Post ESA thoughts and stuff

This years ESA was a great tine again, always nice to catch up with people and hang out with videogames. Special thanks go to Dragonfangs, eTholon and Cereth for running forced with me, Ricy0sma and xJakeDreamer for letting me commentate your runs, and all of the people that entered the Guilty Gear tournament.
Outside of this there are plenty of other people I want to give mention to, such as the ff free for being fin to hang out with as usual, the board game guys for some great fun moments, the fangame community for always being cool people to hang out with, and everyone who watched or supported the runs I was involved in outside of that. I've always been a big believer that ESA is set up in a way that the community for your game can come together and put on a show, but its always amazing to see people checking out new things while at the event itself.
Outside of ESA I haven't been very active with stuff recently due to recently starting a full time job, however I think I've gained some better perspective on what and how I want to continue from this point. My 3 focuses will remain broadly the same as they have been for a while: Fighting games, fangames and Speedruns. While most of this isn't that stream friendly i think I'm ok with it. At least currently getting time to stream is hard so I don't want to put myself in a position where in trying to force it.
Fighting games: Main priority is still XRD, although ill be trying to pick up UNIST, and will probably give MvCi a shot when it comes out also. There's a tournament in London in early October that I'll be at so that's my next milestone for this at least.
Fangames: I'm still working on creating my own fangame, although work is pretty slow currently. I should be releasing a new avoidance at some point soon that I've been working on for a while (wasn't ready in time for ESA), and then its back to making the main game. Also still playing through a lot of stuff, trying to grind through some bosses more than platforming at the moment.
Speedruns: I have a couple of ideas for runs I want to try soon, still doing some research and stuff to see if I really want to before commiting though. Most likely thing I want to try is Rabi-Ribi All Town Members (BEX Difficulty), currently finishing up another play through of the game before I decide for certain though. Forced has been a fun project to work on for the last year and I hope I can find something similar to work on for next year again (although it currently seems like it might not be the same group, idk). Outside of this don't expect any long runs from me anytime soon, I've never been much of a practice person, which is something I'm going to try and change with these shorter runs (and by this shorter means like 2h probably) but longer rpgs are too much of a commitment currently. I may however be doing some routing/testing for longer runs or categories that I enjoy, its only runs that wont really work out for now. Once I sort out stuff that I want to work on ill probably start streaming a bit more again, although it will probably be only twice a week or so.

Other stuff: I am starting to look pretty seriously at moving closer to my job which would then return a chunk of time that I could use for other stuff, but its rough. Between that and having limited time off work I think the only big event (>weekend) ill be going to anytime soon is ESA, GDq/RPGLB is just too expensive and too much time to still let me do smaller things in-between. If I do manage to get the money/time stored up I would quite like to go to evo next year, but that doesn't seem very likely either right now.
Also as much as I hate to end on a less positive note I feel like it has to be said. As a person I like to joke around and poke fun a lot, and I can very easily go overboard with it and not realise. Especially in the last month or so my patience hasn't been very good and thinking back on it now I may have crossed the line a few times, so I want to take this opportunity to apologize to anyone if you feel like I've said some bad things towards you, or pushed my jokes too far. Just by meaning it as a joke doesn't make it ok and doesn't mean that its taken that way, and its important to me to clear this up so that it doesn't harm any of the great friendships I've made over the years. You're all great people and I don't want to push anyone away from having fun when hanging out, including myself. If at any point you feel like I've said something undeserved or gone too far please do call me out on my shit. I usually realise its gone too far eventually but I don't want it to be too late and possibly lose a good friendship.

TL;DR I'm still around, and working to optimise the time I have more productively. Speedrunning isn't dead for me yet, just trying to find a project I want to stick with for now. Events like rpglb and esa have made me realise (as they always do) just how many great friends I have in this community. You're all awesome, keep on doing what makes you happy :)