An Unnecessarily Extensive Genshin Impact Co-Op Simping Sheet

See the rest of the sheet for yourself!

Workin' on these spreadsheets

Wish I had my bed sheets

Head meets keyboard and I get to counting mad sheep

- The Warp Zone, "Nap Rap"

New Bones - a Genshin Impact Comic Dub

Massive thank you to @kagura8999 on Instagram and Twitter for letting me dub this comic!

I encourage you to stay after the end of kagura8999's comic for some commentary and...a particularly disturbing clip. >:)

But if you need a TL;DW, Sucrose and Tartaglia are my #2 and #3 favorite characters because of how similar they are to me. Nobushi students are unenthusiastic Japanese students in my English lessons...and the reason I kill large numbers of Nobushi and Kairagi in Genshin Impact.

This is only the second video I have ever seriously edited since my first YouTube video where I explained the key rules of my Minecraft series with too many rules. As such, I admit there's still a lot I don't know about editing.

Anyway, lately, I've been getting more and more Nobushi students than usual since earlier this month. In fact, on top of one of these persistent Nobushi (which I call a "simp") becoming extra persistent, TWO former simps have found me and are actively hunting me down once again. As such, I wanted to unleash my anger in more ways than just pounding my wall and mass-murdering Nobushi in-game.

(Yes, I have a punching bag, but since my office is on the upper deck of our bed and some students book me at the last minute, raging at it means I have to waste my time washing my feet again.)

So I reached out to kagura8999, arguably the most popular Alberose fan artist, and asked for permission to dub this comic. (I'm guessing this artist is female given the Instagram stories she's sharing.) She was quick to say a simple yes with no strings attached.

I actively shared the progress of my comic dub with her, all the while giving her cryptic messages related to Nobushi. I told her that there's a part that she won't like that has something to do with getting down to business...and after a second hint where I said "it's their lucky day", she didn't try to guess again. I didn't call myself a lunatic for nothing.

Voice Acting

I have...quite a high-pitched male voice so I think I made Tartaglia sound a bit younger than he actually is...which is probably fitting given his other well-known codename "Childe".

I originally asked one female friend (kind of) to voice Sucrose, but since she was swamped with real-life responsibilities (as usual), I chose to voice Sucrose myself since, #1, my non-Nobushi Japanese students loved it when I did high-pitched female voices like Anya Forger, Hu Tao, and Pikachu; #2, I was too shy to ask the other girls I know and I didn't want to waste their time.

And...I know I'm a braggart but despite my name being in the intro credits, YoSquid didn't know I voiced Sucrose. I think he was convinced that a real girl voiced Sucrose.

I do different kinds of evil laughs in everyday life but doing a Tartaglia-inspired one was a challenge since I've never done it before. I wanted it to sound youthful; not too much like a traditional supervillain. I was inspired by itsthepinoyboy's voice; he voiced Tartaglia in a lot of Sylle's older comic dubs before Souleaterwill took over.

And yes, I laugh like a maniac when I kill Nobushi in-game.

Additional Context on the Characters I Used

For the purpose of saving time, I limited my post-dub commentary to why I like Sucrose and Tartaglia and utterly despise Nobushi.

But believe it or not, there are reasons other than the meta that I used Bennett and Xingqiu in that team. I'm writing it down here mainly for my more dedicated fans. <3

Bennett and Xingqiu are my #5 and #1 favorite characters respectively.

Bennett because, #1, I love adventuring and his friendly personality; #2, he's an extremely powerful support and solid main DPS in many different teams; #3, I like his cargo shorts; it balances utility with youthfulness, both of which are important to me.

Xingqiu because, similar to how video games got me into martial arts, Xingqiu got into martial arts because of novels. We also share a superhero mentality (at least when I'm not raging). His hairstyle also looks kinda similar to mine.

In case you're wondering who's the missing #4 favorite character, it's Sangonomiya Kokomi, the leader and tactician of Watatsumi Island. I love the blue, pink, and white on her long hair and outfit, she balances the freedom of her citizens with a well-balanced justice system, and, just like me back in my Minecraft days, she gives directives to her soldiers to prepare them for almost any situation.

Heck, unlike most tutors, I give tips for them to teach a specific student better based on their likes/dislikes, strengths, and weaknesses. Just like Kokomi, I live by the principle of knowing thy enemy.

Unfortunately, Keqing, my 2nd least favorite character and whose personality is similar to that of my high school crush, killed my pity on both Kokomi banners...

Anyway, do you know why I used some of my favorite characters?

Because it feels more personal when I beat up Nobushi with characters similar to me. I'm not allowed to be rude to any student (otherwise, I might get in big legal trouble) so this is the closest I can be to unleashing my rage.

I can look and sound as badass as a typical shonen protagonist thanks to my Tartaglia-like personality and skills but perhaps, to Nobushi, I sound like a boastful and noisy but genuinely scary person that could kill them with his charisma as if I used the vicious mockery spell.

Sangonomiya Kokomi can strategize and is genuinely caring. You can ask a Nobushi a bajillion fun questions about what they like or present a bunch of nerdy opinions and they wouldn't budge an inch.

Bennett is fired up. Nobushi sound like they're always tired unless you ask them if they are "daijoubu".

The Golden Apple Archipelago: My Favorite Genshin Impact Area

Note that this is based on the 1.6 version of the Golden Apple Archipelago and will contain major spoilers. I think the 2.8 version will be different; it'll be less Mondstadt-like and more of a mix of the themes of the characters visiting there, including some maple trees for Kaedehara Kazuha rather than the vacation-friendly atmosphere for Barbara, Jean, and Klee.

Edit: Yes, it eventually becomes different.

No, I'm not just saying this because "I support the current thing". In fact, I generally dislike supporting things without knowing what I'm supporting. Heck, I bet the current thing regarding Genshin Impact location hype is Sumeru.

In short, the Golden Apple Archipelago unintentionally but intimately connects my past and present together. It contains both what I enjoyed starting from childhood and what I recently began to enjoy as a teen and young adult.

Some Vacation Background

I played the Pokémon games for the first time in 2003 when I was 4 years old. Wild Pokémon are encountered in tall grass, caves, and water, leading to me liking running around in grass, exploring caves, and swimming or sailing across water in real life. Similarly, Pokémon can be taught HM02 Fly, adding a little excitement to my otherwise scared self because of the possibility of the aircraft crashing on our way to the beach.

Speaking of the beach, my family and I went to Boracay Island for my first-ever vacation outside of Metro Manila when I was 6 years old. Boracay is the most famous beach island in the Philippines, hence its beachfronts being full of businesses like hotels and restaurants. I loved the bustling atmosphere of it all which enhanced my swimming experience as I pretended to encounter wild Pokémon.

We've gone on many Boracay trips since then, including another childhood trip I can't remember, a trip on my first year of college (2016), a trip with my niece (2019), and a trip in March 2020 right before the world locked down due to COVID-19.

Of course, beaches aren't the only places my family and I visited. We also explored a few mountains, most notably our Sagada trip (2015) where I explored a cave for the first time. Rather than leisurely swimming around the cave pools, though, I was focused on getting through what I later found out was a hard-difficulty cave...and I'm still alive as you can see.

The Islands

General Info

The Golden Apple Archipelago is a group of islands distant from Teyvat and is blanketed by a thick fog. Sailors from Liyue and Inazuma were here and had to contend with the fog prior to the arrival of Barbara, Jean, Klee, and the Traveler on the back of the dragon Dvalin.

Initially, the Golden Apple Archipelago was just a bunch of tiny islands but the group then drains the water, drastically lowering the sea level and revealing more islands as well as the fact they were actually on top of an incredibly tall mountain.

Aside from mountains and beaches, there are a few small caves, some with murals from the old sailors.

Individual Islands

Minacious Isle is actually a big chunk of Mondstadt which, according to Albedo, may have been blown onto the Golden Apple Archipelago by Barbatos. As such, it is unique for having Dandelion Seeds, some upside-down ruins, and a Seelie that gets sent home through a portal to Mondstadt.
I loved this mish-mash of locations, especially combined with the fact that the rest of the Golden Apple Archipelago has Starconches (Liyue) and Sea Ganoderma (Inazuma). I wouldn't be surprised if a Sumeru local specialty started appearing there...

The western island south of the Broken Isle is surrounded by a huge water bubble barrier. On the last part of their adventure, the group dispels the barrier, revealing a Klee-themed resort full of beach chairs and a tent containing a recorded message from the "Dodo-King" who is actually Klee's mother, Alice.
Of course, when Klee learned the truth, she was so happy to hear it. It reminds me of how much my niece REALLY loves swimming.

This screenshot was taken with my brother's account. I didn't have Kaedehara Kazuha at the time.

The central island is where players first fought the Maguu Kenki, a machine swordmaster that protected the Inazuman sailors from hilichurls but malfunctioned.
I was actually surprised they threw in this new boss considering we hadn't been to Inazuma yet. It feels like a very early teaser.
Interestingly, I did not take much of an interest in samurai, even as an English teacher for Japanese students, until Inazuma came out.
When my niece and I recreated

Midsummer Island Adventure in our July 2021 pool vacation and we were doing the third part featuring the Maguu Kenki, I did not know much about Japanese swordfighting at the time, and even if I did and only pretended to hold an imaginary katana, I might hurt my niece with my fists. Instead, I as the Maguu Kenki acted like a tribesman spouting gibberish and saying "I'm the Ugly Maguu Kenki!" in a cartoony voice. However, she participated the least in this; she participated more in using the Waverider to bomb me playing the role of hilichurls, racing across the pool, and the best part for her: making bombs, including a brand-new flying bomb that doesn't appear anywhere in the game.

Waverider

Speaking of the Waverider, this small boat was introduced along with the Golden Apple Archipelago. It comes equipped with cannons that deal Physical DMG. The Waverider is used in several challenges, including time trial courses and bombing floating hilichurl camps.

During some vacations, I rode various ships from sailboats to medium-sized motorboats to full-sized ships that can hold the weight of cars and trucks. All of them had a feel similar to using HM03 Surf, but I'd say the sailboat felt closest to that. On the other hand, the large ships made me feel like battling other Pokémon Trainers aboard...though, of course, I didn't do that because I didn't want to bother others and my orders were to stay close to my parents.

As for Genshin Impact, aside from the very impractical use of Sangonomiya Kokomi to walk on water, using the Waverider against hilichurls was the closest I could get to battling wild Pokémon on water.
Unlike most Daily Commissions, this truly felt like raiding hilichurl bases because I could destroy the barriers and smaller towers, drowning some hilichurls in the process.

I wonder what it would be like to accurately recreate these Waverider battles on a real beach...
We could have attackers on jet skis and defenders manning towers, some of which can be destroyed by sufficiently strong ball throws. Both sides would attack each other with Nerf blasters—I experimented by submerging AccuStrike Darts and Elite Darts and they still float so it's unlikely for the players to lose darts.
As for the safety plan, all players will be equipped with life vests because we'll be far from the shore. There will also be a larger boat to bring us back to shore.

The Music

Official Music

I don't know exactly why, but the Golden Apple Archipelago tracks feel oddly nostalgic—even WHILE I was exploring the area. They bring a mix of feelings that I associate with various memories from childhood and teenhood, including mystery, relaxation, and wonder.

"Whispering Seabreeze" in particular was played in the 1.6 and 2.8 trailers in the parts that briefly showed their respective events. Unlike the other tracks, it gives me the Focused emotion kinda similar to me reading the Pokédex or making tactical plans for a battle or a romantic date.

Battle Themes I Play From Other Sources

The Golden Apple Archipelago is far away from Teyvat so it feels to me like an "alien" area kinda similar to Seirai Island (lightning all over the place), Tsurumi Island (foggy and supposedly uninhabited), Enkanomiya (an undersea empire), and The Chasm: Underground Mines (a massive cave system with the obvious mines, a ruined underground city, and large fungal growths).
As such, I play Pokémon battle themes associated with alien areas, specifically the wild battle themes from ORAS and USUM. ORAS features islands and portals that appear seemingly out of nowhere while USUM allows the player to explore Ultra Space, both of which contain Pokémon, including Legendary Pokémon, from other regions. The ORAS battle theme especially applies since these games got the infamous 7.8/10 rating from IGN for having "too much water".

We did not have a lot of open world battle themes in Genshin Impact back then—the newest one was "All-Conquering Tide" from Dragonspine.
The Golden Apple Archipelago normally reuses the battle themes from Mondstadt—yes, even against the Maguu Kenki which now uses the "Fiery Pursuit" track used for Inazuman bosses.
My favorite battle theme at the time was "All-Conquering Tide"—it blended in well with the sounds of Klee's bombs, in my opinion, especially since Klee was my strongest DPS at the time besides Tartaglia.

If the Golden Apple Archipelago Was Real

For this section, I will make the following assumptions:

• I have sufficient time and resources to bring an unlimited number of people here.
• Only I and specific people I invite will be there. No outsiders—otherwise, we might have to contend with massive numbers of rowdy tourists just like in pretty much every Genshin Impact-themed event ever outside of Japan.
• The area is clearly and accurately marked on a real-life map. It does not "change location".
• The sea level has gone down, completely revealing all the islands.
• The western island is empty; there is no bubble barrier and the Klee-themed furnishings aren't there.
• There is no fog.
• We cannot go to any nation in Teyvat or get help from any playable character or NPC.
• Yes, the hilichurls and stuff are still here.

Who I'd Invite

No offense to my family, of course, but I'm sick of having vacations with family members all the time—they feel too structured and I spend way too much time with them anyway. I want to make the rules and go out with friends since I spend significantly less time with them due to family matters.

First and foremost, I'd invite a love interest...if I had one. As of writing this, I'm still single. Girls love traveling but they tend to be more shy than boys so this would be the perfect opportunity to be alone for a relaxing time...while I'm not beating up hilichurls to secure a perimeter or because I'm bloodthirsty.

As for friends, I'd choose Glacie (a.k.a. NachoPizza), my best friend from Singapore, as well as his girlfriend. YoSquid, my sort-of neighbor, gets to come too.
Glacie, like me, is a big fan of Genshin Impact and shipping.
YoSquid mainly gets to come because I've been friends with him for a long time and he's easy to contact both electronically and physically.

Why not bring your niece?
As much as I want my niece to come...it's too dangerous given I kept the hilichurls. She currently has very little physical strength and no weapon proficiencies at all, even with simple weapons. She loves to roam around on her own similar to Klee so she may randomly wander to a hilichurl camp. I don't want myself or my friends to waste time protecting her.

If she grows older, though, I may consider giving her serious boxing training so that she'll look like Arataki Itto.

If I had to invite her anyway, I'd probably make her stay in a Waverider. That thing has a ton of HP and uses its own offensive stats instead of the character's. Plus, she can actually bomb some hilichurls with it like she wants to.

What I'd Bring

The most important things to bring are survival tools since there are no proper settlements in the Golden Apple Archipelago.
Of course, I would immediately gravitate towards weapons because I love fighting. Luckily, I have many weapons at home, including two arnis sticks, a baseball bat, two kitchen knives, and even a real bow. We just need pointy metal arrows rather than suction-cup ones. Since I'm probably the only one who can properly use a bow, I'll use the bow—but don't worry, I can go melee with my fists. (For long-time readers: I have never seen YoSquid use a real bow.)
As for non-combat tools, I'd borrow my brother's lighter and a water filter.
My sling bag by default contains many survival tools already, including alcohol, bandages, insect repellent, and ointment.

My batteries can hold up for pretty long so I wouldn't mind bringing my phone, my power bank, and my DSLR camera. It's unlikely I would forget to charge these because of how enthusiastic I would be about the trip.

I won't play any video games during the trip. Instead, I'll probably bring my D&D Essentials Kit so, at night while camping, we can play some D&D.
Or we can play cards if not all of us are into roleplay.

Obviously, swimming equipment is a must-have. Each of us will be responsible for bringing our own, however, since I don't have extras.

What We'd Do

I think the most important rule is to never split the party. I understand that there's a possibility some of us want to stick around longer on a single island or explore a new one, but as far as I know, I'm the best fighter while my friends have very little actual combat experience. The most difficult foes we can fight during our trip are Stonehide Lawachurls but they're rare and so big we can see 'em from a mile away and avoid provoking them.

Perhaps, on Day 1 (and maybe Day 2), we can focus entirely on exploration using Waveriders so we can find the safest or most fun island to camp on...or basically wherever we feel like it. After all, I live by the principle of knowing thy enemy.
We should wear our swim gear just in case we want to take a break by swimming.

I personally choose to make Minacious Isle our main base. It's got the upside-down Mondstadt ruins so I'd be interested to study them. It's also a good place to take shelter—it's got large openings for us to see the sunrise and any intruders. Additionally, it's got a large beachfront for us to expand our camp and play beach sports or games.

Broken Isle is probably the most dangerous of the bunch because it has Hydro Mimics—they can float on water and some of them continuously regenerate HP. I don't have enough DPS IRL to take down a Hydro Mimic Boar.

What I Learned From Playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate with YoSquid (Includes Hytale Insights!)

Image from SmashWiki

It's been VERY long since I last played Super Smash Bros. seriously. The last time I did so was on August 22, 2016, when I used up all 30 plays of the Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS demo. The last time I did it not as seriously was in early 2020 back in game development class where I got rekt by everyone else, including the girls who aren't hardcore gamers at all, in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Despite not having played any Super Smash Bros. game for a long time, I feel like I have to learn at least one of the games. #1, as a Hytale nerd and tactician, I have to be knowledgeable about weapon types since I assume, just like other games, traditional weapons like swords, bows, etc. will be the primary, or at least most popular, way of dealing damage (though considering the many possibilities advertised by the game, we might also be able to perform improvised combat similar to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild). #2, some of my Japanese kid students talk about it and I need to know what I'm doing from the perspective of a casual player who's new to English, not someone who uses competitive terms like "edgeguarding".

Unfortunately, combining our currently low family salary, the increasing prices of pretty much everything due to both the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine War, and our frugal personalities, a Nintendo Switch is out of reach for our budget.

So, last May, I scheduled a visit to YoSquid's house to play some Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (which, starting from here, I'll simply refer to as Smash). We agreed to do it on June 9 since he'll be on summer vacation and won't be running any family errands or something.

We played for 4 hours straight from 5 PM to 9 PM. Though I made YoSquid aware of my real purpose for playing the game, we still legitimately had fun with each other as we constantly tried to one-up each other and improve our gameplay. YoSquid at the time hadn't played Smash for two months so, combined with not having seen any competitive Smash matches or tips, he was the perfect test subject.

How I Played Smash vs. How YoSquid Played

I completely forgot the controls and had to re-learn them from scratch as I played, so I played Mario who was my main back in the Nintendo 3DS to hopefully make things easy on myself. However, I was very rusty and I did not enjoy Mario's low damage; he seemed to be more focused on hitting foes strategically and precisely. (Note that I did very little research on the game's basics before going to YoSquid's house.)

So I experimented with other characters, many of which I like or mained on the Nintendo 3DS. I tried Peach, Pikachu, Donkey Kong, Fox, Mewtwo, Pokémon Trainer, Captain Falcon, Marth, Lucina, Ryu, Ken, Chrom, and the Mii Brawler, but guess the two characters I enjoyed the most and mained? Little Mac and Robin.

Image from SmashWiki

These two characters have fun fighting styles that are similar to how I fight in real life.

Little Mac is a boxer who happens to wear green boxing gloves by default. I'm not used to fighting mid-air in this game so his powerful ground attacks are perfect for me. YoSquid HATES how fast and hard Little Mac hits and I used that to my advantage by constantly charging toward YoSquid, catching him in a flurry of punches, or juggling him mid-air with what's basically a Shoryuken. Sometimes, I also trolled him with a counter or two (which I do a LOT more often IRL but struggle to do in video games).

Robin feels more strategic considering his role as a tactician. Of course, when in doubt, I get close and mash his neutral attack and watch YoSquid as he freaks out seeing his character get battered by a bajillion wind blades. I don't use Thunder a lot and when I do, it usually misses unless I quickly mash it instead of charging it, but Elwind lets him recover very quickly while Arcfire is fun for trolling YoSquid if he tries to get up close and personal.

YoSquid uses a wider variety of characters.

The ones that annoyed me the most are the ones with projectiles (Mega Man, Samus, Yoshi), heavy hitters like Bowser and the Ice Climbers, and those who run over foes as they move like Inkling and Wario. (Every time I see that motorcycle, I want to break something.)

His main, though, is Meta Knight, and boy did I hate being constantly charged at. I lost every single match whenever he used Meta Knight.

Overall, YoSquid seemed to play simply for the fun of it, even though he did occasionally stomp me. Both of us are willing to play together again at some point--I'm not sure when, though, but I'll be back with more research for sure.

How I Can Use This Knowledge

Students

I would normally organize this alphabetically but I wanted to get the shorter and more boring part out of the way first: talking with students about Smash.

Japanese people in general are shyer than Westerners (including Filipinos which are geographically Eastern but culturally Western) and this goes double for teens and younger. I think that's why kids answer seriously and on a need-to-know basis only just like when I talk to people I try not to get emotionally attached to.

I just realized that humility is also a stronger virtue in Japan than in the West so it turns out it might be inappropriate to ask Japanese people about their performance in sports or video games. If you win and brag about it, it's the sin of pride. If you lose and admit it, it's shameful; it's dishonorable like you're dishonoring an imaginary shogun and your pride as a warrior. (Yes, Let's Ask Shogo did a video about how bushido is the root of many social problems in modern Japan.)

What YoSquid has in common with these kids, though, is that he does not care much about winning or losing. What he doesn't is that being a Westerner culture-wise, he also doesn't care about saying he won or admitting defeat. All that matters is they had fun.

I admit that I get irritated when I hear or see opinions made of vague statements and/or one-sentence answers, whether or not they're from native English speakers. Anyone can simply call, say, the low-tier Donkey Kong "strong" and call it a day without providing an explanation like, say, winning about 80% of matches against friends or making someone rage.

Perhaps I can focus more on the real-life relationships built by playing Smash. To be more specific and to distinguish it from other hobbies, I can also ask questions like "Why Smash? Why not other hobbies?" (Actual wording may vary based on the student's English skill level and how casually or formally they speak.)

Hytale

Alright, here's the more fun part: the one you've been waiting for. Let's do this.

Modding Weapon Mechanics

One more takeaway I learned from YoSquid's playstyle is something I vaguely remember from the creator of the Super Smash Bros. series, Sakurai Masahiro: that Smash was never intended to be a competitive game. I think he is disappointed as well by the fact that only a small handful of characters among a huge cast are played in competitive matches.

I think the paradox of video game balance is that, no matter how much developers try to create a balanced game, there will always be imbalances. Players always find new ways to play a game or find situations where a certain character or weapon performs poorly despite being considered "S-tier"; that's why, for example, Bennett and Xingqiu from Genshin Impact used to be considered mid-tier until players learned how to play them properly, thus catapulting them to top-tier status. Barbara, a pure healer, was interestingly S-tier before but is now low-tier because people realized there are healers who heal faster and more reliably on top of additional offensive or defensive utility like an ATK boost (Bennett) or a shield (Diona).

Hytale, thankfully, is not like most competitive games (including Genshin Impact). Based on how I interpret the advertising, the game is very easy to mod and players can auto-download "modpacks" used by a modded server simply by attempting to join. (It's more to me like playing custom Warcraft III maps where all you need to download are the maps; nothing else. The custom files are already included inside one map file.)

If you're not satisfied by how a certain weapon type is balanced, for example, you can simply change up some numbers like damage, attack speed, stamina costs, and signature move "energy" costs and gains, or you can go advanced and learn 3D animation and Java programming so you can create your own combos with unique effects. (Or just download mods from skilled animators/programmers.) Other players will then use these changes with no extra effort on their part.

Babies and little children often learn things by copying what others do. That's pretty similar to how I learn a lot of things; for example, I say "firetruck" like in the Smosh song, I say "まさか" (masaka/no way) like anime characters, and when I was learning Unity, the Unity Manual was my best friend in writing code. I need to reconfirm, but I think I'm legally allowed to copy a bit of code from vanilla Hytale scripts to assist in my own coding. TL;DR: I can probably use parts of Hytale's code as templates.

As such, I anticipate that there will be very few complaints towards Hypixel Studios itself regarding competitive balance. Most complaints would instead be made toward server owners since they're in charge of balancing their own servers.
Perhaps whatever balance-related complaints Hypixel Studios will receive will mostly be from players, especially content creators, who insist on playing vanilla for the purpose of challenge runs like speedruns since speedruns are often done with unmodded games.

Roleplay-wise, this is also incredibly useful. If you want to focus entirely on the story or if you're really angry at a certain enemy type (*cough* Nobushi *cough*), you can just make a wooden sword one-hit-kill everything and have infinite durability. If you want choreographed fights, you can make weapons that deal 0 damage or attack really fast, especially for things like Japanese martial arts.

So, where am I going with all this sheer flexibility?

You can basically adapt Hytale to the needs of you and your players. Using YoSquid's D&D and Smash playstyles as a reference, he likes playing with new things, so I want to make exploration rewarding for him by giving him a lot of magic weapons and armor to play with. He hits me with a lot of Final Smashes so maybe I could give him weapons that speed up signature move charge rate. In D&D, he also jokes about killing, stealing, and modern-day stuff like a "credit card" so I could make sentient NPCs like Kweebecs react accordingly (and hope I can stay true to their canon personalities).

Transferring Smash Techniques to Hytale

Player characters in video games typically have minimal resistance to interruption similar to human-sized or smaller enemy Mooks. YoSquid exploited that fact in Smash by annoying me with Inkling, Mega Man, and Samus. Only a few attacks have very little hitstun (in Genshin Impact terms, poise damage) such as Mario's Fireball and Pikachu's Thunder Jolt.

From my experience with playing Minecraft PvP as well as what I've heard in the League of Legends community, competitive players who don't do e-sports for a living are very prone to raging when a battle doesn't go their way. I think constantly interrupting the enemy would greatly lower their morale while leaving them open to follow-up attacks, assuming they don't increase their resistance to interruption. Aside from shields and the dagger's signature move, I don't see a whole lot of ways to increase resistance to interruption.

(Note that I don't do unsportsmanlike behavior like insulting other players. The worst verbal or written thing I would do to them is to use quips kinda like Spider-Man's.)

(Also, I hope Hytale won't allow players to permafreeze each other. Permafreezing enemies in PvE is fine, though.)

Unlike Minecraft, Hytale allows for a bit more aerial mobility thanks to the default jump height being 2 blocks plus the ability to climb heights of up to 4 blocks from a standing jump.

In Smash, YoSquid exploited a height advantage like crazy when, despite disliking Lucas, he stayed in the air most of the time and spammed the heck out of PK Thunder on my Little Mac who couldn't even reach Lucas because Little Mac is terrible in the air. Needless to say, I raged.

While the height gained from a jump with no climbing is still negligible, if a player who mainly uses AoE ranged attacks (especially those with secondary effects like slowing movement speed) makes it to high ground, they're practically unstoppable. All they have to do is keep air-dashing with daggers to travel as fast as possible until they can climb to a higher place then repeatedly rain Death from Above with, say, a snowstorm or tsunami. (I did not talk about pillar-jumping because of the delay between jumping and placing blocks leaving the player vulnerable to melee attacks. Climbing an existing ledge is faster than pillar-jumping.)

You could also take inspiration from one time I played Minecraft Annihilation: I stayed on high ground and waited for 2 enemies on opposing teams to kill each other. Once the fight was over, I killed the winner by going invisible and taking him down from above. You can do something similar with Plunging Attacks from daggers or maces (maces require signature move charging).

Bonus Concept: Rallying Pole

Weapon Type: Spear

Rarity: Epic (Genshin Impact likely equivalent: 4-star)

Damage: 10-14

Durability: 90

Attack Speed: Fast

On hit, grants up to 3 nearby allies stacks of the Motivation effect, increasing their damage by 1 and reducing the damage they take by 1.5 for 12s. Normal Attacks grant 1 stack, Charged and Plunging Attacks grant 2 stacks, and signature moves grant 4 stacks. Max 4 stacks. This effect can be triggered once every 0.3s. This effect ends immediately if the affected ally is attacked by the wielder of this weapon.

Bonus Concept: Spear Signature Move

For 3s, the character rushes forward with their spear, piercing through foes along the way and dealing heavy damage. The player can freely change direction during this move.

(Tip: This can be performed multiple times on a single enemy or once per enemy in a multi-target battle.)

My Generally Insane Dedication Part 1: Origins

Image by CJ from Pixabay

Disclaimer: I am not always dedicated. For example, I often feel reluctant to do family duties like manning our family store these days...but I do it anyway. This goes double for most schoolwork.

One defining trait of Asperger's syndrome is sheer dedication, both to their interests and to specific people. Most people roughly my age and younger have given up on Minecraft and Pokémon these days in favor of the currently popular games (plus Among Us, battle royales, and VALORANT), but I still remain a Minecrafter and Pokémon Trainer. I'm still friends with my high school science teacher--I still share science-related stuff with her.

(Down a glass of water in one go when you read this part.) I got the idea to write this blog post thanks to Genshin Impact...again. I'm probably one of the few players who actively watches both theorycrafting videos (boyish, meta) and comic dubs (girly, waifu)--most people have no idea what I'm talking about when I say "IWinToLose Gaming" (theorycrafting) or "Sylleblossom" (comic dubs).

Lately, I've been furious about me frequently encountering unusually quiet, slow-witted, and sometimes unruly students who I call "Nobushi". As such, in Genshin Impact, I follow a Nobushi farm route, KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM, and show off the hundreds of Old Handguards I loot from them to friends. (I don't actually need the handguards--I collect them as Battle Trophies.) I TERRIFIED EVERY SINGLE ONE AS I LAUGHED LIKE A SERIAL KILLER.

I replied to her with some possible origins of my sheer dedication besides simply having Asperger's syndrome (which I didn't mention since I don't know her well enough).

I didn't give her an essay--just some bullet points. However, since this is my blog, bullet points aren't really a good idea, are they? It's essay time.

To a lesser extent, I also got this idea from--I'm not sure what to call her--my Bible study teacher? (I keep using the word "sensei" in my head.) She observed that I'm currently the only...errr, student she's ever had who takes these Bible studies seriously week after week.

Gaming

I think I was addicted to video games ever since I laid my hands on a Game Boy Color back when I was 4 years old. I don't remember much about that one specifically, but I know I spent hours on my Game Boy Advance. Gotta clear that last dungeon floor in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team, dang it!

I greatly enjoyed the gift-giving mechanic in the now-shut-down Facebook game Pet Society where players can gift each other most items. (I know you can gift furniture and mystery boxes but can you gift clothes? I can't remember.) As such, 9 years old is when I first started strategizing like crazy in video games--I devised gift plans, plans for the Stadium minigame so I could hoard more prize money, and...plans to steal my parents' and my big brother's PCs just to play.

Back in 2011 (or was it 2010?), Dad got me a Pokémon magazine which taught me some complicated terms like effort values (EVs). I had very little idea of what I was basically reading since I didn't even understand how the stats (Attack, Defense, etc.) work, but as I read about the stats, as well as re-reading the article in the magazine, I eventually understood, thus beginning my dedication to playing competitively in general.

In 2015, Pokémon X and Y was where I actually put this knowledge to good use thanks to the Super Training feature which allows the player to quickly increase a Pokémon's EVs of the player's choice, as well as the Nintendo 3DS being able to connect to the more secure WPA and WPA2 Wi-Fi security protocols (our Wi-Fi uses WPA2), unlike the Nintendo DS which connects to the less secure WEP only. I often challenged random players around the world to battles...and I think I won about 30% of them since I mostly used my favorite Pokémon with well-chosen moves and well-optimized stats rather than the "meta" choices.

Friends

I had a Friendless Background until I was 14 years old...when I "hijacked" my younger brother's friend, YoSquid, based on a common interest in Minecraft.

Before 14 years old, my way of getting friends was through Receiving Gifts in terms of Gary Chapman's The 5 Love Languages, hence my obsession with giving gifts in Pet Society. I was intensely afraid of rejection in purely verbal social interactions which I did not know how to do with strangers and acquaintances but still wanted to show I care about someone so I figured I'd follow the Latin saying "Verba volant, scripta manent" (Spoken words fly away, written words remain)...except I'd give gifts in addition to letters. (Yeah, handwritten friendly letters were drilled into my head in school even though I knew how to use Facebook and send e-mails.)

I started playing The Sims when I was 8 years old and, in that series, becoming best friends with someone is as simple as spamming friendly social interactions by just clicking buttons. I think it really manifested as the Quality Time and, to a lesser extent, Acts of Service love languages when I turned 14 and had a crush on a 7th-grader who I'll call "Keqing" (a.k.a. Mareeta in my older blog posts but you probably don't know who that Fire Emblem character is). I would call "Keqing" every night and talk about what was on my mind at the time, including psychology and wrestling.

In March 2018, "Keqing" and her mom invited me and my mom to a sports center. "Keqing's" laptop needed a Windows reinstallation, I think, so I created a USB installation drive at home just for her. Although I failed (the darn thing was too slow), I still got to eat chicken flambé and play tennis with her...and I got rekt by her superior movement. Regardless, for me, that was one of the best hangouts I ever had with her...mainly because it's rare for us to have a chance to physically hang out together with no one but our parents. (I didn't say "we" because I don't know how she feels about it.)

When I reached 17 years old and played the Minecraft competitive team-based game mode Annihilation, I needed friends, or more accurately, teammates, for practical reasons. I was fairly bad at PvP so I figured I'd make up for it with teamwork and strategy while I do a significantly easier support role where I just mine and enchant equipment for the team.

Using a Dynasty Warriors analogy, I was basically a combination of Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang for my Annihilation team--I treated my teammates like brothers in arms and I was the strategist who wrote a lot of articles. I regularly chatted with my team about things other than Minecraft--we often dove deep into our personal lives. I even collaborated with my Minecraft and now Genshin Impact friend NachoPizza to write two Annihilation guides. (Thanks again for helping me way back then, man! May Shenhe come home at low pity!)

Combining the two dedication origins together, you can see the results: I have over 30 blog posts all about Hytale, many of which focus on co-op strategy. My 6-part series about gang wars in Hytale has a combined total of over 10,000 words: something that's difficult for me to achieve while doing schoolwork. In comparison, my 18-page thesis is 5,000 words long.

Writing

Although I wrote short stories as a 6-year-old, I got serious about writing when I was 17 years old when I wrote Minecraft Annihilation strategies. I also kept a journal to keep track of what I did right in my games, what went wrong, and things I should remember about my teammates and enemies.

In 2018, when Mom raged at me again for doing poorly in college and not having a job, I started this blog in a fit of rage since writing was the only money-making skill I had at the time and I knew some blogs run Google ads.

I'm not quite sure how I got this dedicated, though, despite not having run Google ads for 4 years in a row. Perhaps it was the hope that someday, Google will let me run ads. Perhaps it's because I drilled the every Sunday schedule into my brain. Maybe it's simply a force of habit.

But now, I have a bunch of essays on my PC that are either for my eyes only or for friends, some of which are 1,000+ words written almost effortlessly.

What Sets Your Dedication Apart from Others?

My dedication is actually no different from that of most adults and some kids and teens--the kinds of people you see in the news and such.

Many are actually more dedicated than me, even kids and teens who gain the intelligence and skillsets of adults. While I look for work-life balance and fun at the kind of work I'm good at, others literally live for their work and studies, fun or not, and practice it religiously. I cannot relate well with this kind of person since almost all they care about are work, studying, and if applicable, their families.

In general, though, I know a lot more about my main fields of interest than others. In video games, I sound like a combination of a coach and a military commander. When I brag about or explain martial arts, one of my Japanese students thinks I'm a ninja while, when it comes to friends, I terrify them when I explain how to score critical hits in real life.

With friends specifically, my intense loyalty shows through staggering feats.

In addition to my attempt to fix her PC, I also taught "Keqing" math at Starbucks when she was in 8th grade.

Although I run the official D&D adventure Dragon of Icespire Peak with my Hytale teammates Aby and YoSquid, I wrote several pages of homebrew content containing Hytale characters and mobs, rules for Genshin Impact elemental reactions, and preparations for the weird and wacky stuff Aby and YoSquid would pull off like maybe treating the issue of the mimic eating gnomes as a game of Among Us--I'd allow the mimic to disguise as a gnome.

Speaking of writing, I often have a lot of things to say in my mind that I may forget later on so instead of presenting things one at a time like in a normal conversation, I have a habit of writing to people in essays. I gave a fellow English tutor a 10-page document full of tips for improvement. I gave a Genshin Impact friend (or not anymore?) a 5-page strategy guide. About 30% of the time after a lesson, I present my thoughts to my Bible study teacher in essays that are about 3 pages long.

And I don't just follow a Nobushi farm route in my own account. I have permission to borrow another friend's account and, in exchange for a Blessing of the Welkin Moon, I do her Daily Commissions, spend her Resin, do the Spiral Abyss (and get better results than her), and...HOARD HUNDREDS OF HANDGUARDS FOR HER IN A FIT OF WORKPLACE RAGE. (And they say I should leave work at work.) SHE NOW HAS MORE HANDGUARDS THAN EVEN HILICHURL MASKS (hilichurls are the most common enemies in the game).

As for YouTube, okay, I'm still lazy to edit and commit to a consistent schedule.

But I like to think I'm unique in the comments section.

It's fairly rare for many YouTubers to heart comments, let alone personally reply to them. When they do reply, they're usually simple one-liners like "Thank you!" or a quick joke.

On the other hand, I reply to a lot of comments in paragraphs and with follow-up questions. (Why have I never seen a single YouTuber ask follow-up questions in the comments?) I feel like, if I put a lot of my thoughts, the reply feels more personal and the commenter feels a greater sense of appreciation from me rather than a cliché "I know, right?"

TL;DR summary: My dedication to gaming and friends comes from me being so addicted that I would make strategies to win in games and win friends through acts of service. Today, I show people I care by writing insanely long essays and KILLING NOBUSHI IN GENSHIN IMPACT TO RELEASE MY WORKPLACE RAGE.

(OUTDATED) My Younger Brother's Unpredictable and Seemingly Endless Online Military Training

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images on Pixabay

IMPORTANT NOTE: This post is now outdated. My brother now does the vast majority of his military activities outside of home. LIKE IT SHOULD BE!

Note: I have full respect for our military, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). They have protected us from terrorists before and continue to do so now, including the ISIS-aligned Maute Group and currently, the communist terrorist organization called the New People's Army (NPA). I wish you all to continue fighting the good fight.

Hopefully what I'm about to say in this post is still covered by freedom of speech because this is a mostly negative post...

More importantly, I hope I'm not sharing any classified information...

I can't remember when exactly, but during the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) was once again made mandatory for college students. I didn't need to take it since my university doesn't offer it, but as the title suggests, my brother is taking ROTC.

If you're a civilian like me who has no military experience at all, you might have different views when it comes to military training. You might think of something very similar to the movie Full Metal Jacket: a rude drill sergeant who puts recruits through brutal physical training regimens. You might think of the Navy SEALs' Hell Week: 4 straight days of training with almost no sleep. You might think of Shang or Xin Zhao making a man out of you.

All these three things I wrote down have one thing in common: They're mainly done in military camps or outdoor environments.

COVID-19 Pandemic Recap

Just in case you're reading this after the Wuhan coronavirus (a.k.a. COVID-19, a name I still hate) pandemic (I wrote this while a weaker sub-variant of Omicron was spreading), the vast majority of the world locked down. In the early months of the pandemic, millions of businesses and schools around the world closed, forcing employees to work from home and classes to either be suspended or forced to go online.

I was affected by both, being my mom's assistant in our family store and a game development student who was going to a physical school early in 2020.

Our store was closed for many months and, although we have been open for about a year already, many of our customers are either too scared to go out or have completely forgotten about us.

As for game development, we went completely online. (I'm just thankful that, when we were still meeting physically, I played Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the first time.)

The vast majority of my younger brother's academic activities are also online. And these include...ROTC.

And, given the three examples I enumerated earlier, as well as my Singaporean friend NachoPizza having military training in actual military camps even during the pandemic, my expectations have been shattered and so has my sanity.

Basic Details of My Brother's ROTC

Note that I don't actively pay attention to this because I don't want to disturb my brother and I know he only likes talking to me when it's important. The last thing I want to happen is both of us getting in trouble for my ruckuses. Being a slightly soldier-like gamer, I also understand the importance of morale.

The "main" academic part is made of two parts: physical training and a traditional online class.

During physical training, my brother takes a PC upstairs and does, y'know, workouts. I'm usually either fast asleep, in our family store, or teaching English with my headphones tightly worn so I almost never get disturbed by this.

During the "traditional online class" part, his superiors do a lot of the talking; sometimes with, sometimes without a PowerPoint presentation where they discuss things like etiquette, human rights, tactics, and such. This is ironically the noisier part of ROTC since he mostly does this in our bedroom where I also teach English--he mostly says "Sir/Ma'am, aye, sir/ma'am!" and similar responses.

The schedule of these classes is wildly unpredictable. Sometimes, he starts at 5 AM; sometimes, he doesn't. Sometimes, he stretches all the way to 1 AM.

He mostly does this within Monday to Saturday inclusive...but what I REALLY can't stand is the occasional ROTC meeting during holidays and special days like Halloween even on Sundays where they still observe military etiquette while wearing Halloween costumes and trick-or-treating.

Forgive me for referring to high-ranking officers with informal language, but dudes, most Filipinos are Christians and Sunday is traditionally a day of relaxation! If you wanna have meetings on special days that fall on Sundays, how about you make some regular Sundays class days if your point is similar to Kujou Sara's: that the battlefield never waits until you are ready?

Unless maybe the idea is to make cadets forget about mentally associating holidays with relaxation...

But the classes aren't the worst part.

Before and/or after classes, the cadets engage in casual conversations. I'm not sure if these are required or part of the classes, though--a "Ma'am, aye, ma'am!" may be placed in the middle of what sounds like a typical conversation in an adult's birthday party. (Is there a better analogy? I keep thinking of barkadahan which I don't think I've ever heard another Filipino say.)

My Problems with This Online Training

The biggest problem is that, sometimes, my brother's ROTC interferes with my daily schedule.

Although there is the occasional bakery delivery or trip to the gym with my mom, my schedule from Monday to Sunday is more or less the same. My shift in our family store starts at 11:00 AM and ends at 8:00 PM which is also our closing time. From 8:30 PM to 12 midnight, I teach English to Japanese students. I then play Genshin Impact until 2:00 AM which is typically when I finally fall asleep.

This training mainly interferes with my English teaching and my sleep.

My students were already caught off-guard by my brother bellowing "Ma'am, aye, ma'am!" or a question to his superiors--my students thought I was giving them instructions or questions. On the other hand, I don't want my brother's superiors to think he's speaking without permission--after all, I often hear something around the lines of "requesting permission to speak freely/make a statement" and my brother and I have similar voices and English skill levels.

As for sleeping, I'm a light sleeper since, as lazy as I am, I can't stand being late and I have a "ready for emergencies" mentality. As such, many sensory stimuli can wake me up, including but not limited to drooling on my pillow by accident, hearing my parents talking about me while they're eating breakfast, and obviously, hearing ongoing military training.

Thanks to my brother's...exemplary achievements, he currently holds the position of 2nd Lieutenant and has more administrative roles than physical grunt work.

Unfortunately, alongside those...he occasionally has to record their classes using my gaming PC. This prevents me from teaching at all. He started out, I think, in September 2021 so, if this goes on for 2 years assuming a best-case scenario for Hypixel Studios, I may not be able to experience Hytale on Day 1.

But the casual conversations with his squadmates (I know they use "batchmates" but I want to use a term that civilian average Joes can relate to) are the worst.

While I admit I'm guilty of using the full power of my voice while my parents are asleep during my lessons and YouTube videos since I'm a wannabe voice actor and I want to engage my students and viewers in a unique way, my younger brother has a naturally louder and more commanding voice than me because as a child, he shouted at full volume a lot when he didn't get what he wanted. (Or maybe his personality is just how he acts when he's with other people in general whether they're family members or not. There are moments when he genuinely feels lazy and just watches gaming videos or plays with our horse dog alone. When I'm not teaching or doing YouTube videos and I don't feel a surge of strong positive emotions, I often speak quietly and minimally or just grunt and nod in acknowledgment.)

My brother's tone of voice at night with his squadmates is the same as during the day. Once, this chatting stretched to 2:30 AM so, although I felt super sleepy at the time, I continued to play with a Singaporean in Co-Op Genshin Impact since I might as well do something while that booming voice that can burst into unrestrained laughter at any second (not even any minute) is preventing me from sleeping. I mean, even Mom complains about that booming voice.

Assuming no shyness or hardware problems, I also notice a lot of people, both gamers and wannabe voice actors, don't want to voice-chat or practice voice acting at night to avoid disturbing their neighbors or other family members. These cadets, however, don't seem to give a firetruck at all.

Heck, if you've played or watched a military-themed game or movie, you might notice that soldiers swear quite a lot--it's no different in these casual situations. I get extra nervous when my brother says any sort of swear word in any language I know during my lessons--Japanese people are very proper, many of them know that "fuck" is an English swear word (ファック (fakku) is a common word according to jisho.org), and a few even try to speak Filipino to me. Once, I had to profusely apologize to my student after I said "Good morning." and my brother let out an Atomic F-Bomb in response.

And as of writing this specific paragraph on March 29, 2022, at 1:25 AM, I heard my brother's phone ringing at about 1:05 AM while he was fast asleep after 3 days of a tree-planting and beach-cleaning activity with the Navy. I simply heard it vibrating while my brother wasn't paying attention so I just let it slide--I thought maybe it was an alarm but he only wanted it to vibrate to avoid waking me up.

But the phone rang again so I lazily paused watching gameplay footage of Yakuza: Like a Dragon and investigated the phone. It simply showed a phone number--there was no name so I assumed it was a scammer or a wrong dial. I ignored the call a second time.

And it rang AGAIN. I thought, "There is NO way a scammer or wrong dialler would call this many times." So I lazily picked up the phone. The caller responded, "Good morning, batch."

I introduced myself as his brother, Juliann Baloran, and stated that my brother was asleep. I stuttered a lot since I did not know the right military lingo and I was scared that it might have actually been one of his superiors or maybe one of them is listening behind-the-scenes--I know what one of them sounds like and this one sounded terrifyingly close...or maybe most Filipinos just sound the same to me.

I said, "Sino po sila?" (Who is this?)

The caller gave her name and as far as I know, she wasn't one of the superiors. (Phew.)

I pressed the squadmate for more information. "For what purpose?" (In English because I felt "Bakit?" (Why?) felt too direct and informal.) I don't want to wake my brother up just to participate in a casual conversation that serves no purpose besides boosting morale--I wanted him to get some good rest after all the hard work he did. He can do this morale stuff during the day, I thought.

The squadmate simply said it was "super important" or whatever. (Or maybe I wasn't listening clearly.) Yeah, this is clearly not one of his superiors--otherwise, if she deliberately wanted to hide the purpose, she would have said something around the lines of "That is classified information." using more formal language--"super" as an adjective or adverb is too casual.

I lazily said "Thank you. I will wake up my brother." and ended the call.

And waking up my brother is exactly what I did just in case this is some huge emergency meeting that he absolutely, positively cannot miss.

Edit, April 3, 2022: On Saturday, while my brother was upstairs doing his ROTC, another one of his squadmates (or is it the same one?) messaged my brother while I was playing his Genshin Impact account, saying "Batch".

Uhhh...what? Why would you say that in a private message to a single person in a video game? The simplest way I understand the term "batch" is a group of at least two people.

I did the same thing: I introduced myself as Juliann Baloran, his brother. In addition, I said "Please state your purpose. He's a very busy man." He/she did not reply after that. (My brother has gotten angry thanks to unexpected visitors to our house asking for him before.)

Anyway, my point is that while military training is a great thing (sometimes, I feel like I also need it to get rid of my chaotic neutral alignment), doing it online for the most part is, for me, a stupid idea.

I'm pretty sure the main reason for this training being online is because of COVID-19. Dude, Omicron is very weak, only a few hundred people get the Wuhan coronavirus every day in the Philippines now, and some countries like Denmark are finally scrapping all pandemic restrictions! (But I suppose they can use the rising cases in countries like Japan, South Korea, and European countries to justify staying online...)

According to Mom, some college students have worse living conditions than our family does--some live in even smaller houses with just two or three rooms (one room being the obligatory bathroom). To add to that, I think many college students still live with their parents considering how family-oriented Filipinos are in general--they want to help their parents. As such, our family is probably not the only one experiencing the problems I stated above, but also the families of the other cadets. Not all of us are binge-watchers, gamers, graveyard shift employees, or students, pal--some of us actually need proper sleep!

Dad once told me that he handled a real M16 back when he was in ROTC. Last I checked, however, my brother and his squadmates only saw written and illustrated instructions--I bet they've never even touched a real gun in training. This is the biggest disadvantage of any sort of online learning--there are some things one can only really practice physically, not in the "metaverse" or whatever the heck Big Tech calls it.

I'm just glad though that there were a few things they actually did physically like attending an award ceremony (I think?) personally hosted by an admiral, as well as the tree planting I mentioned earlier.

Although the tree-planting got my brother off my back for 3 nights, I still was unable to sleep well thanks to the now blazing-hot temperature of this bedroom forcing me to use airconditioning especially to maintain my patience with some...peculiarly dumb and unruly students. The temperature changes caused me to get sniffles (Filipino: sipon).

But anyway, I would really like to read your thoughts in the comments.

Have you had similar experiences with someone living with or close to you like a family member or neighbor?

Do you think my complaints are justified?

Or do you think I should just put up with my brother's training no matter how physically draining it is for me just for the sake of my country as a whole? (This is what I'm trying to do.)

Anyway, if you're a current or former member of the Armed Forces of the Philippines or a Philippine government official and want this blog post removed, I will do so immediately with my sincerest apologies and comply with any and every other legal order.

But regardless, I want every last criminal, especially every last terrorist, put to justice. Don't think I haven't thought of y'all, you scum of the earth being the reason we have military and police officers.

TL;DR summary because this was a surprisingly long rant for me: I have no idea when the heck my brother's online military training or his casual conversations with his squadmates start or end, even on holidays. Sometimes, this messes with not only my sleep and work but also Mom's.

PSA: I am No Longer a F2P Genshin Impact Player

WARNING: Using other players' accounts is against the COGNOSPHERE Terms of Service. However, lots of big and small YouTubers get away with using others' accounts, including their viewers', for account reviews and summoning. Regardless, use others' accounts at your own risk.

I've done it. I got my first Blessing of the Welkin Moon. I'm no longer free-to-play (F2P).

Since I assume some of you may know me as a formerly staunch F2P player, let me give...a rather long explanation.

I...Kinda Can't Control My Spending

I still hold onto my own promise to save for my future house.

I just admit that I've spent money not only on things I need like computer hardware but also some cool stuff on sale, those being Grand Theft Auto V and The Sims 4, two huge games that my younger brother and I absolutely love and probably won't go on sale again for a while.

As painfully difficult as the Spiral Abyss is for me to 36-star (i.e. perfectly clear), I was perfectly satisfied with my F2P experience and the characters I had.

An Unexpected Gift

Instead, I got my Blessing of the Welkin Moon...as a gift from a friend, Ria, because I'm helping her with her account while she's busy with schoolwork. Here's the story.

I was feeling good about myself so I bragged about how I recently raised all of my Sucrose's Talents to Lv. 9 (not counting constellations and Tartaglia's Passive Talent) after doing the same to Xingqiu, double-crowning Tartaglia, and having enough materials to raise all of my (hopefully) future Sangonomiya Kokomi's Talents to Lv. 9.

Ria replied with this: "Can you farm [Kamisato] Ayato's talents for me? lol"

I replied, "Assuming you're not joking, yeah, sure."

She got skeptical at first but decided to let me have the account details when I explained my reasons, including "I simply like to beat things up" and "I want to see your Arataki Itto in action."

Initially, I really didn't expect much in return other than us staying friends and me destroying everything, especially with a character that neither I nor my younger brother has: Arataki Itto.

However, the next day, I was messaged out of nowhere.
I started with a report on what I did with her account, including beating up some of the harder Weekly Bosses and 9-starring Spiral Abyss Floor 10.
I then played a battle royale in Call of Duty Mobile since I was done with all 3 of the accounts I was grinding.

In the middle of that match, I was messaged by Ria, "I wanna give you something as thanks for handling my account. Is it okay if I give you Welkins?"

Why'd you accept the Blessing of the Welkin Moon?

Not gonna lie, I was surprised when I saw that question. I only played that account for just 1 day and haven't made a massive impact on her overall account strength. There was a part of me that wanted to say no because, #1, I'm used to friends not sending me gifts, and #2, getting a Blessing of the Welkin Moon, even from someone else, would ruin my F2P status, which is why I deliberately did not participate in YouTubers' giveaways.

I admit that I got hypnotized by whale YouTubers like Tectone who say that you can get through this game just fine without spending a penny and that spending money would make things too easy and ruin your overall enjoyment. After all, Enviosity is famous for being able to beat higher floors of the Spiral Abyss with just the 7 starter characters (like the Traveler, Amber, and Noelle) and only craftable and event 4-star weapons (like the Prototype Crescent and Festering Desire).

But, in the end, I accepted the Welkin within 1 minute of receiving the message. I admit my decision was rushed but I did so because, #1 and most importantly, it's a voluntary gift and I see accepting the gift as a sign of respect; #2, I've been playing Genshin Impact since October 2020, making me more difficult to distinguish from other F2Ps especially given my C1 Tartaglia and C3 Mona; #3, I'm not a Genshin Impact content creator so I don't think the general public would give a firetruck about how F2P-friendly my teams are; I'm first and foremost a Minecraft and Hytale YouTuber; #4, Sangonomiya Kokomi's banner had about 2 weeks remaining on her banner and I wanted to pull my 2nd waifu for her unique ability to heal Co-Op teammates with an Elemental Skill outside of combat as well as her long-lasting Hydro application which is ideal for my Kamisato Ayaka freeze team. (As of writing, I still don't have Kokomi and I'm at 41 pity. Screw C2 Keqing for ruining yet another 50/50!)

What have you pulled so far using your Welkin?

All the pulls I made after getting the Welkin.
Note that this includes Intertwined Fates and Primogems gained from Masterless Starglitter, the Spiral Abyss, etc.

This section is a rant...but probably not one you'd expect.

I've pulled 2 Kujou Saras and 1 Sacrificial Bow. The 2nd Kujou Sara was in 2 pulls.

I actually have C5 Bennett (with C6 at the ready once HoYoverse makes constellation effects togglable) and C6 Xinyan so one would think "Hey, getting Kujou Sara to C4 is pretty awesome! You're getting closer to C6!"

But let me explain.

Kujou Sara is my least favorite character for a variety of reasons.

First, her combat feels clunky for me even with C2. While I like the premise behind her unique Aimed Shot which launches a Crowfeather that explodes after a delay, dealing AoE Electro DMG to enemies and giving an ATK boost to allies caught in the blast (which I equate to a frag grenade similar to how C1 Fischl is a machine gun, Ganyu is a rocket launcher, and Yoimiya launches heat-seeking missiles), it's very difficult to use in practice.

First, when pressing the Elemental Skill button, Kujou Sara dashes backward...but her dash distance is inconsistent and uncontrollable; sometimes, she dashes a few feet away while at other times, she dashes a few inches away. Either way, it's not enough distance for a ranged character like Ganyu or Yoimiya to keep a safe distance from foes but it's decent for melee characters like...well, the Raiden Shogun.

Second, the ATK buff lasts for a pathetically short 6 seconds. Although this can be extended to up to 12 seconds with her Elemental Burst, her Elemental Skill cooldown is 10 seconds while her Elemental Burst is 20 seconds, on top of the Elemental Burst's Energy Cost of 80. There are a ton more reasons but, basically, I find Bennett to be a superior near-universal ATK buffer since he adds more DMG on top of a staggering variety of effects like healing, elemental status cleansing, and even his own big PP DMG--I've scored 40k with a Melt.

Third, she's an Electro character and Electro Resonance mainly benefits Electro characters with high Energy costs like...again, the Raiden Shogun. Bennett, being a Pyro character, provides Pyro Resonance which gives a universal and unconditional ATK boost.

Second and more importantly, I HATE Kujou Sara's personality.

First, she starts off as literally one of the Traveler's enemies given how the Traveler joins the resistance at Watatsumi Island led by my 2nd waifu, Kokomi.

Second, Kujou Sara gives absolutely no firetrucks about almost anyone, even Thoma and Yae Miko who are highly respected and high-ranking members of their respective organizations, the Yashiro Commission and the Grand Narukami Shrine. Thoma, a persuasive dude, remarks that Kujou Sara is "not very open to persuasion" while she literally raged at Yae Miko in the Archon Quests.

Third, Kujou Sara is, in my opinion, the least chill playable character so far. Literally, all she cares about are the Tenryou Commission, protecting Inazuma, and the Raiden Shogun. I bet she only gets the bare minimum amount of rest needed to stay healthy--after all, according to Sara, "the battlefield never waits until you are ready." The idea of personal aspirations like getting rich and raising a good family is alien to her. At least Jean relaxes by reading romance novels while Keqing relaxes by strolling around Liyue Harbor. We have yet to have a Hangout Event or limited-time event featuring Kujou Sara--and no, her appearance in Labyrinth Warriors was minimal--Tartaglia and Xinyan were the stars of the stage.

I know Kujou Sara is an honorable person, even according to Gorou. She spared the Traveler when they broke a fake Vision maker out of prison since he was sick and she let the Traveler and her soldiers engage in one-on-one duels in samurai movie-style before a full-on clash between the armies. However, this quality is not redeeming enough for me compared to what I said above given how I'm of a chaotic neutral alignment while she's an extremely lawful person.

Also, remember that I got C2 Keqing while attempting Kokomi.

Kayli Mills mostly comes to mind when it comes to my high school crush. She voices Mareeta from Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 whose face looks like my crush's, Kuroko Kamenaga from Yandere Simulator who has a stoic, serious, and lawful personality, and of course, Keqing who has a staunch get-things-done attitude to the point her assistants can't keep up with how fast she works. The part of my crush that doesn't bring up Kayli Mills is the fact she wanted to study my Asperger's syndrome which brings Sucrose (voiced by Valeria Rodriguez), my #1 waifu, to mind. Therefore, I imagine a girl with Keqing's hair and personality, Mareeta's face, and Sucrose's clothes. (I wonder what weird result I'd get if I commission an artist to draw someone like this...) We "broke up" because I told my former Minecraft teammates that she was my girlfriend and she thought I had a crush on her mom. I'm maintaining the "break-up" because although I sincerely apologized and she promised to be friends again, she's not responding to or checking up on me at all. I will have order!

TL;DR of this section: My least favorite characters seem to be trying their best to prevent me from getting one of my most beloved characters.

On the bright side, way before getting those two jerks, I already had C6 Sucrose from the Raiden Shogun's first banner!

What are your plans for being pay-to-win (P2W) moving forward?

I won't actively try to get more top-ups, whether through my own money or others'. Again, I'm better off saving for my future house, I had fun while F2P, and I'm still having fun with this one Welkin.

I also don't want others, friends or not, to feel like they have to top up my account, even if I suggest it in a friendly or subtle way. It's better not to mention it at all. After all, your money, your rules. It's a free country.

But at the same time, if someone is voluntarily willing to top up my account even more, I don't mind. It's my way of thanking them for the time and effort they make, as well as a personal sign of honor that I've been a blessing to others.

Hypothetically, if someone wants to top up my account with something more than just a Welkin, I'd ask for a paid Battle Pass. Raising it to Lv. 50 gives MASSIVE rewards of a wide variety, including 4-star weapons that are not available anywhere else.

Moral lesson: Appreciate what you have and be thankful for those who do good for you.

Which GTA V Protagonist Am I Most Like?

You might have noticed in my earlier blog posts that I recently bought The Sims 4 and Grand Theft Auto V on sale on Steam.

I often don't talk about a wide variety of games because, being a person with Asperger's syndrome, I stick heavily to my interests, even those within the wide umbrella topic of video games. In addition, I have other priorities in life like hoarding enough money for a real-life house. As such, I prefer to enjoy a few video games I already have, leading to me having highly specialized knowledge of those games to the point many casual fans can't keep up with my level of interest.

I bought these ones though because, #1, again, they were on sale; #2, I freakin' love these franchises and how huge and influential they are. GTA, in particular, contributes about 20% of my love for adventuring; 75% comes from Pokémon and 5% from other games.

I've only gone through a few missions with the first two protagonists, Franklin and Michael, but oh boy, do I already love their personalities. I have some...rather unique life experiences that make me relate to these characters more than other people do (who I think are more like Trevor these days to varying degrees from simply being lazy to having vices to being mean to others either on the Internet or IRL).

Let's break it down because I'm lazy to do introductions. My mind isn't feeling so fit to write.

Note that "Differences" will not cover character abilities or personality traits that are unlikely to be possessed by many average Joes such as Trevor's flying ability.

However, "Similarities" and "Zig-Zags" will cover such abilities/traits if applicable. For example, I don't know any real-life person who is as addicted to fighting in real life as I am.

Franklin

Similarities

• Franklin wants to start a life of his own away from the usual gangbanging. Similarly, at some point, I want to quit my job as a salesman for my mom's store...but I haven't reached a point yet where I can earn enough to feed myself. (Note that, due to company rules, I have the right to not answer questions about my English-teaching job.)
• Franklin is the youngest and most athletic of the three protagonists. I'm very young compared to many tutors who either already have work experience or still have full-time jobs. In addition to my English skills, I also brag about my physical abilities.
• Franklin starts with the lowest shooting skill among the protagonists. I also generally have a bad aim in shooting games and Nerf wars; the only shooting game I'm good at is Call of Duty Mobile where I have a self-rated shooting skill of 6/10 and a near-100% win rate in Battle Royale.

Differences

• Franklin specializes in driving cars and motorbikes. Dad freaks out a LOT when I'm behind the wheel.

Zig-Zags

• Although Franklin often disagrees with his best friend Lamar's ideas, Franklin goes along with them anyway.

Michael

Similarities

• Michael starts the game as a rich retired criminal with plenty of experience--he's got a luxury house to go along with it. He also has a bad temper and gets revenge in extreme ways like literally bringing down what he thought was the house of a tennis coach who had sex with his wife. Although I am far from "rich", many people's first impression of me is very similar to a person like Michael: rich, scary, and smart.
• I often talk about things that ordinary Filipinos typically don't experience like English teaching, martial arts, and PC gaming.
• I think my ability to use rarely-used words in both English and Filipino, as well as my Spanish accent when speaking Filipino, contribute to the "smart" impression. I think this reminds people of their bosses, parents, or teachers, hence the unintended intimidation factor. When I brag more about my smartness, the intimidation is boosted.
• This is why my YouTube channel fans got nervous about inviting me to their Facebook chat group. Although, as of writing, I have 13 subscribers, they see me as a celebrity: someone who is way out of their league.
• I often try to hide my anger by acting stoic: something which I think Michael doesn't do. However, when I DO show my anger, I shout swear words and commands and make people suffer the Wrath of the Rock. Few people have seen this side of me, namely my family members, Aby, and YoSquid.
• Raging at people is likely a trait I got from Mom and Dad who both rage at people who give us awful customer service, though mine is, I think, less intense. In the last few times I raged at non-family members, I used English polite expressions and Japanese keigo sarcastically, such as "With all due respect..." to a hypocritical professor I hate, as well as "desu" and "masu" to a customer who doesn't know Japanese and who spammed the same "life story" statements quickly and repeatedly when I didn't ask for a recap.
• At some point, I am willing to actually beat someone up. That time hasn't come yet, though.
• Sometimes, when I'm angry (especially when I'm also Uncomfortable), I begrudgingly work even if Mom tells me not to do so. I typically teach English for 2 hours but I once taught for 7 hours straight in a fit of rage...and as un-Japanese as I know it is, I openly reveal my mood to my students unless Mom is nearby, to which I reply to "How are you?" by saying "I'm sorry. I'm not allowed to tell you."
• I normally make deliveries with a bike or car, but when Mom didn't allow me to use either, I appeared to have stormed out of the house when, in fact, I secretly delivered something from my bakery to Mom. Mom later got mad again because me going on foot makes her look like a bad boss.
• As opposed to my tutoring job where I'm very young, I'm usually the oldest among groups of gamers. While students rant about their difficult quizzes and exams, I talk about work and my past experiences like osmanthus wine tasting the same as I remember.
• Michael sleeps the shortest among the protagonists: 6 hours. I also sleep the shortest either because I want to prepare for emergencies or I'm checking on my video games. If I sleep too long, I may risk missing work.

Differences

• Michael has the lowest strength stat among the three protagonists. In my family, I'm the second strongest, and in groups of gamers, I'm the most sporty and physically fit.
• I wouldn't dare date someone like Amanda, a prostitute, in the first place. Boy, am I glad my high school crush "Keqing" is nowhere close to being one.
• I hate alcohol. Michael is a massive alcoholic. (Side note: When my younger brother first played GTA V, he made Michael get super drunk 'cause it's funny.)

Trevor

Similarities

• The biggest one: I GREATLY enjoy fighting and killing in video games. Depending on the game, I may do this to pretend to cut down the enemy's morale in my head (such as gangs, militaries, and law enforcement agencies), to grind EXP and loot (RPGs like Genshin Impact), as target practice, or simply because I'm raging IRL.
• I also enjoy fighting IRL too. I don't get a lot of opportunities to test my skills in a real fight so I've grown a little desperate for sparring. Instead, I hunt mosquitoes for the family.
• In addition to my great physical strength, I'm also able to facetank punches even without being angry...which is ironic given my lack of weight and visible muscle. With anger, I gain resistance to interruption.
• I was able to fight two Gold's Gym trainers alone and they were still scared of me despite this being a friendly fight. Similarly, I fought three kids alone in karate and got hit only a few times while I hit them many times.
• I sometimes can't help but use complicated words even though I aim my blog posts towards teens and young adults.

Differences

• Anger actually enhances my fighting skill rather than turning me into a mindless "random bullshit go!" beast. In addition to the ATK increase experienced by most people, I gain increased ATK SPD, CRIT Rate, and CRIT DMG to the point I can KO a full HP enemy in one Charged Attack punch to a weak point. And since I can initially hide my anger, add a sneak attack multiplier. (If I have Energy Recharge, increase that too.)
• I don't always keep my workplaces clean, but when I do, I get REALLY serious. If I had my own house, I would treat it with plenty of care and ensure guests do the same.
• Unlike Filipinos who get scared of me almost immediately, Japanese people actually think I look gentle even when I openly show off my brains and brawn and act intimidating when explaining how I would handle criminals.

Zig-Zags

• I typically appear to have low stamina since I don't sleep well--I often complain about it to my students when they ask "How are you?". However, when doing something I REALLY like, like dating, I get a surge of stamina.

TL;DR summary: Like Franklin, I wanna get out of my salesman job and start a new life. Like Michael, I sound like I have a ton of experience. Like Trevor, I enjoy fighting and am extremely strong in physical combat.