Week Late RPGLB Pastebin

Sorry I didnt put this out in the wake of RPGLB's conclusion, this last week I had to do fulltime work for my job and it's been a bit of an adjustment.

RPGLB was great. Was super happy to see such a high turnout from the Falcom RTA community, so shoutout to Delphi, Tux, Jamespicard, Schtolteheim, Dowolf, FreedomPulse and all the other Falcom runners for coming out and representing. Super happy to see so many good friends...in fact, it's kind of a double edged sword every year. At this point I probably know like half the attendees to some level of mutual acquaintance and it's really hard to find time to hang out with everyone beyond what are effectively fleeting encounters, not enough time to hang out with everyone I want to for very long :S Still, if we chatted, played any games, shared the mic, or even just happened to join in on one of the ramen or village inn trips, I was glad for the time spent together. The week just isn't long enough, and even beyond that I'm an introvert with limited capacity for being around people for an entire week. Still, it was fun. I wish I could hang with more people (still regret missing Shentok with Saturn Bomberman this year :< ), and I didn't get hardly any board game action this year.

One thing that was really killer for me was my inability to get quality sleep. My roommates were good, I just don't share beds very well. Next year I plan to just bring an air mattress. Thank goodness for all the free food, and shoutouts to the bar in the hotel that had decent food so I could go somewhere to eat at night without actually leaving.

I liked the hotel this year, though I feel that the hotel staff wasn't well prepared for such a big event, given various issues with hotel rooms. Staying in the high rise kinda sucked because it made the trek from rooms to event space lengthy, and the elevator issues (which to be fair were probably the attendee's fault, given those elevators were small and not meant for groups larger than like 6 people). I wouldn't be upset if we came back next year.

My run went very well this year, given that new strats which had yet to be really thoroughly implemented in the Hard route helped me set WR by a fair margin. Super happy with that, and I'm really glad I took a chance on commentary by bringing on someone who wasn't as knowledgeable about the game to ask questions and sorta play the "whoa this is neat" guy, so shoutouts to JHobz for that, and shoutouts to Delphi for filling in the gaps with commentary as well. Lots of money raised during the run which was a pleasant surprise, and huge thanks to the crowd who came to check it out.

I didn't feel as great with my commentary this time, Hoshi was kind of chaos and hard to really find a place among the likes of Brossentia, Dowolf and PJ, but that game is such a dumpster fire I can deal with that. Paper Mario was pretty good, I might just feel a bit different with it because it was a full couch instead of just the two of us and so there was a bit less developed chemistry, and also because PM64 has a lot more going on in a shorter timeframe, so I felt a bit more out of my element. Still, I like to think we did well, and Yoshi did spectacularly so shoutout to him on that run. Zwei I was unfortunately underprepared on, I looked over the notes and reviewed some portions of the run but didn't really retain a whole lot. Still Schtolteheim is a genuinely really good commentator and my job there was kind of just to be a second voice to bounce off of, he did great with that run. I guess in general I should go in more prepared is all.

Hosting was really fun, hosting Shadow Hearts was chill and SMRPG was a delight. Shoutouts to Gerrick, Bowie, and Tide for killing it with SHC, and Pidge did fantastically for SMRPG so I'm super honored that I got to host that run, it's hard for someone like me who deals with a speech impediment to be there during the finale when there's donations pouring in, but I think it went well.

Really solid schedule all around, even the runs I wasn't fond of sounded like they went pretty well. Wish I had more time to catch the stream room. The cramped space made it kinda hard on some cases, hopefully next year we have a bit more space (and I know that the room is often pretty empty anyways so it wasn't terrible that we had a small space but it's just a personal thing). RPGLB is an event I really want to see do well so I was happy to hear from many first-timers who said they want to return to the event, even those who came from afar.

Anyways, it was a fun ole time. Shoutouts to the silly shenanigans of the event:

-420, because SMRPG
-Anime and chill with Delphi where we watched some really dumb ass anime (and some MxC)
-Jankbox games (fucking FF6, "getting a stiffy", weeb Tee-KO, Keiz's ass, Ged's hot AND old ass, Brad, Horse)
-That fucking uber ride back where the dude pimped his car with fucking strobe lights and a goddamn wifi hotspot, seriously what the fuck (it was actually fun for like 5 minutes and then kinda painful for the remainder of the trip)
-Playing Maka Maka with Dowolf translating, that game is one of of the strangest games and I kind of hope it ends up being an under 3 hour run that gets offered next year or something
-FUCKIN FREE STUFF (For context, Spikevegeta, Ghoul and I were heading back to our rooms one night and on the way spike needed to buy a thing and the lady there said she had a couple extra vouchers for 10$ worth of stuff so we just went like FUCK YEAH FREE STUFF and bought 20$ worth of stuff for free and for whatever reason it was the funniest shit and we were laughing about it the whole way back, I fuckin love you guys)
-Pepsiman Dark Souls (Bubbles' run of Dark Souls had a blue character and Ghoul and I didn't know why the fuck but we kept calling him Pepsiman the whole run)

And to all of you who made it so much fun. Shoutout to my roommates Osey, Wyrmtalon and Ghoul02, was fun to chill. Shoutouts to Bobtheninjagoldfish and TinyTim as always for being so supportive. Shoutouts again to Pidge for having me as a host for the finale and being the usual ball of fun that you are. Shoutout to Tylerthedriver, for being a welcome face who was super cool to chill with during late night quiet time in the practice room. Shoutout to Ouro, Alta, Mamgar and Sk84uhlivin for indulging in quite the cinco bingo. Shoutout to Fitaurus for hosting my run and getting that Adol Roo plush for a prize (holy shit I want it so much). Shoutouts to the clone hero peoples (Fon in particular), was awesome chatting about music while hurting my fingers at a game I've barely played in 5 years lol.  Shoutouts to Gedrith, Cassie, Legrand, Jello, Kirby, PX, colin, everyone else I got to go out to eat with and share jackbox BS with. Shoutout to everyone who I've mentioned prior thus far in this pastebin, and to everyone else who I had the chance to hang out with and play games with, and shoutout I could list names, but frankly at this point I know way too damn many people to properly shout everyone out.

Oh and shoutout to 200 FUCKIN THOUSAND RAISED you guys are amazing

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Now post-RPGLB stuff.

I think the post-marathon blues hit me bad this year, I had to go straight back to work, at a new job, and it hit me pretty bad. I vented pretty hard about my job, but I think that was more just a bunch of shit (plus allergies making life fucking miserable) hitting me all at once. As I've gotten more adjusted to the job, it's kind of nice. I don't feel as tethered as I did with my previous retail job and the days move past. I work more hours which is tiring and takes some getting used to, but it is what it is. Im not in love with it and it doesn't pay great so I expect to look for something more career-like and less of a stopgap, but for now I think I can hold on to it.

I had a couple interesting conversations with people last week, including one I really didn't expect to have, and it got me rethinking about my social media attitude. Most of my life I've been a pretty positive guy and fairly optimistic, but in the last couple years I've lost a lot of optimism when it comes to myself. I've been self-depreciating and while I don't go around beating myself up on social media, I think I channel my own demons in an awkward way. I've realized my social media presence has come to be a lot more critical and negative than I think really represents me, so I'm going to be working to change that. Being more positive and supportive, and promoting less of the negative. I don't want to be disingenuous or be some saccharine poster child of positivity, but there's more I can do, and I think it will do me some good and hopefully carry over to others more.

Stream motivation is a bit low, I did a marathon run yesterday that, frankly, went horribly, so that didn't help much. But I will be back with semi-regular streaming, although mayhaps at a different timeslot than people are used to.

Been replaying the Ace Attorney series, it's a lot like reading a book again, you notice a lot of the little clever things you glossed over the first time. I've done 4 of the main 6, and plan to go into Investigations and the GAA titles eventually as I've never played those and the fantranslations are up.

Speedplans for the near future are to get to work on Celceta Nightmare (since the new tricks make it less of an awful category), work on Felghana some more, learn Ys I, and hopefully get back into some Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Sky, something I've wanted to run again for awhile.

I'm also thinking about making videos. I don't really have a great idea how to start, but I have a lot I want to talk with people about and I've come to the conclusion that writing about it isn't exactly something that reaches much of an audience. So I'm hoping to learn some stuff and get to work on that.

Anyways, thanks for reading.

-GhostKumo