online and that you can't change your legal name on your own. This blew his fucking mind. Not fucking sure why. He fiddles around with his computer and says "alright, go to security and they should be able to print off a new tag". You already know where this is going, right?

"No, it should update in our system in 24-48 hours."
I could hit the security people in the head with a frisbee from the HR desk. But sure. So I went home. Came back two days later to another security fucker who was just dumbfounded. He also kept pronouncing my middle name, Levi, like "levy". My last name is already a river called Iona, why the fuck would I make my name a whole-ass pun? On his end, My last name came in as my first name and my middle name was my last name. He said I had to go tell HR. Cool. Real cool.

The same HR dude is flabbergasted. He takes another stab at... reading my driver's license. In my state, the last name is listed above the first and middle name on your driver's license. Yet he asked, "how do you want your name to show up in the system again?" First off, you stupid fucking bitch, it's my legal name, not "how I want it to show up". If you don't put it in correctly and I give up on this, we're both being fraudulent. So I repeat it. I repeat it again when it was relevant and he's like "yeah, yeah, got it". Okay then why is my name in mirror mode, bitch? He does something different supposedly. He says it should be another 24-48 hours anyway but that this time, it should be good to go. Nice right (you already fucking know. just reading this oh babeeeeeyyyyy you already fucking know it's still fucked up but yeah here we go).

To all of our utmost grave dismay, my name was still flipped as it had been a fortnight prior. Heavens be tame! Security dude says, leave it here and we'll see what we can do. Come back in a few minutes. I talk to a buddy of mine for like 15 minutes and go back. The dude has this face like "why are you here?" "Where is my ID?"

"Oh, I gave it to a manager." That wasn't part of the deal, cunt!
Security chief comes in.
"Yeah, it's with some dude with a beard and a hat." This describes 90% of the managers in the building, by the way.
"A beard and a hat?" I'm not exaggerating.
"Yeah, you're [deadname], right?"
I got actively pissed. "I was!"
"Yeah, yeah, you were, yeah." I don't think his wife would approve of this unwarranted behavior and hostile attitude toward me but his wife would probably be a big fan of my behavior.

Oh, and also, nothing changed. I still have a shit ID. I immediately turn around and go to the HR desk. The normal guy isn't there so I try to explain the situation to two old ladies at the HR desk. They fucking interrupt me and go "you can't change your login ID, ever."
"Well, that sucks. Also, that's not why I came up here!" They were so deadset on shooting me down that neither of them even fucking tried to help me. They just told me to wait until the other guy that has been dealing with me came back later. There is a special place in queer hell for that fucking lady, I swear.

The guy comes back, I give him my license again. I go to the break room (because I am now dealing with this in-between shifts because it took fucking 6 days). He emails me while I'm in the breakroom and asks how I want my name to show up in the system again. I spell it out as obviously as I fucking can. He finally does it, sees me later and comes after me to make absolutely sure. He said it should be done in 24-48 hours. Again. This time it actually worked. One could theorize that he read my driver's license wrong and was too proud to make sure with me in the moment but heeyyyyyyy at least I finally have... my NAME! Also yeah, if you didn't piece it together, my deadname is still in my login ID until I quit. But it's okay because I'm angry every minute I'm working there anyway. If anything, it's a reminder not to let my guard down around management.

My mom finds out the bank account info has changed. On her end, it looks like I removed her from the account. I told her "oh, so that's what it looks like on your end. No, I yeeted that account to the nether." She acted like she didn't know what that means, like bitch, I know you spend too much time on Facebook because all those manipulative picture quotes you send me I guarantee you didn't edit yourself. A few days ago, I cut off ties with my parents. Mom claims they will still be loving me with everything they have. Dad giving me shit in the phone call and Mom cussing me out (we weren't even allowed to say "piss" in the house) leads me to believe otherwise.

To some, that might sound depressing but I claimed victory over that whole situation. I can now be more of myself than I have ever been in my entire life and it feels so relieving! There are so many other things in the world that are awful or at least discouraging but I can now face them as myself. Not someone's child, not the hereditary culmination of haphazardly passed Scottish/Irish genes; me. My own legacy is now all that matters. I can be whoever I want to be for myself and for my friends. And for whoever reads this or watches my videos, listens to my music, or joins my streams. Isn't that badass?

So, it's worth it. If you're thinking about it, try out new names at Starbucks or online or something. Because it's something you can just do. It's a battle, especially during this pandemic. I'm not going to tell you it's not stressful but it's worth it. So, no more name change updates. This is just who I am.

Now to figure out how the fuck to get rid of all this ape hair growing all over my face and body.

- Ayden Iona

Stream Plans for 2021

 Despite Twitch's constant bullshit this year, they are still going to be my preferred choice of streaming platform for 2021. This is not because I'm already snug and set up there. It's because Twitch is still the best option. That's how bad it is.

tl;dr version:
- Don't know what I'm starting the year with but my primary stream series for the year is going to be a Nuzlocke run of Pokemon Diamond Version.
- I will be streaming Sonic games in June. If you have suggestions, let me know.
- I'm going to try to play some kind of spooky game in October, probably wrapping up with Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment at the end of October.
- We might be in for a Pokemon Ultra Sun Randomizer Nuzlocke depending on how I feel about that after the Diamond one. Ultra Sun might get pushed back to 2022.
- Other games (listed at the end)

In the case that I consistently stream throughout the year and don't lose my wrists to a goblin king,
Here's what we're doing:

Pokemon Diamond Nuzlocke

I might not start out the year with this one but this is one of the things I'm looking forward to the most. I was originally going to do a blind Nuzlocke of Ultra Sun but then I started playing Ultra Sun casually. I'm almost halfway through the game. As a kid, I actually never beat Diamond so now that I have a copy of it again, it will be fun to revisit it the brutal way. I want to finish editing the Pokemon Omega Ruby Nuzlocke series for Randomrings Let's Plays before I start this though. Although I will be streaming it, I am hoping to give my Diamond run a similar treatment to that of Omega Ruby.

As far as the actual run goes, I will not be using any form of Exp. Share. Most people would argue this makes the Diamond run my first "real Nuzlocke". I might add a few more rules to spice things up. I already have a list of clauses ready for the series. My only sources of external information will probably be a type chart, Twitch chat, and what little memory I have of Diamond (not a lot).

The stream schedule for this might be more inconsistent so I can finish it the fuck up. Omega Ruby, for example, took less than two months to finish recording but I wasn't streaming that one. With 3-5 hour streams once a week, it could take a month if I'm really lucky. Given the lack of Gen 6's overpowered Exp. Share system, I imagine this will take up a bit more time. I will still at least be doing it once a week if I can but don't be surprised if I stream Diamond more than once a week.

For those who didn't watch my let's play of Omega Ruby, I'll probably be voicing a good majority of the plot's dialogue. I don't remember a single character from Diamond except for... Dawn? Get ready to hear your favorite Gen 4 NPC's like you never wanted to imagine them before!

Sonic Month in June

June 23rd is the anniversary of the first Sonic game coming out. Since I have masochistically wasted so much time on that franchise throughout my life, I must sacrifice more. Might as well have fun with it and do it live. I don't know what I will play yet but for whatever streams I do in June, it will be of Sonic stuff. Not opposed to fan games but if I can't think of any I find immediately interesting, I'll just revisit old stuff I already have. Probably.

I'm always open to viewer/fan suggestions and I'm especially interested to see what people want for this one. If it's an official game, there's a good chance I already have it on my shelf.

Halloween Month

I will play some spooky stuff if I don't get sick of streaming and quit in October. This past Halloween was fun but kind of a shit-show overall. I'm hoping to allocate most of the month to one game and then maybe play Specter of Torment again, perhaps in a different mode or something, for the last stream of October.

Stuff I might stream:

Pokemon Ultra Sun Randomizer Nuzlocke

I have never done a randomizer of anything. I'm not sure to what extent I'm going to want my first randomizer to be randomized but I'm excited to try it out. I'm going to beat Ultra Sun normally first though. If I'm feeling up to streaming two Nuzlocke runs in the same year, I will. At the same time, I don't really want to be tied to the gimmick or seen as "that bitch who does Nuzlockes while he complains about Pokemon". We'll see how I feel about it. Might push this back to 2022. We'll see.

Final Fantasy IX
Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep (PS3)
The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age
Duck Dodgers starring Daffy Duck
Pulseman
Sonic Unleashed
Indie games that I think are cool
Let's be honest: I'm probably going to stream more Downwell at some point
I think the Scrap Story prequel comes out later this year???

twitch.tv/randomrings
Get fuckin' ready

'cuz one of us has to be

OGIGACA 2020 Revisited

 It's that time of year again where I talk about the small handful of games that released in 2020 that I actually gave enough of a crap about to try. Fair warning, I do mean a small handful.

Here are the games we're talking about so you don't have to scroll down to see if I touched on one or not:

Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Cyberpunk 2077
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary (Master Chief Collection)
Super Mario 3D All-Stars

I said "small handful".

ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS (Switch)
Verdict: Lost my interest after about 4 months but still pretty great

I already briefly talked about this one earlier this year but I guess I can just briefly talk about it again. Animal Crossing is a series where you live in a little town with a bunch of giant-headed animal neighbors. You get money to get stuff then sell other stuff to get more stuff, finding more ways to get money and pay off your home loan. Your home loan turns into home upgrades until the game runs out of ways to upgrade your house, then I guess by that point you have "beaten" Animal Crossing. New Horizons works a little differently than previous installments and it's part of what makes it great and slightly refreshing for people like me who have been in a vicious cycle with this series for roughly 20 years. New Horizons puts you on a previously uncharted island with Tom Nook, his nephews, and two other randomly selected villagers. Now there's a crafting system, which usually makes me groan immediately. This game actually pulled it off because now if you break your shovel at 2am, you can just grab resources to make a new one instead of waiting until the store opens the next day. Or time-traveling. The crafting system relies on recipe cards you get either randomly or from doing various tasks, some of which give you different specific random recipes. Different seasonal events spice this system up along with DIY recipes you can only get during that specific time. A soft issue I had with every main Animal Crossing game before New Horizons was that once you drain your town of resources, you kind of can't do jack until the next day. New Horizons has randomly generated islands you can fly off to. They cost a specific form of in-game currency to get to but now you can do the monotonous chores you do in your hometown to your heart's content! Everything else about the game is more or less the same just with a way more accessible character customizer. Almost everything is just streamlined to work with the game's new island theme. I am really struggling to think of an example where this new system objectively makes anything worse. As I said above, I lost interest in this game. I have played it maybe three times in the past four months and I was starting to fall out of it pretty hard the 3rd month I played it. The first month is also noticeably slow. I think this is just because I've been playing this game since the Gamecube version, played way too much of New Leaf, and refuse to pay one cent for Switch Online. If you already give into Nintendo's corporate garbo and/or have people in your house to play the game with then this game is probably the game that keeps on giving and won't take you nearly as long to progress as it did for me. Otherwise; meh. It's great and all but it's still just Animal Crossing. I would argue it's probably the best one but it's still Animal Crossing. Also, with all of the updates they've been giving it to avoid spoiling everything for players who haven't gotten to a certain season or month of the game yet, I'm not really sure how well this game is going to age. They say they're still going to be doing some sort of update in 2021 but I can't imagine this going on for much longer than that, nor do I think I really care if it does or not. When the Switch hits the same dirt that the 3DS recently did, is New Horizons still going to hold the same weight and be the experience everyone praises it for today? I guess time will tell. If you want some cute animal time and some weirdly satisfying, grindy bullshit to soothe you during the good old pandemic, you can do a lot worse than Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

CYBERPUNK 2077 (PC)
Verdict: my full experience with Cyberpunk 2020 and I never tried again

Go back to sleep, Samurai. It's not December 10th yet!
                                              - John Ghostcock
                                                   December 10, 2020

HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED ANNIVERSARY (MASTER CHIEF COLLECTION - PC)
Verdict: alright

I bought the Master Chief Collection. The games included released in a set sequence, most of which landing this year. I still haven't played most of them. I did fuck around with Halo 1 though. It's fine. The graphical updates are kind of nice. I particularly like that they don't take away with the old Xbox charm of what the game originally looked like but still look polished. It has been a long time since I have played the original Halo so I can't speak to too many blatant improvements that an actual fan might notice right away. Halo 1 and 2 were the ones I played the most as a kid so, with that minor authority, I would say that this version holds up pretty solid. I can't think of anything mind-numbingly annoying. Halo 2, I still haven't played the new version of but in a general sense, that is one of my favorite first-person shooters ever. That's mostly because I don't really like first-person shooters but I digress. I say this just to let people know I'm really out of my element talking about this one but if you want to experience Halo for the first time, The Master Chief Collection is the way to go, especially if you can get it on sale.

SUPER MARIO 3D ALL-STARS yeah, I know, fuck Nintendo (Switch)
Verdict: well...
Super Mario 64: definitely an emulator for Super Mario 64
Super Mario Sunshine: they patched it but still kind of just the Dolphin emulator
Super Mario Galaxy: a kind of fucking stupid emulator for Super Mario Galaxy, the original is better
Super Mario Galaxy 2: what's that?

Okay so fuck Nintendo for the business decisions made here. I already pre-ordered it before I realized the full gravity of the situation. But I also knew that buying Super Mario Sunshine physically otherwise would cost way more than this licensed pack of emulators. So let me start off by saying this: you are better off getting the original version of all three of these games. But if you can't afford to do that because finding physical copies of Sunshine and Galaxy isn't super cheap these days, maybe you'll get this digitally before Nintendo kills it off. Did I mention fuck Nintendo? Whether or not it's generally worth it to play these versions at all depends on the version and if you are experiencing these for the first time or not.

Super Mario 64

This is probably the best one because it's kind of hard to fuck up. Despite lazily sliding emulators onto a 3DS cartridge, they still went out of their way to take out some stuff from all of these games. In the case of Super Mario 64, this will probably only matter if you're a speedrunner. Casually speaking, this port is fine. It's not worth the price of admission but if you're going to get this compilation bullshit with actual money for some odd reason, this is a welcome part of the package. Alternatively, I don't think an original 64 cartridge is that expensive but I understand not everyone has a TV or hookups to play that shit anymore. This game can also be downloaded on Wii and Wii U as well as the DS remake on Wii U. Or fuck Nintendo and just pirate it, it's probably not even half a gig.

Super Mario Sunshine

This was the most fucked up emulator in the bunch but I have been informed that they got rid of one really stupid decision that I'm still baffled about even after it's been fixed. So this is a Gamecube game ported to a system that supports a USB adapter that lets you use your dusty Gamecube controller on it. They purposefully locked off use of USB controllers for Super Mario 3D All-Stars because Nintendo isn't about joy anymore. Again, I've been told that now you can use a Gamecube controller on it. Most of the issues with the emulator with that instilled are essentially what you would expect from any given Gamecube game played on your PC with legally gray methods. This was the main thing that made me want this in the first place because I had never really played Super Mario Sunshine for more than a couple of minutes as a child. I never had my own copy and the original version is a bit more expensive than it was just a year or two ago. One day, I might honestly make some Switch collector's day and sell them this shit for like $20-30 and use that money to get an old crusty Gamecube disc.

Super Mario Galaxy

I fucking love me some Galaxy. But not on Switch! The Wiimote shake is now almost completely exchanged with a button press which is nice. Under circumstances out of Nintendo's hands, this is the version of the game that will lead me one step lesser to the ledge of carpal tunnel, of which I teeter back and forth on. Not so fast though! You don't need a sensor bar for this version either but you still need a little cursor to do stuff, which is just the invisible mid-point of the controller's shoulder-button-gooch. Whether or not this is better I guess is up for debate. I personally think a lot of the issues I find with this port are like the ones in Sunshine where it's just because it's an emulator. Little rare frame drops and Mario freaking out on ledges and crevices. I do feel though that as annoying as a lot of the mini-game-ish missions are in Galaxy, none of them are particularly improved by being on Switch. The cursor awkwardness might be fixed for some by pointing the Joy-Con like a Wiimote but I tried it for a few seconds and fucking hated it. The best way to experience this game is absolutely in its original version or perhaps the Wii U version, I never tried that. On its own, perhaps fine but I still don't think either one of these three games is worth the $60 Nintendo squeezed out of so many kids/kids' parents. If you really want a legal backup to pirate the better versions of these games, then I guess this here is a license to do so but the original versions are simply better ways to experience these games. I would even argue Super Mario 64 DS is a better way to experience Super Mario 64 but the rest of the internet would mostly say "no".

All-in-all, fuck 3D All-Stars and fuck Nintendo. But also I'm keeping them in case I want to stream Sunshine again. What a racket though.

Shoving Music Down Your Throat (2020 Edition)

 Here's more music that I recommend you listen to. I really wore these out this year, being trapped inside, cowering from neighboring idiots potentially spreading a deadly disease. 

To be clear: this is NOT a list of stuff released in 2020 (although some of it is). These are albums (and an EP) I found in 2020. Coincidentally, it can all be listened to on Spotify so I will be providing links so you can indulge in my musical insanity as well.

This is a playlist I made for this blog. It contains one song from each album. Don't look at it as a "best of" or anything like that. It's more just to get a taste of what's going on with each album and seeing if anything slaps you in the face like it did for me.
spotify:playlist:2JWBJbVZsOdXEHGUZHVgzN
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2JWBJbVZsOdXEHGUZHVgzN?si=aB19z_RbSoGTcTaHGmgkqw

Ghost in the Machine by The Police [1981]
genre: new wave, reggae rock

I know, I picked the year where we are all screaming ACAB to start getting into this band. "The Police" is a pretty popular group with a lot of hits under their belt. Ghost in the Machine is probably my favorite album by them, tied with Synchronicity, which is the one that most people cite as the band's best album. They didn't pick a bad one though. Speaking of hits, although nobody talks about Ghost in the Machine, you have probably heard "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic". You may have also heard "Spirits in the Material World", "Secret Journey", or "Invisible Sun", especially if you were listening to the radio in 1981. I was not, and most people within a 3-year range of my age only know "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic". Anyway. This album feels a lot more "brooding" than their previous albums, for lack of a better term. "Message in a Bottle", "Next to You", "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da", and "Don't Stand So Close to Me" are what people are most used to "The Police" sounding like. This is fair since I just listed off four of their most famous songs to date. This is when they were much more reggae rock than new wave. Ghost in the Machine sounds kind of like this transitional period and I really like the result. I personally think that Synchronicity works better as an experience. On the other hand, the "I'm really enjoying this" to "meh" ratio leans heavier toward "I'm really enjoying this" for most of the songs that are on Ghost in the Machine than that of Synchronicity. Neither album is perfect. No album is. I think "Hungry For You" is just okay. I feel like "Demolition Man" is too fucking long for what takes place on that recording. Adversely, there is a lot of cool shit on here that blows the early 80s out of the water, if only mainstream rock from the early 80s that is worth listening to sober. Also, much saxophone is present in the latter half of this album. I'm picky with what I put on shuffle but I am a simple man when it comes to saxophones in rock music.

Synchronicity was on this list too but I decided to keep it one album per artist/group. The 2018 list had a bajillion Dir En Grey recommendations and this one already recommends the entire discography of Bloc Party, featured below. So If you're going to dip your toe into "The Police", I say their last two albums are the best. I have listened to all 5 a few times each now and their last three albums are worth a spin. Despite the existence of "Message in a Bottle", the first two albums are pretty hit-and-miss.

such saxophone:
spotify:album:5jkwdY6jS1Hzi8epr6HW7h
https://open.spotify.com/album/5jkwdY6jS1Hzi8epr6HW7h?si=sXcmov9VTxmfoSW3DvR6cg

Mr. Bungle by Mr. Bungle [1991]
genre: experimental rock, avant-garde metal

Mr. Bungle is the old band that Mike Patton made. He's the nasal cartoon character that sang "Epic". Around that time, this thing came out that sounds nothing like that. I like really weird music. It doesn't have to be that "weird" because that definition is going to be skewed by everyone's personal experience and what they've heard. What's more important than weirdness to me is a tonal variety or complete disregard for genre. Mr. Bungle is one of the prime embodiments of both or at least one of the most popular examples. This was their first album. Since they have been coming out with new stuff this year (the last album came out in the late 90s), I guess now is a good time to check them out??? Personally, I don't think this is the best Mr. Bungle album. Disco Volante and California have more variety and I think they are more interesting to listen to from front-to-back. The debut album is a really good introduction to what Mr. Bungle embodies for those unfamiliar with them who are also in the mood to give them an hour-long chance. It's dirty, foul, explicit, and silly, all on purpose. There are some catchy moments to be sure. Not many pretty ones, which is why I really recommend Disco Volante and California over those if you're in the mood for some weirdo rock shit. But this is the one I hadn't tried until 2020 for whatever reason. This is more "clown rock" than the others. The opening track is called "Quote Unquote", which I added to this year's playlist. If you aren't sure what I mean by "clown rock", you will have a very good idea after listening to "Quote Unquote".

spotify:album:5TzQq2irJPHeHNnh11atPw
https://open.spotify.com/album/5TzQq2irJPHeHNnh11atPw?si=y4BlTXXCQpWp6yX2hHtbCQ

Awake by Dream Theater [1991]
genre: prog rock, prog metal

There are a lot of bands that have a lot of cheesy ass music. Since they have one or a handful of great or "fast" musicians in their band, they get a pass. If you say they are shit, people will make fun of you. And yet, I feel like nobody's talking about Dream Theater anymore despite being founded by Berklee graduates and playing plenty of cheesy dad-friendly bangers. James LaBrie's vocals almost always leave something to be desired and most of the lyrics are corny. This is not exclusive to Awake. However, if one of the main reasons you don't like Dream Theater is because of the vocals and/or lyrics, I recommend giving Awake a shot. This is one of the earlier albums before extreme food poisoning shredded James LaBrie's voice and was also the last album they created with their old keyboardist. A lot of the album has a more melancholy vibe that actually lyrically ties to their real-life relationship with the keyboardist. The last track "Space-Dye Vest" has this real Syd Barret vibe to it by Dream Theater standards and it was the last track that Sherinian had writing credits on. It is melancholy as fuck. There are silly moments for sure but this is probably the angriest and heaviest album from Dream Theater that doesn't try too hard to go there and fucking fail (like Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, yeah I listen to this band too often). Normally, I don't recommend Dream Theater to too many people. However, people only really seem to talk about the first album if they talk about this band at all in casual conversation. Now that I have finally gotten around to Awake, I truly don't understand why this one is left out of said conversation.

spotify:album:4jP59Kwqvy3n09eUe1Cge7
https://open.spotify.com/album/4jP59Kwqvy3n09eUe1Cge7?si=CTYqc-RYSeSld0Xz5K9BOQ

Intimacy by Bloc Party [2008]
genre: indie rock

This year, I actually started listening to Bloc Party and fuck me, do I like Bloc Party. Intimacy is my favorite if I had to pick one but now that I've listened to all of their studio albums, I can attest that you can't really go wrong. Unless you only like indie rock that sounds like rock music or you hate "fake" music. If that's the case, skip Hymns. Otherwise, close your eyes and pick an album. But if you don't know where to start, I highly recommend Intimacy. This one has a lot of creative ideas in it that put it beyond most indie rock I've heard from around the same time period without going so far from the genre that it becomes something else entirely. Kele Okereke's voice is very dynamic. For a lot of people, I think his voice might take some getting used to because it is very unique and sounds pretty yelly or closed-throat...y? He is one of the few rock vocalists I have heard that makes up for some of that pitchiness with raw emotion. Really, all of Bloc Party's albums showcase this quality that I like about them though. It's worth noting that I usually don't like typical indie rock, so don't be thrown off by the genre. This is worth the risk. Probably. I hope you don't fucking hate it, anyway.

If you listen to all of their stuff and get kinda sad that the discography is over like I did, most of Kele Okereke's solo stuff is also on Spotify. To be honest, a lot of it sounds like Hymns. But more singer-songwritery. Again, don't let that genre label fool you.

have fun joining me in listening to too much Bloc Party:
spotify:album:0ZdR2zjN6X6Wvffw8l87yl
https://open.spotify.com/album/0ZdR2zjN6X6Wvffw8l87yl?si=6ni7o3nkT8-4Zs97BhP1zw

Wolf's Law by The Joy Formidable [2013]
genre: alt-rock

This is really cool indie rock from Wales. I heard of The Joy Formidable forever ago because they were touring with Foo Fighters. To be clear: I don't give a fuck about Foo Fighters but I was hoping for something within that kind of genre that might be more interesting than them. I finally found one. I then saw music videos by them on public access when I lived with my parents. I guess this was before Wolf's Law came out. This is their second album and good lord is it fucking fun. It's a cool album with that harder indie rock flare that never gets unnecessarily wracky. The psychedelic parts are less noisy than on the first album. That might sound bad but the first album had a few parts that were pretty much rock concert song outros without the dad-rock shreddies. I don't know what's up with Wolf's Law conceptually but it all feels like it really goes together well. It can also be conveniently shuffled in with other stuff, though I think the best way to experience this one is front-to-back. The lead singer has a good voice and is a good guitarist. What does that even mean? Go listen for yourself, I have other music to force onto you. I don't have all day to text out the audible qualities of The Joy Formidable.

spotify:album:3fn4TpavfAcdnAg4ZNpA3c
https://open.spotify.com/album/3fn4TpavfAcdnAg4ZNpA3c?si=nYFtjMWTQaehvIdD6ri_SQ

The Mountain by Haken [2013]
genre: prog metal

This is one of those progressive metal bands to come out of the past 15 years that certainly has extended range guitars and slaps different time signatures into pretty much every song. Unlike most of those bands, they aren't screamy. They also aren't super shreddy either. Most prog metal bands are either kind of cheesy in that regard or they are almost diving into psychedelic territory. Haken is delightfully in between, most of their stuff being decidedly melodic. Their biggest hit seems to be a song about uh... conversing with a giant cockroach, I think? That's on The Mountain. I haven't really researched this but there seems to be an overlying story told by the entire album. A lot of recycled motifs are used. Most of them are pretty tasteful. The chorus melody from "Somebody" is arguably used too often. Don't get me wrong, it's a good one but fuck me do they repeat it a lot during that song on its own and then reprise it later in the album. From front to back, the album is a great listen though. Is it their best? I dunno. It's just the one that got me into them and I still really like it. I also listened to two albums after this one; Affinity and their new album coincidentally titled Virus. Don't worry, they released Virus in July and it doesn't sound like they threw it together to be like "hey, COVID lul". That one's supposed to be in the same conceptual universe as Vector, which I haven't listened to yet so yeah; not an album inspired by the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Anyway, The Mountain. It feels like listening to the plot of a cool fantasy movie, even though I have no idea what the album's about. For those who aren't a fan of the super heavy shit, it really doesn't feel like a heavy metal album for the most part. It never gets crazy "noisy" and is only occasionally dissonant so if you're not super into metal, you might still like The Mountain.

spotify:album:3RBULTZJ97bvVzZLpxcB0j
https://open.spotify.com/album/3RBULTZJ97bvVzZLpxcB0j?si=PsDrOvs5QriF1dpk4aWBow

To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar [2015]
genre: jazz rap

Remember all that cop stuff and how "unnhghhh 2020 was such a bad year"? Yeah, it was but the world wasn't that much better before the 2016 election. Case in point, Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly is a poetic, conceptual parallel to the terrible shit you heard about in 2020 and it was released in 2015. Even then, the album clearly illustrates that police brutality and systemic racism have been happening for a long time, we just noticed more in 2015, then subsequently not again until 2020. But it's not just a sermon. To Pimp a Butterfly has a lot of really cool jazz influence while still maintaining an accessible hip-hop feel. This is already a pretty acclaimed album, I'm just really late on this one. As such, I won't say a whole lot about it other than "listen to it". It has been a long time since an album hypnotized me and just took my undivided attention, making me gasp, giggle, and squirm at my PC while listening to it. I've listened to a lot of stuff. This one really got me and I still like all the songs on it individually too. Big recommendation, here.

spotify:album:7ycBtnsMtyVbbwTfJwRjSP
https://open.spotify.com/album/7ycBtnsMtyVbbwTfJwRjSP?si=Vu61FBMIQ1SC-5OdrGWCoQ

誰のせい by sajou no hana [2019]
[Dare no Sei roughly translates to "Who's Fault"]
genre: j-pop I guess

Not much to say about Dare no Sei other than "it good". sajou no hana is the band that made the Mob Psycho themes, they just aren't credited as sajou no hana for whatever fucking reason. In any case, if you like Mob Psycho's intro and outro music and wonder why there isn't more of that shit, there is! They have 4 whole songs on Spotify right now! They're all great! But between this EP and the other one, this one has my favorite song on it. The first one. I don't know my Japanese as much as I would like to.

spotify:album:4D2yss0tMnzkWW2IIf7LpF
https://open.spotify.com/album/4D2yss0tMnzkWW2IIf7LpF?si=bPa5aC5HSzaYGgedsnU4WA

3.15.20 by Childish Gambino [2020]
genre: alternative hip-hop, alternative R&B

Childish Gambino has been a big deal for me since because the internet was fairly new. This, in hindsight, makes me feel fucking old. I didn't expect Childish Gambino to come back to that level in terms of albums that hit me that hard and make me think about how I make my own music. 3.15.20 did it. This album barely fits into a genre and that's why I like it. It takes more hip-hop inspiration than anything else I can point a finger at but there is so much more to it than that. Telling people that this is a hip-hop album feels lazy to me. However, I think one thing that a lot of people like about Childish Gambino is that there is a lot of instrumental variety and a lot of "real" instruments. This one has a lot more synths and heavy pitch correction techniques. I fucking love it but people who have a probably unhealthy obsession with Camp over the rest of this guy's discography will probably be a little miffed. Most of the instruments still sound very different from each other across the album's songs and there is a lot of cool guitar sounds throughout the whole album. The guitars just aren't as wracky and present as they were on culdesac, which in my opinion is an upgrade. Most of the lyrics tell a more broad story together about sheer existence rather than having a lot of songs about fucking girls, though there are still one or two of those too. He pulled this off without the album sounding comparatively disingenuine. The only "downside" that's probably universal to most people that will listen to this is the fact that all of the songs are timecodes for when they appear in the album's overall runtime with the exception of "Algorhythm" and "Time". The album is better-experienced front-to-back anyway, it's just going to be harder to show people songs from the album in an attempt to get them into it and slowly form a hivemind of armed soldiers that have similar music tastes to yours. Two of my favorite bands are The GazettE and The Mars Volta (a Japanese metal band and a prog-rock band primarily led by two delightful weirdos with heavy Hispanic influence). I'm used to loving a lot of songs with titles that look like gibberish to the average American so this doesn't bother me. It's just something interesting about the album that you'll have to get used to once you realize you love it too.

spotify:album:600ClrWRsAr7jZ0qjaBLHz
https://open.spotify.com/album/600ClrWRsAr7jZ0qjaBLHz?si=24noEqEWQwODA4xyZYU7TA

Palimpsest by Protest the Hero [2020]
genre: progressive metal

Protest the Hero is one of my favorite bands ever. I have been listening to their music at least a song a week since 2011. I pre-ordered Palimpsest before the virus hit. I also ordered a shirt to match, which is something I rarely do for music releases. All of Protest the Hero's albums usually have some kind of concept or at least an overlying theme to them. Palimpsest has a particularly interesting concept because they went from telling stories about aliens, killing gods, and apocalyptic tales to American history. They're Canadian. It's a very interesting and honestly heart-wrenching portrayal of various American staples from native genocide to women's suffrage. The album ends essentially in present day, making direct jabs to the Trump administration and the people who directly supported it. They even had the balls to use his dumbass campaign slogan as the last song's chorus, making it the only song by them I turn down or completely turn off if I think people near my car can hear it because I don't want to give them the wrong idea. Although there are silly moments and such on the album, Rody Walker, the vocalist, took the concept very seriously while reciting historical stories that weren't directly his own. Honestly, a lot of the songs' stories I don't immediately recognize which might just speak for the album's timely importance. I know, that's giving a lot of credit to a fucking metal album where you can't understand half of what the fucker is saying upon first listen anyway. I genuinely feel that Rody did that good of a job with this hot potato of an album concept though. Musically, Palimpsest is probably the most straightforward and accessible album in terms of overall composition to date. The main thing that separates Palimpsest from their previous works is the consistent use of symphonic instruments. Most symphonic metal sounds cheesy but this album still feels like a metal album, just with really good orchestration mixed in. It really doesn't feel gimmicky at all. It also isn't a huge step out from their previous shit where they have had synthetic orchestral instruments used anyway. One thing that did take me a while to get used to is Rody Walker's voice on this album. His voice took a turn for the worst after they released Pacific Myth a few years prior. Upon writing this new album, Rody had to get with a professional vocal coach to make sure he was healthily up to snuff for what the band was making. You would think that this is the album where they finally take a break from Rody hitting really high notes every fucking 20 seconds but no. The shit he does on this album is even higher. There's even a song where he might as well be rapping in that register. It does sound different and a bit goofy at times but the more I listened to it, the more it honestly became kind of endearing in a way. He mostly uses it to convey a thematic dynamic anyway. He can still hit those notes in falsetto and chooses not to when it fits the song to go full head voice. That said, this album isn't going to be for everyone. I've shown it to one or two people that don't really go for all that screamy mumbo-jumbo and they actually didn't hate this so maybe that means something? It's substantially more melodic than what the average modern prog-metal album sounds like and this one doesn't usually stray too far from 4/4 or 3/4 time signatures. Have fun listening to this with your aunt. Be prepared though; they might just become more fucking metal than you. You little fucking baby.

spotify:album:6eIp2v5MyeY38ul4k0nGnS
https://open.spotify.com/album/6eIp2v5MyeY38ul4k0nGnS?si=PNm8MSd4TPSEumCoi9J_wg

Honorable mentions:

Mares Profundos by Baden Powell [1966, 2008 re-release on Spotify]
Songs From the Big Chair by Tears For Fears [1985]
Fatherland by Kele Okereke [2017]
NINTH by The GazettE [2018]
Tales by Charles Cornell [2019]