24 March 2017

	A while ago, I claimed I would stream only Spyro and Crash for the rest of 2017. I fully intended to do so, whilst still periodically chipping away at The Neat Repeat offstream and uploading runs to YouTube. This fell apart quickly as I completely lost interest in streaming for a solid 3 weeks. I figured out what was causing the problem and I want to fix it. I will amend this rule to the following:

	"I will complete at least one speedrun of any of the Spyro or Crash PSX trilogies before playing other games on the same day. There will be no exceptions to the rule, nor will there be any more restrictions on top of this rule."

	This will guarantee that every day that I stream will start off with something I know I want to play, and something I have huge aspirations for! It will also leave me room to play around with the "impulsive" plays such as flash games, Cabela's Deer Hunt 2005, or a GBA roulette. It will restrict me in a fair way. I do not want to be stuck playing Spyro or Crash all day, but I do want to stay active in the games. As a side note, I will "major" in Spyro and "minor" in Crash; but when I refer to my goals in the games, I will phrase it as "Spyro and Crash".

	If you came here and are satisfied knowing the direction of the stream, now is a great time to close the tab. Thanks for reading, say hi in chat and I'll say hi back. I appreciate you!

**Rambling sections**
	I've also updated parts of my stream layout, so I'll see if I like that. Change is good and I find it helps my mentality towards speedrunning in particular. Back in November when I did a near full month of Spyro 1 Any%, I found that something was blocking me from progress. Every run fell short somehow, no matter how hard I persisted- and I did persist, very much every single day without fail. I found that tweaking just one thing in the whole algorithm solved everything: I started comparing against my best split times rather than my personal best times. Best split times display your "best time through" each split. The first split is always the best segment and the final split is always the personal best, but everything in between turned into a goal of its own. Any time that was ahead of the shown split was my best run through that point, no questions asked (other than gem counts of course). It helped me approach the game in a different light. I can't explain how the change made me move my hands a different way on the controller, but it surely was the solution I needed. I finished off that grind on December 5th with a time of 40:45, landing me in 6th place and shattering my previous personal best of 41:52. It is one of my proudest speedruns to date.
	There are many reasons why I want to stay active in the Spyro and Crash trilogies. The main component to this aspiration is the idea of back to back runs. I don't know what caused it; maybe it was Notvanni with his full year committed to annihilating the 6 games in question. Maybe it was "Marihour": a challenge Mario speedrunners such as Darbian or Kosmicd12 are taking on that involve beating 4 specific Mario categories in under an hour. I love the challenge that this brings to the table. I did a single Spyro Trifectany% in February. It was after I got my sub 30 in Spyro 3 Any% but before I got my sub 10 in Spyro 2 Any%. I fulfilled what I thought I could in Spyro 3, the game I was well-versed in at the time, but I fell short in Spyro 2 a fair bit because I was still derusting, but I fell even further from my goal in Spyro 1 because I had lost everything I worked hard for back in November. I hit my goal, but me as a person right now would not be able to pick up the game and get anywhere near I was then. This Trifectany% really showed me how important it is to me to stay consistent with my speedruns.
	Ellie left back for home on the 18th. A small part of why my streams came to a halt was to spend time with her. With some more free time, I hope to continue to carry out the goals I set for myself a while ago. The goals remaining are as follows: Spyro 3 "100 Egg" for sub 57:00, Spyro 2 "14 Talisman" for sub 26:00, Spyro 1 "120%" for sub 1:30:00, Spyro 2 "100%" for sub 1:45:00, Spyro 3 "117%" for sub 3:00:00. They are in ideal chronological order and they can be found below my stream. Ellie comes back in late May. I hope to have accomplished both of the 100 Egg and 14 Talisman goals by then. I have no expectations, but I am optimistic that the work I put into the games will pay off.
	There was a little fiasco that happened and we ended up taking a last minute trip to Los Angeles. I got to see my brother again, who I miss more than I can describe in words. Growing up close with a sibling is something I took for granted for a long time.
	If you've made it this far, I thank you very much for hearing me out. I'm happy to say I was true to myself with every word that is in here. Thank you all for reading.
																Justin