#this is developing in my brain maybe i should continue watching dragons rising

[neteyammeowmeow]

wait... this is so good... waaiiitttt.....

can the ninjago fandom please explain to me about the whole lloyd x dragon thing please

[darkot]

You know what’s something that I think about a lot? That if there was a zombie apocalypse, artists would be the first ones left behind.

You’ve got doctors who can treat wounds and keep you healthy. You’ve got police officers and hunters who can defend you and get you food. There are mechanics who can keep your vehicles running. Fishermen can bring fish to the table. Farmers can grow crops.

What the fuck is an artist going to be able to contribute in a zombie apocalypse?

The Walking Dead put it nicely. “Art isn’t about survival. It’s transcendence. Being more than animals. Rising above.” That really stuck with me. While you can interpret many things from that quote, one thing that I derived from it is that, art is only useful in a peaceful society. In this age we live in, art serves to educate and entertain. It gives us reprieve from the mundanity of daily, modern life. It paves the way for more profound thought--for societal change. But when there is a lack of society, what place is there for it? Who will value that skill, and the life of the person in possession of it, over somebody who knows how to scavenge, shoot, or heal? You could argue that an academic artist could act the part of an architect. They could oversee the construction of buildings to keep people safe. But even then, they would not be valued until the re-establishment of society began.

An artists’ vision today helps the blind see and the numb feel. They help shape a more civilized civilization, by lessening our ignorance, so that the world produces less bad people.

An artists’ vision in this hypothetical zombie world would help rebuild society. They could create plans for houses and cities to keep us safe, and keep the bad people (and zombies) out.

In both scenarios, artists help defend us from monsters. The difference being that one monster wants you to hate and hurt, while the other monster wants to eat your face.

It can be argued that artists are simultaneously the most valuable and most easily disposable members of society. The world needs them. But they are the first to be sacrificed.

...

So, that’s a little insight into the weird shit my introverted brain thinks of.

I have been thinking too much lately though, as I always do. As much as I try to work on getting out of my own head, I somehow only end up digging deeper and deeper into it.

Er.. I should probably clarify that all that zombie apocalypse stuff isn’t what I’ve been thinking so deeply on. I mean yes, I thought about it, but that’s not what is really on my mind primarily.

I just.. I’m having trouble moving forward. it’s frightening. I have no trouble admitting that I’m terrified of what’s to come, because the further I go ahead, the more responsibility I take.

I’ve spent all these years hurting and healing.. Now that I’m fully recovered, I’m at a loss as to how to proceed. I’m having trouble believing in myself, and that’s holding me back from becoming who I need to become.

I have a test coming up and.. I don’t know. I’m paralyzed with fear, for some reason. Subconsciously, I’m playing out how it’s going to go over and over, and.. I just can’t have faith in myself to do well. Which is weird, because I’ve only gotten graded at above 90% for all of my assignments in this course. I know the material, so I’m fairly certain that this is just about not wanting things to change as I move on from where I’m at now.

Ughh.. fell asleep halfway through writing this.

Anyways, Overwatch season 3 ended yesterday. I ended the season at 3070, with a season high of 3348. I completed my original goal of making it to diamond near the beginning of the season, where I started off in platinum. However, my goal shifted to getting to master when I saw the very real possibility of that happening. I made it more than halfway there--accumulating 348/500 of the points necessary to rank up. But alas, t’was not meant to be this season. I’m okay with that now, upon reflection, and once I realized that I met my original goal. However, along the way it was extremely frustrating. Just in the past week, I ran into a troll on my team who just kept throwing themselves off the map the entire game, a blatant aimbotter on the other team, and had internet issues that d/c’d me from two games. Between all of those things, I lost about 200 SR (I was already down to 3100-ish at this point. I started climbing again, but these were the last nails in the coffin marked “you are not getting master this season.”)

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this. Well, that may go without saying, since I do a lot of thinking about everything. But.. I don’t know. Overwatch is an amazing game. I love it to death. It is by far the best FPS that I have ever played. However, I can’t help but feel like I’m developing a useless skill here. More useless than art in a zombie apocalypse.

I had made a silent vow to myself that I was going to slow down on playing the game once I hit diamond, but I didn’t follow through with that. I really want to make it to master. I honestly believe that I play at a master level, when going back and analyzing my game play, and I’ve shown definite potential to climb to that rank in this season. 

As much as I enjoy playing this game, the grind is a real bitch. It’s got me thinking about what really matters, and as much as I’d like this achievement.. in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t do me any good. I told myself that I’d NEVER get into professional gaming (not that this is professional gaming, but it’s getting into that far more serious realm), because the time commitment is too large for the amount of earnings, and it is too repetitive of a thing for me to stay interested in it. I’d have to constantly sink hundreds upon hundreds of hours into a game “gittin’ gud” at it, in order to keep my skills sharp and better than my competition. If there is any game I’d be willing to do that for, it is Overwatch (or maybe Smash Bros.), because of its immense depth and variety of characters. But even with Overwatch, I would get bored of that so insanely quickly. I’ve played less than 100 hours this season, and I got burnt out at a point or two. 

To put things in perspective, who are the real “losers” in this situation? The pros, who get to play this game all day and be the best, but only make a moderate amount? Or the devs who don’t get to play their own game very much, and aren’t the best at it, but make infinitely more money? A pro can say to a dev that he’s better at the game than him, but the dev can say to the pro that he can’t hear him from the third floor of his mansion.

That’s more or less how I’m looking at things at this point. I could lifelessly devote all of my time to this game and become one of the best players of it. I could have that achievement of saying that I’m in the top 10,000 players in the Americas. But, my time would be much better spent honing a skill for my career. I could make a game of my own and be further off than if I made it to the top of the leaderboards in this game.

I’m still going to play it because of how much I enjoy it. But I don’t think I’ll continue to take it quite as seriously. I had started connecting part of my self worth onto wether I made it to master or not. I wanted to prove to myself that I could get there if I really tried. I have more important things to take care of, though. 

An artist that I follow made a post on here of them hitting master, and saying that they were glad that they could put down this, as they put it, “time vampire.” And it’s true. That would essentially be what I’d do if I made it there. I’d have gotten that achievement under my belt, and wouldn’t devote nearly as much of my time to the game after that. If I get to master next season playing semi-casually, then cool. If not, that’s fine too. I’ve already made it to the highest rank that I can get to, where I can’t fall out of it. I'll always be diamond, but I could lose my master title very easily. Just takes one bad game after making it there to lose it, and a few more to get you far enough away from it that you really have to fight for it again.

At the very least, master or not, I have absolutely ZERO intention of trying to reach grandmaster. Fuck. That. As much as I think I’d enjoy that level of play, where everyone is coordinated and knows what they’re doing, the grind to get there would literally drive me insane (plus, I don’t think my own gameplay is at a grandmaster level to be honest). If I ever go back on that and start making my way to GM, I want someone to take a screenshot of this, print it out, roll the paper up, and slap me in the face with it.

There’s more to talk about. I started playing Fire Emblem: Heroes the other day. Watched Stranger Things finally. The Dragons of Ashfall release comes out for AQ3D tomorrow. But, I don’t feel like typing all of that up right now. Maybe tomorrow.

I’m really not sure what to do right now, though. It’s 3:30am. I guess I’ll try going back to sleep, but since I woke up not too long ago, I don’t know if I’ll be able to?

OH GOD, WHAT IF I CAN NEVER SLEEP AGAIN!?

Guess we’ll find out, haha.