Fanime 2023, etc.

Fanime was this past weekend.  Last time around was 2022, the first time the event had returned since the pandemic times, and that was a relatively chill year for me.  This year continued that trend and was really quite low-stress as I had very few things that I really was set on doing.  I spent the majority of time there just "chilling" and hanging out with friends, taking it relatively easy, wandering around in my trusty Journey outfit of course.

It's been a while since I've seen any other Journey cosplays, but people still stop me for photos and are appreciative of the representation, which gives me a really warm feeling inside.  My outfit isn't as obvious as it could be since I don't have the full head mask and hood (next year I need to add a simple line on my face mask maybe?) but someone after asking me whether I was cosplaying as Journey just said "Oh--Thank you!" which was a rather unique response to seeing a cosplay.

I spent some time playing TGM3 (free play!), starting on a new account and getting to 500 Shirase (S5) as well as passing an S5 promotional exam in Master mode.  Always fun times getting to play TGM and meet up with the TGM folks as we inevitably find each other around that machine from time to time.

There was a bunch of stuff I =didn't= do this year -- didn't stop by swap meet, no B&W ball, didn't catch the PPT2 tourney, didn't bring my melee setup out of the car, etc. but it honestly felt fine.  I had a good time, that's really what matters right?  I guess Viennese Ball felt a little similar this year as well with respect to me not participating in as many things.  Well, Fanime was definitely more fun than VBall, though, due to a variety of factors.  A lot of positive experiences and times, honestly only one negative experience which stood out to me -- I saw an event organizer be a little bit berating to a particular participant, as well as unsympathetic to the participants in general for not quite grokking what they were trying to explain at the time.  I don't think either one of those two individuals was solely at fault but I saw it as a slight on the event staff person much more than the participant(s).  I just felt like there was no good reason to bring negativity into the equation, the situation could have been resolved so much better by showing some sympathy and cooperation without antagonistically drawing a line in the sand.  But who knows, maybe that person was just nervous and didn't have a cool head in the moment.  I remember distinctly a time that I had that happen to me -- I was leading a workshop and got caught up in the moment and said something that I shouldn't have, which I didn't really feel bad about until after the fact.  I never got to apologize to that person, and they are no longer someone I consider my friend.  It's possible that experience might have contributed to the distance between us, but I sort of doubt it to be honest.  Regardless, the whole thing just made me reaffirm to myself in my head how important it is to show sympathy toward others.

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Every once in a while I'll have an experience where...for lack of a better way of describing it, "everything kind of melts away".  I'm not sure exactly what other words to use.  Maybe in these moments I'm "truly living in the present", that's why everything else sort of just goes away.  I'm sure maybe there's some sort of mentally-altering substance that confers a similar effect.  Part of the feeling is a sense of...I guess, not being bogged down by all of the mundane day-to-day stuff, and suddenly having a sort of clarity of remembering what really truly feels important in life, like the big-picture stuff.  But, it's also really frightening, because there's nothing left to ground me.  In those times, I crave the feeling of safety, that someone could just hold me and, in the midst of my entire universe collapsing upon one point, remind me that I am here, and that existence doesn't have to be a scary thing.

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Every so often I've given an idle thought to maybe playing some Diablo 1?  I had fond memories of it at least, so I wondered if revisiting it would be fun.  After downloading and trying out a D1 mod, I think I'm maybe changing my mind on that -- maybe I can do without going through any more Diablo 1.  Sure, it's definitely got a certain charm to it, but would I =really= have more fun going through some sort of D1 experience compared to a D2 mod of some sort (Median...)...?  Eh...

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I've wanted to get into doing yakitori on an actual grill (not using the broiler)...initially I was thinking to invest in a convenient electric grill that I could use indoors, but somehow after doing a bunch of research I ended up with a charcoal-based grill instead O_o.  Working with charcoal was always something that I thought of as impractical and not worth the hassle, but it seems feasible (?), at least in this sort of limited capacity.  We'll see how it works out as I put it to the test -- hopefully keeping fire safety in mind xP

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There are some people in life that I went from thinking were absolute heinous villains, to later realizing that they were...probably still assholes, but maybe not as ill-intentioned as I had once thought.  And there are people who I thought were really good people with strong virtues, who I later came to think of as unscrupulous, or just plain mean-hearted.  Sometimes it's not like I got any new information about that person, it's just a matter of processing what they did and what really happened in relation between myself and them.  I think it's difficult, sometimes, to really tell how that will all play out, in the moment.  You just never know.