1st Quarter of 2024

     I've gotten on the wrong medication and need to inform my psychiatrist that there needs to be something that works better on depression, fights insomnia and keeps me awake during the daylight, so I'm not typing at 6:00 am and playing video games at 4:00 am, sleeping at 8:00 am until 2:00 pm.  I intend to foil this today by trying to stay active online and also offline.

 

    I do not trust most of humanity these days, they act arrogantly, self-centered and proudly homophobic.  Websites I've been a part of now feel like NeoNazi pizza parties with no connection between me and them, if it wasn't for Tara Platt, Dawn M. Bennett, Abby Trott and Sarah McKnight, I'd flush Twitter down the toilet, having more joy posting to BlueSky.  I am honestly hoping the 4 make it their homebase, they relate well to the public and are funny, the kind of people I need the most while I hope for local Facebook groups to set up events.  The artists of BlueSky are great, but I feel I can only talk to them about entertainment; Tara, Yuri and Sarah gave me advice when my depression was high by my down-the-hall neighbor.  He is still playing hate speech and I hope he and those like him will be handed defeat in November, showing that America does not want hate speech disguised as Christianity anywhere near the government.  I worry that since a lot of good is happening for me their conquest is inevitable.

 

    I might be able to see the Seattle Kraken play the San Jose Sharks soon, I need my passport renewed for the Hostel.  I also received word of an Ozzy Osbourne Tribute Band coming to the Shakedown later in April, followed by the Braves against the Mariners.  May has the Royals against the Mariners, while June has a Pride Anthems show at the Mt. Baker Theatre, 1964 the Tribute (a Beatles Tribute) in Seattle and Washington State Summer Con, which will feature Colleen Clinkenbeard (Erza Scarlet, Ritsuko from Evangelion (movies 2.22 and 3.33 only), Momo, Luffy, Elsie Crimson), Abby Trott (Annette Fantine Dominic, Nezuko, Noel Seeker), (It also takes place on Edelgard’s Birthday), Luci Christian (Ochako, Nami), Ron Perlman (Mr. Lancer from Danny Phantom, Pacific Rim, Monster Hunter), Michael Dorn (REGIS Mark V, Fright Knight), Allen Oppenheimer (Darm in Ys), and Melendy Britt (Original She-ra and Catra, 7 Friendly Giants Evil Queen), for starters.  August has the Mariners playing the Phillies.  If this goes off without a hitch all that'll be left is seeing the Mariners playing the Dodgers, Rockies and Guardians.

    Tonight, I'm going to see Godzilla x Kong; The New Empire.  After this, I'm getting a haircut tomorrow, working on my passport and hopefully seeing my nephew's Birthday party.  Here are the songs I liked for the first quarter of this year, we'll see how many make it to the end.

1.)    Dangdang-Mamamoo+

2.)    Tea For One/I Can’t Quit You Baby (Live)-Joe Bonamassa

3.)    Gold Dust Woman (Live)-Warren Haynes, Jim James, Grace Potter

4.)    Times Like These (Live)-Dave Grohl, Warren Haynes

5.)    Everlong (Live)-Dave Grohl

6.)    Comfortably Numb (Live)-Gov’t Mule

7.)    Barracuda-Plush

8.)    Night In-Brittney Spencer

9.)    Simple Man-Artimus Pyle Band, Sammy Hagar

10.) The Needle and the Spoon-Artimus Pyle Band, Lindsay Ell

11.) Call Me The Breeze-Artimus Pyle Band, Billy Ray Cyrus

12.) Saturday Night Special-Artimus Pyle Band, Warren Haynes

13.) Against the Winds-Revolution Saints

14.) Fall On My Knees-Revolution Saints

15.) Lost in Damnation-Revolution Saints

16.) Will I See You Again-Revolution Saints

17.) Show Me Your Light-Revolution Saints

18.) Save All That Remains-Revolution Saints

19.) Think About-Moon Byul

20.) TOUCHIN&MOVIN-Moon Byul

21.) 10,000 Volts-Ace Frehley

22.) Doctor (Work It Out)-Pharrell Williams and Miley Cyrus

23.) War Pigs-Zakk Sabbath

24.) Paranoid-Zakk Sabbath

25.) Iron Man-Zakk Sabbath

26.) Electric Funeral-Zakk Sabbath

27.) Hand of Doom-Zakk Sabbath

28.) Rat Salad-Zakk Sabbath

29.) After Forever-Zakk Sabbath

30.) Children of the Grave-Zakk Sabbath

31.) Into the Void-Zakk Sabbath

32.) Mercy-The Native Howl, Lzzy Hale

33.) Panic Attack-Judas Priest

34.) The Serpent and the King-Judas Priest

35.) Invincible Shield-Judas Priest

36.) Devil in Disguise-Judas Priest

37.) Crown of Horns-Judas Priest

38.) As God Is My Witness-Judas Priest

39.) Escape from Reality-Judas Priest

40.) Sons of Thunder-Judas Priest

41.) Giants in the Sky-Judas Priest

42.) Fight of your Life-Judas Priest

43.) Vicious Circle-Judas Priest

44.) Bye-Ariana Grande

45.) Supernatural-Ariana Grande

46.) True story-Ariana Grande

47.) The boy is mine-Ariana Grande

48.) Yes, and?-Ariana Grande

49.) Imperfect for you-Ariana Grande

50.) Supernatural-Ariana Grande and Troye Sivan

51.) Leave it All Behind-BabyMetal, F.Hero and Bodyslam

52.) Since You Been Gone-Graham Bonnet, Marty Friedman

53.) Crack Cocaine-Billy Morrison, Ozzy Osbourne, Steve Stevens

54.) Tattoo-Lee Aaron

55.) Dark Matter-Pearl Jam

56.) Running-Pearl Jam

57.) Legendary-Bon Jovi

58.) Stay Free-Black Country Communion

 

The first few were actually from last year, but there was no place for them then and they were too good to ignore.

Deep, recent angers

     I got out of the apartment today for some stand-up comedy, and while the first half of the show was more crude than I imagine Mom wanted when she bought the tickets, it was still nice to get out and get the mood down.  However, there are still 4 recent hard blows that I feel I should write down somewhere just to get them off my chest and the words are too numerous for a social media post.

 

    My Dad's Regal gift cards are not working to buy a ticket for Godzilla x Kong; the New Empire, even though I'm putting in the numbers correctly.  I also have forgotten how to use gift cards directly from your phone's wallet on the Regal website.  This is keeping me from buying tickets right now and I'm also really mad at the distributor, Warner Brothers, for another point on this.

 

    WB decided to shut down Rooster Teeth and I get the feeling it wasn't that it was causing part of them to go into the red, but that it wasn't making ENOUGH money and they wanted to make the biggest success story out of it since the WWE, Ninja Turtles, Foo Fighters or the MCU, take your pick.  This isn't just a blow to me, but to everyone who finally got a queer love story in media, the only other ones I can think of are Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune (even then, 'how they met' was only in the backstory of one episode), Korra and Asami (who only got together in the finale), Catra and Adora and Edelgard and Byleth with Dorothea and Petra, some also say Hubert and Ferdinand and others say Hilda and Marianne and still others say Mercedes and Annette and Dimitri and Dedue, however, Nintendo doesn't give the same-gender couples of Three Houses the exposure as trailblazers they deserve and some, the actor or actress/a generous portion of the fandom puts with someone of the same gender, like Marianne and Dimitri, Annette and Felix, Hubert and Bernadetta or Annette and Caspar, so it lacked the exposure Yang and Blake had.

 

    What's worse is homophobia seems to be on the rise.  Elon Musk no longer recognizes it as a word, enabling hate crime on Twitter, Tennessee passed a law that no marriage justice or pastor had to do a marriage they refused on spiritual grounds (knowing if brought before the Trump Court, they would rule in favor of criminalizing gay marriage nationwide, overturning the 2015 verdict just as they did Roe v. Wade), the phrase "Smear the queers," no doubt a rallying cry for the new/old Republican nominee for President to enact genocide or at least mass criminalization of their Bill of Rights-guaranteed freedoms and the self-evident truths the nation founded itself upon in the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal and free to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which has outlawed slavery and brought suffrage (the right to vote) to women. On top of that, I could not watch a video of 20th century theologian and author JRR Tolkien discuss his notions on the concepts of absolute good and absolute evil without my YouTube frontpage receiving homophobic rants that I ultimately dismissed by looking up Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune together and Edelgard and Byleth slaying the Immaculate One.  I was worried it may happen again when I saw Johnny Cash's video of "God's Gonna Cut You Down" for featuring two public figures, one of whom went on a homophobic/idiotic rant while running for Senator of Michigan, the other beat his bisexual wife to a point she couldn't fight back, then penetrated her with a whisky bottle, a story I found too horrific and gruesome to be made up as many claimed.

 

     The last is minor in comparison.  I am trying to bury Twitter in the past, but keep going back to check on the voice actors still there, namely Tara Platt, Dawn M. Bennett (both of whom I met at Anime Washington) and Abby Trott.  All of them are "people" people, like multiple people persons, friendly, comedic, they love encouraging people and sharing fanart of their roles and pictures of their pets.  Tara led me to author Sarah McKnight, who finds joy in an ordinary career and being an anime fan and gamer who is an adult.  I wish I could see them on BlueSky and not have to go back and see those trending topics, it feels at least once every three days there is something prejudiced pooped onto my computer's screen, and I just imagine a bunch of aggressive white farmers with overalls and pitchforks chanting it in front of a pleased Trump, toting flamethrowers and machine guns, ready to do another January 6th and kill hundreds of Democrats and believe the Supreme Court will rule they committed no crime so they can do it repeatedly until America is just them, nobody else.  The men, killed, the women, raped.  My anxiety-depression mind cannot shed this notion of several American football teams' worth of arsonists, rapists, vandals and murderers behind every last trending topic tweet that bears the heartlessness of the current Republican party, just waiting for an excuse to turn America into Nazi Germany, only worse.  If they win, I'd rather avert my eyes to BlueSky, so I can die forgetting the horror of their existence, assuming they kill me quick and don't fulfill my torture anxiety I've had since 6th grade.

Some more honest entertainment opinions and some doom-saying in politics

     Lately, I've had trouble sleeping.  I keep thinking back to the Merle Haggard lyric "Sleep won't hardly come/when there's loneliness all around."  I don't know if I'm lonely in the apartment, because I don't know if loneliness is synonymous with a lack of trust in your neighbors.

 

    I think it is fair to say that fear has been well and truly cultivated at the top of the right wing between Trump and his Supreme Court.  Whether he is fully aware of it or not, whether his party is fully aware of it or not, they have constructed an American framework where Christian Republicans are now like members of the Gestapo and the SS to everyone else, especially atheists, LGBTQ+ people, Muslims and Democrat Christians.  By doing nothing about the pandemic and punishing the George Floyd protestors, by praising the Neo-Nazis in Virginia and by orchestrating January 6th, they have created a world where when someone talks about spiritual cleansing, or salvation of the masses, or Jesus without mentioning inclusion, we all get scared that they will break our doors down and beat us within an inch of our lives and possibly further.  And it is far from over.  This week, with the "can Trump be prosecuted" case on the Trump Court's desk, it is likely they will rule "January 6th's actions fall under special Republican First Amendment privileges to keep them safe from the Democrats who have taken over the mass media in Los Angeles."

 

    Speaking of, this will likely be one of the lowest "movie turnout" years for me, just above last year's 3 theatrical visits with 4; Godzilla x Kong; the New Empire, Ghostbusters; Frozen Empire, Garfield and Wicked.  The business has become grossly capitalist at any cost, and I see a likely short future for the MonsterVerse; they will think they will only make money with both Godzilla and Kong and Adam Wingard, leading to a stagnant formula that audiences will get sick with, leading them to kill Godzilla (because Wingard prefers Kong) and make Kong movies until that gets stale.  The franchise is in the disgustingly capitalist hands of Warner Brothers, who deleted "Coyote vs. Acme" for a tax write-off and killed the DCEU because Johnny Depp blamed Amber Heard for all his psychotic problems, James Gunn was hired and Gal Gadot is from Israel.  In all likelihood, everyone but Jason Momoa, Margot Robbie and John Cena is likely getting recast for the new DCU because that's the gamble they think will result in more money, rather than loyalty to a fanbase they built for ten years and is still willing to pay and demand better treatment of the actors than just meat they can cast aside when the powerful complain.  I know the preceding words will only state my insanity to most of you, but actors and directors are the people who make films (or make them stupid, admittedly), studios, CEOs and "can we make it cheaper/make more money" ruins it.  They killed the direction they were going with Transformers because of a whiny GEEWUN fanbase and they're going to do it again and again and again rather than invest in hard work, imagination and innovation.  Which is why they're investing in AI so they can just freeze everyone now and never hire any actors ever again!

Some honest gaming and nerd opinions

     Hi.

 

    This isn't going to be an easy one, because it's going to be revealing some stuff I've kept concealed for quite some time in an attempt for people to consider me cooler than I am.  However, I am too scared to search on YouTube for things like this because I know social media people are sinfully cruel.  In fact, let's start there.  Yesterday, I wanted to see if I could find this clip from Disney's Amphibia, but didn't because I felt if I typed "Sasha Anne Nintendo Reference Link" and "Edelgard" I'd just get a bunch saying "Edelgard is the woman equivalent of Hitler/Sephiroth, deserves no sympathy and we should plan the assassination of Tara Platt for playing her, Mitsuru and Elizabeth."

     My mind even comes up with those insults.  It notes that since Edelgard paints your portrait and has white hair while Dimitri is blonde, clearly Nintendo intended her to be the villain because Hitler was an artist and Sephiroth and Cloud have those hair colors, plus Cloud is crazy and succumbs to his demons and almost kills his friends.  It has taken every unsympathetic prosecuting attorney from every cartoon I've watched and aimed them full bore at various people and things I like.  We live in a world where too many people are the cartoonishly unsympathetic prosecuting attorney, or at least the one with blatant double-standards, condemning the women as sexual partners of the devil and finding excuses for every behavior of a wealthy, straight, conservative man.

 

    Honestly, I didn't get to say this to Tara herself, I wasn't sure how to, but the reason Edelgard became such a favorite character of mine wasn't just her will, it was her desire to end the idea of double standards and an elite class with special privileges.  I didn't want to be a political man, and I've never seen myself as a religious champion, but I've gotten deep in both subjects because many Christians in America support double standards and an elite class with special privileges, namely, themselves.  They praise God when their enemies suffer misfortune, and state that if America exterminates atheism and LGBTQ+ peoples and instates school prayer, it will never see a Category 4-5 Hurricane again and never lose another war.  These are not my priorities and I cannot find Biblical basis for them being God's priorities given the low level of violence Jesus enacted and when he did, who he did it to, namely, people who were asking Israelites to buy a better representation of themselves to present to God.  Conservative Churches can fall into placing similar pressure onto Left-Wing Christians, keeping them silent to avoid disrupting the flock. 

 

    I will also say if it wasn't for the DLC, I wouldn't have enjoyed Engage half as much as I did.  The presence of Edelgard, Chrom, Camilla and "Mirrorverse" versions of the villains really brought something extra to the game.  I also really liked Edelgard's conversations with Yunaka, Dimitri's with Merrin and Claude's with Citrinne, and the three girls from Engage have good conversations amongst each other, too.  Plus, "Mirrorverse" Marni, Madeline, has good conversations with Edelgard as well.  Without it, the game is mostly carried by Laura Post as Yunaka and Yuri Lowenthal as Marth, and Marth isn't in it too much.  I also feel Yuri, Tara and Laura Bailey deserve something special for their work on Fire Emblem Engage, Stray Gods and Spider-Man 2.

 

    I've been playing Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy VII lately, and both are exciting, sometimes frustrating, but the victories over bosses are always satisfying.  I wasn't aware Sephiroth kills Aerith towards the end of disc 1, I thought it'd be towards the end of the game overall, so now I'm going through the second "disc" (I'm playing it on the Switch) with Cloud, Tifa and Yuffie with only a vague idea of what's going to happen, basically, that Sephiroth will reveal Cloud is a clone of Zach Fair or something and thus he possibly never existed because those might be Zach's memories with Tifa 5 years ago and that holdovers from Zach are the only reason he likes Aerith, so he'll start moping in the spinoffs, Tifa will say, "Dilly Dally Shilly Shally" i.e. "Quit moping, you're not the center of the universe and we, your friends NEED YOUR HELP."  If you hate that I referenced that line, the only other line I remember from Advent Children is "All Right, Who's been messing with my Materia?!" because it's Yuffie's only line and she was voiced by Christy Carlson Romano, who was also Kim Possible (and Ren Stevens, but I think only my sister-in-law remembers her).

 

     I am aware there are now remakes of Final Fantasy VII and Persona 3 out there, but they are on PlayStation and Xbox, so I can't play them unless I spend a lot of money.  I do know that Tara Platt reprises as Elizabeth in Persona 3 Reload and Dawn M. Bennett is Aigis, personally, I wanted Tara to reprise as Mitsuru, as well.  It was the role that made me take notice of her and the first quarter of Three Houses' Black Eagles route feels like an extension of Persona 3.  Tara made Persona 3 for me (in the Let's Play), just as Laura Bailey made Persona 4 (also in the Let's Play).  Dawn M. Bennett is very much enjoying the role of Aigis, it's one of the few things I still visit Twitter to check up on, others being Tara Platt and Abby Trott's accounts.  I might've missed out on talking to the new Yuffie voice actress at Anime Washington, I just remembered I might've tweeted a reply to her on Yuffie's birthday "She's living in a Materia World and she is a Materia Girl," which would've been fun to sing.  It's okay, though.

Women's History Month playlist and other things

 Well, it's March, which means it's Women's History Month.  I made a playlist for the month to play weekly or so.

Women’s History Month 2024:

1.)    Broken Horses-Brandi Carlile

2.)    FLOWERS-Miley Cyrus

3.)    This Is Why-Paramore

4.)    Dear Insecurity-Brandy Clark, Brandi Carlile

5.)    Dub Love-Big Lugg, Yuri Lowenthal, Tara Platt

6.)    The Long and Winding Road-Aretha Franklin

7.)    A Beautiful Noise-Alicia Keys, Brandi Carlile

8.)    Closer to Fine-Brandi and Catherine Carlile

9.)    Raise Hell-Brandi Carlile

10.) Heart of Glass (Live)-Miley Cyrus

11.) Jolene (Live)-Miley Cyrus

12.) Thousand Miles-Miley Cyrus, Brandi Carlile

13.) Edge of Midnight-Miley Cyrus, Stevie Nicks

14.) Yes, and?-Ariana Grande

15.) Landslide-Fleetwood Mac

16.) Over My Head (Live 1975)-Fleetwood Mac

17.) Rhiannon (Live 1975)-Fleetwood Mac

18.) Why (Live 1975)-Fleetwood Mac

19.) Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around-Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

20.) Rhiannon (Live 1977)-Fleetwood Mac

21.) Landslide (Live 1977)-Fleetwood Mac

22.) Over My Head (Live 1977)-Fleetwood Mac

23.) Gold Dust Woman (Live 1977)-Fleetwood Mac

24.) The Chain (Live 1977)-Fleetwood Mac

25.) Fireflies (Live)-Fleetwood Mac

26.) The Chain-Fleetwood Mac

27.) Into you (Live)-Ariana Grande

28.) My heart belongs to daddy (live)-Ariana Grande

29.) No tears left to cry (live)-Ariana Grande

30.) Don’t Call Me Angel-Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, Lana del Rey

31.) Straight Through the Heart-Halestorm

32.) Noah (Stand Still)-Noah Cyrus, Billy Ray Cyrus

33.) Mad at You-Noah Cyrus, Gallant

34.) Every Beginning Ends-Noah Cyrus, Ben Gibbard

35.) Mama I’m Coming Home-Carrie Underwood

36.) Love Wins-Carrie Underwood

37.) Crazy Angels-Carrie Underwood

38.) Poor Everybody Else-Carrie Underwood

39.) How Great Thou Art-Carrie Underwood

40.) The Wonder of the Cross-Vicky Beeching

41.) The Story-Brandi Carlile

42.) Ignorance-Paramore

43.) Crazy Train-Liliac

44.) Rainbow in the Dark-Liliac

45.) Night In-Brittney Spencer

46.) Hey Bulldog (Live)-Fanny

47.) Magic Man-Dolly Parton, Ann Wilson, Howard Leese

48.) What Has Rock and Roll Ever Done For You-Dolly Parton, Stevie Nicks, Waddy Watchel

49.) Wrecking Ball-Dolly Parton-Miley Cyrus

50.) I Can’t Get No Satisfaction-Dolly Parton, Brandi Carlile, P!nk

51.) Bygones-Dolly Parton, Rob Halford, John 5, Nikki Sixx

52.) Let it Be-Dolly Parton, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Peter Frampton, Mick Fleetwood

53.) Free Bird-Dolly Parton, Ronnie Van Zant, Gary Rossington, Artimus Pyle

 

Outside of that, I must urge everyone to quit Twitter, it is becoming the next TruthSocial; just a NeoNazi playground, and we can recoup at BlueSky and donate to Biden's Presidential campaign and RedCrescent.  Otherwise, you shall be inundated with bad news and very little video games, sports and music as well fascists rejoicing at their chance to remold America and Jesus into their own twisted, antisemitic, Islamophobic, homophobic and transphobic image.  If they get that chance, I will pray that the nations of the world embargo the United States and declare war upon it, bombing it with conventional and nuclear weapons, leaving the country as barren and desolate as Germany and Japan post-World War II but with no Allies to rebuild it, forcing the once-proud populace to humble itself and eat rats, roaches, fecal matter and babies, forgetting about reconstruction and dwelling forever in ruins!