Brute Abominated

23 May, 2025

Time for another short blog. Though this one was delayed by a few days. Finally, we are free of Brute Abominator. I feel like we spent too long in there, but also like, I found myself just getting a bit exhausted while doing stuff, and making silly mistakes that ended up causing wipes. I did get more of my stuff sorted out, but I always feel bad when it's me causing the wipes. Still, there's a lot going on in there, and I know 8 only gets rougher so, I suppose maybe you should pray for me (and the sanity of my group.) Everyone's very patient and understanding at least. But there is quite a few times when I've felt like my brain is actively working against me when it comes to like, remembering directions, not mistaking the order of things, forgetting to point my camera a certain way, etc.

Also I forgot chain during our clear in a certain spot and I was just sitting there sobbing it's so rough.

Still, have our clear pictures. I didn't take a picture of him falling over. I forgot.

Anyways, time to yap.

So, GSC's reopening preorders on their US site, but are kind of wishywashy on the tariff situation. Kinda sucks because we've been given no concrete answers on things regarding tariffs and how much they'll impact stuff coming into the US, as I still have quite a few preorders with them from last year. I hope that at the very least as they start getting their shipments in stock from what was delayed over the last month or so, that they'll space it out. Instead of me being crammed with about several orders all in June. That's gonna hurt. I've already given up 2 preorders to friends, but the rest is gonna hurt. It's 4 nendoroids & a nendoroid doll for orders that originally released in April & May. IDK, maybe it's time to open commissions to the public again, but because I don't draw on Twitter anymore, that might be hard lol.

Plastic aside, I feel like I've done somewhat okay on sticking to Low Buy outside of collecting. I know I said I wasn't going to count collecting in my Low Buy, but it feels hard to say "Yeah I'm on Low Buy" and still buy hobby stuff. I did end up with about 5 figures and a few rubber straps that weren't related to preorders from last year. I suppose that's not too bad, considering I see people with orders of several items each month. IDK, I'm trying not to be that person. Mostly because I'm just like "I'll complete my collection and exit." Speaking of which, I might be giving a few things I've bought in the past to a friend, just because I know I'm never going to complete said collections. IDK. I gave up on selling on Mercari. Nothing moves there. Might put some stuff in the freebies thread for MFC, but that's a tomorrow problem.

For the rest of my Low Buy, I've done somewhat decent. I did buy another set of alcohol markers for cheap because I didn't have a regular colors set, and this one had a lot of regular colors that weren't in the ohuhu set I got some years ago + a pastel set I ended up buying. I think at this rate though, the only other markers I'll be aiming for a skin tone set. I saw some at Walmart yesterday, but they were pricy. Aside from that I really haven't gotten a lot in terms of art supplies. I think I mentioned the little sketch book I got a while ago, and I also might have mentioned that I got one of those glue tape things. Oh, and I bought another sheet of stickers but for the most part I have been using all my stickers. I also got some toploaders to make deco cards again and that's what the remainder of my stickers will go to.

Makeup I've been a little bit worse on. Mostly because I got annoyed at pencil eyeliner and decided to go for liquid. I did buy some lotion that I didn't exactly need because it was cute, as well as 2 refills a bit early. But for the most part, the things I was refilling are like 80% done anyways. At least I'm hitting pan on quite a few things. 2 body sprays are gone, same for my overnight lotion (to be fair, it was part of a set) and several chapsticks are gone. A lot of old eyeshadow was scooped out of pans and put in containers with similar eyeshadows so I can make it into watercolors but I still need to get stuff for that.

Other than that, I really haven't bought a lot. I got like new shoes, but to be fair, most of my shoes were actually falling apart. Like, I don't think I've gotten any since 2016. You know it's bad when its coming up on a decade.

To be honest I think most of my issues is that I buy boba too often. Though if I said I considered "once a week" as "too often" some people would probably be like "that's nothing, I buy starbucks several times a day" and I honestly cry at the idea of that.

Everything aside, I should have some more reviews out for everyone. Aiming to have the 2 I have previews for written, as well as being finished processing the ones I've taken photos of. Which is 5 so far. It's probably going to go up to 7 because I have another 2 of a friends I need to photograph. After that I get to finish up a few things I had left rotting and maybe get to work on that YGO shrine, which I finally put in the sidebar. Sorry it's been barren all month. I didn't expect life to get this busy.

Feelings on Previous Collections

13 May, 2025

Edit: A lot of this was written before I slept and finished later so if you see it updating suddenly, that's me fixing typos.

So, I read a few interesting things today on MFC which made me realize that at some point or another, I needed to rip off the bandaid and actually talk about this. And considering how it's been quite a few blog posts since I've really talked about something more personal past feelings on media, I suppose I'm ready to talk about it. Even if it is super late at night and this post is going to get burried among my other updates. Oh well.

People who know me on Neocities probably don't know it, but I suppose people in a few other places kinda knew me as one of the big Eng Yamato Nikaido shriners a while back. And I'm sure that if you've clicked on this blog out of curiosity from stuff like my Discord account, my birdsite profile, MFC, or Anilist then you probably know that I really don't post about IDOLiSH7 that much anymore. Or even just Yamato himself.

I know that most people probably just think "Whatever, they've moved on," which I suppose is true, but I have had people come up to me, concerned about the fact that I have a selling list up for some of my Yamato merch. After all, especially in collecting circles, I was seen as a super dedicated shriner and then all of a sudden I just stopped. And when I came back to collecting I had decided to focus on Hatsune Miku and Seto Kaiba. And in some people's minds that's just weird. Which I suppose it is.

Truth be told, I have mixed feelings on the direction of IDOLiSH7 these days, which definitely slowed down the collecting of Yamato merch, but not the full on stop. Why collect something you don't feel as much passion about? After all, Yamato Nikaido used to be a very interesting character. Maybe not the worlds most complex character out there, but he definitely didn't feel shallow. Within i7 itself, he was interesting. Though it wasn't just him being interesting and hard to read in the beginning alone that drew me to him. He was also sincere. Where he couldn't help like feel like a bad person for doing stuff that would interfere with the dreams of others. And I honestly really liked that. But the later we got into the series, the more like I felt that went away. You know how the start of part 5 starts talking about how IDOLiSH7 feels like more of a parody of itself than ever? I feel like that's true for the series itself as well. Like, the game knows it's gone way past its prime and it just continues on, out of obligation almost. And it shows in everyone's character. It doesn't help that the most major bit of development Yamato was supposed to get, with his father and all, feels pushed to the side twice and they're just randomly on talking terms. That was a bit upsetting. It felt like the series just kinda lost what made it unique, in favor of sanitizing everything and making everyone agreeable. And thus, I didn't even bother reading a proper translation of part 5, nor did I continue with part 6.

Like, I won't lie. I've also said how the pandemic made it hard to collect and have the funds to do so, and while that was also part of the reason I slowed down quite a bit on my Yamato collection, this & the previous statement just aren't the only reason I stopped.

I think I've said it before on several places, maybe even here, but I really do want to reiterate it since I had seen the topic come up on MFC. The biggest reason I stopped collecting? I felt like I was obligated to collect. Like I was full on trapped. And it was no longer fun, it was just something I had chained myself to, and was making me miserable. So... I gave up.

Now, I'm sure people are like "oh that means you hate this character now," and the answer is more of a "no" then it would ever be a "yes," but I do hate what he did to my brain. I felt like for some reason, it was my duty to lock in and absolutely collect every bit of Yamato merchandise under the sun. Like I had to complete this checklist otherwise it was all for nothing. My brain was absolutely fixated on it. It wasn't enough to get a piece of merch with a specific set of cards on it. No, I had to have every bit for that one illustration. And I wanted it for everything. And let me tell you, idol series just print merch, so I felt like I had to do this all the time. And feeling like you're obligated to collect something rather than sincerely wanting to just isn't fun. It's hell. Because the point of this hobby is to have fun collecting and see what ends up in your collection. But when you take collecting, turn it into a checklist with items to check off, rather than buying the pieces you like? It just becomes incredibly miserable. And that's where I was at.

The collecting of my Oshi's merch wasn't bringing me joy. It gave me dread. It brought fear and disappointment when I couldn't afford to collect every bit of merch. And it made me feel stressed to attempt to constantly make "The most perfected shrine I could have" when I both had to reorganize a ton of things all at once, and also make room for more. It got to the point where I'd get new stuff and it'd just end up in the closet. Or I'd have duplicates that I'd pick up in sets because they were cheap. So it either went on the wall immediately or it sat in the closet for months, where it would just rot in sterilite bins that were filled to the top with smaller sorted bundles of merch.

You know your collecting habit is quite literally out of hand when you have 2 sterilite bins filled to the brim with i7 merch. Like, the kind you usually see people lugging around when they're moving. As in, these big things. Filled. With strictly IDOLiSH7 merch that was primarily Yamato Nikaido, but also an assortment of other characters.

I've said on a few sites online that I did make it my goal to clean out my closet over the last few years, and I absolutely have. Both of those bins are now being used for other things. The bin I do have left is much more manageable. A lot of it has been sold. Most of the money that I have put into my shrine overall has been made back by just selling dupes that are reasonably priced (Which I usually do around what the item retailed for unless it's incredibly damaged.) Honestly, with the new recap movie, 4th season, and a spinoff coming out, I'm excited for i7 to be back, solely so I can get most of this out of my inventory.

Don't get me wrong, I haven't sold every single Yamato item or anything like that. But I have sold a sizeable amount. But I'm sure you didn't come here to read solely about my ability to sell people idol boy merch.

No, I'm here to talk about how people still found the amount of stuff I sold to be bad--If not worse than the fact that I had bought it. I'm unsure why people tend to have the mentality of "If I buy it, I want to keep it forever. It's coming with me to the grave." Like yeah sure, I won't lie. I've made the rather distasteful joke that when I die, I get to be burried in the Yamato Nikaido ita-coffin. But I've never understood the mentality of "It stays with me until I die." And somehow, my misunderstanding of said mentality has gotten people to say how it's somehow really bad that I could just shrine a character and then turn around and give up on a whim. Because apparently realizing that I had a problem and attempting to do something about it was just a whim.

The collection overtook my room. It made me depressed to look and only see the same character everywhere I looked. On top of that, as I saw said character repeatedly, I wasn't thinking about how happy it all made me or about how much I liked this character anymore. It was always about what I was missing. That feeling had consumed me, and the joy I felt from building a shrine was just replaced by a need to consume more and more, until I was standing far above any other Yamato fan. It had basically consumed me. I really just sat around only focusing on Yamato merch and had gained tons of weight, stopped taking care of myself, and just overall felt really bad about myself. The only other thing I had was raiding, and that's an entire other story about why I needed to stop with that.

Basically, at some point I had to let go. And getting on a diet was actually the first step to me making my life better, not just for physical health reasons, but mental health reasons. But I won't go too into that either. Feeling better physically enabled me to make better mental health choices. And it helped a lot to let go. That's how I got down from giant tubs of merchandise to a small and tiny bin that isn't displayed. And that bin is all going up for sale soon. Hell, I went so far as to give some away to a friend. And in all honesty, I'm perfectly fine giving away more of it if people can pay for the shipping, assuming you're within the continental US. Anything that gets it out of my closet makes me happy at this point. And it's not like I can complain about the money aspect of it either, because as I've said, I've made beyond enough money on selling the dupes that I got from buying massive amounts of bundles with underpriced merch that nobody else wanted. But I'll leave the freebies up for MFC or Mercari to deal with.

I've done a lot of mental work to kind of recover from this. After all, I'm pretty sure that this shrine was the result of having to both sell most of my previous collection as well as getting kind of forced into a really bad relationship that blew up within 3 months, as well as that person just having some really bad mental health as well. So, I get it. It's a thing that happened. I'm doing better for myself mentally, or at least I think I am. I guess only a doctor would know, but mental health doesn't feel as accessible as people make it out to be at times, but I really don't feel up to detailing my woes with my doctors at the current moment.

I've put a lot of work into making sure that the things I own are things I want to keep. They're displayed, even if I'm not the craziest on how some of it is displayed right now (Looking specifically at the can badges to be honest.) But for now, everything's a work in progress. I've done my part in trimming things, and sorting out my feelings. I can still like Yamato and not have a crazy huge collection of him. But I also don't have to sell every scrap that I own. Plus, being able to collect other characters feels nice. It feels stupid to say, but allowing myself to give up on the Yamato shrine and look elsewhere to things that make me happy just did a lot more for me mentally. I have 3 other shrines that I can have on display (Even though they're not really completely grouped up and are more spread out than anything.) It feels better to have these, and be deliberate about what I'm allowing into them rather than forcing myself into 1 big shrine that I tell myself to complete. It also feels like it gives my room far more life and more color to do this rather than just tell myself I can only lock in.

For now, I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. I'll collect as I see fit and aim for items that I'm happy to see every day, rather than things I bought in order to check off some mental checklist to prove to some faceless internet entity that's essentially made up in my brain that I'm the Ultimate Yamato Fan. After all, feelings change. My feelings on Yamato Nikaido are different now. My feelings on my previous collection are different as well. And sure, I'd love to get some of that back but I'm just here like "It's really not that worth it. Space is limited, and so is money." After all, despite loving figures, I don't want to keep sacrificing life experiences to afford overpriced plastic forever. As I've said before, my goal is to get my collection to where I'm mostly satisfied and just quit. Maybe contemplate what I want and don't want to keep. Maybe get rid of a few other things along the way. But for the most part, I just want a collection that I can both love and take care of in a way that doesn't overwhelm me. And sometimes, that's a lot of mental work, but it's worth it in the end.

Anyways for now just have a 2kki mix:

Aquarium Trip

05 May, 2025

Today on the "Posts I haven't gotten around to writing yet," I'm finally going to talk about the little trip I took to the Aquarium with friends at the beginning of the month. I honestly haven't really thought too much about how to write about it, and I feel like there's not much I can say without it being a bit awkwardly personal. Either way, I got to meet up with a few online friends, eat some good food, and just hang out for 2 days. It's been a while since I've done stuff with friends, so it was refreshing to go out and do something. That, and I had a lot of fun hanging out with my XIV friends.

For the sake of everyone's privacy, I don't want to really overshare. So this is a bit of a picture dump. Took a lot of plush pictures, because I'm really bad at taking pictures. I feel like my smile always looks forced and awkward, ontop of being really short and having a bit of an awkward stance lol. So, no selfies or anything. We went to a few arcades as well, but I didn't win any prizes unfortunately. But I got a gift from a friend! So that was cool. I'm super happy about it, because I wanted to start collecting the Yugioh Bunkoban's and this has given me the perfect excuse.

Anyways, the bulk of these are from the aquarium. The first picture is a late birthday card I drew though. I think I just have a general talent for drawing Bakura or something lol. Also, Nyamato bullying.

Anyways, here's a picture gallery, as promised:

Honestly, a lot of these are just pictures of jellyfish, but I really like jellyfish. They're neat. The birds are super cute too. I don't know what to call it, a little bird sanctuary, I guess? But I enjoy looking at birds. If I was braver, I'd attempt to pet them. But I think that kind of thing might either not be allowed or either scare the birds. Might also get them to bite you or scratch you, and I really didn't want to have that happen either. But I used to have a decent amount of birds as a kid, so seeing birds up close again was kinda neat.

I didn't buy too much while we were out, but going to a Japanese market was pretty neat. I ended up just buying a facewash and mostly food, but honestly, I ate so much during this trip, so it's probably better that I didn't buy even more snacks. I almost bought the Joey plush, but I decided against him in the end. So, good on me for keeping to the low buy, I suppose? But I wish I would have grabbed some of the Idolish7 wafers for the cards.

Anyways, I'll kind of end it there. I hope our group gets together somewhat soon to do stuff again. Next time, I'll bring a better bag lol.