We all assumed that the stupid would stop once we changed our calendars. Like with most assumptions, we were dead wrong. Instead, we have discovered that roughly half our country is now hopelessly lost, inducted into a cult that claims to be the “only true Christianity” that seeks an America with a theocratic government run by the irremovable High Priest/Archbishop/One True Pope/Second Coming Trump. We are dealing with a Neo Nazi party that runs most of the Republican party and seeks to, in 2022, reclaim both houses on Congress to send Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to be executed for crimes they didn’t commit while they replace all secretaries of state so that it doesn’t matter who you vote for, Trump wins regardless. Even if the left-aligned states were to secede, the right-wing states would declare war solely to punish the LGBTQ+ community, the AAPI community, African-Americans and all Muslims in the USA. We will be fighting stupid the rest of our lives; this pandemic will go on for decades and this is our new normal. Accept it. Even without Trump, they’ll gravitate to someone that Pat Robertson, the KKK and the Proud Boys will prop up to rule the nation. Accept it, this is something we’ll all be dealing with until we die.
Like 2016-2020 before it, the music made this year miles better. Miley Cyrus teamed with Elton John, bassist Robert Trujillo of the band itself, drummer Chad Smith, guitarist/producer/future amazing documentary subject Andrew Watt and cellist Yo Yo Ma for a cover of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters” that blew me away, while Brandi Carlile teamed with the remaining members of Soundgarden for a great rendition of “Black Hole Sun.” Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple and Black Country Communion fame proved age is just a number by turning 70, joining The Dead Daisies as bassist/lead singer and releasing a new album last January that led to a show I saw in October, the first outside my hometown in two years and the first overall in 22 months. Ariana Grande didn’t release an album, but made an album’s worth of collaborations with various musicians, singing duets with The Weeknd, Doja Cat, Kelly Clarkson and Jimmy Fallon with Megan Thee Stallion, all being enjoyable pop songs, the last two being Christmas songs, one about not needing much, the other a reminder to get your booster shot. Sammy Hagar, Black Label Society and Nancy Wilson also had good albums this year and there were good songs from Geoff Tate and Grace McKagan, daughter of Guns N Roses Bassist Duff McKagan. It was a career year for Jon Foreman, Carrie Underwood and Brandi Carlile in general, not a bad release for either in terms of singles or albums, and that includes Foreman’s band Switchfoot. I also recommend “Finish Line” by Joel Hoekstra’s 13. Elton John took the cover he made with Miley Cyrus and put it on a series of collaborations with several musicians called “The Lockdown Sessions,” featuring both Eddie Vedder and Brandi Carlile of the Seattle area and pop stars Dua Lipa and Rina Sawayama. The album also featured Andrew Watt on the other songs and he is now helping Eddie Vedder with a solo album that drops in February. Guns N Roses, Slash on his own with Myles Kennedy and Ozzy Osbourne are also planning on releasing albums in 2022.
I tried to make it back to the ballpark, but overslept, thankfully, I found an easier way to Seattle for 2022 and bought tickets to two Mariner games. Hopefully, the lockout will be resolved soon and we can get back to what was a very electric offseason, which will hopefully lead to the Mariners picking up where they left off. They almost made the playoffs this past season and it is hopeful they will finally dethrone the Astros and champion the AL West in 2022 and then, who knows, maybe even win the World Series? They certainly have the talent for it, though the sportswriters don’t recognize it because they’re obsessed with the Yankees, Dodgers and Red Sox.
Video games provided a big escape this year and with a renewed interest in Twitter (now that Adolph Flappyhands Von Combover is out of office and hopefully soon hanging from a gallows pole), they became more than they have previously. I beat Hyrule Warriors; Age of Calamity at the end of January, then got the DLC in October. It’s a fun game, though it is actually an alternate version of Breath of the Wild, turns out when you time-travel in Legend of Zelda, you create alternate worlds. Elizabeth Maxwell and Kate Higgins do a great job as Urbosa and Purah, as do the voice actors for Impa and Kohga. Urbosa and her granddaughter Riju are fun to play as, Zelda is fun to play as regardless of weapon, Impa is great and Link provides a nice ferocity in the fray. Robbie and Purah are also a fun choice once you unlock them as playable characters.
Persona 5 Strikers came next, with familiar voices Cassandra Lee Morris, Xanthe Huynh, Matthew Mercer, Cherami Leigh, Colleen O’Shaughnessey and Elizabeth Maxwell. Morris voiced Sothis in Fire Emblem; Three Houses, Huynh is Marianne in that game and Eir in Fire Emblem Heroes, Mercer is Chrom in the Fire Emblem franchise and the DM in Critical Role, Leigh is Lucy Heartfilia in Fairy Tail, Ilia Amitola in RWBY, Rhea/Seiros/The Immaculate One in Fire Emblem; Three Houses, as well as Caeda and Cecilia in other Fire Emblem media, O’Shaughnessey was Sora on Digimon, Jazz in Danny Phantom and Monica/Kronya in Fire Emblem; Three Houses and Maxwell was mentioned in the last paragraph. Here; Morris voices Morgana, a wisecracking catlike being who assists the protagonist, Huynh is Haru, one of your party members who wields an axe and knows the Mayor of Sapporo personally, Mercer is the artistic Yusuke, a well-spoken, cultured young man who develops a personal stake in what’s going on in Sendai, Leigh is Makoto, a member of your party who punches hard, has a crush on the protagonist and dreams of being a police officer like her late father, O’Shaughnessey is Akane, the daughter of Zenkichi, a police officer who investigates, then joins, the team and Maxwell is Sae, the older sister of Makoto who is a defense lawyer the group helped in regular Persona 5 and now she helps them. The plot (believe it or not), is that a smartphone app is trying to be God and erase choice. The voice cast is great and the best performance was actually Kira Buckland, who I wasn’t as familiar with at the time, as Ichinose, the creator of the app who starts as a hidden villain and ends up getting redeemed by her other creation, Sophia, an AI who joins the team. I’ve gotten likes on Twitter talking about this game with Cherami Leigh (the only like from her, it was that Makoto’s birthday is the same as my cousin, and my cousin likes Fairy Tail), Kira Buckland (that Ichinose’s backstory was rather moving) and Elizabeth Maxwell (that even though she didn’t have a big role, she did a good job).
Next came Tokyo Mirage Sessions, which was like a more traditional Persona game, but with Fire Emblem characters instead of mythical, religious and literature figures. It kind of offered the best of both franchises, great characters, humorous moments, helping characters deal with their personal issues and fighting tough bosses that had specific weaknesses. Tsubasa, Kiria, Mamori and Tiki were easily my favorite characters and I was actually able to find songs from the game on iTunes. My favorite is “Give Me!” by Tsubasa and Kiria, it’s part of the last story for Kiria, where she embraces all of her personality, that she likes cute things and she also likes to be “cool.” It was also fun to see the villains be revealed to be from past Fire Emblem games as well, and today, when I encounter them in Spirit Battles in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, I’ll use the Rise Kujikawa from Persona 4 Mii Brawler to homage these days when we fought evil with performa!
After that came Trials of Mana, a Switch-level remake of an SNES game that was never released in the States. With the 8 points of interest on the map, the random objects and spells to get to towns once (because that’s how long you’ll need to be there), your party of colorful characters who conveniently know how to move the plot forward in certain spots and seemingly anachronistic items (you heal with chocolate and wrapped candy despite apparently living in a world that seems technologically around Columbus/Gutenberg), it definitely has the feel of a Final Fantasy game on the system, which is pleasant, looking back, I can actually imagine some of the scenes in 16 bits. Sadly, aside from Brittany Cox, who voices Reisz, most of the voice cast is either unmemorable or stilted, Angela’s VA seems to only know the character is supposed to be a valley girl and comes across blending that and Weiss from RWBY and doesn’t become likeable until a chunk of the way through. Brittany Cox seems typecast as blondes with spears, as she also voices Ingrid in Fire Emblem; Three Houses!
Speaking of, in November, I finally decided to play New Game + of Fire Emblem; Three Houses. Throughout the year, I was seeing fanart of the character of Annette, who I didn’t recruit because I didn’t know she was fun until it was too late through my first playthrough. In October, the news came that her voice actress, Abby Trott, was going to work on a possible new animated series called “New Wave” (a cartoon send-up of the 1980s) with Tara Platt, who voices Edelgard in the game. That was the last straw to light the fire under me, I started it up and since in New Game + you can carry over your stats, I was able to recruit everyone but Manuela I had the first time (as well as Annette) before the Battle of Eagle and Lion, meaning I got to see more relationships as well. The only for-sure marriages that will happen are Edelgard-Byleth, Petra-Dorothea and Caspar-Annette thus far, because there are some relationships I want to see hit their A rank and I’m not sure how the game will work when someone hits multiple A ranks because my brother hasn’t completed his playthrough.
Tara and Abby are both people on Twitter I’ve come to rely on a little for confidence every now and then, I actually follow quite a few voice actors on the site and have found a lot of them to be fun, inspiring people who have some of the same fears, joys, sadnesses and angers I do. Tara actually reminds me of a 21st Century version of her character, speaking for people to listen to scientists and medical researchers to avoid making bad climate decisions and start making good decisions like getting vaccinated. She will also stand up for LGBTQ+ people on occasion. Her husband, Yuri Lowenthal, does much of the same and also posts about Spider-Man because he voices him in the PlayStation games (in fact, he posts about him so much I tend to forget who Tom Holland is). Also, Yuri Lowenthal retweeted a screenshot I posted of his Persona character, Yosuke, and one of Tara’s Persona characters, Elizabeth, in Blazblue Crosstag Battle beating up the character Blitztank and liked a tweet I sent to Tara when we got into a mini-conversation about Bear and Brendan McCreary (because Bear McCreary’s brother Brendan helped with the theme song of their live-action series “Shelf Life” and also helped record the cover of Blue Oyster Cult’s “Godzilla” in “Godzilla; King of the Monsters”) that said “Watching the Rodan dogfight scene now. Bear deserved an Oscar for ‘Goodbye, Old Friend.’” Abby likes Larvitars from Pokémon Gold and Silver, is trying to help a homeless cat named OC get adopted and has liked Tweets I’ve made that include Annette screenshots and tag her. Faye Mata, who voices Petra, is a fun kind of manic who mains Palutena in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, has read the pre-loaded gibberish in a Princess Peach letter (in a Princess Peach voice) from Super Mario Galaxy 2 and was at that bookstore in Portland, OR where I bought “Trust Me, I’m Dr. Ozzy.” Cristina Vee, the voice of Shantae in the Shantae game series, is proud of her singing career and is good friends with Faye Mata (the two play characters on the anime Konosuba) and got to play Alexander Hamilton in a cover of “The Room Where it Happens.” Laura Bailey, one of my all-time favorites, likes to talk about the YouTube show she does with other voice actors, “Critical Role.”
“Critical Role” has become my new thing in 2021. When I have 3-5 hours to kill and nothing else to do, I tend to put on an episode, enjoying Laura Bailey, Matthew Mercer, their spouses and their good friends playing Dungeons and Dragons. This year started their third campaign, which brought in Robbie Daymond, who I knew as Hubert from Fire Emblem; Three Houses. Sometimes, when Dorian speaks in a more refined tone, I can hear slight traces of Hubert. Laura Bailey is an utter delight on the show, frequently talking in a high voice that reminds me of her Persona character, Rise Kujikawa, when she got excited. Everyone on the show is fun in their own way and it’s the blend of personalities, styles and vocal repertoires that make it fun to watch/listen to. In fact, one of my new goals is to get the Naruto/Boruto fighting game in the Switch eShop and (when it comes out in March) the Switch port of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax to add two more games to my collection of Switch fighting games with Tara Platt, Yuri Lowenthal and/or Laura Bailey in the voice cast. Lowenthal and Bailey are in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Lowenthal is Marth and Alucard while Bailey is Lucina), Platt and Lowenthal are in Blazblue Crosstag Battle (Platt is Mitsuru and Elizabeth while Lowenthal is Yosuke) and Power Rangers; Battle for the Grid (Laura Bailey is Chun-Li). In Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, it is the same as Blazblue Crosstag Battle, only Laura Bailey is also in there as Rise Kujikawa, and in the Naruto/Boruto fighting game, Platt voices Temari, Lowenthal voices Sasuke and Bailey voices Sasuke’s daughter Sarada. Another game I’m hoping to get in 2022 is Splatoon 3.
All of this enjoyment of voice actors and actresses and the fruits of their labor in video games has led me to the realization that I cannot keep using DeviantArt as I have been. I feel guilty seeing such disrespect to the hard work these people put themselves through to bring us entertainment and it deeply upsets me to see a website that routinely sexually abuses most of these characters, despises Amber Heard, despises Edelgard and adores Rhea and Dimitri at her expense and insists Yang from RWBY is heterosexual or that Blake from RWBY is heterosexual. After my last request is filled, I intend to deactivate my account there. I’ve changed since I joined it, it has also changed and embraced the madness of the last now-six years and it is full of people who were where I was back in 2007-2008, young, naïve and just dreamers, unaware of the back-breaking realities that await them out in the world. They also are not satisfied and I have found the secret to enjoying life is to be satisfied with what you can have where you are. There is a lesson in the musical Hamilton where he’s never satisfied, his appetite for a legacy, earthly success and what he feels is important almost destroys what’s really important. You don’t need a million MP3s or DVDs or video games or fanart pieces to be happy, you just need the really important ones, and that is the journey I will try harder to go on for the rest of my life.
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