Another year in the books! (Thoughts on this year and my birthday)

     Hi friends, I'm Jonathan, writer of the Self-Proclaimed Dreamer, and it's my birthday tomorrow. It seems wild that another year has already gone by, but time is moving in such a weird way that in one sense it seems like it has taken an eternity for another year to pass, and then in another, it seems to have flashed by in the blink of an eye. Not as much has changed in the past year as we would have liked, and that goes for me as well as so many others. I continue getting better and better at honing my writing, and honestly I'm pretty proud of the work I've done so far. That being said, I hope that in the next year, I'll be able to get a position that is a bit more lucrative in this sort of field as I'm just doing this as a labor of love currently. This post is more a look back at this year and what I've experienced in it, and especially focus on things that I've been able to write about, even if I haven't had too many crazy experiences this year.

This year in gaming!

    This year has been wild in some ways and very tame in others. I was fortunate enough to get a PS5 early in the year by way of sheer luck and a very kind friend of the family. This was really a stroke of luck, but I know so many people have been trying to get their hands on one for over a year at this point and still haven't been able to due to the chip shortage as well as scalpers buying most of the stock of this console as well as the Xbox Series S and X models with bots. I really hope that this will continue to ease up, as it's a shame that so few people are even able to play these new games that are coming out for next-gen consoles. It is nice that Xbox One is able to play next-gen games through a streaming server so those players don't need the newest piece of hardware to play Halo Infinite which just came out in the last few weeks or so. Unfortunately, Sony fans don't have that luxury, so games such as Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart (my personal game of the year) and the wonderfully charming tech demo, Astro's Playroom are just out of reach for many people so far. I'm happy that Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarok are also coming out for PS4 to allow people on the older hardware the ability to play the games while they wait for the new console to become easier to come by, even though these games won't run as well on PS4 certainly. Microsoft's purchase of Bethesda will become more apparent in the years to come with the heavily hinted exclusivity for The Elder Scrolls 6 as well as Starfield, which is coming next year and has already been announced to be an Xbox exclusive. This year actually saw the biggest title from Bethesda being a PS5 exclusive, Deathloop. I haven't played it yet, but it sounds like it's a really interesting idea and the developer, Arkane, is a fantastic studio with a pretty stellar track record. I'm certainly interested in what they've come up with this time. Nintendo has also had a pretty interesting year releasing a remaster of Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Warioware finally made a comeback with Warioware Get It Together, and Mario Party Superstars was released as a "greatest hits" collection of Mario Party's past. On top of this, Metroid Dread, a game that was long thought to have been cancelled a long time ago was released this year. This is actually the sequel to 2002's Metroid Fusion for the Game Boy Advance, and Metroid fans are loving it. Again, I haven't played it yet, but I've heard some amazing things about it. While many game releases looked pretty strong this year, an unsettling trend continues to burn through the games industry like wild fire.

    Unfortunately on the games front there has also been a pretty horrifying story unfolding this year, the deal with Activision Blizzard. Anyone who's been following this company for a while will tell you that they've had quite a rough few years and have made some decisions that are extremely unpopular with most audiences. Following the banning the winner of a Hearthstone tournament after he spoke out against the Chinese oppression of Hong Kong, they apologized at their conference, BlizzCon. It was a pretty phony response, especially considering the player in question was still banned and didn't get the prize money that he earned. After this, they put out a remaster for Warcraft 3, a 2002 game, and the remaster which was released last year reportedly had almost more bugs than the original release, on top of not containing promised content. This year, however, they really blew it out of the water when the "bro culture" of this developer/publisher studio came to a more public light. Sexual harassment of any sort should not be tolerated on any level, end of story. The horror stories that have come out about this company absolutely blow me away and break my heart for anyone facing this kind of horrible and disgusting behavior over the years here. The fact that this sort of thing happens all over the games industry just really makes me sad. Last year, we had reports at several Ubisoft studios, and before that, we had reports of this kind of behavior at Riot Games. It's a horrible thing that we need to be more accountable for, and I sincerely hope that the people in charge will do the right thing and enforce proper workplace behavior to make the games industry more inclusive and friendly for everyone involved. I don't want to get into any specifics here because they're honestly too disgusting to write about in passing, but I'm really tired of wishing that people could just be decent and that people who have done horrible things like this would be punished. I don't think that's too terribly much to ask. Sorry to get onto a tangent about this here, but I need to express my support of anyone who is dealing with anything like this. If you're being mistreated in any place of work, know that I hope to support you in any way that I can. Nothing excuses this horrible discrimination or mistreatment of not just coworkers, but just any other human being, especially not being employed by this trash fire of a company.

Disney World's 50th anniversary!

    This year has been a big one for Walt Disney World, as it's been open for 50 years now. There are lots of new shows and attractions that are either open or coming to the different parks over the next few years. Unfortunately, according to a friend who just went to Epcot a few weeks ago, there are walls up pretty much everywhere while they work on different attractions there, as they're working on "Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind" and the Moana attraction, which are the biggest things at the moment. There are going to be pretty substantial renovations to Spaceship Earth as well, though those haven't begun yet to my knowledge. "Remy's Ratatouille Adventure" has finally opened after only being in the Walt Disney Studios park in France for a few years, and it looks super charming, adding another trackless ride to the Florida parks, making three now on Disney property in the sunshine state. The Magic Kingdom, the only park which is really turning 50 this year, received a new fireworks show, "Disney Harmonious," utilizing projections on Main Street USA as well as on the castle itself. The park itself is getting the Tron ride from Shanghai Disneyland, though it's still under construction but making significant progress, as the railroad is finally being put back together. It's sad that the first few months of the 50th anniversary celebration won't have a proper parade, as the Cavalcades are still in place for now, but soon enough, the Festival of Fantasy is going to be back in full swing at some point in 2022. There has been a parade during Mickey's Very Merry After Hours event, which is going on right now, and the parade will also be done during the day for the last week or so before Christmas, but will then go back to Cavalcades until the regular parade comes back, presumably. On the topic of things coming back, Fantasmic, the nighttime show over at Hollywood Studios is also returning in 2022 after it was closed when the parks reopened in 2020. There are talks about some scenes changing when it comes back, but they haven't detailed any specific scenes yet as far as I'm aware. Walt Disney World also implemented Genie+ a few months ago now, and if you're not sure where I stand on the issue, look at my post from a few weeks ago, but if you want a much shorter summary, here you go. It's a pretty transparent excuse for Disney to squeeze even more money of people than they were already getting. It's pretty nasty and exploitative, but at the end of the day, people are probably going to pay it, though I don't really plan to if I go back anytime soon. As much as I love Disney World, it makes me sad to see it be so blatant about wanting to generate as much revenue as it possibly can, even when it seems these inclusions have negatively effected the customer satisfaction in a pretty significant way.

Personal Stuff

    2021 has potentially been my most antisocial year so far, and for that, I apologize to my friends. Some times are just harder than others, and especially with my lack of a conventional job, I've been a bit embarrassed to reach out at times. I've kept busy with many different projects of my own, so I've not just been twiddling my thumbs all this time, but it's just sometimes hard to reach out. I truly hope you've all had a pretty nice year, I wish you all the best as we continue to transition out of this time of global pandemic, though every passing week almost seems to bring some new threat that we must face before we are truly through the metaphorical woods on this whole thing. I really hope you're all safe and doing well, and I hope you've enjoyed my different posts on various subjects during this past year. I really believe that I'm getting better and better every week, which definitely helps with my self-confidence a lot. I hope you all know that I appreciate your friendship and support more than the words that I write here could ever hope to express. I don't mean to get too sappy here, but sometimes I just think about past experiences and smile, hoping for the best for the future. Thanks for being my friends, and thank you for helping me along the way as I head closer and closer to who I'm meant to be.

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends! I hope you're all doing well as we get ready to round out this year! Did you have any favorite experiences from this past year? It's been nice to get out a bit more since the vaccines have gone out, though I've still been pretty cautious for the most part. I hope you'll all have a good week! I've been Jonathan, your Self-Proclaimed Dreamer, and I'll talk to you soon!