Welcome

Writing a newsletter is a great exercise in maintaining a consistent periodical practice of one's writing. However, much like actual exercise, sometimes you fall off the schedule because you lack motivation. Anyways, good thing this didn't fall off schedule yet! wink, wink, anyway, onto this week's topic.

Desmond Amofah (1990-2019)

As I write this, it's June 19th, which marks not only the first official recognition of Juneteenth as a national holiday in the United States, but also the second anniversary of the death of Desmond Amofah, better known as Etika, a relatively well-known YouTuber and streamer. I figured I'd shelve my original topic for this edition (sorry to everyone who wanted trains, come back next time) to reflect a bit on the loss, especially as it pertains to loss of innocence.

The loss of innocence is a weird concept. Many consider it a singular moment, be it the first-seen death in the family, or a traumatic experience, but I'm personally of the mind that the loss of innocence is a gradual process, and is a set of losses in various facets of life. Not believing in Santa Claus isn't the complete loss of one's innocence, but the wonder and magic of that mythology is still a loss in and of itself. I'm not sure if one can completely lose their innocence, but I subscribe to the idea that it's incremental.

All this is to say, Etika's loss was certainly a part of this gradual process for me. As a child growing up in the YouTube age, I feel like certain touchstones in life are defined by who I was watching on YouTube, much like how different shows, movies, and other media represent touchstones in peoples' lives. It's weird, because for a significant portion of my life, Etika was a regular presence; not in a parasocial sense, but in a sort of habitual, almost-regimen-esque sense. Much like a morning tea, or a weekly drop-in game at the community centre, Etika would be a regular part of the media I consumed as a 14-17 year-old. But like a habit, after some time and absence, you grow out of it. You grow into new habits, and soon it's like that original habit was never there to begin with. I've moved on from the loss in a tangible sense, but it's days like these where I'm reminded of the influence of this person who I've never met, a reminder of a different chapter of my life.

The toughest part about loss, and the fact that it comes in waves, is the phantom pains of it all. That brief realization while scrolling through my YouTube subscription box that Etika will never be a part of it ever again. It's now Sunday night, June 20th. I went for a walk this morning, taking a path I used to take a lot when I was younger. What's odd is that the trek feels a lot faster to me now than it did back then, and full disclosure, I am in no better shape (if not far worse) than I was back then. But maybe life in general moves faster for me now. Etika's death feels so close, like it happened just yesterday, yet also like it happened a lifetime ago.

Loss is a weird thing, it's certainly not a thing I've fully grasped conceptually yet, but it's a part of me, and like most facts of life, it's something I've come to accept. I hope wherever Desmond Amofah is now, he's having a damn good one.

What I've been:

Working On

What has changed since last time? Not much! I lack motivation once more. Writing this newsletter is already enough of a herculean task, y'know. I need to punch myself into submission to finish this final piece before I really, truly go on hiatus, and man, do I feel bad about it having taken this long. But in the meantime, I've been putting time into doing research. About what? You'll just have to wait and see.

Playing

When the going gets tough, the gamers get gaming. While my schedule doesn't allow for a lot of gaming, I try to get it in as much as I can.

• Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity: My goofy completionist ass has been taking the slow route of completing every single side mission and quest in this game before moving onto each main quest (mainly out of fear of falling behind power-wise), which has gotten me roughly 40-50 hours in this game, with ~70-75% completion. The power boost Zelda gets later in the game though? Sucks. It completely halted the pace I was rolling at.
• Duck Game: Throughout the pandemic, me and my buddies (the boys, if you will) have been powering through various games to try and keep communication healthy and our gamer bones active. There are games with "endgames" (if you will) that we've managed to reach, like Terraria and Stardew Valley, but nowadays, with shifting schedules, we've settled on quick pickup games. Right now, we've got two go-tos: Rocket League and Duck Game. Duck Game was actually a game I only found out about through a Videogamedunkey video, and struggled to convince the boys to actually buy it, but once they did, they absolutely loved it. It's a very well-made fighting(?) game where everyone plays as ducks with guns, swords, and other regalia. Did I mention there's a dedicated quack button?
• Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations: I finally got around to playing the latter two games in the Ace Attorney trilogy they put out on the Switch. Turns out I finished the first game in 2019, so these latter two playthroughs were far overdue. Simply put, I love the humour and wit of these games, even if it is at times painfully obvious that these were re-localized in the early 2010s. The last case in Justice for All is probably my favourite case in the entire series thus far, and the third game has offered some decent cases so far. Godot is a very good wild-card prosecutor, and his presence in the court is a tad more entertaining than the previous game's Von Karma. I might get the upcoming Great Ace Attorney Chronicles 2-in-1 if it ever goes for less than the $54 it's currently listed for.

Reading

• Home Sick Pilots vol. 1 (Watters, Wijngaard, Bidikar, Muller): I tradewaited this book because the first issue, while fantastic from a formalist standpoint, screamed "will read better in trade" to me. I also picked it up in part for some research for the aforementioned "final" piece I'm working on and- First off, anyone lumping this in with the current Image tokusatsu trend (of which books like Radiant Black and Ultramega are a part of) is doing a disservice to both this book, as well as the tokusatsu genre in general. But that's something I'll get into in that piece. What did I think of this book though? Yeah, it's fine. I'm more interested in the formalism of Wijngaard and Watters' structure and form than I am in the story that's being told. If I do come back to this book down the line, it'll probably be for that reason, and not because I was thoroughly engrossed in the story being told.
• Megaman NT Warrior (Takamisaki): I finished the series just today, almost three weeks after the library told me I couldn't renew the books any longer, putting them in the "holy shit, this is so overdue they have to send a SWAT team to extract this" category. Anyway, perhaps this is a bit of that loss of innocence I was referring to before, because I grew kinda bored of the series just under halfway through my read-through. It was mainly as a result of it following the Snyder (Scott, not Zack) formula of "deus ex machina/friendship saves the hero in the final issue of the arc, leads into a higher-stakes threat for the next arc, rinse, repeat, etc.", which, much like Snyder's Metal -> Year of the Villain -> Death Metal saga, wore thin on me rather quick. But, the art, the character dynamics, the humour, and the snappiness of the dialogue were still very solid right through to the end. I had to buy the 11th volume of the series myself since it wasn't in circulation in the library, so hopefully I can return it alongside the rest as a "sowwy, I was vewy busy and couwdn't finish the books on time" gift to the library. There's a larger story to be told about my relationship with this series, but that's for another time.
• Venom #200 (Cates, Stegman, and whoever the hell else agreed to do this one): Like I said in a previous newsletter, Venom was one of my first pulls at my LCS, so there was a brief moment of reminiscing between me and my LCS owner when I picked up Venom #35 (#200 in legacy numbering) last Wednesday. It felt like the end of a three-year chapter for me, and it's weird to think about how much has happened within that timespan. So many babies had to have been born. But the book itself? It kinda just goes out on a shoulder shrug than a bang or a whimper. It sets up what comes next (Venom by Ewing and Ram V, which I'm interested/excited/intrigued by) in an almost laissez-faire manner, and reads more like Cates has already moved onto the next big thing (Hulk, unfortunately), leaving him to haphazardly tie up whatever loose ends he's got left. At this point, I celebrate its ending, just not for the reason I might have thought back in 2018.

Watching

• Kamen Rider Zi-O: The last season I watched before I took a lil' hiatus from my Kamen Rider rewatch. Overall, pretty mid season, but I was entertained by several parts of the season, and I really liked the designs this time around too. A special shoutout goes to the charming Rider Time: Kamen Rider Shinobi miniseries spinoff, which posited "What if everyone was a ninja in 2022?". With very little carryover from Zi-O itself, Shinobi is something I'd recommend as a standalone. Here's hoping it gets a followup.
• A Shitton of Super Sentai: I pivoted away from one Toei tokusatsu show right into another, so sue me? Anyway, just gonna shoot from the hip with some thoughts on everything I've been watching:
  • Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger: The "Unofficial" season, made to parody and clown on the official series' many tropes. Fun cast, funny jokes, messy storyline, but overall, very fun watch.
  • Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger: The Furry season, where 4/5 of the main rangers are animal-human hybrids (don't worry, they have human forms). I really liked this season, and it had some really interesting Very Special Episodes that dealt with friendship and memory with a very tacit and mature understanding that took me by surprise. Not the biggest fan of the minecraft-esque mechs though.
  • Ressha Sentai ToQger: The Train (I swear, next time) season, where aside from trains, there's a big emphasis on imagination. Very lovable cast, a great plot, and some mid mech designs. Also, dear reader, help me out in figuring this out, but do the opening and closing themes for this season qualify as Ska? Asking for a friend.
  • Yossha Sentai Luckyranger Uchuu Sentai Kyuranger: A space/constellation-themed season that I really wish I liked more than I did. There are some really good, and I mean really good plotlines in this season, but so much of it is hampered down by the season's Red ranger and his signature catchphrase, "Yossha Lucky!!". If I were to do a drinking game for every time it's said, I'd have to get my stomach pumped.
  • Kaitou Sentai Lupinranger vs. Keisatsu Sentai Patranger: The very first season with two ranger teams in a constant feud with one another, written by the head writer of Zyuohger. While I'm not done the season yet, I've been really enjoying the dynamics of watching the Cops (ACAB) vs. Thieves dynamic develop throughout the season. Very good stuff.
  • Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger: So, I found out this week that Zenkaiger is written by the same head writer as Zyuohger and LuPat, Junko Komura. I think this season, 15 episodes in, might be Komura's best work yet. A commonality across all the seasons she's headed is a focus on the character work and the dynamics between different pairings of rangers, and Zenkaiger is classic Komura firing on all cylinders. I pray that the remaining 30-35 episodes are as of high a caliber as the season has been so far.
• Midnight Diner: I'm around midway through season 2 at this point, still taking things very slow. Aside from the first episode of the season, the stories have been somewhat lighter in tone, which is great for both the storytelling and also my tear ducts.
• Jagame Thandhiram: I'm something of a lapsed Bollywood watcher. I grew up watching them, they were an active part of the household experience for me, but much like the MCU after...I wanna say Iron Man 3?, I decided, "whoof, that's enough of that", and moved away entirely from those kinds of movies. Something about the repetitiveness of plotlines, and the sameiness of production across movies....it just wasn't doing it for me. But, that's not to say I've quit watching Bollywood movies outright, because every now and then, I'll find a movie that interests me enough to go, "Yeah fine I'll check this out". I came across this movie because my parents saw that it was out on Netflix and strongarmed me into putting it on. It's not a perfect movie by any means (a tad too long, weird cuts and tonal shifts, stuff that I could go off about at length if I were a film student who didn't care about boring their readers), but it intrigued me because it was a movie that deviated away from a lot of the norms of Bollywood storytelling, and leaned into a sort-of Western fusion. The theatrics are nowhere near as bombastic and overblown as your usual Bollywood movie is, but the action and the acting both play into a gonzo feel. It hit its landing, but was really wobbly and unstable on its descent. While I wouldn't give the film the highest of regards (I liked it well enough), I have to give it kudos for taking risks. Looks like I'll have to add some of director Karthik Subbaraj's other movies to my watchlist.

Listening to

• Flower Boy (the Album) - Tyler, The Creator (listened to the album again, it's been a while, still holds up)
• Pressure (feat. Tove Lo) - Martin Garrix
• Dreams, Fairytales, Fantasies (feat. Brent Faiyaz & Salaam Remi) - A$AP Ferg
• Solar Power - Lorde

Question Corner!

Alright, let's pull another question out of the question bag!

Q: Do you have any pets? If so, describe them, if not, would you ever consider having any?

A: I currently don't (unless you count my brother, according to my parents), but I used to own some goldfish wayyyyy back when, maybe 12 years ago? I've come to realize that the real reason my parents (or at least my mom) don't want a pet is because of the trauma of having it die on you down the road. My dad is most likely relieved that we aren't chocking on the extra costs to our monthly bills to own a pet. As for me, I'm still not sure, actually. My cousin got a dog last year, and while I love playing with Rosie whenever I do go visit my cousins (we're all vaccinated now), that bitch pisses and shits a lot. I'm not sure if I can handle that, plus making sure a dog/cat doesn't eat through >insert valuable here<, plus that aforementioned death thing. A bird though. Maybe.

Afterword

Long one, overdue one, I know, I know. I think the hecticness of work/life, as well as my rollercoaster mental, has made it hard for me to be productive at all this month, but I want to start working my way down the must-dos of my to-do list:

• Finish that article
• Read all 14 volumes of Dragon Drive which'll probably be overdue in a couple of weeks
• Finish Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations
• Get through all the movies and shows I've been meaning to get to, but have put off
• Pump out this newsletter

Fingers crossed, I can actually get all that done. But in the meantime, if you've got questions or topic suggestions for future newsletters, you can ask them here. Next time, trains. It's fuckin' train time, baby. But until then, have yourselves a great week.