1. How is University again? The work is starting to get a lot harder, but at the same time you discovered a well of resourcefulness that you didn’t even know you had. Are you able to maintain it for an entire year or did you change career paths?
A bunch of BIG tragedies happened right at the start of the following semester which really put a downer on my mood. I lost the motivation to give it my all, so I ended up dropping one course and got mediocre marks in the remaining ones in spite of my lessened load. You are indeed switching programs next year now, but it's not all bad. You didn't switch because of the failures (though they did help). Your decision was motivated by the amazing success of a friend of yours who took that program right from the start. Though you probably won't achieve the early success he had due to different starting circumstances, you're sure you'll be able to carve out some kind of future for yourself. At least you're following your dreams this time.
2. What about that program who’s name you are keeping a secret for confidentiality reasons? You’ve been trying to get out more and you’ve done a lot of things to further that goal, but this program is the ultimate version of that. Did you enjoy it? Is the experience worth it? Did you even get in?
You got it in, but it wasn't that great. It definitely had some value, (if it was shorter you wouldn't have had any regrets) but currently you wonder if there were better ways you could have spent that time. It was definitely poorly run though. It's like a Hi-Point pistol. The basic idea is impossible to fuck up, but everything else around it makes the experience a pain. Time will tell how much I really learned from it.
As for getting out more, there's a bitter irony in this. At the program, you were trapped with the same group of people for several months. Once it became clear that you were never gonna be friends, your social opportunities dried up. They weren't bad people, but *damn* you had so little in common!
3. How’s the family doing? I’m honestly not expecting much change here, but maybe you finally find some common ground with that one person. I wouldn’t be surprised if nothing changed though.
Things seem slightly better on that front since I came back, but that could just be a temporary change caused by my long absence. Things are already reverting back to business as usual, but it's not all bad. While you were away, you had a lot of time for introspection and you actually had some good insights about your relationships with a few people.
You'll talk about that more when you answer the next question, but for this person in particular you've gotten an even deeper understanding of why the two of you don't get along! No insights into how to fix it though. Honestly the more you learn, the more hopeless things between the two of you seem to be. The worst part about all of this is that I could theoretically change things in order to make them like me more, but these changes are impossible in practice. I'll be a downer for a long time, and I'm not going to change my opinion on issues we have fundamental disagreements on! If they weren't family I wouldn't even be thinking about winning their favour!
Which I find really sad. We used to love each other so much. You'd never think something like that could die.
4. What about friends. You’ve met some new people and very recently you’ve started strengthening bonds with old people who you didn’t have time for in the past. Do those relationships end up developing into something with meaning? Do you meet someone completely new instead?
Things with your tutor have turned out pretty nicely. She's grown into a real friend now. Unfortunately she'll be leaving the country by the end of the year so you've only got a limited amount of time with her left. Still, things don't usually turn out this well for you.
Your Ex reappeared for a brief stint, but that ended after a couple months. We only ever texted. It was nothing significant.
As for that new old person, you met up again a couple of times. You don't get to see each other very often due to issues in geography. Every time has been a blast though! You talked with them at new years actually. His life seems to be improving which is good news considering where he started.
The biggest surprise though was finally saying good bye to your high school crush. She was constantly on your mind at the program, and while you were contemplating you finally pieced together what happened between you two. You found closure and sent her a sweet message thanking and forgiving her for what she'd done. She wasn't ready to let go of you at the time, but it really is over now. She isn't a part of your life anymore and now you can finally move on. One thing you learned from this experience was to trust your own feelings and to not let people who weren't there force their opinions on you. This applies to everything honestly. Think for yourself, don't let others do it for you.
5. What’s your favourite new work? It could be either a video game, movie, tv show, book, or even an anime.
It's a shame I only bought Disco Elysium in 2020 because otherwise I'd be putting it here. Instead I'm gonna talk about Celeste.
But not before I talk about Anime first! The last winter season really surprised me with two new shows: Kaguya Sama: Love is War and Season 2 of Mob Psycho 100. Now what makes that so impressive is the fact that I don't really like modern anime. The newest show that I enjoyed was Shinmoneta and that came out in 2015! I didn't really have high expectations.
I'm not going to waste too much time talking about the shows so I'll be brief. Season 2 of Mob Psycho 100 is good because Season 1 is good. The writing is weaker in my opinion, but the action is amazing! Normally it's an ugly show, but when the fights start the animation is so dynamic and smooth! I'd say the quality of the humor remains the same. It's still pretty funny.
Kaguya Sama is something more original. It's about these two high school elites who develop a crush on each other, but they're afraid of telling the other their feelings. Instead, they devise these ridiculously complicated schemes to try to trick the other into confessing their feelings first. It's hammy as hell and hilarious! The show's not just good humor though. The romantic leads are very likeable and their relationship actually develops in an interesting way. Overall, it's a satirical take on the dangers of overthinking things when it comes to love. Not the deepest message, but it's got enough going on to make me happy at least.
Anyway, it's getting late now. I want to sleep. I don't have enough time to write about Celeste so I'll just edit it in later. Also, it turns out Season 1 of Mob Psycho came out a year after shinmoneta so I guess that's the newest anime that I liked. I'm not changing it though.
EDIT:
Ha! Better late than never, took me till the 2020 time capsule re-revealed itself to realize that I forgot to do this thing, but it's time we finally talk about Celeste.
So the thing that makes Celeste so great and my GOTY 2019 is its seamless blending of gameplay and story. Celeste is a story about a girl with an anxiety disorder forcing herself to climb the titular mountain in order to prove to herself that she is capable of accomplishing seemingly insurmountable challenges. She's looking for a proof of her fundamental competence as a human being. In the gameplay, you are playing a hard as hell platformer that will kill you over and over again.
What I appreciate about Celeste's story is that it understands that playing these hard games is genuinely meaningful to people like us. Encountering these challenges and overcoming them gives us more confidence to face the challenges in our own life. I find it interesting that Celeste, a game that understands the hardcore mindset the most, is also the one that pioneered the most generous easy mode. I guess it helps disabled players, but when you tune a difficulty specifically into something you are comfortable with, you don't really get the chance to grow outside of your comfort zone. You're held back by your own lack of confidence. Still, for the people who really need this kind of thing, Celeste probably brought them a kind of joy that few video games give them. It's not the same kind of joy I have, and it's not the kind of joy the story is built around, but it's joy nevertheless.
What I like about Celeste's gameplay is a few things. First, it nails gamefeel. Second, the controls are great. The thing I like about them the most is how they aren't too analogue like they are in N++. You can only dash in the cardinal and orthagonal directions. Believe it or not, this is a good thing because you're more consistent. If you need to dash straight to the right, you'll dash straight to the right, and not to the right, but slighlty up or slightly down. Levels also have to be designed around this kind of movement and as a result you get a readable and consistent experience that you know you can master if you just put in the effort to learn. Celeste also has great side objectives in the form of strawberries. Some are just straightforward optional platforming challenges for the person who wants that extra difficulty while others are discovered through exploration, an itch I did not expect to be scratched in a platformer, yet is very welcome. Finally you have the hidden hearts. These are very clever outside-of-the box thinking puzzles (except the one that expects you to play Super Mario brothers 3), that pose a purely intellectual challenge that I found more satisfying than most of the puzzle games I ever played.
Celeste is rich in optional content in general, with B-sides and C-sides and the two bonus chapters.
It is truly an amazing game. And I haven't even talked about the soundtrack and the cinematic story/gameplay moments.
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Topic: Time Capsule 2019 (Read 3849 times)