The one that sticks out the most in my mind is the song “Cold Contagious” by Bush. I mentioned this whole mess in the Special Place in My Heart – Myst post a good while back — it was 1996 and both Myst: The Book of Ti’ana and Bush’s Razorblade Suitcase were released. My Dad would go into the office he worked in on the weekends to get some stuff done and if I wasn’t sitting around looking at Sailor Moon and Gundam Wing pictures on the internet, I was back in the room of empty cubicles. I remember using my coat as a pillow and curling up on the desk of a cubicle in the back corner with The Book of Ti’ana in my face and Razorblade Suitcase playing on my headphones which of course, were connected to my portable cd player (so fancy!). I occasionally associate the whole album with the book, but “Cold Contagious” always really stood out because it had a certain sound and a certain feel. In the most basic of terms regarding the plot (it is very twisty and complicated but I will try to keep it simple and vague, in case you ever read it): there is a giant society and a giant city and in a turn of events (backstabbing, betraying, she’s so different we’re supposed to be a secret get her out, etc.) this giant city falls and it falls hard. So “Cold Contagious” always brings me straight to that nest I made on the desk and under the cabinets of that cubicle and straight to the fall of a city full of people who could write other worlds. I could be driving, I could be at work, I could be at my sewing machine – but if that song comes on, that’s where my mind goes every single time.

There are a number of David Bowie songs – and this is totally understandable since it was a whole Bowie thing – that remind me of Worlds Chat, which was a 3-D chat program where you picked an avatar and wandered around different areas, chatting to people if you wanted. I would never really chat with anyone. I would make my 3-D avatar as deliciously gothy as I could and meander around all the different areas. There was a cabin or something, and a garden maze type place – but obviously the best section was the David Bowie section. In 1998, David Bowie created Bowienet, which was an Internet Service Provider. It had its own forums, email and so on – it also gave members early access to new Bowie stuff. My Mom is a HUGE David Bowie fan and jumped on this right away. Worlds was included in this whole shebang, which was why they had a whole Bowie area – for all the Bowie fans to congregate and chat. There was a club, a weird intersection in a city, and a few other locations in this section and each one had a different David Bowie song playing. So if I have my library on repeat and the shuffle function decides to stop on songs like, “Subterraneans” & “Weeping Wall” from Bowie’s Low album, I will instantly think back to my tall, goth, fierce (and kind of blocky) babe and wandering around exploring the corners where other chatters didn’t bother to tread. I feel like I want to write a bigger post on this whole thing one day…

Sometime right around the end of the 90’s I was with my Dad for the weekend and we were helping some friends move. The daughter in the family, Jessica, was out of town for a bit so I stayed in her room in the new house the weekend we were there. A few days before all of this – bum, bum, BUM! — I had found a script to The Lost Boys 2 online. I can’t remember if it was supposedly “legit” or fanmade or what (since there were ALWAYS rumors about a Lost Boys 2 until it appeared in 2008). But I printed that whole beast out and stayed up well into the morning reading the whole thing. Which is embarrassing because it was pretty bad. I kept thinking, “THIS WILL GET AWESOME SOON.” Unfortunately, I had “Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away)” from the 1998 Deftones album Around the Fur on repeat just about the whole time I was reading this thing. I mean, fortunately, it was the Deftones, and Around the Fur is still a favorite album of mine – but unfortunately, that song now transports back to Jessica’s bedroom (I can still picture it pretty empty except for the bed and a vanity with a mirror cause they were still moving stuff in– BUT THAT SCRIPT I CAN’T–), with my headphones on, talking to the script about how it could be better. My “edits” were probably just as bad. The most vivid thing I can think of though, was the fact that the vanity was right across the room from the bed so as I sat and read, I would look up occasionally, at my reflection and shake my head a la Jim Halpert like, “Can you believe this shit?”

Two things that certainly don’t go together are Spyro: Year of the Dragon and Vapor Transmission by Orgy. But in October of the year 2000, they both came out. I had also just had my wisdom teeth taken out. So not only, do some of the songs on Vapor Transmission make me suddenly feel like I’m sitting on the couch running around as a purple dragon, but they remind me of sitting on the couch, completely out of it on pain medication, running around as a purple dragon. I would turn Spyro down and play Orgy instead. Did Year of the Dragon even have sound? Was Jay Gordon’s voice there? I don’t know because pain medication.

In 2001, I had discovered Adema and their first, self-titled album. I had also discovered the Twisted Metal series with the always entertaining Twisted Metal: Black that had come out the same year. My sister and I would stay up until 4 a.m. on weekends playing TM:B and we loved every minute of it, even if we were both just riding around one of the stages yelling at people and hitting them – we would especially go after the ones on scooters. I have no idea why. If we weren’t playing TM:B then I was puttering around with Adema’s album on – walking to the bus stop, writing, sitting on the computer – always Adema. They always tried to avoid the nu-metal label, which was popular and thrown around a lot at the beginning of the century, I always considered them some sort of rock – but hey, I was a fan of some nu-metal. As long as it wasn’t screaming the whole time and I could groove to it, I was good. Whatever Adema was, I was in love with that self-titled album. Since I was eating that and TM:B up every free moment of my life, it’s obvious I would put the two together now, but there was another underlying reason, I think. The Adema album had its share of angry songs (which I still love to this day – “Freaking Out” is still a go-to song for me and my husband to put on and scream along with ahahhahahahhhah) and Twisted Metal: Black was a very angry and dark game. And I was all about that. I had never played any of the Twisted Metal games before so I had nothing to go off of regarding gameplay, stories, and characters. I just remember starting the storyline with my sister watching, picking Raven as the first story to play through, and demolition derby-ing every other vehicle in my way. We ended up playing through the story mode as every single character to see their storylines. Some were satisfying, like Raven’s, others made us want to rip our hair out and sob… Agent Stone’s timeloop? NOOOOOO. Basically, I can’t hear any song from this album without heading back to Midtown and the residents (and drivers) of Blackfield Asylum.

For some reason — I have no idea how the hell this happened — it just happened to be the right timeframe and place. I got a little tired of listening to the… noise? Music? I can’t even remember — in Yoda Stories. I started listening to the recently (at that time) released self-titled Third Eye Blind album. That’s all I remember about this. Singing along to Third Eye Blind and wandering around with my favorite Star Wars characters. THIRD EYE BLIND = YODA STORIES FOREVER TO ME NOW. I DON’T KNOW.

These are only some of the instances where this happens to me and it happens all the time because if I can manage where ever I am, I will be listening to music. Do you have any songs that bring you back to a book, comic, game, movie, etc.? Let me know on Twitter — I love hearing people’s stories about this kind of stuff, hehe.

MILD FALLOUT 4 SPOILERS!!! (They’re from the beginning of the game. I wanted to mark them though, just in case.)

So the one year anniversary of Fallout 4′s release date is coming up soon – coincidentally so is my one year wedding anniversary. I got married to Nate, the other half of zhobot.net, on October 31st of 2015 and during our honeymoon, Fallout 4 was released.

I had been waiting for the announcement of Fallout 4 for so long, with every hoax concerning it breaking my heart a little more, and when it was finally officially announced in the summer of 2015 (with a release date of ONLY MERE MONTHS LATER) – I, of course, flipped the hell out. Nate asked repeatedly if we should change the dates of our honeymoon so that I could be home to play the day it was released. We had already booked just about everything so as much as I wanted Fallout 4, I knew it would be waiting for me when we got home – plus changing all that shit would’ve been a hassle/added fees/etc. so a few extra days of waiting would be okay since I had already been waiting however long.

Anyways, while we were in California (this is where we honeymooned – I had never been and he had only been a couple of times for short business trips), we saw Fallout 4 billboards constantly and it just served to get me hyped That Much More. Then we got home AND THERE THE BOX WAS, WAITING.

The main idea behind this post though: I read a number of reviews that said it was kind of questionable and/or odd that we were supposed to care about the spouse of our character, who we watch get killed in the first few minutes of the game. Sure, there’s some cute banter between them at the start, yadda yadda, but whatever, right?

I can safely say that I was just about mortified watching what played out in Vault 111. That might have been different if it had been released any other time.

I’m not gonna get into any ~teh power of luv~ and shit on that level, but I had just returned from my honeymoon, which had followed a wedding where I married I dude who I felt something for that I had never felt in my life. I don’t know where I’d be mentally, physically or emotionally if I had never met Nate and to watch my player character – who I named Heather – wake up from cryosleep to helplessly watch her son get kidnapped and her husband (who is named Nate by default) get shot – PARDON MY LANGUAGE: but it fucked me up a little. It also happened near Halloween (which was mentioned in their cute banter before Shit Went Down), which – like I said above – was the day we got married. MY FEELINGS.

So I totally understand why people say that being able to care for your character’s spouse in such a short period of time before they’re killed might not work that well, but Fallout 4 came out just at the right time in my life for me to really care and for that part to rip out my heart and shred it to bits while it cackled the whole time.

Plus, when your player character wakes up, you can open the cryopod your spouse is in and get their wedding ring (I kept both of them in my inventory the whole time – they are both still there and Heather is still wearing hers). And you can visit Vault 111 whenever you want and still see their body. In fact, companions will comment on it when they’re with you and you go to the cryopod.

Nick Valentine’s “Now that’s not… oh. Oh, I’m so sorry.” RUINS ME EVERY SINGLE DAMN TIME.

And to rub it all in, Nate said if he got killed in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, he would be fine with me and Nick Valentine being a thing.

BUT I STILL. CAN’T. ROMANCE. NICK VALENTINE.

FALLOUT 4, PLEASE? I NEED NICK VALENTINE.

So in closing, Fallout 4 gives me feels and that is why. There we go, that felt good to ramble about, haha.

(P.S. I would love to go to Nuka World for real. Well, pre… everything.)

SURGE legitimately used to be my lifeblood. I don’t know how I survived because for a while that was most likely 80% of my intake. My mom cut back on buying it after how ridiculous she would always watch me get after drinking it but when I went to visit my dad every other weekend he didn’t care. And by he didn’t care I mean, he knew how to tune me out when I started bouncing off the walls. This was middle school if I recall correctly, so I was old enough not to hurt myself while not being supervised, but I wasn’t old enough to shut my sugar-filled mouth.

When I was with my dad for the weekend we’d usually stop by 7-11 or a similar place and I’d get a 20 oz. SURGE and a roll of SweeTarts. Don’t ask me what I was thinking here because the tartness of both of those things combined was some kind of fucked up but for some reason that was my jam. Occasionally it would be Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups instead, but it was usually the SweeTarts.

What did I do with the energy I built up from this magical combination? I learned HTML and built websites (which is a whole ‘nother post altogether). So at least I was doing something useful with my time and energy, I guess.

Another drink I was particularly fond of was any of the Snapple Element drinks (except for one or two that I completely ignored because the flavors were blech and I only wanted the bottle). Do you remember those fabulous things and those fabulous bottles? Look at the logo and images! The flavor names! I had to have them all. A couple of friends of mine and I collected almost all of them and you can see part of our collection in that photo of an old photograph (photoception since there’s a photo in the photo of the photo). I don’t remember what actually happened to said collection of bottles though. I think they got recycled.

Frozen SURGE was delicious and made me want SURGE again. It was recently brought back thanks to a determined, persistent and awesome Facebook page and as you can see above, I grabbed a roll of SweeTarts at the store and had those and a SURGE while playing Fallout 4. It was just as overly-saccharine and magical as I remember. (WHAT WAS I THINKING BACK THEN?) Maybe it’ll give me enough energy to start up web design again? Who knows.

(If you had a spiritual I.V. of SURGE like I did and want to experience it again, you can order cans of it off of Amazon! It’s actually better than I remember and doesn’t drive me as batshit as it used to. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing. I really would LOVE all that energy I used to get from it.

When I ordered them, the case was $14. If the price looks ridiculous now then waiting a bit should hopefully help that out!)

Are there any sugar-filled goodies that made up pretty much all of your diet during your formative years?

This post was going to be all thought out and setup and ordered perfectly when I realized I was putting it off for so long because I can’t make it neat. I can’t put it in order. Just like the thing the post is about, it has to go and mess everything I had/have planned up. It’s about the big D. No, not that big D – get your mind out of the gutter. 

Depression.

It’s about my personal depression (my big D, hahahaha okay I’m done). Stuff that affects me, stuff that happens to me, all those fun things– maybe one day someone will come along, read this mess and see that the weird way they’re feeling or the weird thing their mind is doing isn’t their fault. If this ever helps even one person not feel alone then I’ve accomplished something.

A couple of years ago I found myself doing a lot of things that I hadn’t done in the past. I would go into one of the bathroom stalls at work and cry for no apparent reason, I would stop doing things I usually enjoyed doing, I would stare at the ceiling at night thinking about how everyone I knew – family, friends, pets – were going to die at some point.

None of these things I found myself doing were any good. Not one. When I first thought it could be something like depression, I, of course, went through the whole, “But I have nothing to be depressed about really” thought process. Which is a stupid and useless thought process because that’s not how depression works (but that is the statement and/or question you will usually get from at least one or two people if the subject comes up – “Your life is great, how can it be depression?”) 

I went to my doctor and told her all of the things that were happening to me and yeah, she went straight to depression. She asked me tons of questions, told me lots of facts and said we’d try medication. I’m on my second type now. The first worked for a while and then suddenly I just started sleeping all the time. I would get home from work, sleep, wake up for dinner, go back to sleep. On the weekends it was sleep, lunch, sleep, dinner, sleep. Nothing was getting done. I was lucky I was getting work done at work. 

The worst thing about that was when I was at work and thinking of all the things I was gonna do when I got home. I would make lists of all the things I would work on: edit photos from this, paint that, work on this costume, finish coding that website. Yet, with my list in hand, I would come in the front door, see the couch and in seconds I would be on it, under a blanket and asleep. Nate would always come home from work to find me on the couch.

Speaking of Nate, one of the other things that got me to finally go to the doctor in the first place – one of the things that started happening that wasn’t normal, wasn’t good at all – I would be a raging bitch for no reason. Especially to Nate, since he was usually the only one around when I wasn’t at work. He would suggest eating out on a Friday night, then ask what we should have and I would respond with a really snotty, “I don’t know.” Even after I said it, even after I knew how I said it, I would think: “What the hell did you do that for? Why are you being such a bitch?” But I wouldn’t apologize.

There would be nights where I wouldn’t wake up from a nap for dinner and if I did, I would be silent and stewing over nothing, in particular, the whole damn time. I even said that to my doctor during the initial diagnosis. “I’m being a raging bitch for no reason. I know I’m doing it but I don’t stop.” The first medication stopped the bitch-switch from the perma-on position, I didn’t find myself doing things like crying at work or staring at the ceiling as much but after a number of months, all I did was sleep. And this fact, the fact that I couldn’t stop that, would get my anger-motor going again.

My second medication is better. No rage (unless it’s road rage sometimes because drivers in my area are horrible), no random bouts of crying, no sleeping for eternity. The one thing that still hangs on though is the not-getting-a-damn thing done. If this is a symptom of this depression-beast you have, you will get, “Just get up and do it.” –to whatever you aren’t getting done. Which is so much easier said than done. It’s easy for people who don’t understand it or deal with it, yeah. But have you ever felt that? That thing where you’re staring off into space, laying in bed, sitting at your computer, on your couch, whatever – and you know you have something that needs to be done or something that you want to do and it’s right there. And you tell yourself in your head, “It’s right there, you can do the thing. It’s so easy.” And it might be – it might be as simple as calling your mom. Or paying a bill. Or taking a shower. But even though your mind is telling you that yeah that thing is right there and you can do it, your body does not follow. And no matter how hard your mind pushes, no matter how much you know you need to get something done, your body refuses. Finally, your mind gives up and you get lost on the internet or you roll over in bed and go back to sleep. Sometimes you don’t even make it out of bed in the morning. Sometimes getting up is a struggle. It doesn’t sound like it should be, it shouldn’t be. But it is.

I have so many things I want to make, stories I want to finish, projects I want to continue, costumes I want to piece together – things that either haven’t been finished or haven’t even been started. In February I got laid off from my job, which sucks, but I tried to look for a silver lining with the situation. I had been there for almost ten years, sitting in the same desk chair, doing the same things. Maybe this was good. This would give me more time to work on all these things. Maybe it was just my job holding me back from all this stuff.

No. I mean, I felt better, lost a little bit of weight – that’s all good. But I still sit and stare at things I want to get done. I still have all these ideas I want to do something with and it’s always, “I can do it tomorrow.” I want to go back to my doctor and ask her what to do now but I’m afraid starting a different medication will switch the worst things back on – the crying, the sleeping, the rage. I keep telling myself to make the appointment. Just pick up the phone and make the appointment.

“I’ll do it tomorrow.”

Nate and I are set to get married on October 31st (I swear Nate is some magical unicorn with superpowers since he’s stuck with me through all this and still wants to marry me) and since I don’t have a job I’ve been working on the invites, the websites, and all that other fun stuff. If this was a thing that didn’t have a due date, these things probably wouldn’t be getting done as fast as they are (and by fast I mean, slow-by-normal-standards-but-it’s-a-pretty-good-speed-for-me-go-me). But things are actually getting done and it feels really good. We had some costumes finished that we never wore to any conventions or got any photos of because I wasn’t feeling it. I wasn’t feeling anything. Recently, we got some photos of some costumes and I sat and edited them. It all felt really good.

Maybe this is what I need for now. Maybe I put off calling the doctor. Maybe I see how I do for the next few months. See how I feel after the wedding. Because I actually got a couple of things done. These things are getting done now, but very slowly. I could’ve had these kinds of things done in a heartbeat before my bff depression came along, brought all its shit and took up residence in my body and mind. On occasion I still sit, think about all of the things I want to create and write and share and worry that none of them will ever get done. I feel this nagging sense of failure because I have nothing to show to my friends and family that I’m really proud of – I feel like I’m letting everyone down. The stuff I have is always “in-progress”, it’s always half-finished stuff or ideas that never make it out of my brain. I know I’m not a failure and I’ve made things that I (and other people) have liked but there’s always that little voice in my head, that dull ache that just continuously repeats, “lol stop sucking, look how much you suck. Why do you bother even hoping you can finish that– and if you do, why do you bother finishing because it’ll be shit anyways. There are so many people better than you at this.”

I now find it a giant achievement when I manage to apply for one job or make myself a real meal or edit some photos. I know that sounds really sad, but baby steps are something, I guess. I’m starting a calendar called, “Get One Thing Done Today Dammit” and on each day I will have one simple thing I want to get done, whether it’s painting, costume work, writing, working – anything. Maybe I’ll graduate to two things a day in the future. 

It feels good to get all this out. It isn’t changing anything about the original diagnosis. I still have depression. There’s no real cure. But it’s like a roller coaster (a really shitty broke ass roller coaster because roller coasters are usually awesome) – there are ups and downs. The downs could be months long, the ups could be a couple of days. The ups could be something as simple as rambling forever about your depression. Even though writing this didn’t change anything physically or mentally, emotionally it helped a bit. It’ll continue to help if anyone gets anything out of this. This is my big achievement for the day.

Go me.

Yes, it’s true. It’s finally true. At E3, there was an announcement that Final Fantasy VII was getting a remake. There’s always the rumor every year and this year it can no longer be a rumor. I loved the reactions from people almost as much as I loved the announcement and I actually reacted way more strongly than I thought I would. I kept looking at Nate through the first 80% of the video saying “It can’t be. No. Nope. Not getting my hopes up nope.” and when I could see Barret’s arm and then Cloud’s buster sword and magical hair I basically flipped my shit and started shrieking something unintelligible. I had already gotten the Fallout 4 announcement which was an overload of YES PLEASE and now this? YES PLEASE, BRING IT.

As much as I love the other Final Fantasy games I’ve played, I think Final Fantasy VII actually has to be my favorite. IX is a very, very close second. But when I think about it, VII is always the one I mention first in conversations about the series.

“Ugh, gross. VII is everyone’s favorite.” Yeah, jump on the bandwagon, yadda yadda yadda.

“It’s really not that good of a game. Go back and play it without your nostalgia goggles.” You know, I might try. But I can’t take my nostalgia goggles off for this game. It’s not just the actual game I love, but Final Fantasy VII was a turning point in my life and also made me realize a lot of the sort of things I loved aesthetically. “Turning point? For what? Liking crappy popular games?” I’M DONE ARGUING WITH YOU, INTERNET-SELF. STFU.

Let me start by sharing the personal significance of this game. When FF7 came out, my father and stepmother were living up in Virginia (they moved to Florida when I graduated high school) along with my stepbrother and little stepsister. I would go and stay with them every other weekend and was in my early teens so I was in that phase of, “DON’T TALK TO ME I JUST WANT TO BE ON THE INTERNET, JEEZ” – although I guess I’m still in there so it must not be a phase. ANYWAYS.

My stepbrother, Josh, was about 9 months younger than me – give-or-take a day or two – and we were both into things of the geek-type but no geeky interest really crossed over to both of us. I had played a lot of computer games in the 90’s (Myst, Phantasmagoria, Shivers, Kings Quest, etc.) and there was a Nintendo in my household when I was younger. I loved that Nintendo and I loved everything I played on my best friend’s Super Nintendo but I never had or played a console after that. I knew about them, was mildly interested in them, but was still all about my point-and-click adventures — which, don’t get me wrong, I still love today.

I remember being in some chatroom on AOL (Myst chat, some random RP chatroom, it was usually something ridiculous with me, of course) and then deciding that I was hungry. I remember saying bye to all the internet pals I was chatting to and leaving the room the computer was in, which exited into the living room. Josh was sitting on the couch with his Playstation on and was completely engrossed in whatever he was playing. When I looked at the screen, I remember seeing a green expanse for a moment before he got in a fight with some giant snake thing (that was the Midgar Zolom, by the way) and was ready to head towards the kitchen when I heard, “Hold up. You gotta see this.”

I remember sighing and looking back at the television. He had Cloud, Tifa, and Aeris in his party while fighting the giant snake thing Midgar Zolom (don’t test me, I know my ZOLOM). “What do I have to see?”

“See this chick in pink? She’s kind of annoying. I think you’d hate her.”

“So? What do I have to see then? Why would I want to see something that annoys me?”

“She dies in the game later. So…”

Josh knew how I felt about things that really annoyed me. I was also intrigued by the fact that this magical, pink-clad healer lady with the shiny, pretty stick and the giant fabulous bangs was gonna bite it. Would a game really kill a character like that?

I had nothing else to do except grab a snack so I got something and planted my ass down on the giant sectional that took up most of the living room of the townhouse they had lived in at that point in time. The sectional was light grey with speckles of black and splotches of pink, green and blue. Do you know how I remember this? We spent hours (added up to days) on that thing – him playing and me watching. We dropped so many crumbs of all kinds of unhealthy but amazing snacks in between those cushions. He started the game over that first day I sat down so I could see Midgar.

(An aside here – I absolutely am in love with Midgar. The look of it, the idea of it, the Sectors, the Plates, Shinra – everything. And shit, that place was horrible. But those little touches of life and hope around it elevated it to this place in my head. That was the kind of universe I wanted to read about. That was the kind of universe I wanted to write about. That was where my love affair with all things dystopia began. To this day if you ask me my favorite place in a video game I will tell you right off the bat, “Midgar, Silent Hill, Rapture, The Capital Wasteland, Los Santos and Myst Island — did you want more than that? Oh, you only wanted one? Sorry, my bad.”

Not only did I love Midgar, but I zoned in on Wall Market – also Shinra’s HQ GOODNESS GRACIOUS BE STILL MY HEART, YOU PRECIOUS JERKS. But everything about Wall Market – Cloud in a dress, the Honeybee Inn, The Golden Shiny Wire of Hope, doing squats, EVERYTHING. And one of the things I hope with this remake is that a lot of that is still included. Reading interviews and such, it seems like there’s a good chance we’ll be seeing some of this. Which basically just makes me more excited.)

I remember one night – or early morning, as it was somewhere around 3am – we were so furious at Chocobo breeding that we were cursing up a storm. Now, if my father and stepmother heard us we’d for sure get a look and possibly a, “Hey now, come on. Language.” But they were asleep so it was chugging soda, eating chip crumbs and cookies and throwing out, “ANOTHER FUCKING BLUE CHOCOBO? DAMN IT RESET THE GAME, FUCK THIS.” When we woke up well into the afternoon and were asked why we were still so tired my answer was just a hiss, “Chocobos.” My dad had no idea wtf I was talking about. CHOCOBOS, DAD. CHOCOBOS.

We went through Midgar (“NO, NO. YOU NEED CLOUD IN THE BIKINI BRIEFS.”), the beginning of Cloud’s backstory (OR IS IT?!!*(!^#@*(@!), all the fabulous riches of Junon like the Parade mini-game, THE GOLD SAUCER (if Midgar wasn’t in this game you would be my number one, baby), Red XIII’s beautiful Cosmo Canyon home, Nibelheim (yes thank you Josh for bothering to get Vincent – he knew I would like Vincent – VALENTINE WAS OUR MAN), Sit your ass down in that chair and drink your goddamn TEA!, the END OF DISC ONE (he was right too – I was not really a fan of Aeris and Josh made sure to catch my expression when Sephiroth delivered the blow), oh my god do we have knights of the round yet?, did I just get my materia stolen?, snowboarding, the second round of fabulous riches in Junon like the slap-fight, Chocobo racing, running away shrieking from the Ruby/Diamond/Emerald Weapons, oh my god do we have to sit through this knights of the round cutscene?, sure yeah let’s jump in this crater, where did his shirt go?, listen to this kickass song, he’s doing some attack– ohhhHHH DO WE HAVE TO SIT THROUGH THIS CUTSCENE EVERY TIME TOO?

I mean, we dumped so much into this game. We weren’t sure what to do when we finished it.

I asked my dad for a Playstation and FF7 for Christmas that year cause I wanted it in my life forever. To my surprise, I actually got a Playstation for Christmas! He got me Sim City 2000 instead of FF7 though. “THIS ONE CAN BE SLIGHTLY EDUCATIONAL. …MAYBE.” He bought Sim City 2000 so he could play it but he didn’t. I got my own copy of the game when I could afford it and it still sits on my video game shelf today. Bright and shiny, all three discs… and that giant instruction manual. I bought the PC version later too. I don’t even remember why but I played through that too. And the box was shaped SO KEWL (sorry, talking about the 90’s brought me back to the 90’s)…

We took occasional trips to visit my Dad’s siblings in Florida and I brought my Playstation with us. Josh and I would play other RPGs – I remember us taking turns level grinding in Persona while sitting on the floor of my aunt’s living room. It wasn’t all fun and games with us though – we were stupid teenagers and we occasionally got on each other’s nerves. Siblings are like that sometimes. I remember coming back from a trip to Florida where he stayed home and hadn’t tagged along with us. Me, my dad, my stepmom, and my stepsister – we got back in the middle of the night after the 14-hour car ride and were all beat. The house was kind of a mess and Josh was nowhere to be found. He also let one of his friends sleep in my bed which was a giant OH NO YOU DIDN’T, THERE IS A FIRE IN MY EYES, CHILD. But most weekends were video games. Video games and going with my dad to his studio to sit on the internet and read about video games and send each other links about video games.

After that, consoles were a thing in my life. Josh and I would talk about video games and that shifted to movies and books and all other glorious geek things. We almost started a Vampire: The Masquerade game. We both had clanbooks – me, Toreador (later Tzimisce, come on, y’all), and him, Assamite. When my dad and stepmom moved to Florida in 2003, so did my stepsister and Josh. We would continue to nerd occasionally about things on AOL when we were both online – sorry, America Online for people who are still wondering what the hell I meant with AOL earlier in this ramble. Although, it might have been AIM (AOL’s jump to straight-up instant messaging) at that point.

In January of 2005, I remember sitting in the basement of my house with my sister. We had all the lights off and we were playing Knights of the Old Republic (we needed a CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE) – I was playing and she was watching. I had my awesome Jedi on the screen in the middle of a conversation when the phone rang. I answered it. It was my dad and he was calling to tell me that Josh had died in a car accident. When I got off the phone with him, I told my sister and went right back to playing Knights of the Old Republic. I couldn’t think about it. I didn’t want to think about it. I know I didn’t catch and/or process any of what was going on in Knights of the Old Republic for the rest of the night though.

Every single time since then, when I play a game that hits me particularly hard in some fashion, I always wonder if he would’ve liked it too. BioShock, Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, Persona 4, Portal, Hotline Miami, Grand Theft Auto V. I don’t know how long I would’ve stalled before jumping into consoles if it wasn’t for him. What kind of games would I be playing today? Would I have crapped on Japanese RPGs because they’re too long or there’s too much grinding?

I haven’t been able to play all the way through Final Fantasy VII since then. Every year I hear the rumor about the remake and hope it’s true and now that it finally is, I’ve realized how damn bad I wanted it – how bad I needed it. I really wish he could play it too though. Hell, I wish he could see how far video games have come in the past ten years. I’d be able to play video games online with him – we could curse up a damn storm at things like zombies and griefers without getting looks from the adults because we would be adults too.

So yeah, I do have perma-nostalgia goggles when it comes to Final Fantasy VII. I know parts of the story are a big what?, some of the translation was off, there are some plot holes, some weird parts, grinding grinding level grinding — but we had so much fun with that shit. The wonky parts, the amazing parts — the whole game. Whenever people ask me what my favorite Final Fantasy is, I usually answer IX. Sometimes, if I’m feeling particularly colorful that day I might even say VIII (that game and my love for it is a whole ‘nother story). But after the question, right away in my mind, VII always comes up first. It may not be what decides to come out of my mouth since there was (is?) that whole “VII is so overrated” period. Yeah, it may be a little overrated but really if you judge someone because they like an “overrated” game then go sit in the corner, you’re in time out.

Wow. I really didn’t mean to go on this long and I really didn’t mean to be all over the place with this but my excitement for the remake isn’t just because it’s going to be REALLY PRETTY (when I saw Midgar in the video I wanted to pass out, my precious) and we’ve been waiting for it so long. But this is one of the main games that helped make me like what I like and maybe even helped a little to make me who I am today. (When I see trash on the ground and pick it up and put it in a trash can I know AERIS WOULD BE PROUD OF ME OKAY? lolololol)

But as an extension of that, it was thanks to Josh (or all his fault, hahaha) that I even saw this game in the first place. Maybe with the remake I’ll finally be able to get through the game again.

The first weekend in March was PAX East in Boston, Massachusetts. We missed 2014 and weren’t planning on going this year (since tickets & hotel are so hard to get) but our friend Roger managed to snag Friday and Saturday passes for all three of us and another friend of ours, Denis. You might’ve seen them in such things as Animal Crossing & Saints Row costumes with us. I managed to get a room close to the con center once he told us about the passes and suddenly we were going to PAX East!

I want to apologize, first off, for the photos I have in this post. I didn’t bring my camera so all of these photos were from my phone. Last time we went up to PAX East, we drove – this time we flew up so we tried to not take a lot of luggage. Which also meant no costumes.

Just because I didn’t have my camera and we didn’t have any costumes didn’t mean we didn’t have fun though! We saw a ridiculous amount of interesting looking games and are very excited about a lot of the ones we saw and got to try out. At the bottom of this post will be a list of our favorites, why we loved them, and links to more information about them!

Amplitude! Rock Band 4! Hard Rock party!

One of the highlights of the weekend besides all the games we got to see was the Harmonix party at the Hard Rock Cafe. Actually I should change that highlight to just Harmonix in general. They had the latest build of Amplitude at their booth, they had just announced Rock Band 4 and they threw a kickass party at the Hard Rock Cafe on Saturday night. It was a definite treat to see all the HMX people we met at Pax East 2013 again. In fact, you might remember from the PAX East 2013 con report where we talked about how we met HMX artist Jamie McKiernan while wearing our Dance Central 3 Glitterati costumes – we saw her at the party and talked to her about all kinds of ridiculous things. Seriously, that company is full of talented and extremely kind people. Everyone at the booth was pumped about Amplitude, excited about Rock Band 4 and their Hard Rock Cafe party was sold out — they had an AMAZING con this year.

The other highlight was stumbling across a booth for a game called Enter the Gungeon, by Dodge Roll Games (and published by Devolver Digital, who we always trust). I was drawn to the fact that it looked like it was ridiculously fun to play and holy my goodness everything is adorable in the best and most badass way. As I was leaning over to grab one of the business cards so I could look into it more later I heard someone say my name – now, I knew Nate, Denis and Roger were to my right so when I looked to my left to see where my name had come from I was met with a face I hadn’t seen in at least a decade. Apparently, one of the developers of Dodge Roll Games is an old high school friend of mine. I flipped out, naturally. He was a grade below me and I was standing there explaining all of this to Nate and Roger (Denis also went to the same high school and kind of remembered him) and repeating, “OMG PRECIOUS DAVID CHILD LOOK AT HIM I’M SO PROUD.” That’s what I was saying also when I was taking that picture up there: “I GOTTA GET A PICTURE OF HIM SO I CAN TWEET TO SHOW THE REST OF THE HIGH SCHOOL PEOPLE LOOK AT DAVID ALL GROWN UP. LOOK AT HIM EXPLAINING THE GAME.” So besides Enter the Gungeon looking like complete crazy fun, I got to see an old friend too!

But really, I’m not kidding, keep an eye out for this game.

So with that, here are five games we had a blast playing/seeing/experiencing – we picked five to ramble about but there are more. We are so pumped about so many of these. There is a ton of talent out there.

1.) Enter the Gungeon (Dodge Roll Games) – SELF-EXPLANATORY IF YOU READ THE PREVIOUS PARAGRAPHS.

2.) Monsters & Monocles (Retro Dreamer) – The four of us went back to this game three times. If you like co-op games (in the vein of Castle Crashers – 4 player kick-everything’s-ass kind of co-op!) then you will like game. We’re always looking for 4 player co-op games that we can all play in the same room and we are so excited for this one. The sprites are extremely badass and cute at the same time (I always picked the robot when I could okay) and the weapons were the right balance of useful, crazy and funny (Crumpet Cannon ftw) and there’s a great sense of humor about it. The tagline on the website is, “A tale of comrades, ballistics, and high tea.” –and there’s A ZEPPELIN. COME ON. I need this game yesterday.

3.) Homesick (Lucky Pause) – I have always had an extremely soft spot for point-and-click games (Myst, Phantasmagoria, Shivers, etc.) and you know how I love creepy games – not necessarily jump scare types, but the ones that really get to you and have an absolute slow burn about them. Homesick looks like something I am prepared to fall in love with. I’m preparing myself for massive amounts of feels. This game looks so pretty and so unsettling (and I mean that in the best way – I love games like this) and I cannot wait to dive into it and see what the whole story is with it.

4.) Tumblestone (The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild) – I will admit, I was ready to pass this off as “another puzzle game” until I was called over by one of my pals to play it. All four of us ended up playing on one screen against each other and had an absolute blast. You might think there’s no other way a puzzle game can be done, or “that sounds too easy”, maybe “that’ll get old fast” — whatever you’re thinking, Tumblestone deserves a shot. ESPECIALLY with three friends. It’s fast-paced, clever and the game description even says you’ll always pull a “just one more round” — this is true. We wanted to keep playing but there were people waiting so we had to tear ourselves away from it.

5.) Z’Isle (Miscellaneum Studios) – I know some of you are worn out on zombies and that’s understandable/cool/whatever but I was intrigued completely by this game. They had just started building it – we were told this when we ran into a bug while playing. This was no big deal though, for having just started what we saw was impressive. The game is based off a comic book series set in Montreal seven years after a zombie apocalypse. One of the main things that pulled me over there was the weapon one of the people at the booth was holding. It was made out of bike parts and it looked effing cool as hell. The picture I snapped with my phone came out like utter crap so here is a picture off of Z’Isle’s Facebook page. Give them a like and check it out. I got the first issue of the comic while I was there and it’s a great read!

Also, check out these games we don’t have room to ramble about!:

• Dog Sled Saga (a very darling game where you, a new-to-the scene musher, puts together and takes care of your own little set of sled dogs)
• Albert & Otto (a very smart and very engaging game where you play a boy who takes his magical bunny with him on a journey – Nate played this for such a long time, we didn’t realize how long we were there!)
• Dead Years (an open-world survival story with action RPG elements and A DOG! <3)
• Never Ending Night (THIS GAME LOOKS SO PRETTY oh yeah also it’s “a 2D side-scrolling, physics-based exploration game”)
• Kwaan (i am sobbing over how cute and perfect everything in this online adventure game is LOOK AT IT)
• Dead Secret (A MURDER MYSTERY :D!)

Overall, even without my camera and any costumes, PAX East was a blast. And to close this post out, here is a picture of video game YouTuber Markiplier (and the guy whose fault it is that we like Five Nights at Freddy’s so much) who was at his table meeting fans and someone left him hanging when he tried to shake their hand. He just stood there and looked at them. How could you leave Markiplier hanging people, he’s always so supportive of you.

We don’t know when we’ll be at a PAX convention next, but one day we’d like to go back again!

April 19th through the 21st was the second year of AwesomeCon in Washington D.C.! Nate and I couldn’t make it last year but we heard only good things so we wanted to make sure we went this year. We were very happy we did. Despite some growing pains here and there, the convention definitely had more good going for it than bad. I’ll point out some I saw of both categories.

The bad I experienced didn’t consist of much except for a couple of big things, which were actually explained after the convention. When we arrived, the line was wrapped around the building for people who had already purchased tickets. The convention center is huge and Nate and I wandered to the back and got in line. Normally I wouldn’t be that excited to stand in line but this was actually pretty neat because it was here I noticed all of the families that had come out for the convention.

Later we learned that many of the attendees on Saturday heard about AwesomeCon because of the coverage they were getting in the local media thanks to their World Record Attempt on Friday. Those people bought their tickets Friday night and the attendance on Saturday was much higher than they expected. This was a great thing for the convention – maybe not for all the people in line but we only waited in it for an hour. I’ve waited four hours in line for a badge at Dragon*Con (before they fixed the system) so I was okay. Also, as I mentioned previously, I had entertainment! Seeing all the people in line that were in costume or with their families made me smile. Especially when there were families in costumes like these two as Link & Zelda from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Their smiles were absolutely contagious!

The other thing that fell into the bad category also had to be because of the level of attendees the convention had on Saturday. The Dealer/Exhibitor area was packed. The aisles in there and the Artist Alley section were very wide, which was great, but there were still a ton of people everywhere. I hope to see them spread out and use more of the convention center space next year.

With all that out of the way though, I can get to the good. The diversity of the programming here was wonderful, the Artist Alley was amazing and everyone I ran into on the Brute Squad (aka AwesomeCon’s set of volunteers) was extremely helpful and nice. Saturday morning after we got into the convention we looked around the exhibit hall for a bit before heading to the Star Wars Discussion panel. It was moderated by our friend Bria of White Hot Room and besides supporting her, we wanted to see what the panel had to say about the new Star Wars movies. After milling around the exhibit hall some more – and eating expensive convention center lunch (which was actually delicious, albeit expensive) – we got in line to meet Melissa McBride, who plays Carol on AMC’s The Walking Dead. She was absolutely fabulous and very sweet and spent time talking to each group that went up to her instead of just signing something, smiling, and moving on. I also found out she hates touching cash just as much as I do and she gave me some of the hand sanitizer from her table (MY HERO <3).

We were dressed as Rick O’Connell and Evelyn Carnahan from The Mummy that day and gushed anytime someone gushed about The Mummy to us. It was great seeing that people still love that movie – it’s definitely one of our favorites. Although, Nate also got a couple “Nathan Drake!”‘s and even better were the, “It’s Mal Reynolds!” We joked later about how we should’ve brought, “This is The Mummy & The Mummy Returns and This Is Why You Should Watch Them” pamphlets. (Naturally, with a tiny note on the bottom that reads. Third movie? What third movie?)

Sunday was a shorter day for us – we rode the Metro into the city and had no problem getting in the convention since we already had our 2 day passes. There was a lot of milling around in the exhibit hall again (so much to look at!) and also a trip or two around the video game room. We watched costumers as Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff from Frozen play Just Dance 2014, and then we watched another group go up and start a song. More people sort of fell in behind them and we realized we were sitting down by a giant dance party. The game room was set up very well (this is a big deal for me because you know how I love video games). There was a lot of room for spectators and people to walk by around the tables and they left a huge space for the Kinect and Just Dance.

We went to a panel about 3D Printing and Cosplay and were pleasantly surprised to see the two people running it that we had seen showing a 3D printer at Eastern Shore Fan Con! The panel was very well run and I loved the fact that they went through the whole process from the beginning – the modeling whatever object you’re going to print – to the end – the actual printing. It was nice that they passed around some of the items they made as well so everyone could get a feel for what the 3D printer and a little elbow grease could produce. The panel was run by Sox Cosplay and Props and Bindi Smalls – both of whom were also very informative and friendly.

Overall, the convention was a lot of fun and with it being a short Metro ride away from us, we’ll definitely make it a point to be back. Working out the space issues and line issues should be no big deal so we hope to see AwesomeCon expand and grow into the giant convention Washington D.C. needs!

Basically: Awesome job, AwesomeCon.

I was honored to be a guest on Tosche Station Radio (Tosche-Station.net‘s always entertaining Star Wars & Geek Culture podcast!) the other night talking costumes and cosplay with hosts Brian & Nanci as well as White Hot Room‘s Bria. Favorite costumes, how to get into cosplaying/costuming and how we go about working on things are some of the topics covered, as well as the usual Star Wars related shenanigans you get when all of us start talking!

Check out the podcast and related show notes here!