WARMTH LIKE HOME UNAWARES

Well, I've been keeping up on getting one victory in Street Fighter every day...! I'm on Ryu with Vega right now. Sometimes he yodels. I need to edit my ongoing SF2' post with my thoughts; I've already completed Balrog and haven't written anything about that yet.

After I finish watching Survivor Series 1993 I'll just have like a month of episodes left and I'll have finished all Raw and PPVs for 1993. Huzzah! I haven't watched anything in the last couple days, though; been mostly spending all my time on Twitch.

I really need to call to apply for SSI like... soon. I'm trying to figure out if it's possible to apply online right now but Dens is listening to Tiktok with the volume all the way up and laughing hysterically at it sitting like right next to me and it's taking me like several minutes to type up a sentence for this entry because I can't really concentrate. Reading feels nearly impossible lol.

But yeah I'm in a 'comfortable' position right now because Dens is capable of providing for me but it's not fair on him for me to rely completely on him for everything (well, I do contribute through EBT Snap benefits at least) and I have to consider longevity in the case that anything might happen to him or by some bizarre turn of events we split up (though 11 years in and doing wonderfully, I can't imagine anything like that happening lol).

But of course making a phone call is an incredibly daunting and taxing thing, and having to do an entire application over the phone is like... wow. I need a thousand spoons for that and my daily quota is like ten lmfao. I actually sat and held the phone in my hand shaking for like 2 hours this morning but didn't get anywhere. Maybe I'll talk to my new therapist about it next time.

Oh yeah, that's a thing. I have a new therapist now. My regular one like... got very sick or something? IDK if he's going to come back, honestly. They make it sound like he will but his health seems to be getting progressively worse and he was already talking about retiring anyway, so... this will probably just push him over the edge.

Oh well, there's not much that can be done about this whole thing now that it's the weekend anyway, so I think I'll look into seeing if online applications are opened back up over the weekend and if not, try to get a better number to call. The general number just puts me on hold for like an hour then hangs up on me. At least it did the one time I tried before lol. I haven't had the willpower to try again since then.

I'll leave the SSA tabs up and hopefully remember to do it tomorrow. TBH the biggest motivating factor in all this is that I'd really like to get better internet LMAO. Since my needs are met right now anyway, it doesn't put any kind of pressure or sense of urgency on needing to provide for those things, even though I do have a sense of guilt over not doing it for myself. But I mean, I have a husband who willingly provides for me and regularly reassures me that he wants to do so... that sense of urgency just isn't there.

But recently I've been trying to motivate myself by selfish factors -- if we had additional money not only could I provide for myself and help out with other things that are needed like when we need new appliances or phones or whatever, but I could also do FUN STUFF like buy collectibles and get better internet lol... but also I'm considering using the next stimulus check to pay for better internet for a year and then we can choose to cut back down to shit internet if it's not sustainable. But that's more me looking for 'outs' to ... not apply for SSI. I wish making a single phone call wasn't so difficult for me. And I guess I could technically have Dens do it for me but I feel terrible about that and honestly he would be really uncomfortable doing it because he isn't particularly comfortable on the phone and he wouldn't know what he was doing and would have to keep asking me things which would just make us both anxious and yeah that's just a terrible idea. It's better to just wait until I can muster up the courage to do it myself. But I don't know where to start in my journey of courage-mustering. So yeah I'll definitely have to talk about this in my next therapy session, which sadly is only monthly now because of the high demand. I used to be able to get therapy every week, then it moved to every two weeks because I didn't feel like I needed it every week, but now I'm lucky to get one promptly one month after my last one, and it's a little stressful sometimes, because sometimes I really need advice or at least reassurance to help me get through being alive.

But I make it sound way worse than it is -- I don't really have any challenges right now (except for applying for SSI which is not urgent at the moment) so I'm able to coast pretty well and without having to challenge myself and having a great support system in Dens, I can live pretty comfortably. But it's because I have a very cushy life -- I have all my needs provided for and have a very supportive and helpful spouse who is available 24/7. My obligations pretty much are just going grocery shopping every other week, which I don't have to do alone, and is something routine I'm adjusted to so it only provides minimal challenge for me.

But yeah, I'm rambling at this point and really need to get to bed. But hopefully overthinking about this stuff will be somehow motivating to me tomorrow??? I doubt it, but hey XD

I am still chugging along with SF2', now on Sagat with Balrog. I'm going to be very glad to be done with Balrog's playthrough lol. Surprisingly, though, Vega was pretty easy to beat with him. Which is weird because he's been difficult with just about everyone, and Balrog has been particularly difficult to defeat opponents with lol.

I need to get back to playing SaGa 2, where I got stuck on a late-game battle and need to go back and grind up some stats and grab some items. I'm not really looking forward to that; I almost even want to just restart the entire game, even though that would be really impractical. But yeah I haven't been pulling out the Switch ever since I got stuck.

The other day I downloaded the Sega collection thingy that I have on Steam, and played a little bit of Sonic the Hedgehog. I was able to get to Marble Zone (which is the 2nd zone, so I beat a whopping 1 boss XD) which had really cool music, but I wasn't able to clear it. And in this game, you run out of lives, and you're just back to the beginning of the game. No continues or anything heh. So I gotta start over next time. But I don't know if I actually want to get into playing it seriously, I was more just wanting to play around with some stuff when I didn't feel like doing other things. But I kinda feel like playing Shining Force, because my friend has been streaming it and there's so many mustaches in that game hahaha.

Watching Raw, I'm finally past Summerslam in 1993. I'm past where Ted got injured, so now Irwin is on his own. Which means Irwin isn't going to be there much longer. But I got the Smoking Gunns to look forward to, so that's good, ahahaha.

ETA: OK, for some reason I thought that after DiBiase's injury that IRS stopped wrestling within a couple months, but apparently he didn't leave the WWF again until 1995. So I got plenty of time with him left :D And it's not in Money Inc. anymore which honestly I'm happy about hahaha.

Now that Street Fighter is over (good riddance -- but a sad farewell to daddy Eagle) we're ready to move onto Street Fighter II: The World Warrior. The apostrophe doesn't get added until the next game.

This is a direct sequel to Street Fighter and it has a little bit more story than the first game. A little bit. But the story is expanded on in future games as well. I know more of the story from other games and media and reading about it online, but we're gonna try to discover just how much story is actually in the game. I'm also using the instruction manual from the SNES version to see what was given along with that (though the version I'm playing is a port of the arcade version).

Basically the only story given in the SNES manual is that eight warriors enter a tournament to challenge the mysterious Grand Masters. That's it! That's the entire story we get! Well, more of the story is explained in the characters' backstories, and hopefully in the game as well (... though I'm not expecting much on that front... I can't remember what it was like when I beat this as a kid, but I'm hoping there's some amount of 'ending' to each character's tournament).

This game lets us select from one of the eight world warriors, with whom we will partake in the tournament and attempt to challenge the Grand Masters after traveling the world. We have Japanese martial artist Ryu, Ryu's American buddy Ken, sumo wrestler E. Honda, Brazilian jungle man Blanka, American Special Forces member Guile, Chinese martial artist Chun-Li, Russian bear-wrestler Zangief, and Indian yoga master Dhalsim. That makes two representatives from the USA and Japan each, and the rest from different respective countries. There's also the Grand Masters whom we have yet to meet.

Since the structure of this game is a little different from the first game, I'm not going to write about my battles with each opponent as I go, as I'm going to be playing the game eight times over. Instead, I'll write about each character's uniqueness, kind of going back and forth and filling out this post as I play the game.

You can re-select a new character after you continue from a failure, so technically it's possible to see all the endings by making a save state just before losing to Bison, then purposely losing the fight, selecting a different character, and winning with them to see their ending. But the original arcade machine of course would not have had save states (nor would the home versions, for that matter), and to see a character's ending, you'd have to play through the whole game again. Now, you could play through as your favorite/best character until you got to Bison again, then lose, then select another character to see their ending... so I guess I could abuse save states to "skip" that, but I want to play through the whole tournament with each character. There's only eight, and it's fun to learn and master the play style of each. Getting through the tournament and familiarizing myself with their moves will make it easier to face Bison with them anyway, instead of jumping into the fight with no experience at all.

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So I kinda unofficially decided I was going to try to post an entry every day this year, but I already messed that up by forgetting yesterday. So uh I think I'm not gonna try that because I'll just get frustrated with myself easily because I won't keep up on that XD

Anyway, yesterday I played through all of Zangief's route on SF2; it was actually the easiest so far??? Which I really didn't expect. Now I'm on Dhalsim which is VERY DIFFICULT. My "one victory a day" was VS Guile today. Now I'm on Ryu and don't feel like figuring that one out hahaha.

Halftime on the Colts/Raiders game so I'mma just update how gaming is going.

Street Fighter II - Still stuck on Sagat with Chun Li. I'm getting frustrated with the game so I only play like 10-15 minutes here and there. It's not as fun when you're just grinding out the same few fights over and over. When the whole entry project was new I was super motivated but now I'm just super tilted XD

Tokimeki Memorial - I played through for Kagami's ending but didn't manage to get it x_x; I got all of her scenes except one, though, which is nice. And I guess I needed to get "Bad End" in my ending list so you can call it progress, right? I started up another play going for Kagami but then ended up meeting Mikihara on the first Christmas party, so IDK if I should go for her or not. I've really been neglecting studies so I'd really have to focus on boosting those back up.

Final Fantasy XIII - I haven't actually started this yet, but I installed it. I've played through it before, but I think it's going to be my next YouTube LP project. We'll see how far I actually get into it though :P

Dens is actually OK with me recording in the kitchen, which is where I stay most of the day anyway, so that's super convenient. Though I won't be able to record while he's napping or whatever, so I mostly have to wait until evenings... but that's generally when I would record anyway.

Got a new buddy on here, I am happy ^^ Welcome to my mess of a journal, hope you like long-winded posts about my hyperfixations.

I have a cold sore or something on the bottom of my tongue and it hurts T_T and then I ate a coconut cookie which had little flakes of coconut that kept getting down in there and irritating it. Also while I slept, I kept biting it (I chew my tongue in my sleep) and waking myself up X_X;

Tom wanted me to start playing Star Wars: The Old Republic which I was hesitant to do, because I don't really like SW, but he played two months of FF14 with me (and even paid for a sub, while SWTOR is a free game XD) so I owe it to him to try his game :)

And by "hesitant to do" I just mean I was procrastinating on starting it lol.

But it actually ended up being pretty good. The story seems pretty intricate, and you can make little decisions that feel like they have an impact on the current conversation. I'm sure the overall story stays the same no matter what you pick, though. And even sidequests feel like they can go different ways depending on what you choose.

For example, there was some guys from the Republic who were missing some medicine that got stolen. You find out it was stolen to help refugees. But the army also needs the medicine. Not only can you retrieve the medicine in different ways (it was also stolen from the refugees by some baddies) but you can also decide who to give it back to.

Depending on your choices, you also sway your character toward the "Light Side" or "Dark Side," which is interesting. I'm of course trying to RP my character and make choices I feel like he would make, and it's making him go all Dark Side hahahaha. He's a no-nonsense money-hungry smuggler. Basically the opposite of me lmao XD

I finally got past Ken with Guile, then got all the way through to Bison pretty easily. Flash Kick ended up coming in a lot more handy than I initially thought it was -- I hadn't been using it because I thought it was hard to pull off and had low priority, but you can bait enemies into it and it's pretty powerful.

Bison is going to be a pain, though. Not looking forward to it.

So after 2 hours of trying to beat Bison with Ken (I've already beaten with Ryu, Honda, and Blanka, and yes, those took forever, too) I'm starting to get burned out already on SF2. It's a very fun game but the fight with Bison is dumb.

He has insane speed and can reach you from all the way across the screen with a scissor kick before you can even let off a hadouken. All of his attacks bounce him away from you when you guard, so there's no way to counter. Everything he does has insane priority and not even light punches or kicks can break any of his attacks. Scissor kick can hit both standing and crouching blocks, though it's random which one it's 'targeting,' but either way it means even if you see it coming you only have a 50% of blocking it no matter what you do. You can jump backward but most of the time he has you pinned against the wall and you'll still get hit by it as you come down anyway. And of course nothing has priority over it so there's no way to counter it, you just... get hit. There's no air guard in this game so you can't block on your way down. If you're in the air, you will get hit with whatever he is doing 100% of the time.

After he does the thing where he jumps on your head, he'll sometimes jump backward if he misses. If you pull off a Tatsumakisenpukyaku IMMEDIATELY after he bounces off your head, there's a small chance you can hit him when he's jumping backward. If he does literally anything else, you'll get pummeled, though.

At the start of the fight, you can jump toward him, and if he doesn't move backward or scissor kick, you can medium kick him.

If you somehow manage to hit him with a Hadouken, it knocks him down. Then when he's getting back up, sometimes a strong Hadouken will hit him as he's trying to attack again (as he rarely ever guards from far away).

Those are the three moments I can find to actually damage him. But those opportunities are rare (the beginning of the fight only happens once!) and you have to have lightning-quick reflexes for the 'Kyaku. For the Hadouken it's rare you ever get a first Hadouken in, I only try it when he's far away and if I'm LUCKY he'll do Psycho Crusher, which will break the Crusher (I don't think anything has priority over the actual fireball of the Hadouken? Like I don't think you can attack it away like Geki's shurikens in SF1 lol).

But he hardly ever does Psycho Crusher unless you're jumping a lot (which will always hit you hard) or if you're stunned.

Even when I manage to get Tatsumakisenpukyaku off and stun him, then throw him... he still has like 3/4 life left, and he's able to do like 30% of my life bar in damage from a single scissor kick or head jumpy thing. It just feels impossible.

I had a lot more vigor when I was doing it with Ryu (which I think took me hours to do, like an entire evening just on that one fight???) but now I am running out of stamina and patience. Plus Ken is a poop and I hate him and it's not fun to play as him despite it being the same as Ryu. You can't do multiple save states, so if I start a new character I have to abandon the current one. I can always do the lose-and-retry character change, though. But I'm just going to get to Bison and be frustrated again with a different character :P I'm wondering what I should do. I 've already written SO MUCH of the post for SF2 (seriously, it's huge) so I don't want to abandon at this point, but... ho man is this grating.