While originally, there were plans for a whole bunch of posts and the Promptapalooza prompts on top of that, I ended up still not getting anything done ever since I arrived at my parents. Hence, here’s a catchup post.

First things first, why am I not getting anything done?

Honestly, I’d say that I’m missing my usual work atmosphere or rather the physical work station that I need to write blog posts. I’m currently at my parents’ and while I originally planned to blog in the morning when my parents are at work and when my siblings are at school – or rather when I’m all alone at home… I noticed that there was a huge dip in productivity for me. I’d end up starting to write a post but it wouldn’t feel right. The fact that my OCD would give me a headache because I don’t have my usual dual-screens, I don’t have my desk lamp, I don’t have my usual mug with my usual tea, and the fact that I have to write on a laptop in a completely different home in a completely different state of Germany… all of that combined resulted in me being super lazy and unproductive in terms of blogging. I tried creating a bunch of posts but none of them felt right. 

My “I’m so excited post!” ended up getting postponed over time… I had to finish my prompt about the username question since I signed up for that but I didn’t get any of the other prompts done, just yet, mainly since I’m not at my flat. I’ll effectively be able to write again when I’m at my home again… the plan was to leave for “home” on this Sunday but since my aunt is visiting this weekend and only leaving on Sunday, I’ll have to stay here until Monday… and even then, I don’t know if I’ll be away in the morning or if we’re leaving in the evening or whatever’s the plan. 

Why is it so important to me that I’m in my own four walls?

Frankly, I don’t know. I’m used to it. I can’t really stay here at my parents’ for too long since I start to get anxious. 

On that note, I don’t want to talk about this more personal and more emotional stuff on my blog anymore. I think I’ll move The Stray Sheep and all the personal crap over to my fresh and new blog, the Lich Diary, where I try to describe how I deal with my anxieties, insecurities, personal issues and how I’ll (try to) overcome them. If you’re into that, check that out, if not… it’s all fun and *games* over here, haha.

Note: This blog link up here… is gonna be mentioned a lot over the course of this blog post… so, uh… “see above” refers to that.

But seriously, I can’t really work or study here. The work environment is different here and I don’t feel at home at all. On top of that, there is construction work happening outside and I fucking hate the fact that it’s that loud. Even with in-ears and my music turned up to the max, I still hear that construction work and everything… super annoying.

So, what’s up with this post?

Essentially, I’ve seen plenty of people do the catch-up posts instead of actually writing the prompts. Instead of writing a whole post dedicated to only one prompt, they have their own normal posts at times and either pick out one or two prompts here and there that they write about… or they just write a sentence or two for each prompt but all of it in one post. 

And I’m not judging that. I would have done all the prompts in 31 posts… but life’s a bitch and not everything goes as planned, so here we are with a catch-up post. It’s a smart idea to have one like these in there. 

Effectively, I’ll write about most of the prompts in this one and try to link to the blogs that host them and I hope you enjoy that and I hope that it’s alright that I’m doing it like that. 

Prompt 11: Tell us about your physical creative space, and how it influences your “content creation”.

This is a prompt that I want to dedicate a whole post to but I didn’t do it yet since I can’t take pictures of my desk and everything since I’m not at home. So, I’ll do a post in the future about my PC specs, my set-up, my preferences, my desk and how I create certain posts and stuff instead… but for now, I’d like to say that I have two monitors set up on a desk that is way too small for two monitors… but it works so far. It’s a bit cramped I guess when I do stuff for uni and have a notepad on top of it and have to write on physical paper while doing research and stuff… but more often than not, I’m doing that kind of stuff at our library on campus and I resort to Open Office and Word on my PC when I’m at home. Between the two 1080p monitors is a desk lamp that usually provides light for me in the evening, for the night is dark and full of terrors. I tend to blog in the evenings, so naturally, that desk lamp is turned on. 

Next to my desk, I have another small and rather thin desk that I use for my tea setup where a small candle is providing heat to a pot of tea… and my teacup is on that separate table as well since I don’t want to spill liquids on my keyboard… again. Essentially, that’s the physical workspace that I use for creative stuff as well as normal work. I also stream there and game there and all of that, but again, I’ll talk about that in a different post.

Prompt 14: What are some of the things that get you excited in life?

I’d say video games, people and food. 

I follow a bunch of indie game devs on Twitter and get excited when I see their dev blog posts or WIP-screenshots and animations and whatever… and eventually, they release their full game, which is just glorious. The last game that I was super-hyped about was Children of Morta, I think, which I’ve been following for about three years… and before that, I was even more hyped about Risk of Rain 2 as I loved the first game ever since it came out… and since I followed Hopoo Games’ dev blog for ages ever since they announced wanting to create a sequel to Risk of Rain 1 but in 3D… and that sounded just rad. Over time, while following their dev blog, I also learnt about one of their other projects, Deadbolt… and it was just glorious when I first played it, though the review is still in the works.

Apart from that, meeting certain people can be quite exciting and actually doing something with close friends of yours can be really good. A close friend of mine and I haven’t seen each other since March, so we just met up like last year and were gazing at the night sky in hopes of seeing some shooting stars, the other day, while drinking a bit and talking about life, love, dreams and fear, and all of that stuff. On top of that, I also get excited when I go to live concerts, though that’s a bit rough right now in the midst of a pandemic. The last time I went to a live concert was a year ago when I went to a Crywank concert nearby and actually go to talk to Dan from Crywank and I even got an autograph, a photo with him and I was able to hug him. Was just awesome.

And well, food… I love trying new food and new recipes and when it tastes good afterwards, I’m happy about that… or when I tried that insect patty at a burger chain once… I was excited about it… and then it arrived and it was just awesome. 

Prompt 15: Tell us about a person or thing that has greatly influenced you.

I could go on about my grandfather and some of my neighbours and my uncle and all of that stuff but that’s something for my private blog (mentioned above). I guess a better answer for this prompt would be a lot of musicians that I followed over the years. Crywank, for instance, had a great influence on me when I got bullied. Arctic Monkeys, for instance, helped me a bunch after a few of my break-ups. Bonaparte were always a jammer for my longest train rides. Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Bakers Eddy, Amarante, The Amazons, Chris Christodoulou, Anberlin, Badflower, AnnenMayKantereit, Arcade Fire, and many other artists always provided me with great music while I was getting into bad headspaces or when I wasn’t doing too well and needed to cheer up or when I had good times. I feel like the music that I listened to, the games I played, the shows I watched, often lead to me feeling better when I was down.

And obviously, my best friend, her boyfriend, and my girlfriend are probably the biggest influences in my life. They are people that make me want to be a better person or rather a better human overall. I want to be the best possible “me” that I could be. 

Prompt 16: What is one of your earliest memories from one of your core fandoms?

As we’ve established earlier this month, I wouldn’t say that I’m part of any core fandoms… but at the same time, I did and still do watch a bunch of Anime and I did and still do read a lot of Manga so I guess that that’s one of my “core fandoms”. Hence, my earliest memory of that probably is when I watched InuYasha, Naruto, One Piece, and some other shows in FreeTV back in the day… although I only watched it sporadically and often wouldn’t watch all of the episodes due to me not catching all of them. My absolute favourite show back in the day was Detective Conan (I think, the show’s called “Case Closed” in English). 

When I first started sitting down and watching Anime, I remember really liking Mirai Nikki, Sword Art Online and Attack Titan… until I watched actual good shows… then I noticed that the “good shows” I knew weren’t actually all that good… and that was somewhat disappointing. And Season after Season the quality seemed to drop with some good shows occasionally showing up… but most of the newer shows seem to just be average at best, which is quite disappointing. Oh well.

Prompt 17: Write that one post that you always wanted to write but always postponed. Finally, do it!

No.

I have a few reviews lined up that I always wanted to finish writing but never could do. One of them is on Dungeon of the Endless… but whenever I start up the game, I notice that I want to rewrite my review… so I do that and go through the editing process… and then I play the game again for another run… only to notice that I’m not doing this game any justice with my review…. so I rewrite it and then play it again and then notice that I am still not doing it any justice. I just love that game too much. 

The other post that I’m always postponing is my anniversary post… it’s not done yet. It’s a month late. It will have to wait until I’m finished with it… once I’m at my flat again. 

I don’t like this prompt all that much. It wants me to finish a post on the spot when it’s not ready. It’s postponed for a reason and it will be postponed until I’m either back at my flat and happy with it… or until someone puts a gun to my head to make me finish that post (which is quite unlikely). 

Prompt 18: If you could meet any of the people that you look up to, who would it be? 

I’d love to meet my grandmother but she died before I was born. I’d love to meet one of my neighbours again but he died just last year. I already met Dan from Crywank, so I don’t need to do that necessarily… I guess, there are some bloggers like Mr Peril that I’d love to meet eventually but since the UK and Germany aren’t too far away, there is always a possibility for that. I’d also love to meet Naithin eventually although that’s gonna be a bit harder to accomplish since he’s a lot farther away… and well, there are a bunch of streamers from the US that I look up to that are quite far away like XilentFlex or Nickodimas or Tugboet… Oh well, maybe in the future. As long as they live on the same planet as me, it should be possible, right? :) And of course, I look up to a lot of other streamers and bloggers and people in general, but I can’t possibly mention all of them, right? I mean, I could, but it would take a lot of time that I don’t have and I’d forget someone either way, right?

Prompt 19: Do you “finish” games/hobbies/projects and move on or do you come back to the same things again and again?

Oh, that’s a good question. There are games that I tend to 100% when the 100%-completion seems achievable… but when it seems too fiddly or too far away, I tend to just stray away and move on. Often, I end up drifting away from Open World titles, for instance, or I just finish the main storyline + some of the side quests before moving on to a different game when I’m bored of it. Similarly, some projects go on for ages with no end in sight (like this blog… hopefully…) but also short-lived projects that die before I know it (like my tomato plant, Felix… RIP).

Prompt 20: Tell us about some of your hobbies outside of the realm of your specific niche.

I love reading plays, poetry and tragedies. Apart from that, I sometimes do write short stories and poetry though I don’t publish them too often. As already mentioned, I enjoy good shows and also anime, cartoons and manga. I used to be part of our school’s Drama group and later our university’s Drama group but since I have to focus more on my university studies now, I don’t really have the time to go to all the rehearsals and stuff. Alas, I’m currently mostly doing the blog stuff, streaming, and occasionally reading or watching a show in my free time. My hobbies really stay in the realm of my niche currently since every other hobby of mine either required too much time (like my science fair projects or my Drama club rehearsals) or I just couldn’t make a lot of time for them (like poetry or reading in general). I also used to do some martial arts stuff for quite some time but also had to stop that due to a shift in priorities. I plan on maybe doing Jiu-Jitsu or potentially Muay Thai again, eventually, though that depends on my schedule again and the people there as well as the price, so uh… I’ll see.

Prompt 21: Tell us about your favourite antagonist(s) and explain why.

There are a lot of great antagonists out there but my absolute favourite is probably either Cave Johnson from Portal 2… or Virgil from Lightmatter… or Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2/Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.

Cave Johnson and Virgil strike the same note of company bosses that tried to achieve greatness but failed to do so and ended up walking down a dark path (hehe)… and they’re crazy but not too crazy, which I really adore about them. Since Virgil is supposed to be a rival of Cave and since the games play in the same universe, I feel like it’s understandable that I like them both in the same way.

And Handsome Jack was one of the first villains I got to know in video games that had some actual depth to their character. I felt pity for him and somewhat understood him at some point and the reasoning as to why he’s… like that… he’s also a great character, very charismatic and… handsome… I may be lowkey crushing on him here and there but I really love his voice actor (who just randomly improvised about bretzels during some of the lines? Like… that’s awesome!). Honestly, this is easily my favourite. Fuck Virgil. Fuck Cave. They’ll share Spot 2. 

…and I’d like to name a female character here for inclusivity but I can’t exactly remember any other antagonists overall. GLaDOS, for instance, is a victim and not a villain. And more often than not villains tend to be male and not female. Recently, I played through Destroy All Humans! and the main antagonist, first off, didn’t feel like “the main antagonist”… and secondly, it wasn’t a good “main antagonist” that I’d call “my favourite”. This doesn’t have to do with sexism or anything like that… the reveal that Silhouette is female just didn’t have anything to do with the game and didn’t seem surprising or whatever… it was just “eh”. I guess I can write a whole post on whether or not gender matters when it comes to antagonists or protagonists, so look out for that.

Prompt 22: What piece of content would you most like to have a sequel or reboot?

While I certainly feel like a lot of games deserve a second chance to do stuff better… I don’t think it’s necessary to rewrite them or to remake them. Remakes and Remasters usually lure you in for the sake of nostalgia, like the recent “Destroy All Humans!” remake, and then they end up disappointing you after you cannot refund them anymore. Two hours in, I still had fun and enjoyed myself with it… Three hours in, I got frustrated occasionally… After 11 hours I was done with the game, despite having paid 30€ for it when it effectively offered me 15-20€ worth of content… at most… I shouldn’t have bought it at full price (or rather, I shouldn’t have gotten excited and pre-ordered it). Lesson learned, I’ll write a bad review on it because it’s absolutely not worth the full price and it’s super frustrating and has a bunch of issues that they didn’t fix. 

I feel like a remaster or a remake should introduce at least some improvement to its gameplay systems, some quality of life changes, some additional content without taking away from its original gameplay formula. Most of the games I love and play regularly, don’t really need a remade or remastered version, because they’re good games. I’m excited for the new Left 4 Dead 2 Update that is coming out soon… but I doubt that it’s in line with the prompt if I go on and rant about bad remakes and bad design choices and bad purchases on my end. I’ll dedicate a whole post to this topic, eventually.

Prompt 23: What is your greatest fear, and how does it impact the type of content you create or consume?

I have a lot of fears that I’ll eventually cover on my personal blog (again, see above). The only fears that kind of effect my “content” are probably the fear of missing out, the fear of not fitting in, and the fear of not standing out. While that may be contradictory, I don’t want to be “just another gaming blog” or “just another review blog” or “just another indie blog” as that would result in me being or becoming boring. While I blog because it’s fun, I obviously also want to grow, so that my reviews get read and so that people get to play some true indie gems. But I also don’t want to stand out too much with an opinion that people don’t like, as that could get me “cancelled”. I don’t really believe that “cancel culture” is a thing… but I also am scared about it… Again, see above. I’ll write more about that on the other blog. And as far as FOMO goes, I don’t want to miss out on some lovely interactions with other bloggers, so I try to read their posts and I try to post about certain topics that are popular, at times, again for the sake of growth. 

But while those fears exist, I’m not exactly anxious about a lot of the things there. I tend to ignore them and do my own thing… even if that’s not always the easiest thing, I know that it’s the best thing to do for me and my health. 

Prompt 24 was my prompt. So, I already uploaded that.

Looki looki at my blog-gi. 

Prompt 25: How did you get started in content creation?

There used to be a blog called peteback (can’t link it since it doesn’t exist anymore) that did essentially a similar thing to me here… review games and shows and write about their hobbies and I really liked that. And then I started my own blog. 

Prompt 26: With the pandemic, we are going through an unprecedented time. In what ways has this shared global event impacted your content creation?

Well, when everything just started, I ended up blogging as per usual. I already was done with all of my exams, so I had more free time and ended up participating in Blapril while also publishing 45 posts in total during that time! While I was streaming three times a week before that, I ended up changing my schedule a bit to have four streams per week since people are now at home and since those people needed a place to hang out at or rather a place to entertain themselves at. The pandemic hasn’t ended yet and Germany is on its way to a second lockdown (Covidiots, hooray!), so I may actually stick to the four-stream-schedule for quite some time… and I honestly, really like it. 

With less social interactions and with me not going out as much, though, I ended up feeling less productive and I even got into this weird headspace that a lot of people were talking about already. More often than not, I’d end up posting less or less frequently… and eventually, Uni@Home started and I had my online classes which kept me busy so that lead to fewer posts.

But then I picked it up again and once I’m back home, I’ll be able to post more frequently again. 

In the end, while the pandemic is bad for a lot of people… it ended up benefitting the gaming industry as more people at home meant more people to play games and more profits from games that people at home want to play (the maths add up!) – alas, content creators also benefitted from this as there were more people watching streams or reading blog posts or doing all of that… but due to me not feeling too well at times, my stream quality ended up dropping a bit again, so that resulted in a drop in views and overall, fewer people watching. 

Again, once I’m back home again, I’ll work on that. I’ve got a blog post lined up for that as well for the Live in Purple category (name to change) and I’m looking forward to writing about issues I’ve faced while streaming and my advice for people that are starting out on Twitch or that are new to all of this. Again, more posts to come and more stuff in the drafts and, ugh, I’m sitting at 54 drafts, right now, despite this post going out soon…

Prompt 27: What piece/s of technology would you have the hardest time living without?

This is a relatively easy prompt to answer. My mobile phone, my computer and my internet router. 

I can’t stay in touch with the world and what’s going on without access to the internet… and for access to the internet, I need either my mobile phone or my PC… and obviously, I need my internet access/router. When I’m offline, I get to read more books but overall, I end up struggling due to FOMO… and while books are great and all of that, I love playing games and watching shows and watching YouTube videos, so that kind of ended up being a big part of my free time activities. 

Prompt 28: What are some of the things that you wish you knew before you started creating content?

Honestly, I don’t think there are many things that I would have wanted to know beforehand… Well, the existence of Grammarly (#notsponsored). I would have checked my grammar and spelling and all of that in my first few posts… and I’ll fix that soon… if I remember.

Prompt 29: What are you looking forward to the most over the course of the next year?

Uh, the vaccines for the Rona. When it’s happening, I’ll be able to visit my grandparents without getting anxious about potentially killing them with my hugs.

Prompt 30: Tell us about some community that you are a part of and why it interests you or how it impacts you?

Uh,… the Blaugust community? I don’t know. I’m not a part of many communities and the ones that I am a part of usually don’t have the sense of community that the Blaugust community has. I actually feel like I’m a part of something when I talk to other Blaugustans and when I participate in the events and stuff. I’d love to play some games with more people there but timezones and schedules and all of that is hard to get around… but we’ll manage it somehow. 

And yeah, when I need help or advice, I’m able to rely on others there. Can highly recommend the Blaugust community. 100% not biased!

Prompt 31: What is your favourite thing to do in order to relax?

Video games… okay, that’s kind of obvious. 

Let’s go with music then. I sometimes have some very busy and very bad days full of shitty people (again, coming soon on the other blog, see above) and when I get home, I just fall into my bed and lay down for a while. Then I take a shower, pop a can of Dr Pepper, put in my ear-plugs and enjoy my music for a bit while sitting on the balcony… In the winter it’s the same thing but inside and while browsing blogs or whatever. 

Some of my favourite playlists:

• Heffalump
• SwoodilyDoodily
• or just my “favourite songs” on Spotify that include all kinds of stuff 

And yeah, that’s essentially all of the Blaugust Promptapalooza prompts done in one day. I know I’m a bit early but I wanted to have all of them done by the end of the month and Monday is gonna be hectic, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to post them by then. Apart from that, I haven’t posted in quite some time, so I wanted to give out a sign of life before continuing with the usual frequency next month. :) 

Hope you liked this one. 

Cheers!