As a point of comparison, Final Fantasy XII only had two or three fetch quests in its entire runtime (the desert patient, the medallion, the bhujerban wine).
It's been a very puzzling thing I've noticed considering how similar they are to each other in some ways.
Xenoblade:

• Focus on auto-attacks to build talent gauge
• Only one controllable character in battle
• No way to influence AI party members except when prompted by the game
• Cooldown style gameplay system (the arts are basically MMO hotkeys)
• MMO style progression (progressing to one big area, complete quests there before the next area unlocks with bigger monsters)
• Constant collectables to collect during the overworld (the blue orbs) with various levels of RNG
• You even literally trade with almost every NPCs

Final Fantasy XII:

• Focus on auto-attacks but abilities aren't tied to them
• Every character can be controlled at any time
• You have full control over their AI with the gambit system
• The game is still largely ATB, you just queue up attacks
• Non-linear world progression (you can go as far as Nabudis 10 hours into the game despite the story not asking you to)
• Constant chests to collect with various levels of RNG

When putting them together, I feel like FFXII is even more of a classic JRPG than Xenoblade is in comparison. You even had to grind affinities in Xenoblade, which is the same kind of stuff that I used to do for my MMO pets in the early 2000s. Both games include a grind but that was never something that never existed before (FFX famously forced you to capture 1800 monsters to fight the superboss), but the rest feels fine with the exception of Xenoblade only making you play one character without the ability to switch mid-battle.
I think calling any of them offline MMOs is ridiculous in the first place, as I think it does not apply to them. The .hack series is an actual offline MMO series, you match with fake online players and you trade with them too. I just don't feel like it has been very fair to FFXII to call it that way (the same applies to Xenoblade btw, it's really not much of an offline MMO). What do you think?

I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.
 
Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to.
Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547
I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can.
I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts.
Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T

Intro

• "The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
  • "I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
• "For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
  • "We're spread way too thin."
• "If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
• RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
  • Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
  • ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
  • Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
  • Widespread match fixing
  • The Pandemic
    • "People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
    • "People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
      • "To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
      • "Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
      • "People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
• "It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed, maybe we ride it out."
  • RL says he has talked to the Riot devs (the ones working on Valorant) and says, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike."
    • He continues to say that this is factored into their business plan and that we never had a competitor, but just so happens to have one coincide, when we are at our worst.

CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association

"Who does this union really fucking serve?"

• RL believes that the CSPPA is a mockery.
  
  • He points out the hypocrisy that they wouldn't strike for the pros who were kicked out of ESL Pro League, or for Jamppi or dream3r.
    • He also says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering and many other TOs have to pay them to get their "seal of approval"
      • He says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event."
    • Also points out that they will strike against a competitor they are not in agreement with (Flashpoint)
    • RL: "It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward." "The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
    • Then he points out that there was no strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r can't play in them.
      • "and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you." "That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
• He says the CSPPA doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
  
  • "We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all." "If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
  • He tells chrisJ to admit and own the fact that the reason he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
  • "They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"
• He says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players but is not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
  
  • He thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
    • He stated that CSPPA shouldn't beefing with ESIC and they should be working in harmony
  • He says what they need to do is talk with the teams/organizations that have sold that right to BLAST
    • RL: "Your employers, the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month." "Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
  • "I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
  • "Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?" "Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
    • "Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
    • "That's a big issue. Your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
• He is also angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
  
• He also says their rankings are a joke
  
  • "Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20, not by a long shot."
• He also says the ineptitude of the CSPPA cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
  
• "Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"
  

ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission

"They have been put in an impossible position."

• RL says that Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC and who was done work in mainstream sports, is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He takes on both sides, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair.
• "ESIC is a tiny organization" and are in need of money, "They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
  • "Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
  • "Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
    • Ian Smith made sure that the money given by MTG (Modern Times Group, parent company of ESL, ESEA, DreamHack) was nothing more than startup money and wouldn't be in debt to them
      • Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them. They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"
  • "They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
    • "They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
• ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
  • He calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them.
    • Also says more coaches being banned are coming
    • He also points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans: "Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
• ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
  
  • "I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
  • "So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS." "They're doing this with half a dozen people." "They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
    • "Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together." "because its all about what's in it in for me." "2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."
• RL says that in the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team. We found out they were cheating and those players who lost, have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters.
  

Stream Sniping

"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"

• RL talks about how there is no integrity from dead (the player), always denying when caught doing something
  • On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe': "Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it." "because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
    • "Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
      • He says that ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS. What resulted was, BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them, in RL's words "don't do this again or you're gonna get got."
        • He then says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
        • The new MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping). He gave credit to Flashpoint for the quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response to the situation.
        • "ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'" RL then got upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies" for their non enforcement and said if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams.
• He points out how players have no integrity and will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area.
• "All of this shit was mad avoidable, even in the pandemic era."
  • He talks about why aren't we filming them. Why aren't there representatives for leagues and tournaments making sure players aren't cheating?

Match Fixing

"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."

• RL says that gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
  • "Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs." "His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships." "NBK promoted them. People forget."
• "Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players" "Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
• Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
  • Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins. Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
    • They would use this info to bet and subvert the odds on their sites. "That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
      • "I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
        • "Some of these players are still playing." "Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
• RL also says that there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win.
• "There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
  • "It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
• "It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
  • "I get sent chat logs all the time […] and they're morons, these players, short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp." People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs. He says, from the chat logs, they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
• He says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something and says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
• "That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"
  • "All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower" "These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
• "I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."

North America

"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."

• RL says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS. "The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you." "To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
• There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer.
• He says NA team owners are incompetent for always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance.
  • RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and would have a good ROI and also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major.
  • He also says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going.
• He then calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team.
  • He says HECZ is not to blame here and that they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious.
    • They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
    • When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
    • "was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
    • He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs that hey provided
• He respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk.
  • He says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team.
• He says there are still opportunities in NA and people are panicking and pulling out, and says Valorant will be the same if not worse.
  • He also says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant and says it will continue to inflate.
• He also said that he heard rumors that EG (Evil Geniuses) are done.
• He also thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
  • Slasher says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money. "Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"
• RL says that Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about and says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS.
• RL continues to say, "I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it." "I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA." "Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."

Talent

"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."

• RL says that people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less over there.
• He points out that TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar.
• Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money.
• He says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists.
  • He also says DeKay is leaving the scene soon and that Thorin is close to leaving also
• He says he had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons.
• He says that DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT and says that this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other." and says this is why we don't have a talent union.
• New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
• He says the reason Moses left was because of the terrible conditions
• He says that Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises and had to constantly tell his kid to their face that "daddy can't be home this weekend."
• He says that esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream, "Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."

Valve

"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"

• Slasher says that the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are the bigger problems. He continues saying that the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it.
  • Both Slasher and RL wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
• In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors.
• RL calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era.
• He says Valve used to come to the majors, but doesn't think they do anymore.
• RL had met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major and had tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment and had also gave Brax's life story:
  • A recent family member passed away, they had lost a lot of income, they had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay any salaries, and was pressured by family to make money who didn't support his career.
  • RL said that Valve told him, "How dare you try and make us feel guilty." "We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
  • RL also tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
• RL points out that Source 2 or a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S. "Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember."
• Slasher says "If there is anything the community should do, is pressure Valve to hire a community manager."
  • They say that we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
• RL reiterates that Valve doesn't care about CS esports and says they need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
  • Slasher says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
• He also hasn't talked to Valve in ages and have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
• Slasher says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
  • RL thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS" and were the only people that RL recalled that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
• "It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
  • Slasher suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
• "Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space" which is something RL didn't think he'd say.
• "People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow, like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."

Closing Statements

"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."

• RL compared the Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking.
• "We have given up on being a respectable esports scene." "We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done." "What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
• "There's just too much self-interest driving all of this." "I don't see a way we stop the dominoes." "When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
• "How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again', and another scandal." "The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it." "The people who could be driving that don't want to."
• "Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
• "The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who, at least, is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
  • He continues saying it's no good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad, ESIC have it hard
• He says CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times.
  • "If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one." "You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not." "We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
    • "They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
• He says what orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad. "When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene" "Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters" "If you start stripping that away, you have nothing" "You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
• "Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them for sounding tired after a 16 hour day. Don't hate on them because the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months, they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
• "This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
• "You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone." "Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting." "I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
  • "Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
• "Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
  • "You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
• "I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the fucking people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
  • "I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
• "I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."

Edited to remove the tables because when I obsessively checked this post on my phone I couldn't read them?? Also I tried to, but was prevented from, editing the title. I know it looks sanctimonious but that's just one small part of my personality I swear. D:
❤️ Section 1: Assets and Debt
Total Net Worth: $30,875 - all equity.
Retirement Balance: $0 for me; $20,500 for my husband in the state pension program for teachers. (My partner, L, has been paying into the state teachers' pension system for 5 years. For most of my 20s, I either worked at very low-paying jobs, or supported myself and others on a teacher’s salary, so no retirement for me. My current job does not have a retirement program, but one of my goals for this year is to either start a Roth IRA or get a new job with a 401k match… or maybe both?)
Savings Account Balance: $23,733 We’re moving this summer to a city closer to our families, and are saving all we can for a down payment on a dreamy spot. After we move, some amount of what’s left over will go into a retirement fund, and the rest will stay in this HYSA as our emergency fund. For us, three months of expenses, including childcare, is about $18,000.
Checking Account Balance: $455
Credit Card Debt: n/a, pay off each month
Student Loan Debt: $80,000 for L’s undergrad and MAT. $18,000 for my undergrad and (unfinished) MAT. (My undergrad degrees were mostly covered by the Pell Grant, scholarships, and a $10,000 529 from my parents. L was a nontraditional student - didn’t start undergrad until he was 24 - so none of his was covered. Most of my debt is for a MAT program I dropped out of after one year. I was trying to find any way out of teaching at the time (it is demanding, all-consuming, and carceral at once) and thought a PhD would be my only route. When I got my current job I promptly left the program and any dreams of a PhD behind.)
Equity: $83,875 (This number is from an online equity calculator, and is for our house in a very popular neighborhood in a very popular city. Our outstanding debt on the house is $295,000. We put our whole savings down in 2019, which was $9,000 at the time.)
❤️ Section 2: Income
Monthly Take Home: My base pay is $65,000, and L’s is $45,000. I worked a side gig last year that totaled about $10k in additional compensation; all of it went to savings so we don't budget for it. My take home is $4096/month for my full time job, and my current side gig income (grant writing) is variable, between $300 and $600 a month. L’s take home is $2262/month. My health insurance is paid in full by work. L’s insurance and B’s come out of L’s paycheck, as does L’s retirement contribution.
Income Progression: I’ve been working since I was 15 years old, moved out for college at 18, and paid my own bills starting that year. I won’t include that money here though (it was like $12,000 a year as a college student, for reference). Income below starts when I graduated with two BAs that had nothing to do with teaching.
Year 1: $15,600 (part time ABA therapist, full time baby anarchist)
Year 2: $32,000 (year 1 teacher salary: I accepted a spot in Teach for America for this giant salary even though I thought it was an obnoxious neoliberal org. Yes, I was also obnoxious at the time.)
Year 3: $33,000 (teacher, step increase)
Year 4: $34,000 (teacher, step increase)
Year 5: $35,000 (teacher, step increase)
Year 6: $15,000 (community organizer; at the time this felt like a dream job)
Year 7: $20,000 (community organizer & cafe worker)
Year 8: $40,000 (back to teaching, felt rich; this includes a side hustle writing grants on the side for $50 an hour)
Year 9: $45,000 (left teaching for my current job, quit the grants side hustle)
Year 10: $55,000 (got a raise, got pregnant)
Year 11: $65,000 (got a raise and promotion, had a baby)
Year 12: $75,000 (was promoted again in January but waiting on the pay increase to hit, hopefully with backdating. This money diary doesn’t reflect this salary as it hasn’t been reflected in my check yet)
❤️ Section 3: Expenses
Mortgage/PMI/Insurance: $2,110
Retirement Contribution: n/a (L’s retirement is pulled out of his check before he receives it: it’s $169 a month. Right now, I don’t have a retirement contribution)
Savings Contribution: $1000 to main savings, $400 to sinking fund (This is a super aggressive goal for us and is only possible because our childcare costs are covered by work)
Debt Payments: n/a right now (We have student loans to the tune of $100k but haven’t been paying a dime since they were paused due to COVID. But then the other day I checked and saw they've gained interest? Should we be paying them then? WWJD? I legit don’t know.)
Electric: $130
Internet: $100
Cellphone: $65 (For L & I both. We are on a bigass family plan with 40 gajillion other people.)
Subscriptions: $45 ($10 Spotify; $10 Youtube music; $2.99 Apple data (Why?!); $22 NYT (for newspaper and cooking app); also have a split subscription to the New Yorker with bestie F but we paid for a yearly deal.)
Car Payment and Insurance: $150 for a car payment; $202 for insurance (Insurance covers both of our used cars and my dad’s used handicap van. Our car payment is for our used Honda. We only owe $6,850 on the car and I’m back and forth on whether to pay it off with savings)
Medical/Therapy: $0 (My therapist is $140 a session, and I just started seeing her again once a month, but this is reimbursed by work. I also get an inhaler at least twice a month - that’s reimbursed too, costs $60 total.)
Misfits Market: $120 (For a weekly box, which really helps us cut down on overall grocery cost)
Gym membership: $30 (For my intense local yoga studio’s app which is so great in the winter. We also run and bike a lot, as long as it’s warm enough)
Donations: $100 (We give monthly to our local Democratic Socialists of America; the Working Families Party; and a small, local org. I’m also on an organizing committee for that org. We’ll give them one big gift of at least $250 this year, probably in May. I support a couple organizations with grant writing and grant-finding support as much as I can, which usually amounts to a few hours a month.)
Childcare: $0 B goes to a very precious Montessori preschool, and we can walk him there. It’s pricey af ($1300/month). The other $200 is to account for some babysitting from my little sister when L or I have to work weird hours. For now, work reimburses this full amount as a COVID perk; if that changes, we will have to cut costs significantly.
House cleaner: $160 (They come twice a month and charge $80 each time.)
❤️ Section 4: Money Diary
NOTE: We are masked and afraid everywhere we go.
✨DAY 1: THURSDAY✨
4:20 am: Good morning world! I shuffle into the kitchen in my panties and my slippers to fill up the gooseneck kettle. I recently got into pour over coffee even though it’s quite a commitment. With a toddler, a full-time job, and a Libra sun, I don’t really have time for meditative morning routines. This lengthy, half-naked coffee regimen is my closest attempt. As soon as I get the coffee brewing, our 18 month old, B, starts making noise. I open the door and see he’s got his pacifier in his mouth and his pillow in his arms. He wants to lay with Dada. I help him get in the bed with my husband, L, as quietly as possible. Last week L was super sick and we thought for sure he had picked up COVID. Blessedly all of our tests came back negative, but on the heels of that, he started having major tooth pain and had to have an emergency tooth extraction, AND he got an ear infection as he was coming down from whatever virus he had. I hate it :(
I get dressed and do some chores while they snooze to ease L's morning. I start the diaper laundry (usually his job - we use cloth), put away the dishes, start the Eufy vacuum, and get B and L’s breakfasts together: sunbutter and a little bit of syrup on some banana pancakes I prepped earlier this week.
6:30 am: B and L are up! The hour before we take B to preschool is kind of a marathon. L eats with B (and supervises his syrup consumption) as I clean out some more dirty diapers, brush my teeth, make another cup of coffee, strip our sheets, spray my hair with water to refresh the curl, return a few group texts, and wash some breakfast dishes. Somewhere in here I also eat two boiled eggs with Everything But the Bagel seasoning, and a bunch of grapes.
I help L get B loaded up in the car, and just as they pull off, my parents Facetime me. They’re calling to see B but are polite enough to talk to me for a few minutes. They live a few hours away, and are divorced, but cohabitating. The full story is long and spiritual for me so I’ll spare you. Anyway, my mom and I talk for a while about this couch she thinks I should buy from one of her friends, but it’s two hours away and we’d have to rent a U-Haul, so I think we’ll pass. I do hate our current couch though. Please drop comfy toddler- and dog-friendly recommendations in the comments!
8:15 am: I set out to walk the dog and listen to the Daily’s recent update on the coronavirus. Donald G. McNeill, Jr., says we’re in this through the summer, which is a bummer on the personal and global front, but I suppose it could be worse??? Maybe?? As soon as they finish talking I switch over to You’re Wrong About. I’m deep in the Jessica Simpson series and highly recommend this pod for any other nerdy, lefty, kinda burnt out millennials, especially those of you that are queer or queer-adjacent. Once home, I take my whole operation onto the front porch to work, since the cleaner will be here soon and I don’t want to crowd her in this time of COVID. I LOVE a clean house and I love paying someone else to do the big stuff, which is a recent luxury for us.
11:00 am: I’ve been working steadily in my email and google docs for a couple hours now, and it’s COLD out here. The cleaner leaves and I am grateful to go back into the heat. I Venmo her $80 for the cleaning (included in monthly expenses). I take a break from work and check out the job boards. My current job is the best, and highest-paying, gig I’ve ever had, but I’m planning to leave some time this year for several reasons. The premier reason: I recently learned that I’m qualified for several positions that pay over $100k at similar organizations. With that kind of money we could pay off our student loans, help our families out more, make sizable donations, and L could explore a career outside of teaching without freaking about a slight cut in his pay for a few years as he finds his niche. Or - maybe he’ll get into Edtech somehow and we’ll join Resource Generation. Who knows.
12:30 pm: I have a quick break and pull together lunch: half a cheese quesadilla, a big bowl of Smitten Kitchen’s roasted tomato soup, and a LimonCello LaCroix. L is on his planning period and asks me to edit his most recent job application, and I oblige. Since we’re both job hunting, I ask him if I can buy a resume template and guide on Etsy. I have sworn off online shopping for the year to curb my impulse spending, but he says we’ll just count this one as his purchase. Great news because I hate the formatting of my resume from 2016 and don’t want to fix it myself! $9.95
3:30 pm: My Zooms are over, my inbox is at 0, and I put up my out of office message because I’m taking the day off tomorrow to work on my resume and do some things to prep our house for sale. My high-functioning anxiety created an ambitious backwards timeline for this process back in December, and that timeline currently runs my life. I work for a few more minutes to tie up loose ends, and then walk O to a nearby shop to buy my favorite candle, curbside-style. When I get there the owner gives me some percentage off because it’s slightly discolored from the sun. Huzzah! $27.25, marked down from $40
4:45 pm: My angel of a baby sister, J, who lives just a few blocks away and is in a pod with us, comes to hang out with B for an hour so L can rest. I head to my good friend D’s place for my investment overalls appointment. She's going to alter their awkward wide leg into more of a tapered, mom jean shape. I have a capsule wardrobe which means I’ll wear these babies at least once a week, and plus I get to pay my friend, so I’m fine with the extra expense. When I arrive, she and her partner have the fire pit going, and we drink a couple glasses of wine together, yet more than 6 feet apart. I learn they are planning to move to the same new city as us in the next couple of years and legit cry happy tears.
Afterwards, I head out to pick up dinner for tonight. We are getting burgers from L’s favorite place as a treat. On my way, the WOLF MOON appears over the water and my stomach does triple flips. Then I pick up our dinner: a veggie burger with eggplant jam and kale for me; a real-meat burger with mushrooms, bacon, swiss, carmelized onion, and horseradish mayo for L; and an appetizer plate with pretzels, pimento cheese, onion jam, pickles, and chips for B. Delicious and unhealthy. The total is $34.54.
6:30: Home and eating dinner. B loves his meal, especially the “chokes.” He calls pretzels “chokes” because when L first started feeding them to him, I worried aloud that he would choke every time. I just couldn’t stop thinking about how a pretzel almost took out George W. Bush. Turns out our toddler is better at chewing than George W. Bush.
After dinner, L gives B a bubble bath while I do my own, very minimal, bedtime routine. Then L and I lay down with B to put him to sleep. He has a floor bed, which is a Montessori thing I learned about on mom blogs. L is a very hot and talented woodworker, so he took my floor bed dream to the next level by building a lovely house-shaped frame. The top beam is wrapped in twinkle lights and fake ivy. It’s a nice place to sleep, and we pass out here all the time.
10:30 pm: L wakes me up and we wander to our own bed.
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 71.74
✨ DAY 2: FRIDAY✨
4:15 am: Wake up and go look at the clock. Decide this is a silly time to get up on a day off, drink some water, and go lay back down. But once in bed all I can think about is how much I want to read the news, organize my resume, and update this money diary. This is the problem with falling asleep at toddler time. So I get up again at 4:45, make my coffee, read a New Yorker article about Biden’s pandemic response on my phone, and sit down to work on this diary.
6:00 am: L wakes up! He works on breakfast for himself and B and I start meal planning for the month. This is one of my best and most recent life hacks. I found that if I chart out our cooking, weekly takeout, and leftovers at the start of the month, we save lots of money and are so much less stressed about the labor that goes into feeding ourselves. I pull out Smitten Kitchen Every Day and use it to inspire the month’s meals. So quaint to cook from an actual BOOK.
6:45 am: B walks out of our room and announces that he drank my water off the side table. He’s so proud! And so ready to eat. While he eats breakfast, I snack on some grapes and, at B’s request, blast 7 Days A Week by They Might Be Giants. This is the consummate children’s song for any household that dreams of a self-determined world. Over the next hour I take B to school; make myself a real breakfast (a soy chorizo and egg taco); and browse TikTok. Eventually I find a series about this Gamestop situation by a smart Irish woman and L and I watch it together. When it’s over we feel like shrewd stock brokers ready to win money, and L gets to work teaching virtually.
I spend the morning painting our front door and our kitchen wall to prep our house to sell, and talking to my (other) little sister on the phone. She’s an HR person with a job that’s taken her far away from our family, and we don’t talk that often. It is so good to catch up on her life. After that I have a fun, day-off Zoom call with longtime bestie and coworker K. We drink coffee and talk about The Future.
12:30 pm: I make lunch (tomato soup with goat cheese on top, and a savory scone on the side) and get a text from another bestie, M, who offers me a little grant writing contract work this week. Yay! I love them and love working with them. Next, I order our groceries for the week. I get baking powder, eggs, cremini mushrooms, vegan sausage patties, oat milk, ginger root, shredded cheddar cheese, plantains, black beans, doggy bags, broccoli, vegan chicken strips, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, capers, ciabatta bread, grits, bananas, avocados, greek yogurt, and on impulse, a pineapple on sale (?!). Maybe B will love it. The total comes to $94.08.
1:15 pm: I do a brief power vinyasa class in B’s room and take a shower. It takes me approximately two Drake songs to shower and dry off, as I don’t have to wash my hair today and I never shave. I work on my resume until L and I leave to pick up B. On the way home we stop at the park to play, and then we all get in the car to pick up groceries.
6:30 pm: We get home later than planned and eat together: leftover tofu ramen for us and veggie lasagna for B, who is so sleepy that he hardly touches his lasagna. L gets him in the bath around 7:15 and I run through my evening routine. There’s a lot going on in the house - preschool lunch and clothes to put up, a mountain of laundry in our room, all of the groceries for the week waiting to be put away, and dinner dishes are languishing in the sink. L starts on chores while I get B dressed.
As I’m dressing B, my mom Facetimes and B shows her several of his board books. While we’re talking my dad texts me a heart emoji - he overheard B and my mom talking from his room. He lives with a disability and a painful illness, so he goes to bed very early. We hang up with my mom and record a video of B making “P” sounds and saying “I love you” to my dad, and send it over. This is the first time B’s ever said “I love you!” Huge news. We read books and fall asleep next to B.
9 pm: I wake up and nudge L but he wants to keep sleeping. I go clean the dinner dishes, put away the food and reorganize the cabinets and fridge, and mop the kitchen floor while I listen to The Daily’s latest reporting on QAnon believers who are at once totally bananagrams and also remind me very much of my aunt. L wakes up at 9:30 because he and Y, my sister’s boyfriend, are gonna game. Cute! He finishes the laundry and I fold a few diapers to help out. Then we lay in bed together until game time, when I fall asleep.
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 94.08
✨DAY 3: SATURDAY✨
5:40 am: Wake up at a ~*~weekend hour~*~!! Start my kettle, clean and moisturize my face, pull out the ingredients for waffles, and pick up around the house while I wait for it to boil. I try to read some, but get bored a few pages in. I’m currently reading How to Do Nothing and it’s good enough, but I think I need to chill on the nonfiction and read, like, saucy romance novels with hot bisexual leads. Send me your recs please!
Waffle time! This recipe is my go-to. I recommend whipping the egg whites first. B wakes up around 7:15 and helps me cook which is cute and very messy. He eats his waffle with honey, peanut butter, and grapes. L wakes up after him - he had a late night gaming!
8 am: I open yesterday’s mail and find an anti-abortion DVD from L’s grandma. It’s Abby Johnson’s “memoir.” Abby Johnson is an opportunistic right winger and documented liar who once moonlighted as a Planned Parenthood clinic manager. L is a preacher’s kid, so we’re not surprised to receive this from his grandma. For example: 10 years ago, when L and I were a couple years into our relationship, her Christmas gift to me was a book about how one can recover from being a slut by getting married and finding Jesus. This particular package really sends me over the edge, though. I decide to write them a short note later that states my own experience with abortion and sets a clear boundary on this kind of propaganda, and includes an article about Abby Johnson’s bullshit life. It’s unlikely this will change their minds - they are septuagenarian Southern Baptists, after all - but at least I’ll be in my integrity.
In the meantime, I group text L’s siblings, and they commiserate with us. His one sibling who is transitioning shares that grandma recently sent them a book about how to tell your gay friends they’re sinning. We agree that’s hilariously dense (and fucking rude) of her, and talk about how everyone under forty is a gay slut living their best life, so really it’s grandma’s loss. During this time I clean the kitchen, finish the waffles, and freeze them for B’s weekday breakfasts.
9:30 am: B asks to use the potty and does a great job peeing on his own! He’s geeked about it and is especially excited to have my parents on Facetime cheering him on. After that we head out on our morning walk. L takes B to the playground and I take O to the dog park nearby. She gets tired pretty quick and we all head to the thrift store. We need chairs for our hand-me-down kitchen table. The ones that came with it are awkwardly wide. L spots two sturdy ones that are just $5 each. Score! $10
11:30 am: B and L are both wiped out once we get home. They eat lunch and go to sleep. I clean up the kitchen, repot one of my plants, water our porch plants, and eat some leftover ramen for lunch. The Marie Antoinette episode of You’re Wrong About keeps me company all the while. 10/10 would recommend.
2 pm: B wakes up and eats some lunch. We watercolor together for a while (he on his big paper, I in my bullet journal), then walk down the street to the local high school while L preps potatoes for our fondue. The high school grounds are open on the weekends, and there’s an amphitheatre on site. B loves the echo in there.
4:30 pm: L joins us in the amphitheatre and together we drag B two blocks back home. I prep the fondue: brie, gouda, and more gouda with white wine. It ends up being a little clumpy but so delicious. My sister, J, and her boyfriend, Y arrive while I’m cooking. Y brings yummy baguettes from his bakery job for the dipping and we prep broccoli, green beans, and tempeh too. We sit down in our new chairs to eat and for the zillionth time I am so thankful we’ve been able to make a pod together this year. Fondue would be a terrifying proposition with anyone else, really.
While we eat, Y tells us he put in his two weeks at the bakery because their COVID protocols aren’t so tight and his coworkers are continuing to go to bars and out to eat. His plan for now is to get back on unemployment and find a virtual job sometime soon. Both he and my sister have worked food service their whole adult lives so the pandemic has been tough on them. Besides the fact that they’re delightful and perfect, this is one key reason we’re planning to move with them to our new city this summer: L and I will be able to easily afford the majority of the rent, deposits, and utilities on a pretty big, and centrally located, house. Living together will allow us to grow our savings and take our time looking for a Forever Home, and will allow J and Y to pay really low rent as my sister goes back to school full time and Y looks for a full-time job. I’m really looking forward to living with them and know it’ll be good for B, too. They leave around 7 pm and we put B to bed, this time without falling asleep ourselves!
8:30 pm: Turn on How I Met Your Mother in bed and the episodes are baaaaad bad. One entire episode casts sex workers as a punch line. Ick. L and I agree to find a new show, and fall asleep around 10.
11 pm - 2 am: B is up and between our two beds. Wahhhh.
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 10
✨DAY 4: SUNDAY✨
6 am: Up and at ‘em! Discover I’m out of my fancy coffee and don’t want to emphasize the flavor of our grocery store beans with a slow pour, so make a french press instead. B wakes up too early so we watch toddlers together on TikTok while I drink my coffee, then read books while L makes us all eggs for breakfast. We head out for our morning walk around 9 am and stop at a coffee shop a few blocks away. I pick up Counter Culture’s Iridescent beans, buy an espresso brownie on a whim, and tip the cashier because she’s so sweet and tipping is good. The total is 23.03. L takes B to the playground and I drop my purchases and O back at the house before I head out for a run.
9:45 am: It’s 65 degrees and my run is glorious. I run to the water and pause Lil Yachty for a minute to take it all in. Once home I shower and put on a black LA Apparel catsuit and a marled black and white cocoon sweater from AA of the past (I like what I like!). We feed B lunch and then L puts him down while I clean up.
Around 11:30, J comes over after to watch B while we remove the storm windows from our whole house and clean the windows underneath as part of our work to prep the house for sale. We’re a solid team: L removes the storm windows and caulks all the gaps in the wood while I follow behind him and wash the windows inside and out. Our sweet neighbor catches us cleaning and offers to let us use her power washer for free next weekend to clean up the front of the house. I resolve to bake them some cookies.
2:30 pm: We are done with the window operation and it’s time for me to water all 57 plants in the house. Along the way, discover that I overwatered B’s hoya last week and it’s rotting. Noooo! I unpot it on the porch to dry the roots, but it’s raining so this might not work. There’s only one surefire solution: buy a replacement plant! I try to convince L we should go to the nursery, but he’s not so into it. I walk around dejectedly with a towel to clean up all the water I spilled, and Zelle J $70 for babysitting even though she insists she would do it for free. Next B, L, and I share a snack: crackers with goat cheese and harissa. Mmm. B skips the harissa but loves the goat cheese. Meanwhile I begin to stress about making dinner. We’d planned goddess bowls but L and I just aren’t feeling it after our marathon of house work. L requests Chinese and is suddenly more amenable to visiting the nursery, which is near our favorite Chinese takeout spot. Score!
5:00 pm: We leave the plant shop with a heartleaf philodendron for B’s room and a giant, lovely, perfect monstera deliciosa just because. The total comes to $53.24. Then we pick up our food: $33.08 including the tip. L ordered a large veggie lo mein to share with B and General Tso’s chicken, and I got family style tofu and vegetables. We start B’s bedtime routine at 6:30 and he’s out by 7:00 - early for him!
After he’s down, L preps his breakfast sandwiches for the week and I do some dishes. Then we take mutual advantage of the extra hour we have together. Even after 12 years it’s always so good with L. I fall asleep around 10 pm feeling blessed.
🌿 Daily total: 179.32
✨DAY 5: MONDAY✨
5 am: I make my pour over and get started on work first thing. I have a couple of deadlines this week and the side gig to balance so I’m already feeling pressed for time! I wrap up an entire grant report before 6 am and feel very accomplished. Then I pause work to start our breakfast, which is all pre-prepped, hallelujah. While L and B eat breakfast, I get dressed in a black turtleneck minidress, busted old tights, black ankle socks, and my Doc Martens.
I help L load up the car with B and all his gear, and tell L to be careful. Today is L’s first day back teaching in person since December, and we’re both nervous since COVID is still running wild in our red state. On the way to work he fills up his car for $18.33.
2:30 pm: After another grant report, seventy gajillion emails, forty Slack messages, and several hours of Zoom calls, I’m ready for a break. I finish eating the quinoa salad I prepped during Zoom call #2 and then eat a pear too. I see our Misfits box has been delivered. It’s $30 a week, and is included in our monthly expenses. I unpack it, clean the counters, wipe down the bathroom sinks, take O for a walk, and sit down to work on my side gig grant report, which is due Wednesday. I set a 30 minute timer because I don’t want to be too late picking up B.
4:25 pm: Worked longer than I meant to! Pack some snacks and pick up B. On the way home we get a giant bag of potting soil so I can repot those plants. It’s $18.52. Come home and engage in B’s favorite winter activity: pressing all the buttons in the turned-off car. Meanwhile, in another car across town, L picks up a big bag of Purina One, butter, maple syrup, and applesauce. That total is $28.64.
5:30 pm: The whole family is home and we kick it inside until it starts to get dark. L and I gather all the things and take the creatures out for a walk even though there’s a light, but very cold, rain happening. B is cranky and so are we, so the walk is quick.
We eat leftover Chinese food around 7 and start B’s bedtime routine. B falls asleep at 8 and I update this diary for a while, then go watch Ted Lasso in bed with L til about 9:30. It’s much better than How I Met Your Mother, for the record.
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 65.51
✨Day 6: TUESDAY✨
3 am: B wakes up and needs a diaper change. I have the hardest time falling back asleep after: I can’t stop thinking about how I left B’s hoya out in the cold with its roots exposed most of the day yesterday and into tonight. But it’s too cold for me to get up again and pull it inside! So instead I toss and turn and hope it’s not dead yet.
6 am: L’s alarm wakes me up! No early morning reading and writing time for me. I get right up, make a giant pour over, and get breakfast together while L wakes up B. Then I actually sit down with them to eat: B and I both eat boiled eggs with everything but the bagel seasoning and some coconut milk yogurt, and L sips his coffee while his breakfast sandwich heats in the oven. I get dressed in my workout gear and walk the dog while L gets B ready for school. They leave, and I finally bring the hoya in, and start work, around 7:30. L buys coffee and snacks from the gas station on his way to work: $6.88.
9:30 am: I grab some crackers and peanut butter from the kitchen and notice a DMV bill on the fridge I’ve been meaning to pay, but don’t totally understand. I call them up and respond to emails while I sit on hold. Turns out I owe the DMV $10 for paying my Dad’s van insurance late. With the “processing fee” it comes to $11.17.
1:30 pm: Been on Zoom calls all morning, and decide to switch over to the side gig work for a bit. Meanwhile I eat that quinoa salad I prepped yesterday. At 2 pm, my longtime bestie and neighbor F comes over and we take O for a walk in the park together and have such a good conversation. While the context is (very) different, I’m reminded of the Toni Morrison quote when I think of F: “She’s a friend of my mind.” Such a gem, and such a smartie. At 3:30 I start a HIIT yoga class and it kicks my butt even though it’s only 20 minutes long. Afterwards, I shower and pick up B.
5:00 pm: L arrives home while B and I are playing, and we get in the car once more to check out a cute couch L scoped out on Facebook marketplace. It’s a sweet vintage brown velvet actually-for-real midcentury situation. Unfortunately we discover it’s also small and very uncomfortable. $200 not spent. Once home, my family goes for a walk and I make dinner - this grits and beans recipe from NYT cooking. It’s blessedly quick to pull together. Meanwhile D texts me and says my overalls are ready! YAY! She’s gonna drop them off in a couple of days. She says the total is $30. I include a tip and Venmo her $40.
7:00 pm: At bedtime, B cannot get enough of his books and we read All The World several times. He finally falls asleep around 8:20 and L and I eat dinner on the couch, with Ted Lasso. I drink a glass of red wine, which is a mistake: my anxiety spikes right after, my stomach hurts, and I can’t sleep. This is very upsetting as I want very much to be a wine mom. Does this happen to anyone else?
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 58.05
✨DAY 7: WEDNESDAY✨
5:45 am: Wake up with B cuddled into my back - L moved him to our bed in the middle of the night after his second wake up. Get my coffee and breakfast together and sit down at my computer to work on the side gig grant while everyone's asleep. Then L and I manage the morning rush together. I eat sourdough toast, two scrambled eggs, and some pineapple along the way.
7:30 am: Take O out for a walk and on a whim decide to listen to one of my favorite easy-listening pods: A Beautiful Mess. Normally the two sisters and co-hosts, Elsie and Emma, chat about things like home decor or craft making or how to balance kids and work. This episode is about the host’s evangelical upbringing, though, and is a real raw and honest tear jerker. Pair it with this, one of my top reads of 2020: “What Does the White Evangelical Want?” It gets me thinking about L’s upbringing in the church. He and all his siblings are all agnostic now.
Finally sit down at my desk and debate taking Adderall. I used it regularly in college and for a few years after in order to Do All The Things. I try to stay away from it now - I’m not trying to live an impossible life any more - but I also really want to pick B up earlier than normal today, and that means I need to meet all my deadlines and make it through two Zoom calls with my direct reports by 3 pm. I decide to take 4 mg. Right after I take it, three different friends text me at once and then, suddenly, I’ve spent an hour catching up via text. Get to work for real around 9 am.
3:00 pm: Wrapped all my calls, answered all my emails, washed all the dishes, ate some lunch, and finished the side gig work! OK Adderall, you beautiful bitch. Spend a few more minutes tying up loose ends and then gather my things to pick B up from school. The plan today is to go “play basketball” in the park near his school because he is OBSESSED with balls, and I’m trying to do more magical things every day with him. It’s cold but I’m ready to brave it on his precious, curly-headed behalf.
At 4 pm J calls and asks to go pick him up with me. Hooray, things just got even more magical! We head to a different-than-usual park together and run around until B sits in, and then drinks from, a puddle. We panic and J googles “What happens if my baby drinks from a puddle?” The search returns lots of stories of babies eating muddy rocks and surviving, so we decide it’s ok.
5:00 pm Head home and L is back from work! We take the smols on a walk and I tell L that I think nighttime screentime is making me anxious. I’m a sensitive creature and I really don’t want to blame the wine. He’s very perfect so he helps me think through an alternate plan for this evening: hot tea and book reading in bed, and maybe sex, too! Fun.
Next, I head home with O to pot the plants we bought the other day, and L takes B to the playground. They get back around 6:30 and I am very excited to reveal my new plant placements. Everyone feigns interest except O. Then we eat leftovers together and B gets in bed around 7:30. L and I promptly fall asleep next to him and don’t wake up again til 11 pm. Guess our new nighttime routine will have to wait til tomorrow!
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 0
❤️ Section 5: TOTALS
Total Expenses: $478.71
Food & Drink: $220.25
Fun & Entertainment: $0
Home & Health: $109.01
Clothes & Beauty: $40
Transport: $29.50
Other: $79.95
❤️ Section 6: REFLECTION
This week reflects a new normal for us, I think! We just set the goal of saving up for another down payment in December, and that’s when I swore off online shopping both to save money and to stop lining the pockets of evil billionaires like Bezos (no shade to anyone who uses Amazon, this is purely a personal goal & I’m not sure I can meet it). This self-imposed rule is helping me reign in my discretionary spending overall. L and I have only been living a two-income, middle class life for a few years, and my lifestyle creep was a little out of control in 2020. That said, I can and do still regularly justify spending money on things that make life more luxurious and beautiful - like a $40 candle or a totally unnecessary but very lovely plant.
There are a couple of things not reflected in this diary that we regularly spend on: gifts (my achilles heel - for example, we spent three! thousand! dollars! on Christmas gifts in December), and medical bills. Both B and I had to visit the emergency room in 2020 and we are still getting random bills in the mail as our insurance company and the hospital duke it out. As I was editing this diary on Thursday, I received one for $787. Wahhhh. I think I’m gonna get on a payment plan, but even so that it will be over $200 a month.
Last thought: this process got me thinking in some detail about the contradiction of organizing for the fall of capitalism (and the rise of a more gentle and just economic system), yet believing everyone - including ourselves and our own families - deserve to live full and abundant lives. This means I compromise my own anti-capitalist values and beliefs every day, in big and small ways. Discuss?

Frequently Asked Questions
❔ Hacking makes your 3DS/2DS be able to play any region. You can play EUR games on a USA system and the opposite USA games on a EUR system. If you have issues with games loading try importing the seed first by locating the game within FBI > Titles > Selecting the game > Import seed. If that doesn't work try switching the games region to whatever it is with Luma Locale Switcher so if the game is USA then switch the region of it to USA and try loading it again. For certain games like Luigi's Mansion and Tomodachi Life you do need the right region for the game to work. No idea why and this is usually EUR systems trying to play the USA version of games. If you can't get games to work please comment below for help.
❔ Whatever happened to Freeshop? / Nintendo killed it, along with all other programs that get games from Eshop servers. They are permanently dead.
❔ Can we make a new Freeshop? / No
❔ Can I update to the latest update? / Yes. Update Luma to the latest stable release and then update your system software.
❔ How do I hack my 3DS? / Follow the guide here don't use a youtube video - https://3ds.hacks.guide/
❔ I found a .CIA - now what? / Put it on your SD card and use an installer like FBI to install the game.
❔ Can I get banned for pirating games? / Yes and No. It has happened in the past, but it's been years since any bans. Nintendo does not know if your console is hacked. They do not know if you are playing games you installed from a .CIA. Don't cheat while playing online and you should be fine. 3DS is dead now anyway so Nintendo seems to have giving up.
❔ Can I update .CIA games normally? / Yes if the region of the game matches your console. For example a USA system and a USA game. If a game is prompting an update notice, try to update by normal means. If you get an error you can always download an update .CIA and install it through FBI.
❔ I installed DLC from a CIA file and went to the eShop, but now it's gone. What happened? / Some games like Super Smash Bros. check for your tickets every time you log into the eShop. If you haven't purchased the DLC legitimately, the ticket will be deleted. Redownload the DLC and it'll work again. You can also use a homebrew application called Faketik to restore it.
❔ If I have pirated games on my system can I use the eShop? / Yes, you have all functions just like if you never hacked your 3DS. You can buy and download games from the eshop.
❔ How can I install games if I don't have access to the SD card? / Use Boop (Use version 1.4.0 if the game you're sending is 1GB or larger) or FTPD. Boop is PC only while FTP can be done via PC or your phone. Boop guide and FTP Phone guide for Android and Apple. FTP is easy to use on PC just use a FTP app like Filezilla.
❔ If I have a pirated copy of Pokémon, can I use the Pokébank? / Yes. You do need to pay the yearly fee to use Pokébank and no you can't hack it to use it for free. You can also use PKSM on your 3DS or PKHEX on your PC for a free alternative.
❔ Can I upgrade my SD Card? / Yes. If you want to upgrade your SD card all you need to do is format the new card to Fat32 and copy the entire contents of your old card to the new one. Should just work like before, but now with more free space. Cards up to 256GB seem to work fine. 128GB and bigger SD cards should be formatted with 64KB clusters or else GBA VC Injects may have display problems.
❔ Can I pop in my SD card into a non hacked console and have my games playable? / No, it doesn't work like that. Even a hacked console can't use the same SD card you have in another system. Nintendo made the 3DS locked to a single system with the SD card. Meaning it only works on the one system it's tied to.
❔ Can I do a system transfer to another system and still have my CIA games? / Yes, but the other console needs to be hacked first. Hack the system you wish to system transfer to first (I would advise you to back up your saves with checkpoint before doing the transfer in case anything happens) Then do the system transfer. Once done use Faketik to restore your CIA installed games.
❔ I have some .3ds files how do I convert them to .cia? / If you want to do it on your 3DS use this guide. If you want to do it on your PC use this program.
❔ I have a 3DS game cartridge that I want to dump and install as a .cia how do I do it? / Guide here
❔ I want to backup or edit my GBA VC Inject save how do I get the save file? / How to Backup and how to Restore the save.
HOW TO PLAY DS GAMES
There's 3 ways to play DS games on your system. DS games cannot be a CIA file unless Nintendo released it as DSiWare.

1. Get a flashcard which has the most compatibility. Ask in the comments here for flashcard recommendations and how to use them.
2. Use DS Forwarders which place shortcut icons on your homescreen, but doesn't AP patch the rom like Twilight Menu++ does. You'll need to AP patch the roms yourself using this method.
3. Install Twilight Menu++ which is the best method if you don't want to buy a flashcard. Twilight Menu AP patches your roms on the fly before launching.

Whatever method you choose you need to find DS roms which are readily available online. If you want help with where to find them ask in the REQUEST MEGATHREAD.
MAKING VC GAME INJECTS (GBA, GB, GBC, NES, SNES, PS1, NEOGEO, ETC)
Use NSUI to make VC inject CIAs of these platforms which get added as Home screen icons. Here's an alternative guide on how to use it.
PS1 injects are also available, but only on NEW 3DS/2DS. Compatibility is not perfect so some games run ok and others are buggy.
NEOGEO games can also be injected now, but like PS1 it's recommended for only NEW 3DS/2DS systems. Games also may have performance issues so some run great and others not so much.
All require rom files which are readily available online. If you want help with where to find them ask in the REQUEST MEGATHREAD.
A list of CIA sites
Ziperto
3DSCIA
CIA-3DS
RomsForever
Daniel's Rom Shop
AlvRo's Complete 3DS ROM Sets
QR CODES
hshop - Creator Post
3DSQRCodes Subreddit
CIA COLLECTIONS
PS1 CIAS (Plus other systems) - Creator comment
Juegos de Nintendo 3DS (In Spanish, but has English too)
ROM SITES
Vimm's Lair
DISCORD SERVERS
Piratendo (No piracy talk)
OTHER
Old Megathread for the other old megathreads, use the searchbar
Anything I need to fix or something you think I should add please feel free to comment below or PM me. This post is meant for questions and tech help so any requests for files should be put in the other stickied post labeled REQUESTS MEGATHREAD. Any requests here will be deleted!

Smash Bros is truly an incredible celebration of gaming, and just in its playable characters represents a wide variety of genres, including 2D platformers (Mario, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, Kirby, Ice Climber, Sonic), 3D platformers (Mario and Sonic again, Banjo-Kazooie) action-adventure (The Legend of Zelda), Metroidvania (Metroid, Castlevania), Shoot’em up/rail shooter (Star Fox), RPGs (Pokémon, Earthbound, Xenoblade, Final Fantasy, persona, Dragon Quest), racing (F-Zero), turn-based strategy (Fire Emblem), 2D shooters (Kid Icarus, Mega Man), third-person shooters (Kid Icarus:Uprising, Splatoon), minigame collection/party game (WarioWare), real-time strategy (Pikmin), stealth (Metal Gear), life sim (Animal Crossing), sports (Punch-Out), maze games (Pac-Man) fighting games (Street Fighter, Fatal Fury, ARMS), beat’em ups (Bayonetta). Sandbox/survival (Minecraft), and other games with non-conventional genres (Game &Watch, ROB, Wii Fit, Duck Hunt).
Yet, there are still many genres that are completely, or almost completely absent, whether they are lacking in Nintendo’s catalog, or simply because they haven’t got a chance yet. So I thought I’d take a look at some of them and try to give a few examples of characters, first-or-third party, who could fill that hole. For third parties, I’ll try to find the franchise that is to its genre what Street Fighter is to fighting games, or Final Fantasy is to RPGs, since I feel for third parties Smash usually goes with classic icons or games that have otherwise made a huge impact.
I’m also not saying any of these characters are even remotely likely, or even that I want them, in fact many of them aren’t. I’m also not saying these are the only characters that could possibly represent their genres, these are just my thoughts. I’ll try to find other things each characters have going for them, though. And hey, this could get you thinking about characters you didn’t know you wanted.
This list also includes some genres that are technically represented, but I feel not satisfactorily. Mostly those who are only represented as spin-offs from a franchise of different genre. You’ll see what I mean.
Puzzle games
Here’s an example. Yes, we do have Dr. Mario, but that’s just a Mario spin-off. 90% of Doc’s moveset is still taken from the platformer games. There isn’t even a Dr. Mario stage! So, if we wanted to include a pure puzzle IP, which could it be?
Well, for the Nintendo side, I think the best choice would be Lip from Panel de Pon, also known as Puzzle League. PL was a mainstay of Nintendo consoles for a long time, and was the premier first-party puzzler, and there’s still a lot of fondness for it now. References to it abound in the Smash series since Melee. Unfortunately, Lip is basically non-existent outside of Japan. NoA deemed the original too girly, so changed the games to feature more MANLY IPs like Yoshi. After a while even Japan stopped putting Lip in the games, and there hasn’t been a new full PL game since 2007. It did receive sort of a resurgence last year as Nintendo released the Japanese original worldwide through NSO.
Aside from Lip, there are several more recent Nintendo puzzlers that could get a rep. The Brain Age series is undoubtedly important and used to be huge. You could make the argument that it, not PL, is Nintendo’s premier puzzle series, and it is even still going. But its protagonist, Dr. Kawashima is already an At. Mallow from the Pushmo series and Box-Boy from the eponymous series are both acclaimed and popular with four games each. More recently yet are Snip and Clip, the stars of Snipperclips.
Now for the third-party side, the undeniable king of puzzle games is Tetris. Problem is, Tetris doesn’t have characters. I’ve seen people suggest a literal Tetris block as a character, and at this point, I wouldn’t put it past Sakurai, but for the sake of argument, let's keep looking. The other most iconic puzzle game series might be PopCap’s Bejeweled series, but that suffers from the same problem (Colorful gems for Smash?). Looking further still we have Sega’s Puyo Puyo series, which is very popular in Japan, and has been around since the early 90s. This series actually has identifiable characters, such as protagonist Arle Nadja.
Puzzle games aren’t just about matching 3, though. They come in a variety of formats. Usually they are quick and bite-sized, which makes them perfect for mobile, and the most iconic mobile puzzler (Other than Bejeweled-but-with-candy) is Angry Birds and the main bird Red could be a great mobile rep.
TLDR:
First-party: Lip (Puzzle League), Dr. kawashima (Brain Age), Mallow (Pushmo), Box-Boy, Snip and Clip
Third-party: Tetris Block (?), Arle Nadja (Puyo Puyo), Red (Angry Birds)
First-person shooter
Again, yes, we do have Metroid Prime reps in the game, but that is a spin-off of a non-FPS franchise. And there is debate over whether it is an FPS or an action-adventure game (I mean, it can be both, but whatever). If we wanted a pure FPS rep who would it be? Nintendo doesn’t really have its own FPS series, so let’s just skip to third-party.
There are two series that I think can be called the most iconic FPSs. The first is DOOM, represented by Doom Slayer, so influential to the genre they were at one point called Doom clones. The series dates back from 1993 and is still going strong with popular acclaimed releases. The series has a great presence in Nintendo consoles and is a popular request. Unfortunately, it’s not very popular in Japan. The other is Halo, represented by Master Chief, the Xbox’s flagship series and one that redefined FPSs away from Doom clones. Both characters are owned by Microsoft now, but they wouldn’t be the first or second Microsoft-owned characters in the game.
Other good candidates include Doom’s sister and predecessor series Wolfenstein (BJ Blackowitz), the highly influential Half-Life (Gordon Freeman), and the mega-blockbuster Call of Duty (soldier? I don’t know CoD), but these are series you add after Doom or Halo.
TLDR:
First-party: none
Third party: Doom Slayer, Master Chief.
Adventure games
In case you don’t know, adventure games don’t refer to games like Zelda, which is an action-adventure game. You might know this genre better as point and click adventure games, though of course, they don’t need to be point-and-click. They could be text based, have regular controls or be what you call visual novels.
Nintendo has a few of these, but none very well-known. The two most notable both released for the Famicom Disk System: Shin Onigashima and the Famicom Detective Club duology, both of which received a Super Famicom remake and then nothing more. Though Japan-only and short-lived, both are fondly remembered, and Nintendo actually references them both quite a bit, almost as much as other retro NES games. Of the two, FDC is the most likely to get a Smash rep. In fact, Sakurai even said he wanted to include FDC protagonist Ayumi in Melee, but thought she’d be too unknown in the West. What’s more, the series is being revived this year with remakes of both games coming to the Switch (but only in Japan). Other than those, Nintendo had a couple of adventure series on the DS, Trace Memory and Hotel Dusk, but they weren’t very popular, and they are in that limbo of not being old enough to be nostalgic retro classics, and not new enough to be relevant. Speaking of new, Nintendo published a new adventure IP just last week, Buddy Mission BOND, but it’s probably too new. It’s also, naturally, Japan-only.
On the third-party side, the adventure genre doesn’t have an undisputed king, but there are three series that I’d argue come close: King’s Quest, Monkey Island and Myst. This last one doesn’t really have a character, but the other two have quite memorable mascots: King’s Quest has the gallant King Graham, and Monkey Island has Guybrush Threepwood, a mighty pirate! King’s Quest is older, arguably more influential, has more games and is more relevant, with a fairly recent reboot, but MI is my personal pick. Unfortunately it’s owned by Disney, so… yeah. Not that it matters, because I don’t think either franchise was even released in Japan. Adventure games are heavily language-based, and especially in the early days, were very hard to localize. So just as we never got to enjoy Shin Onigashima and FDC, Japan never got to enjoy Monkey Island, though I think the new King’s Quest might have been released there. Anyway these would be “literally who?”s to Japanese fans, and frankly, to a lot of newer Western fans as well.
Luckily, there is one salvation for the genre. The Ace Attorney series is popular in both sides of the Pacific, it’s owned by Capcom, who’s already involved in Smash, it’s very popular with Nintendo’s fanbase and Phoenix has even already been in a fighting game. I wouldn’t call it the “Street Fighter of adventure games” but it’s probably the only one we’re gonna get.
TLDR:
First-party: Ayumi (Famicom Detective Club), Donbe & Hikari (Shin Onigashima)
Third-party: Phoenix (Ace Attorney), Graham (King’s Quest), Guybrush (Monkey Island)
Survival horror
Nintendo doesn’t have much in the way of horror games. Their only real foray into the genre was Eternal Darkness back in 2002. And though that was an acclaimed cult classic, it doesn’t seem Nintendo is interested enough in the series to do anything with it. On the other hand, we have the Fatal Frame series, which is in a weird spot. It isn’t technically owned by Nintendo, but Nintendo owns every game since the fourth, will continue to own every future game, and Koei Tecmo even said the future of the series is in Nintendo’s hands. Nintendo basically owns the series in practice if not legally. It seems to be in a similar spot to Bayonetta. Regardless, Nintendo is for sure more likely to use it than Eternal Darkness. It already has an AT!
Now for third-party this is easy: Resident Evil. Some of these other genres are pretty debatable, but there is no arguing over what series is the Street Fighter of horror games. No other horror series even comes close to it in terms of popularity, acclaim, influence, impact and even connection with Nintendo. I guess we could throw a bone to Silent Hill as a distant second, but if there is going to be a third-party horror rep, I think we can all agree on RE. It’s actually Capcom’s most successful series, far more than MegaMan or Street Fighter.
TLDR:
First-party: a Fatal Frame rep, Alexandra (Eternal Darkness)
Third-party: a Resident Evil rep
Rhythm games
Nintendo has quite a few rhythm games under its belt. The Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents series is great but kinda dead. The Daigasso! Series never came to America, but its popular in Japan, and has a recognizable main character in the form of Barbara the Bat. She is actually pretty popular herself, appearing in various merchandise and even had her own Twitter account. I wouldn’t discount her. But Nintendo’s biggest rhythm series is undoubtedly Rhythm Heaven. Many people actually expect it to be the next Nintendo Ip to be added, if there is one. It doesn’t have a real main character but there are a few possible choices, primarily the Chorus Kids and Karate Joe. Rhythm Heaven also has all original music, which sidesteps one very ironic big problem of rhythm games in Smash: despite being all about music, they’d probably be able to bring none, since most use licensed music.
On the third-party series, I feel the rhythm genre has two big icons: Guitar Hero from the West, and Dance Dance Revolution from the East. Good news: they both have characters that could rep them in Smash. Bad news: can you name any? Both series have the problem of the games themselves being super iconic, but the characters? Not really. Guitar Hero could be repped by Johnny Napalm, basically the series mascot. He has been in every game, was on the cover for the first one, and has a distinctive appearance. But how many people could tell who he is? Especially if Smash just called him “Johnny”. Can you imagine? “Hey guys, they added Johnny to Smash!” Dance Dance Revolution doesn’t fare much better. Its series mascot is Disco. You know… Disco! Super memorable character. I guess he’d be the first unambiguous black character in Smash, which is cool. Both series also have a problem of not being super relevant. Guitar Hero oversaturated the market, crashed and hasn’t been seen since 2015. DDR is still going, but is now mostly played by aficionados, the big new casual dance game is Just Dance which… doesn’t have characters, so it doesn’t help us either.
For an influential third-party game with recognizable characters we have to turn to Parappa the Rapper, which is actually credited as the first rhythm game, so it has the impact down. Unfortunately, its owned by Sony, who I doubt will collaborate. Actually PSASBR had Parappa, so I guess it beat Smash to the punch on the rhythm game representation. For a third-party game with recognizable characters that is popular and from a company that is willing to collaborate… uhm… Namco’s Taiko no Tatsujin and its mascot, Don-chan! I guess we’re stretching from my goal of finding THE rhythm game rep but, we have to work with what we got.
TLDR:
First-party: Karate Joe or Chorus Kids (Rhythm heaven), Barbara the Bat (Daigasso! Band Brothers)
Third-party: Johnny Napalm (Guitar Hero), Disco (DDR), Parappa the Rapper, Don-Chan (Taiko no Tatsujin)
Real-time strategy
“But hey!” You’ll say “Isn’t Pikmin an RTS?” Yes, it is! But it’s a very unconventional RTS. Most people use RTS to refer to the type of game that follows the template of Dune 2, so to cover my ass (and because I thought it’s be interesting), let’s talk about it. Pikmin is already Nintendo’s sole RTS series so let’s just talk third-party.
There are plenty of popular RTS franchises, and I’m not sure one stands too much taller than the others, but if I were to choose, I’d go with either Command & Conquer or StarCraft, both very popular and influential. Both also have popular, recognizable mascots, although interestingly, in both cases, not the hero, but the villain: Command & Conquer has Kane, and StarCraft has Kerrigan. C&C is not in a super hot place (though it just got a remaster), and I’m not sure if it’s well-known in Japan, but everybody knows what a sensation StarCraft is in Japan’s neighbor South Korea. Also fun fact: not only did both games receive a port to the N64, in BOTH cases, the port was published by Nintendo. So hey, it’s not the wildest idea in this post.
TLDR:
Kane (Command & Conquer), Kerrigan (StarCraft)
Also if you’re asking, why StarCraft as an RTS rep and not Warcraft, well…
MMORPGs and Western RPGs
MMOs are a huge part of gaming, and the undisputed king is World of Warcraft. WoW has quite a few characters like Arthas or Jaina, but it is incredibly difficult to really set one character to represent the game. Even a generic playable avatar wouldn’t work, since the player can have wildly different races and abilities. No one character could properly represent the game. Now, you could argue WoW is a spin-off of the non-MMO series Warcraft, and if I don’t count Dr. Mario as a true puzzle rep for this reason, then WoW can’t be a MMO rep. Fair, if we want a pure MMO series, the next best thing would be EverQuest, though I have no idea who could represent it.
Another important game in the genre is Ultima Online, although like WoW is a spin-off of a regular RPG, but since all RPGs in Smash are JRPGS, let’s use this opportunity to talk about the WRPGs. The Avatar or Lord British from Ultima would be great representatives. The Ultima series was at one point the most important RPG, and even influenced Dragon Quest, but it’s been quite dead for two decades. A more relevant and popularly-request option is the Elder Scrolls, particularly Skyrim’s Dragonborn. ES is no modern phenomenon either, it goes way back to 1994, so its both classic and relevant.
TLDR:
A WoW rep, an EverQuest rep, the Avatar or Lord British (Ultima), Dragonborn (Elder Scrolls)
Tower defense
Capping off this overly-long post with a genre for which Nintendo actually has a golden opportunity: Dillon from Dillon’s Rolling Western. DRW is one of the rare tower defense games that also features a recognizable player character that you can control like in an action game, and therefore, quite easy to put in Smash. Not sure if the series has a future, but the character seems to be one of the most popular to come off the 3DS-era eshop.
For third-party, I’m not sure the tower defense genre has a king, but the most popular might be Plants vs Zombies, and if we can get Piranha Plant, why not Peashooter?
Edit: Commenter suggested Crazy Dave for PvZ instead, which makes more sense
TLDR:
First party: Dillon
Third-party: Peashooter (Plants vs Zombies)
Well, I’m gonna stop here. Obviously there are many genres and sub-genres, but to me these are the biggest missing. What other genres do you want to see repped? Roguelikes? MOBAs? Hero shooters? Or do you think another character that I didn’t mention should rep these ones? Or do you feel like some of the genres already in Smash could use better representation? Do you think Animal Crossing is more of a social sim, so for a true life sim rep we’d need The Sims in Smash? Do you think Bayonetta is um ackshually a hack-n-slash so for a beat’em up rep we’d need someone from Double Dragon, Final Fight or Streets of Rage? Do you think Punch-Out isn’t really a sports game so John Madden needs to tackle the fight? Comment away

Albeit a week late, I want to share my 2021 portfolio for documentation purposes and for whoever is interested. I aimed to balance risk in this portfolio with some growth names and legacy plays. Down to brass tacks, I am putting my money in the highest quality companies (in my view) across a diverse set of industries I find attractive. Some of these names are overvalued in the short term. However, I have realized I am not in the business of beating Wall Street’s pricing, but would rather hold high-quality companies that I believe will grow faster that the market in the long term. In other words, I am totally fine paying a short-term premium for growth and quality. Below is a summary of the portfolio and big picture reasoning behind each investment. I'm definitely open to any feedback.

Company	Ticker	Entry Price	Exposure
ARK Genomic Revolution ETF	ARKG	$93.26	6.60%
CrowdStrike	CRWD	$211.82	11.78%
Disney	DIS	$181.18	10.53%
Enphase Energy	ENPH	$175.47	7.98%
Evolution Gaming Group	EVVTY	$101.02	12.77%
Facebook	FB	$273.16	11.05%
Redfin	RDFN	$68.63	10.41%
Teladoc	TDOC	$199.96	9.60%
Sea Ltd	SE	$199.05	14.09%
Waste Connections	WCN	$102.57	5.19%

ARK Genomic Revolution ETF (BATS: ARKG) - Invests in companies advancing genomics. The companies held in ARKG may develop, produce or enable: CRISPR, Targeted Therapeutics, Bioinformatics, Molecular Diagnostics, Stem Cells, Agricultural Biology.

• Innovative industry. Since 2003 the cost to sequence a human genome has dropped from nearly $3bn to less than $1,000. ARK believes that as costs continue to drop, genomic sequencing will become a standard of care in oncology. It will introduce more science into healthcare decision making, enable personalized medicine, and accelerate drug discovery. ARK estimates that genomic sequencing revenues will grow 43% at an annual rate, from $3.5bn last year to $21bn in 2024.
• Cathie Wood. She’s a beast stock picker. Out of all the ETFs she runs, her closest competitor trailed by 60%. Her worst ETF still doubled investors' money. Her strategy is to make investments into companies that she considers incredibly transformational and she has seen success doing it.

CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) - Cybersecurity technology company that provides endpoint security, threat intelligence, and cyber attack response services.

• Best in class technology. Remember about a week ago a bunch of Russian hackers breached SolarWinds? The same hackers also tried to hack CrowdSrike at the same time but were unsuccessful. I’ve wandered on to a bunch of cybersecurity forums, and the general consensus is CrowdStrike has developed the best cybersecurity solution by miles. CRWD is the undisputed leader in cybersecurity.
• “Pick-and-shovel” investment into the world’s increasing digitization. Even in the absence of COVID, cybersecurity remains a key component of the world’s increasing digitization as cyberthreats have been an ongoing issue from the onset of the internet. In the last decade we have seen a bunch of hacks where companies have exposed sensitive customer information. It seems companies are just starting to realize the importance of cybersecurity.

Disney (NYSE: DIS) - Worldwide entertainment company that you all are probably familiar with.

• Reopening trade. In 2019, parks generated 45% of total operating income for DIS. Full reopening and attendance in parks will be slow, but certainly benefit DIS when it happens. The company has been executing on several other segments in the meantime (i.e. streaming). It has proved competitive, increasing the margin of safety if parks take longer to reopen.
• Fast-growing streaming division. DIS has proved agile as it successfully launched a streaming service, Disney+, that has already gained 86mn+ subscribers which was the company’s original 5 year target. This is promising as it shows management can adapt to rapidly changing technology trends.

Enphase Energy (NASDAQ: ENPH) - Designs and manufactures software-driven home energy solutions that span solar generation, home energy storage and web-based monitoring and control.

• Shift to clean energy; ENPH emerging as market leader. Going into 2021, sentiments towards solar have been at an all time high. This trend is expected to continue, especially after the Georgia run-off results. Solar firms are expected to benefit from extended tax incentives on both the consumer and producer ends.
• Technological advantage. ENPH has developed the industry leading solution and is rapidly taking market share from its primary competitor, SolarEdge. Pricing reflects this, but it's expected to continue. Among key competitors, Enphase has been one of the lowest cost producers. Its low-cost structure is a major contributing factor to its improving margins.

Evolution Gaming Group (OTC: EVVTY) - Swedish company that develops, produces, markets and licenses integrated B2B live casino solutions for gaming operators.

• Early mover advantage. Evolution’s lack of competition enables it to rapidly grow in new markets and create a loyal customer base, with high switching costs. The company has effectively grown EBITA margins from 41.6% in 1Q18 to 64.8% in 3Q20. Margin expansion is expected to continue.
• Massive untapped markets. Europe is estimated to be around $2.5bn (EVVTY has 50% market share), Asian market is ~15x the size of Europe (150% YoY growth for EVVTY in Asia). North America’s market is ~$210mn, a 42% increase YoY, with NJ and PA the only states currently operating (NY looks promising). Management thinks the US will be the largest in the long-term.
• Undetected from Wall Street. Evolution has almost no analyst coverage in the US and very minimal coverage in Europe, presenting opportunity for additional growth as institutional money managers recognize this opportunity and draw attention to the stock. Additionally, Evolution has a founder-led management team that is highly aligned with shareholders (mgmt owns over 30% of the stock).

Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) - Enables people to connect through devices. It’s products include Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and Oculus.

• Zuck. It’s not a question of who is the next Jobs/Bezos/Gates/Zuck, because Zuck is super young. He has a history of being able to execute: IG acquisition / transition from desktop to mobile / denying multiple acquisition opportunities in his twenties.
• Undervalued. FB is the cheapest among the FAANG stocks, yet has some of the highest growth rates. This is mainly because of its continuous political scandals. With Trump out of office, I think FB has a chance to stay out of trouble and start to realize higher multiples. The antitrust lawsuit is not a threat imo, it is actually an opportunity. If the govt forces FB to break up, we would get shares in the spin-offs, which would be valued at a higher multiple than FB. For example, if Instagram spun off from FB and traded at the same multiple as SNAP, Instagram’s market cap would be larger than FB’s.

Redfin Corporation (NASDAQ: RDFN) - Provides residential real estate brokerage services.

• Digitization of Real Estate (i.e. “iBuying”). Technology in RE is moving from being informational to transactional. Redfin’s iBuying service is dubbed “RedfinNow.” The service basically buys homes from sellers looking for a quick and convenient sale (close deals within 10-30 days). This segment isn’t profitable yet as it is just getting started, but promising as the management adapts to technology trends.
• Inter-US Migration and housing outlook. People are moving out of the cities because of COVID / trying to avoid taxes / etc. which increases demand for Redfin’s services. With interest rates extremely low (and no expectation for them to increase), homebuying demand should continue to grow.
• RDFN most attractively valued compared to Z and OPEN, with the most upside potential given its market cap ~$7bn. Some are predicting RDFN might start offering rental services as well. RDFN has the best LT margin potential.

Teladoc Health (NYSE: TDOC) - Provides virtual healthcare services on a B2B basis to its clients and provides services to consumers directly and through channel partners.

• Competitive positioning in industry ripe for disruption. Healthcare is a huge market yet to be significantly disrupted. COVID has accelerated this disruption. Providers who were once opposed to telemedicine now realize its benefits and several regulatory changes are promising for telemedicines growth potential. Medicare and other government-sponsored coverage is expected to include telemedicine benefits, increasing TDOC’s TAM.
• Livongo acquisition. From the consumer POV, this will increase access to healthcare at a lower cost. Teladoc will have access to a larger amount of data it can interpret to refine its services and monetization strategies.

Sea Ltd (NYSE: SE) - Digital entertainment, electronic commerce, and digital financial services. The Company operates three business segments: Garena, Shopee, and SeaMonkey. The Company’s digital entertainment business, Garena, is a global game developer and publisher with a presence in Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and Latin America. Garena provides access to mobile and personal computer online games. Shopee provides users with a shopping environment that is supported by integrated payment, logistics, fulfillment, and other value-added services. SeaMonkey business is a digital financial services provider. SeaMonkey offers e-wallet services, payment processing, credit related digital financial offerings, and other financial products.

• Diversified consumer internet company with market-leading position. Sea caters to Southeast Asia and Taiwan, providing its online gaming, e-commerce, and payment platforms. Shopee has overtaken competitors, it is widening its market share lead. ESports is a rapidly growing market (15.7% YoY to $1.1bn in 2020) and Sea is outpacing market growth.
• Pay for quality. The best companies keep going up for years in a row, and I think Sea is in the early stages of being classified as such a company. It’s worth $100bn but has effectively proved its ability to identify opportunities and expand business lines.
• Still early stages of developing its consumer banking business, so we get the security of a bigger, established company with upside for an additional, lucrative business line such as fintech.

Waste Connections Inc. (NYSE: WCN) - Waste services company that provides non-hazardous waste collection, transfer, disposal and recycling services.

• Recession resilient; re-opening trade. The waste management industry is recession resilient, it will always be around.
• Non-hazardous waste collection. With a progressive government likely to push climate initiatives, recycling and non-hazardous waste collection are likely to benefit on the back end.
• WCN has a large moat; there isn’t much of a competitive threat the way the industry operates. Management’s strategy is to generally only spend what FCF is available. This enables the company to make acquisitions while handling its debt load. Great for stable growth.

​
P.S. I have two other accounts - one with about 40 growth stocks and another with about 10 big names / ETFs. However, this portfolio has the largest allocation for 2021. My first time trying a more concentrated approach.

There are lot of new to mining folks here, I’m one of them. Here is my journey and some of the lessons I learned

Why did I go here?

When Bitcoin hit $40k I finally decided that cryptocurrency isn’t going to go away. And if it’s not going to go away I should look into it. The sad thing is that in the early early days of bitcoin I had played with getting a miner going. I even got to the point where it was happily mining away on my computer. But then I had to get back to work and when my computer rebooted I never started it up again. What a loss!
I should also call out, the EtherMining guide is really good. If you are starting your mining journey it’s very helpful

The Wallet

I made the investment in a Ledger wallet. I’ve seen the reddit post that made it to all about poor souls that lost huge amount because of some hack or thievery. If I’m going crypto I’m controlling the keys. I did some research and determined that Leger or Trezor are the best cold wallets. After which I read on Ledger’s site that you shouldn’t mine directly to ledger because it can’t handle a large amount of small transitions (more on this later). Did some google and went with Mew for my mining software wallet figuring I’ll transfer to ledger after.
Here I learned about the magic 20 words or a Mnemonic phrase. Unlike banks, Ledger and Mew don’t hold your account. They are simply devices. If Mew is installed on your phone and if you lose your phone you’re screwed and you can lose all your holdings. Unless you can rebuild your wallet with the Mnemonic phrase that is. Alright, good stuff. I have mine and a safe wallet

And Ethereum?

Of course first I looked into mining bitcoin again. What? You need an ASIC miner these days? Holy shit they cost how much? Alright, who’s number 2. When you start researching about Ethereum it’s pretty freaking cool. This thing could overtake Bitcoin someday and you can mine it with a GPU. Hey I have one of those!

The card

I have a 2070 super which I got shortly after they were released for under $500. I’ve been using it for video games and it’s great. Who knew there would be a run on GPUs and the cards worth more than I paid for it!

The Pool

I quickly learn that solo mining is a fool’s game with Ethereum, you need a pool. I went with Sparkpool simply because it was the largest. As the new guy I don’t need to be trying out the newest pool, I want stability. I also wanted to stay anonymous, turns out all you need is a deposit address. Nice

The miner

Fees to use a miner? The heck? I’m not afraid of a CLI, let’s go with the free one. I download the latest Ethminer. Now we hit the first real challenge as the example configurations were all over the place. After some trial and error I settle on a .bat that does;
ethminer.exe -P stratum1+tcp://

[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]):3333

We’re mining!

On Sparkpool you can search by your wallet address. After ~10min, there I am. Cool! I’m mining! Change the sleep settings on Windows and I’m mining while I sleep. Now when can I get my earnings? Let’s see they pay out at 0.1 ETH….. Let’s do some math…. Yeah that’s not happening for a long time. Ahh, they pay out on the 28th of the month even if you don’t make 0.1. Just got to wait. And this is where I was for a few weeks

On to Upgrading

I’m mining, what a fun start. I’m not in a position to put together a rig though. Maybe there’s some reasonable changes I can make

The Miner

Let’s start easy, the miner. I see post on EtherMining that Phoenixminer is just the best (I’ve since read the same thing for about 3 different miners). Ok, I don’t like the idea of a fee but I have stats at Sparkpool, let’s see what it does to the average. Around this time I found the guide on EtherMining and learned about adding commands to my .bat file for etherminer or phoenixminer as well. My .bats now start with
setx GPU_FORCE_64BIT_PTR 0
setx GPU_MAX_HEAP_SIZE 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
Turns out I do get a bit better results with Phoeixminer. Nothing amazing but it is better. And the reporting in the CMD prompt is better. I can see information on my card and hashrate. Cool!
I also finally take the time to find my electricity bill to see what I’m paying. My cost per kWh is 0.09, lucky me! Plug that into mining calculators online, I’m ok. At least I’m not losing money.

How about a 3070?

Alright, this is fun and all, but what if we can could do more. My computer has some more PCIe slots. How much could I make with a Nvidia 3xxx? Turns out betterhash let’s you know. You can plug in any card there and get a hash estimate. Turns out I could make over $100 month with a 3070. At $600 the card would pay for itself in 6 months!
….There are no freaking cards for sale. Anywhere. What the heck. How late am I too this game? And the ones that are available, they want $980 for a 3070? I look deep. I make the half hour trip to Micro Center and get told to try coming in at 8am every day and I might get lucky. Not looking good.
Finally I recall I used to order stuff from CDW at my old IT job. I hit pay dirt! They have a 3070! It’s expensive but it’s not $900. Card ordered! (Since then, they’ve been out of stock. I got lucky)

Upgrade issue #1

I need to make room for the 3070. My 2070 Super is a 3 fan and it’s long. There’s not room in the 2nd PCIe slot in my case for the long card. I end up moving everything around and break off some plastic from the hardrive cage, I got it in!
I have a 3rd PCIE, can I put a card there? Not unless it’s super thin, the power supply is right under it. Looks like I’m limited to 2 cards for now.

Upgrade issues #2

My new 3070 is extra wide (PHY uprising edition if you care). The fans literally sit on the 2070. And with both cards in there my computer is hot! My computer feels like a heater right now. Let’s google on how to deal with heat. I learn about and download MSI Afterburner. Pretty cool tool! Not only can you see the temperature you can adjust a lot of settings on your GPU. I spin up my miner and start MSI afterburner. Ok, the 2070 is doing fine, let’s see how the 3070 is doing.. 90 degrees, ok, ok. Wait it’s Celsius, holy crap! What the heck! That’s 194 degrees F! It’s gotta be that wide ass 3070 making the fans sit on the 2nd card. The cooling air it’s sucking up is coming straight from the 2070…
I switch the cards (why did I break my hardrive cage?). Now the 2070 is back in the first slot which is not ideal, I liked the idea of using the 3070 for video games.. Spin up my miner, we are doing better. Both cards are in the mid 70s Celsius. That’s fine right? Do some googling… Crap, no it’s still too hot…
Time to upgrade the fans in the computer. Another half hour trip to Micro Center, I get a 140 and 120 size fan. I also get a fan controller because I noted that I only had 1 free fan plug in on my motherboard. The fan controller ends up fitting perfectly in a hardrive slot, like it was made for it. Fortunately I overbought my PSU and I have plenty of power slots for adding one offs like a fan controller.
Alright, I’ve filled every Fan spot on my case, there are 5 fans going…. And there blowing wrong…. After redoing everything because I messed up the fan directions…. (Remember kids, air should flow front to back and heat rises) Let’s try again!
Spin up the miners…. I’m under 70 degrees Celsius! Progress, progress. But high 60’s is still in the danger zone. Here is where I find some nice post in EtherMining on MSI afterburner settings. Raising my fan speed to almost 80, cutting my power to somewhere in the 70s, raising the memory clock to +500. Now I’m at 63 c! And my hash rate went up as a bonus!

Here I am and where I’m going

If you’ve made it this far, it’s been a learning journey for me. There are some things I can still do better at but I think I have the basics of Ethermining down. I’m happy with where I’ve gotten. I’ve also learned a ton about crypto currency.
Going forward, I might change from Sparkpool but I’m still on the fence. From EtherMining I know everyone and their mother is going to Flexpool. But I’m a small player (~100 MH/s) and waiting for 0.2 ETH for payout would take a long time which is risk. And I’m not sure what the PPLNs type plan would net me.
I’m also considering using the address for my ledger for my proceeds. It’s going to go there anyway and I would like to avoid fees from moving my coin around. I know ledger cautions about large amounts of small transactions but with a pool the payout is only once a month so I don’t think it applies. If the ledger can’t handle 12 deposits a year then I need to find something else anyway.
You know, I might have gone big but with staking being the future of Ethereum, the rising difficulty level of mining, not really having a place to put a rig or honestly the funds for one, I think I’m going to stay a small player and just see if I can eventually pay back this 3070 I bought. In the end it’s been a ton of fun and added excitement to the monotony of being quarantined to a house all day. Thank you for the forum post and the new hobby!
Were you entertained? You can always send things to 0xAD0cd237BDE28AF4Dc4E0D913285e74217384e29 (worth a shot)

I’m sure some of you are sick of these, but I’ve been enjoying everyone’s “top 2020” lists. I spent more time on virtual board games, but video games still occupied a significant minority of my free time this year. Thank The Lord for each and every one of them, even the ones that sucked. In chronological order…
​
Children of Morta
Really good Diablo-like. Being forced to switch characters every so often is brilliant, it prevents my partner and I from settling into 1-2 favorites like we’d normally do. The story’s a bit barebones (so far), but we’ve enjoyed inventing stupid personalities for everyone: we decided Kevin, the teenage son with the daggers, is the type to tell you he’ll f—k your mom on Xbox Live.
(Online co-op whennnnnnnnn)
​
Baba Is You
Best puzzle game. I cannot describe the endorphin rush from solving a particularly sadistic level. My friends who are best at it tend to be good programmers: I bet the syntax and the logic are at least a little related.
Also, weirdly enough, best played with *a* friend who is *as smart* (or dumb) as you. I’ve had some of the best conversations during this game, which are completely unintelligible to the uninitiated: “If Wall is You, how do we get Keke to Float? Because Lava has to be Melt…”
I hit a difficulty wall about halfway through—about when the conveyer belts show up—but I’m sure I’ll be back.
​
Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled
It’s great, but pretty sure this is the only kart racer that’s a better singleplayer than multiplayer experience. That’s because it’s so damn hard: I grew up with the original CTR, but I have yet to find a friend willing to put in the (significant) effort to be competent at Nitro Fueled. The Switch version’s long-ass loading times don’t help either.
​
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
Got 5 hours to kill on a Friday night? These your bois.
Unrelated, but WOW do people under 25 suck at the original Smash Bros. I guess all those afternoons in college were good for something…
​
Mass Effect 3
2 is still the best one, but I think 3’s a close second. The amount of callbacks and easter eggs may have been fan service, but what fan service. (I feel the same way about Avengers: Endgame.) I can’t readily summon any objections to the narrative arcs of any of your companions or major NPCs; would’ve been cool to be able to romance Dr. Chakwas, though.
But yeah, the ending sucked. I’m not referring to any of the four in particular, but the tonal shift from ground-level, gritty sci-fi to some real Frank Herbert-level shit gave me whiplash. I get that Bioware thought they needed a big ending to a big story, but they really didn’t; to me, Mass Effect is about the interactions among your team and all the ordinary people caught in a galactic war they can’t comprehend, but it ends with you, alone, deciding the fate of the universe based on the dubious advice of a magical star child.
Whatever.
​
\COVID happens**
​
Slay the Spire
To date, the only game I’ve ever had to uninstall because I got too addicted. Prior experience with Dominion / Star Realms / Clank! was helpful, but unnecessary. Constructing a deck along 4-5 class-specific archetypes is lower-variance than Arena mode in Hearthstone but a bit less paralyzing than a typical Magic: the Gathering booster draft. Turns out the 3ish hour length of a run is the perfect amount for watching your Sunday afternoon evaporate.
…what’s that? It’s on iOS? http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/
​
Portal 2
Well, here we are again / it's always such a pleasure.
I disagree with the prevailing sentiment that this one’s better than the first: some of the individual levels may have eclipsed 1’s peaks, but Chell 2 had a loooottt of fat that could’ve been trimmed, mostly from the middle third of the game, when you weren’t solving puzzles so much as staring at a sea of brown walls looking for the best place to shoot a portal.
That said, the design, gameplay, writing, and music continue to be top notch and it’s the difference between, like, a 9.5 and a 10/10, so who cares; I’m excited to try the co-op levels sometime soon.
​
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Speaking of sequels that may or may not be better than their predecessors…
2’s gameplay is noticeably better—best Yoshi implementation in a Mario game?—but the atmosphere and story are several steps down from their peak in Galaxy 1. The majority of the game is still a little easier than I’d prefer, but I thought they knocked it out of the park with both versions of the final level, and I appreciated that the temporary trickster comets weren’t in this one.
In the end, it comes down to whether or not you prefer the atmosphere, characters, and music from the first or the gameplay and level design from the second. There’s no wrong answer.
​
Into the Breach
This one’s all about wrong answers. As someone who likes chess but can’t quite summon the mental energy for an >hour-long match…well, Into the Breach was made for me. The one reset you get per level? Brilliant; it encourages tight play, but it prevents OCD perfectionists from throwing their [insert console here] across the room after a mistake.
The achievement system is probably ItB’s weakest link. I hate that it’s the source of points used to purchase new squads, since that encourages spamming “easy” (boring) runs just to check off achievements.
I almost had to uninstall this one too, but I ultimately got a bit bored of the same four islands and final battle, which new squads / pilots weren’t quite enough to counteract. I’ll be back, though.
​
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
These were my first stealth games and I’m already looking forward to the next ones (Metal Gear Solid?). I really didn’t mind the circa 2005 graphics, although the jump from the first two to Chaos Theory was noticeable: the latter looks like an early 360 game. Thankfully, the twin-stick controls could be ripped from a present-day title. Dumb stories—what if…the stock market…was hacked?—but that’s not why we’re here, is it?
The original probably takes the cake for me; maybe it was the novelty, but I found myself having to use Sam’s gadgets (sticky / decoy camera, etc.) way more often than in the sequels. I also thought the basement level was brilliant: setting up booby traps to protect the soldiers and the businessmen (politicians?) felt more like tower defense.
One day, I’ll try the multiplayer. Play these; they don’t feel as dated as you might expect.
​
Celeste
Finally finished* a multi-year journey with this game and I’m convinced it’s ruined 2D platformers for me. What a ride. Madeline’s experiences with depression / anxiety didn’t 100% align with mine, which is to be expected, and some of the NPCs are not sympathetic—Mr. Oshino is a straight-up serial killer and Theo is THE WORST—but that really doesn’t matter when the art, music, and controls are perfection. Except…Maddy Thorson, this is not your fault, but dear Lord, I cannot for the life of me perform a wall jump or wavedash more than once out of every 15 attempts. I died >1,000 times on the Summit C-Side. F—k.
*Beat all the B- and C-sides, but noped right out of Farewell when I could not beat the wavedash tutorial. The tutorial.
As you can tell, Celeste gives me lots of feelings.
​
Final Fantasy VI
Aaaah, ya’ll gonna hate me. Let’s get this over with.
VI is only my second FF (after IX). I grew up with a PS1 and a GameCube, so I have zero nostalgia for NES and SNES RPGs. I thought a top-down epic adventure would be a good change of pace after the demanding, quick-twitch Celeste, and it…sort of was?
With a few exceptions (the ninja dude seems kinda pointless?), the music, atmosphere, and characterization are on point and better than most modern examples. The opening shot of the three Magitek suits marching towards Narshe in the snow is spine-chilling, and I did not think that 16-bit sprites could move me as much as the opera scene did. Splitting into three parties? An excellent way to play with less-used members. I’m listening to the soundtrack right now…
On the other hand, a lot of the gameplay is thoroughly un-modern. It’s probably kind of pathetic that things as simple as not displaying your full HP—it only shows your current life—really got on my nerves. A lot of these characters have really cool and unique attack mechanics (Sabin’s blitzes, Setzer’s slots, Mog’s dances), but the game does zero explaining of these. Was this in the manual? How the hell am I supposed to remember / know what every single one of Gau’s attacks does and which enemies they’re effective against?
I also don’t think any character should be able to learn every magic attack. I’m more a fan of the FFIX system, where the classes are a bit more distinct; everyone just starts to feel really same-y when they all know heal, thunder, and fire, y’know? I’d just picked up Setzer and dropped it when I realized I was dreading “having” to play any more. I’ll probably go back to it, but…eh. I’m not optimistic I’ll enjoy the second half any more, since my problems with FFVI are more structural and less about the story. Am I missing something? Pleeaase tell me, I want to like it.
(I’m playing the PS1 version, but I’m trying not to let the long-ass load times color my perception of the game. Not as bad as CTR: NF, anyway.)
​
Halo: Reach
300: the video game.
Co-op was fantastic. 2’s campaign is probably still my favorite—it’s totally nostalgia—but I appreciated how Reach’s (and 3’s) at least provided a narrative justification for cooperative play: you’re one Spartan in a squad, or else the Arbiter. Not sure I could really tell you what the story was about, and the space mission sucked compared to actual arcade fliers (Crimson Skies, Rogue Squadron 2), but thankfully it was only one level. I will say the final level is robbed of a bit of its poignancy when you suck at FPSs and die immediately, but that’s not Bungie’s fault.
Firefight’s also been a blast with friends who are way better at Halo than we are: it makes the skill gap unimportant, and the end, when it comes as 12 gold Elites unloading plasma rifles into your corpse, is a suitably noble (heh) conclusion to rival the campaign’s.
​
Bastion
Finished this one during a camping trip, which felt appropriate. Music, art, and writing are of typical Supergiant quality. You’re a bit screwed if you don’t unlock your favorite weapons until the lategame—I did a shotgun / grenade launcher combo—but I find it hard to criticize much else about this wonderful little game with the best choose-your-own difficulty system I’ve ever seen. (Pro tip: you can cheese your way through some of the proving grounds by just dying and reviving, which is often faster than doing it right.)
Also, if I’m understanding the term, the temporal loop implied by one of the game’s endings is wonderfully ludonarratively consonant. What better metaphor for new game + than literally time traveling back to the beginning? With all your guns, of course.
​
Okami HD
Not done yet—so no spoliers—but so far, Okami is the best non-Breath of the Wild 3D Zelda. Besides the art and music, the celestial brush, despite its maybe 60% success rate, is way better than playing menu screen peekaboo to swap between the boomerang and the hookshot and the iron boots and the ocarina and the… In addition, the little Japanese mythology and culture easter eggs are a real treat: always color in the right eye of a Daruma if you see one.
Some of the minigames, though? A disaster. F—k the blockheads; I resorted to filming and drawing on my Switch screen (protector) with a dry-erase marker. While I appreciate Okami’s length, I’m not thrilled with the disconnect between the three (?) chapters, whose transitions are explained by…text crawl? Eh, still a better story than your typical Zelda. Finally, your companion’s mad annoying, although the game does something I never thought possible and makes him sympathetic near the end.
​
If you’ve read this far, thanks for taking the time, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts below. 2021’s looking equally game-filled – first on deck: Divinity Original Sin 2, Human Fall Flat, Portal 2 (co-op)…

Foreword by President Sanvar:
As this year comes to a close, it is time to look back! Despite consistent lobbying by multi-server corporations, the Sanvar-Demon (Semon) presidency has still been able to realize most of its goals in 2020: there has been a crackdown on item shops, and most importantly, the Constantiam socks were made available for purchase! Personally, my year on the server has mainly been defined by hosting a mapart base, exploring spawn, attending spawn events, and of course, running for president! Although these were all fun to do, the reason I still play Constantiam today is due to the great people that make up the community. Stay awesome, everyone! Cheers to a new year!

Chapter XX: Elite_Tier reset Maps on Constantaim, Phantom releases Changelogs for the first time, Construction of the 3k Lava Wall begins, Donkey Dupe patched, PhadaSS griefed, Temp Map, BobTheBotter, Ender Dragon killed, Constantiam turns 4 years old, subreddit hits 10,000 subs, Temp Map continues

Here we are again nearly one year later from the last History of Constantiam post. We left off at Chapter XIX, so we will pick up there with Chapter XX. This is a tradition started by mrx with the first History Post documenting the Early Days of Constantiam, and continued by myself making this post the fifth one written. Since these posts have grown in complexity the Constantiam History Archives was formed at the beginning of 2020 to aid in documenting Constantiam's History and easing the task of writing this post. The Constantiam History Archives is made up of Nyroc_, James_Rustles, MadamGiggles, KiwiSlider, and myself. This has been an interesting year for the Constantiam Community both in-game and IRL as 2020 was the year of COVID-19. Even though there was no social distancing and no mask mandate by PhantomCaptain the virus never came to Constantiam. So, like I said the last few years grab your favorite drink, and let's take a stroll down memory lane picking up where we left off with ChapterXX of The History of Constantiam 2020.
January 5th: The player group known as Elite_Tier reset the Maps on Constantiam. This has been done several times in Constantiam's history with the first being by the group Nerds, Inc. By resetting the maps and making new ones they were able to overwrite existing maps which erases them. The player Mariobamaboy knew of a stash that was owned by the player IanMC05 that had several shulkers of maps. The maps were reset by Elite_Tier with them keeping ones that were under 5K so they could potential terrain exploit bases and other stashes. HERE is a picture of them at IanMC05's stash they day they reset them.
January 8th: After a brief server downtime, a Donkey Dupe involving End Portals was patched through completely disabling chests on entities. Very few players knew of this latest donkey duplication glitch. Constantiam has seen many different Donkey Dupes over the years providing much wealth to players in the know. A video provided by the player KiwiSlider shows the duplication glitch being used on Constantiam and can be viewed HERE. Players switched from using donkeys to using zombies in order to continue the dupe. If a zombie picked up a shulker and was pushed into the End Portal the shulker would duplicate. This was not as efficient as the donkey dupe but was persistent for many months. Many End Portals on Constantiam were configured for this dupe.
January 14th: say the construction of the 3k lava wall. Lava Walls have been a long part of Constantiam's History in aiding to keep out new players. Their effectiveness has long been disputed, but anyone who first logs on to Constantiam will be faced with this obstacle. The player fat leeloo provided a picture of the wall under construction and can be viewed HERE.
January 16th: Saw the griefing of PhadaSS. Established in early September of 2019, the base was the result of a meeting between poil11 (Now Gloomy11) and dinosaurwizard at the 1 million Z monument. The base quickly grew to include Koze_404, Physalis, UncoChad, The_Glekster, and Tabbott. The base quickly grew in size which was documented through PICTURES a VIDEO by the player Sanvar, and this Reddit post written by Gloomy. As with most bases, PhadaSS saw its demise after some drama between players on Constantiam.
January 23-25: For a short period, the Freecam Donkey Dupe was enabled after a suspected change to the server's plugins on the 23rd. After players being caught in the act on the 25th by the server admin, PhantomCaptain put the server in maintenance mode to fix lag issues and disable chest accessibility on donkeys/lama's again.
January 25th: PhantomCaptain puts the server into maintenance mode for 3 hours to troubleshoot lag spikes issues. Changelog gets released for the first time and can be viewed HERE.
February 7th: Phantom Captain announces a Temp Map to address lag issues but shuts it down three hours later due to the server being botted, but BobTheBotter taking advantage of there not being a Whitelist.
February 9th: With Constantiam still on a Temp Map the players Viktisen and Squidlauncer were the first to kill the Ender Dragon in 2 hour and 10 minutes after the map went live.
February 14th: Constantiam turns four years old as the server was first launched February 14, 2016. It is a tradition to add a Candle to the Constantiam Birthday Cake every year. This Cake was built by the player Krazyeyzkilla with help from the player Astrokie and is moved every year to a new location on Constantiam before the next candle is added. A video made by the player Nyroc_ shows last years Cake and can be viewed HERE.
March 17th: Constantiams subreddit hits 10,000 subscribers. A little over a year earlier from this date, the subreddit had less than 1000 subs. Constantiam's popularity has exploded and this is as much due to it being mentioned in several prominent YouTubers videos with the most notable being FitMC.
The month of March can pretty much be summed up by the Temp Map. Constantiam was on the Temp Map for the entire month of March well the servers admin PhantomCaptain continued to look into lag issues. A map of the made by the player DarkAndromeda31 can be viewed HERE. DarAndromeda31 did a reddit post which is where the Map came from.

Chapter XXI: Temp Map continues, Phantom announces return of old-map, +X world border reached, Presidential Election and Riddler games delayed, Server was taken down for two days, Lag plaguing the server is fixed, Scarlet is self griefed, yet another donkey dupe patched, subreddit hits 12,000, Maps reset again, 911 Wall, Z+ World Border, Maps reset again, Item Shops, St. Patricks Island, Lava draining project, Cuboyd Biome, Constantiam Corruption, PhantomCaptains reddit meme and is admitted to the hospital

TEMP MAP continued into April with many Temp Map server events being held. Temp map highlights include chunkbans which would ban players when they entered a chunk. Video by the player Iron can be viewed HERE. This caused PhantomCaptian to reset the whole spawn area at one point. Chunkbans were carried out by the players Xray_Doc, Projacti, ReinforcedIron, _Physalis_ and Wips_. Sharpness Level 69 Stone was given out by PhantomCaptain which could kill any non-geared player in one hit. In all the Temp Map was actually made up of three different maps. The player projacti did a detailed Summary of Events of the Temp Map events and highlights which can be viewed HERE.
April 11th: PhantomCaptain announces the return of the old-map to the joy of all of Constantiams citizens. The reddit post announcing the return of the old-map can be viewed HERE.
April 21th: On this day the +X world border was reached by the X+ Highwaymen. The project was started in August of 2019, but progress was slow until December 2019. The group of players that make up the X+ Highwaymen includes 0Xed, Smokekief, Fatale, and Toringe_. A reddit post by the player Fatale documenting their adventures can be viewed HERE.
April 26th: Two notable server events the annual Presidential Election and Riddler Games are delayed due to the host of these events going on hiatus. A reddit post by the player SirLeonidas can be read HERE.
The Hamiltonian Map: This map was created by the player dansay546. dansay546 created the 2x2 map using the staircase method. To date this map is the largest on Constantiam using the very time consuming staircase method. A picture of the map can be viewed HERE.
April 26th: PhantomCaptain takes the server down for 1 hour to copy off essential files. This is to scan them for any errors, following his main theory of corruption on the map. PhantomCaptains reddit post can be read HERE.
April 28th: Lag = Dead! The lag plaguing the server for months is finally fixed. It was due to some corrupted chunks that caused a RAM memory leak issue. Contantiam held a Ticker tape parade in celebration at spawn (actually this didn't happen, but the player base was thankful to have their server at 20 TPS again). PhantomCaptain did a reddit post announcing the server being fixed can be read HERE.
April 28th: The base named Scarlet was self-griefed in a livestream on discord by its members. Members included Wips, Dips_, EmeraldSnorlax, Ana_Amari, Antonio32a, flinche, and nigrushka. The reason for the griefing is unclear but according to one of its members it was time to move on to other projects. A picture of the base can be viewed HERE.
May 3rd: PhantomCaptian patches another donkey dupe that was caused by the original chest patch after it was made public by salC1 in a YouTube video. HERE is a video of a dupestash being made at 0,0 by the player KiwiSlider.
May 5th: Constantiam's subreddit continues to grow at a very fast rate at it hits 12,000 on this date.
May 6th: A collective of players (started by Zipdox) start the construction of the "911 wall": a combination of a trench, obsidian wall, and lava-curtain reaching from bedrock to height limit surrounding spawn boxing in the 911 to -911 coordinates on every axis. TNT bombers were used to bomb down to bedrock and cut through lavacasts. Redstone machines were used to drain a path through the Seas. The project picks up momentum quickly, but the group abandons their efforts after other players repeatedly withered the wall. Nonetheless, the (supposed) location of the 911 Wall is still very visible today given the huge effort to make a trench in order to make way for the build.
May 11th: Maps are again reset. Players await an update after PhantonCaptain begins to explore options for a permanent fix.
Item Shops: Due to the many dupes on Constantiam some players began setting up Item Shops in which they would sell virtual block items for IRL money. There were several competing shops, but they were viewed negatively by the Constantiam Community. Even our admin PhantomCaptain did a reddit post telling players they will receive no support from him when they lose their money and are scammed. Two other players did videos on the Item Shops. Nyroc_'s video, and InfinityPanda video.
May 12th: The final world border is reached. The Z+ world border dig was started on January 1, 2020. Originally started by KiwiSlider, ReinforcedIron, Cuboyd, Wips, Xray_Doc and Projacti. Loss of momentum due to lag/temp maps, projacti having technical issues, and loss of interest by some players quickly led to a duo-only dig by KiwiSlider and ReinforcedIron who speared ahead, with Cuboyd, Projacti and Wips in delayed pursuit.
May 26th: Maps are reset again.
May 28th: The players KiwiSlider and Sanvar achieve all Minecraft advancements on Constantiam.
June 10th: A popular YouTube Series was started by the player m4Vinenct. Dubbed Tales of Constantiam he documented his beginning on Constantiam from when he first joined in August, 2016. You can view that series and his channel HERE.
June 15th: St. Patricks Island had its coords posted on the subreddit. St. Patricks Island was a build by the Holiday Build Crew started by MadamGiggles in 2017. The Island was started shortly after the Christmas and was a Mushroom Island converted to green grass by the player fat leeloo. The build was incomplete as it was delayed by the many temp maps, but the player Krazyeyzkilla built a magnificent Leprechaun which can be viewed HERE
June 21st: Cuboyd Biome griefed. This was a very large community meme build by approximately 45 players. The base was named after the player Cuboyd and was an exercise in chaos. A video of the base can be viewed HERE, and you can visit a World Download of the base by visiting The Archive Spawnmasons server ran by the player Terbin. PhantomCaptain visited the base and briefly placed a piece of Bedrock in the Church where he stood and preached to the masses. Fit visited the World Download of the base and a picture of his conversation with Cuboyd can be seen HERE.
June 24th: The player Dinosaurwizard starts a large scale lava-draining project at nether spawn which quickly divides spawn regulars into drainers or anti-drainers followed by frequent pvp-encounters. After a few days a consensus is reached to stop draining and in the following months there are sporadic efforts to put lava back at nether spawn.
June 27th: Constantiam Corruption - Several chunks around spawn for all 3 dimensions reset. PhantomCaptian takes the server down and a New Temp Map begins sized at 15k. A video showing the corrupted chunks can be viewed HERE.
June 28th: Our supreme leader PhantomCaptian posts a meme to the subreddit pointing towards a session.lock file issue. He also commented to confirm this. PhantomCaptain also alluded to him being admitted to the Hospital.

Chapter XXII: PhantomCaptain on the mend, MainMap returns, SirLeonidas returns to Constantiam, Presidential Elections announced, Subreddit continues to grow, Obsidian roof over spawn, World Corner Border reached, First ever Presidential debate, Map Fix, Presidential Voting begins, A New President, Elytra and Boatfly bypass

July 9th: Our supreme leader PhantomCaptain makes the following reddit post saying he is out of the Hospital and on the mend. He also announces the return of the Main Map on Sunday the July 12th.
July 12th: SirLeonidas (me) returned to Constantam after some travels abroad. With my return, the Presidential Elections were almost immediately announced. In a bit of foreshadowing Riddler Games are coming VERY soon too. ;-)
July 15th: Constantiam's Presidential Elections announced. From the very beginning of Constantiam beginnings we've had a President elected through fair elections by its community. The player electionsofficer moderates the election in coordination with the player PaperEditor, Editor and Chief of The Daily Cuck Newspaper. This year saw 11 people running to replace President Nyroc_ for President of Constantiam. Past Presidents included 1) UBERSLUGCAKE 2) Spartan512 3) MadamGiggles. Those running this year to replace President Nyroc_ and JoeyC9 as Vice President included: SanvaDemon568, UBERSLUGCAKE/Klemenator, SnipinNukes/HopeAnnihilator, Cuboyd/ James_Rustles, Illumi_Natu/dqtrunks, Bonbiribom/ Funnipumpkin, Flixnix007/Werton48, Projacti/ JacktheElderGuardian, pr0_noscoper, nutellagod/2q1, and Tage/popbob.
July 22nd: Subreddit hits 15,000 subscribers.
August 6th: Around the 6th of August, a player named wallhacks_ was gathering players to start building an Obsidian Roof over spawn: a plateau layer of obsidian at build limit height. He would promise his "employees" a kit for their work as they mined echests and placed down obsidian. It took about a day before people started to notice and the Obsidian Platform was already around 300x250 blocks. The player KiwiSlider gathered players at the platform to attack the builders and start mining out the obsidian. A video of this attack can be viewed HERE.
August 12: The players ImVeryCringe/Drake2008GameJollibeeBrand had their base deleted and stash erased. A video by the player SlovMan can be viewed HERE.
August 16: Subreddit hits 16,000 subscribers.
August 21: The player group known as The Tunnel Rats reached the World Corner Border. The group gained notoriety by being the first to dig to the World Border on Constantiam in 2019. The player group consists of PurdueMatt, th3or3tical, shaihulid, ozon, TimeKing63, ComradeKitten, and Crazyguy123. A picture documenting their amazing feat can be viewed HERE.
August 23rd: This day saw Constantiam's FIRST ever Live Presidential Debate. The debate was hosted in a special debate discord with technical support and recording done by the player James_Rustles. Moderating the debate was handled by m4Vincent. Taking the debate state was SnipinNukes, Demon568, Flixnix007, Cuboyd, Klementor, Illumi_Natu, dqtrunks, and Nutellagod. The debate was a great success, and much fun for all that participated. The First Presidential Debate can be viewed HERE.
August 29th: When, How, and Who's eligible to Vote in Constantiam's 4th Presidential Election is announced with Election day set for September 11th. Reddit post by the player PaperEditor can be viewed HERE.
September 3rd: Our admin PhantomCaptain announces the long-awaited Map Fix.
September 11th: Presidential Voting begins by DMing in-game the player ElectionsOfficer. Voting started September 11th at approximately 1 PM GMT, and ended on September 13th at approximately 11PM GMT.
September 16th: Constantiam elects a New President. It was a tight race between the players Sanvar and Cuboyd, but in the end, Sanvar and his Vice President Demon568 were victorious. The reddit announcement and vote breakdown can be found HERE. All candidates ran a great campaign and most importantly had fun doing so. President Sanvars acceptance speech can be viewed HERE.
September 18th: The players Torbben, Koze_404, and Rathause started in a 1-Chunk Build Competition at spawn. The rules for the competition are that you must build in 1 chunk (16 X16) build. A special discord was set up for the competition and prizes were given. A reddit post announcing the competition can be read HERE.
September 20: Using certain hacked clients some players were able to bypass Constantiam's Anti-Cheat making them able to use Elytra's and Fly-in Boats. This was brutal on Constantiam's TPS and the bane of PhantomCaptian.

Chapter XXIII: Elytra By-Pass patched, The Second Realm, LTBlackOps Base and Mega dupe stash griefed, Skull Castle griefed, Halloween Town, Spawn Village, SniperTown II, PVP at Spawn, NorthEast World Border, Constantiam Monthly Events, Distant Worlds Expedition, Destroy Dirt December, Boatfly patched

October 7th: PhantomCaptain patches the fly bypass by deleting the elytra if someone is flying with one.
October 16th: An old player base named LTBlackOps was griefed. This base was founded in early 2018 by the players: HopeAnnihilator, SnipinNukes, Patr101bafoon, mtS_, Sdr24, MadamGiggles, Deddryk, Zomabies, Kyledelic, and SirLeonidas. Base had a very large Ice Castle built by MadamGiggles, and a large Gengar Pixel Art covering the Iron Farm. It also had a Mega Dupe stash with 1000's of shulkers that was from the Book Dupe. The player Satori was slowly stealing shulkers from the dupstash after receiving the coords in Cuboyds Discord. Fortunately, the players mtS_ and SirLeonidas were able to salvage 1000's of this shulkers before it was ultimately destroyed. A video of the dupe stash being destroyed can be viewed HERE.
October 26th: Skull Castle was a build within 100k of spawn, built by the players drtydawg, Gibous, and zeetijgertje. It was a massive Castle and well known for its 100's of 26 Heart Skelly Horses. A picture of Skull Castle in its prime can be seen HERE.
October 31st: The Holiday Build Crew started by MadamGiggles builds Halloween Town 2020. This has been an Annual Tradition since 2016. The Holiday Build crew has grown in size over the years. This year we added four new players: KiwiSlider, Beithir, FlyingBroocoli, and Rathaus. A video done by the player MadamGiggles of Halloween Town 2020 can be viewed HERE.
November 3rd: The player LillePersille initiated a Spawn Village build with friends. Expecting it to only last a day or so it lasted for more than a week. Rather than griefing it when players found it they simply added to it. A video done by LillePersilleMC can be viewed HERE.
November 8th: SniperTown II was found and griefed by the player mtS_. SniperTown II Base Members were Sage_Mathias, Wailn, UHQ_Games, Fumes, Tha_Snook, Moe Jang, Drewbot9000, ELVengineer, and JimmyTuesday. A reddit post written by Sage _Mathias can be viewed HERE.
PVP at Spawn: Due to the many dupes in 2020, Constantiam saw a lot of Crystal PVP at Spawn. A list of prominent PVPers for 2020 are as follows: Viktisen, QuinniganVA, Dinosauce312, Saintpale, ezryder, Demon568, 20a, Dofu, Novola, 2q1, Nutellaman, Third_Right, node3113, Sanvar, BakedAccent, Jedi, InfinityPanda, Gepardix, Wilfree6969, AmphetamineSalts, NathanW, Chae, Scotty, SquidLauncer, Halo7761, Gururooving, TrvsF, Tabbott, JoeyC9, KingAndPawn, McChicken245 to name a few.
November 9th: The player Mankool_ digs to the NorthEast World Border Corner through the diagonal highway. Depleting about 3.5K pickaxes in the process.
November 28th: In October the Constantiam Monthly Event Committee was formed by the player FlyingBroccoli. This Committee forms Events around spawn. Notable events held in November were the Pirate-Themed Parkour, Archery, KoTH Party, and Halloween Themed Party. These events often attracted 25 to 30 players and were great fun for many. A reddit post by FlyingBroccoli can be viewed HERE.
November 28th: The Constantiam Distant Worlds Expedition starts near spawn! An exploration challenge organized by KiwiSlider with a shared web-based map for people to post their findings, along with mandatory log-keeping of the journey.
December 1st: Destroy Dirt December was started by the player Koze_404. an elaborate effort to remove all dirt blocks from the immediate spawn area to prevent easy bridging blocks by new players for the Nether or OW.
December 23th: Constantiam Monthly Events Christmas Party at spawn.
December 24th: PhantomCaptain announces BoatFly being patched.
This Concludes the History of Constantiam Post for 2020
Fun Facts:

• World Map Size as of December 30, 2020 is: 2488GB
• Monthly Server cost is: $175.00
• Current Minecraft Version Server is running: 1.12.2
• Total Players joined: 88,364
• Server has been running for 56 months
• At the time of this History Post there were 97 Players Online
• Constantiam’s subreddit has 19,254 Subscribers (Note a year ago it had 8586)
• April, 2020 Render of Spawn by KiwiSlider
• October 2019 Render of Spawn, by KiwiSlider
• June, 2019 Render of Central Nether, by Talska
• July 21, 2019 Render of Spawn, by terbin
• [Render of spawn](http://constamap.com/#/-198/64/5/-5/world/Overviewer%20Render%20(smooth_lighting)) by Xandread October, 2018

COMPARED to render of spawn by Dot4 in March, 2017

• October 5, 2018 MAP of Spawn by the Player Nyroc_
• October 2016 Render of Spawn by J_eb

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If you see any mistakes please do tell me and I will fix them asap. As you can imagine it's very difficult to add all notable events in a post like this. So, please use the comments section to add additional information regarding historical events for 2020 so our History can be preserved.
Happy New Year, and I wish you all much happiness and prosperity for 2021!
-Constantiam History Archives Committee