Survivor: Vanuatu Ep. 14 Reaction (FINALE!) – Tarqaron

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Being Sociable

Blog

One thing I’ve noticed about myself over the years is that I really do value friendship and being around good company. I am a sociable person! Growing up and even into high school to an extent I would often describe myself as a “loner” and say that I’m okay just being by myself for long periods of time. Looking back, though, I see that was more of a coping mechanism and a way to justify those times where I just was alone. So instead of conceding that I felt lonely, I would embrace it and pretend that it is just part of my character in some way. But as more and more time has passed, I’ve realized just how friend and community-oriented I seem to be naturally. I’m not a social butterfly necessarily, and I’m usually not a fan of larger, less personal gatherings like parties or weddings, but throughout my life I’ve always felt happier the more I am around good company.

From online forums to in-person friend groups, I’m usually drawn to being a part of some sort of community at most points in my life. Maybe that’s just human nature, that natural desire for like-minded groups to come together and connect, but more often than not I’ll find myself actively starting groups or organizing community events rather than being a passive participant. Even in the parts of my life where I wasn’t a part of any in-person groups and just did a lot of community things online, I would still spend a lot of my time with my best friend, and those were some of the best times that I had. Now more than ever I value genuine friendships and bonds so much, and love bringing good people together. I rarely ever will turn down spending time with good company in favor of spending time by myself.

And that right there, that community-oriented trait, is not really a trait of mine that I was cognizant of throughout most of my life. Maybe that’s why I’ve felt so much regret about how I handled certain parts of my life. I would describe myself as “the weird kid”, or off-beat, or a bit of an outcast as a means of explaining why I don’t need friends, and as a result was dismissive of some of the true feelings of loneliness I would go through. A few years ago is when my depression really started to sink in as I finally acknowledged my issue for what it was: Loneliness. I wasn’t a “loner,” I didn’t want to be alone, but I found myself in this spot and my mental health was struggling in many ways. As I went through college feeling this way, even though I understood that I wanted more friends and more of a sense of community in my life, I didn’t make enough of an effort to actually make this happen. This is a big part of why I didn’t enjoy a lot of my college experience and also why I remained depressed for several years.

As I’ve discussed a lot, I still deal with depression now but in terms of friends I am in a much better spot than I was for most of my college years. Though I still battle with a sense of loneliness which I’ve also talked about on these blogs a lot, most of my depression now is rooted in my position in life rather than just the social element. Now I have some really good friends who I care about and who seem to care about me so that’s a good feeling to have to help with my depression overall.

The biggest takeaway from all of this is that I feel like I’ve realized a lot about myself over the years. Like, maybe I was the kid that sat by himself a lot because I was a “nerd” or because I was a little different than others, but that didn’t mean that that’s the way it had to be. I could have stepped out of my comfort zone more back and changed that narrative then but I didn’t. I could have branched out and done more to change that narrative in college but I didn’t. So now I’m doing the best with my life to live with less regrets and to make the most of my time with the people around me who I care about, now that I fully acknowledge my desire to spend time with good company. Not to mention that I love to make people laugh and have fun rapport with people so a lot of time alone can be particularly draining for me, especially with my continuing mental health struggles. But I’m doing my best and will continue to improve on other aspects of my life now that my social life is in a much more sound place than it was even just a few months ago.

Videos I Posted This Week:

Survivor: Vanuatu Ep. 13 Reaction (Julie Gets Burned) – Tarqaron
Conclusion to the TRUE Gents Challenge 2021 – Tarqaron ft. Ryan
Jungle Cruise Review – Tarqaron

Things I Enjoyed This Week:

Jungle Cruise Review – Tarqaron

Film (Tarqaron), Reviews, Tarqaron

Conclusion to the TRUE Gents Challenge 2021 – Tarqaron ft. Ryan

Discussions, Gents Challenges, Tarqaron

Survivor: Vanuatu Ep. 13 Reaction (Julie Gets Burned) – Tarqaron

Survivor, Survivor: Vanuatu, Tarqaron

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A Decade of Making Videos

Blog

It’s crazy to think that’s been over a decade since I started creating YouTube videos. If you go on to my YouTube channel and sort my videos to show the oldest first, you will say videos that literally say “10 years ago” under them, which is just wild to see. Believe it or not, I even had a channel on which I did videos as far back as 2009, but the videos on that channel have since been deleted. So the oldest relics of my YouTube experience that I have are those 10 years ago videos, back when my username was still ZRPGRevamped (a follow-up to the aforementioned channel from 2009 which was called pokemonzrpg). For the years that I went by this name, I was young and it wasn’t as much of a known aspect of my life. I was a part of an online video game collecting community (which I am still part of to this day) and all of my videos revolved around my passion for video games. I was also the host of a gaming podcast for much of those years within that community called “Hey, Listen!” At the time primarily only people within my sphere of online friends and that community knew about my videos and podcast, so it’s wild to think that now making videos is such a big part of my identity.

For the years that I was just doing videos within the gaming community, my rate of uploads and overall interest in making videos was often inconsistent. 2015 is when I started going to college and I got more of a spark for creating videos regularly. I transitioned into doing videos on all of the things I love, not just gaming, and started posting videos daily for some time, and at my worst I was still posting some amount of videos weekly. This is when I really started to find my love for music more than ever before and my channel became largely geared toward that for years to come. To this day, music is the primary subject of my channel and is where most of my viewers have come from, but I still struggle with striking a balance between all of the things I love. It wouldn’t be until 2019 that I would create a YouTube channel with my friend Alec called Tarqaron in which we could talk about everything from film to gaming to television in addition to being able to talk about Survivor which is another passion of mine.

Fast-forward to 2021 and all it takes is one look at any of my social media accounts to see that I make videos, and that between both my solo channel and my collaborative channel making videos is a pretty big part of my life. Some weeks I might post more than others, but it’s pretty much a guarantee that I will upload some amount of videos every week, so I’m pretty proud of that level of commitment. That being said, there are are still plenty of things I want to improve on and lots of ideas and directions I haven’t explored yet, but that’s part of what keeps things exciting and why I’m still so interested in continuing to create videos after all of these years. It’s crazy to think that I’ve been doing videos for over a decade now but it’s almost like creating has been such a constant in my life since then that I can’t imagine my life without it. Here’s to many more years of creating awesome stuff!

Videos I Posted This Week:

Survivor: Vanuatu Ep. 12 Reaction (Dethroned Queen) – Tarqaron
SUPERtheticals: 50 New Questions for Strange Conversations (#4) – Tarqaron

Things I Enjoyed This Week:

Big Brother (TV series)
Sherlock (TV series)

SUPERtheticals: 50 New Questions for Strange Conversations (#4) – Tarqaron

Discussions, Hypertheticals, Tarqaron

Survivor: Vanuatu Ep. 12 Reaction (Dethroned Queen) – Tarqaron

Survivor, Survivor: Vanuatu, Tarqaron

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The Rise and Fall of Paper Mario

Blog, Gaming, Written Posts

Tonight I decided to talk about what was historically one of my favorite series of video games ever: Paper Mario. While there certainly is a “fall” referenced in the title of this blog, make no mistake… Paper Mario as a series is beloved to me. Few video game series bring me as much joy just to think about. But the unfortunate reality is that I always have to preface my love of the Paper Mario series in saying that my love is for the older games in the series rather than the newer ones. I equate it a lot to a feeling that many Star Wars fans have when talking about the original trilogy versus the prequels. It’s almost a 1:1 comparison for me, really. The first three (Paper Mario, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, and Super Paper Mario) correspond almost perfectly to the original trilogy. Paper Mario on the Nintendo 64 is the equivalent to A New Hope in that it is a true gem and you can’t go wrong with the one that started it all. The Thousand-Year Door on the Nintendo GameCube is like Empire Strikes Back in that it is the GOAT and really perfected what made the series great. And lastly, Super Paper Mario on the Nintendo Wii is most like Return of the Jedi in the sense that it is the more off-beat of the trilogy and slightly more contentious than the others, but appreciated nonetheless. Although the correlation isn’t quite as direct, the newer trio of games (Paper Mario: Sticker Star on the Nintendo 3DS, Paper Mario: Color Splash on the Nintendo Wii U, and Paper Mario: The Origami King on the Nintendo Switch) would be viewed similarly to the prequel trilogy of Star Wars films in that they are so different stylistically from the first three and, in my opinion, lose a big part of that original spark and can’t compare in quality as a result. Hopefully that comparison is as apt for you as it has always been for me.

For me, the first two in the series stand head and shoulders above the rest. The Thousand-Year Door has always been my favorite but the original is almost equally timeless and is up there with some of my favorite role-playing games. The worlds, characters, dialogue, music and presentation of both games just ooze charm and in many ways can’t be rivaled in my eyes. Super nostalgic, for sure. At the time of Super Paper Mario‘s release, I definitely expressed my concerns with it in that it was quite a departure from what I wanted from the series and was a far cry from the legendary status of TTYD, but in retrospect and juxtaposed with what was to come, I have a much greater appreciation for it. It isn’t exactly what I want when I play Paper Mario, but it had its own charm and certainly had no shortage of clever writing, with a surprisingly detailed story and fun (but different) gameplay. That being said, I and many other Paper Mario fans naturally hoped the series would see a return to form with its next installment, and remained optimistic for the future.

Everything changed when Sticker Star attacked. Years had passed since SPM‘s release, and naturally hope for a revival of the series was dwindling. But lo and behold, Nintendo bring Paper Mario: Sticker Star out of the woodwork and raise fans’ excitement, only to have it come crashing down with an unbridled rage. Was it really that bad? Well, it is MAYBE a decent game by itself, but it is a horrible Paper Mario game, and that is a trend that the series will continue to have to date. The greatest artistic crimes it commits include completely disincentivizing battling enemies while taking out the really fun battle system of the original games as well as completely taking away the unique character designs and fun dialogue that made the Paper Mario series so special. It’s almost as if Nintendo had no idea why their fans took a liking to the series to begin with and just assumed they liked the haha funny paper gimmicks, so they decided to go all in on that. If you like being paper and that’s all you want from a Paper Mario game, then this is the game for you. It has it in spades.

Color Splash came along a few years later and while it was a noticeable improvement, it immediately reeked of Sticker Star in presentation as well as some gameplay elements. There was still no incentive for battling enemies, really, and the worlds were full of exclusively Toads rather than unique character designs. The dialogue was alright, I guess, but doesn’t even remotely resemble what fans have still been dying for since TTYD. I do want to point out that I thought Color Splash was genuinely a fun game, but it just doesn’t have any of what I want from Paper Mario. It’s an insult to fans to call it that just because Mario happens to be made out of paper in it. Get it outta here. Full disclosure, though, I barely played any of The Origami King, but from all that I’ve seen of it, it doesn’t in any way remedy the problems that I’ve had with the series since TTYD, so even though it may be a swell game in comparison to the previous two, I’m fine batching it in with the prequel trilogy here. At some point I’ll get around to playing through it, for sure, but for now I’ll stick to Bug Fables (an awesome indie game that shamelessly rips off the best qualities of the original games- almost like a spiritual successor for the fans).

I can only hope this isn’t the end of the Paper Mario story. There have been persisting rumors over the years of a true return to form for the series, but I continue to be disappointed, time and time again. One day, hopefully, I can be a Paper Mario fan with pride once again.