Thursday, January 12, 2023

Three Things of 2022

People have all kinds of sides to them, Mei, and some of them are messy. - Jin (Turning Red)

Holy cow, the year is over. It’s been a rough couple of years. Do your best to live one day at a time, and enjoy one moment at a time. What are three things in 2022 that were fun for me?

Netflix Sandman - At the end of high school my older cousin gave me a bunch of the trade paperbacks for my birthday (or Christmas?) and as a moody intellectual high schooler who dabbled with the idea of being goth, this I was 100% up my alley. It was SO deep. I have a lot of appreciation for quite a few things that Neil Gaiman has written and I do love Sandman. I revisited and read the entire comic book collection again around 2018 with the 30th anniversary collection and enjoyed it just as much. They did a good job with the Netflix TV series. I think it’s captured the comic really well and truly enjoyed watching it. It’s dark, creepy, moody, etc. It NAILED my favorite issue introducing Dream’s sister Death. I’m excited to see it continue.

Genshin Impact - I played a bunch of this game throughout the year. I’ve really enjoyed it and I’ve really enjoyed that I am playing a free-to-play game, haven’t spent a single penny on it, and am just having a really really good time. I admit I have moved into “completionist” mode where most of my current gameplay involved collecting characters and hitting 100% completions on various quests. But, ya know, I am a person who dodged 200 lightning strikes in FFX or finished the Via Infinito Dungeon in FFX-2. So I have a history of this sort of thing.

Turning Red - my favorite movie for the year was Turning Red. I found the movie delightful from “the secret lives of tween girls” to “Team Auntie” to the boyband. And of course, how could I not relate to the dad? There is a moment where he is talking to his daughter and says he saw her mom’s (his wife’s) panda and says (I’m paraphrasing from memory) “it was magnificent.” It is a move about loving yourself and loving others for who they are.

I watched a lot of other shows and movies, but I’ll go with that for my three suggestions for 2022. Welcome to 2023.