Depression and the Virus

It's already almost 20:00 while I write this, unbelievable. Today went faster than yesterday even though I got up earlier, to be fair though it was only about 45 minutes earlier. I also got even less done, oh wait, I haven't got anything done in a while, I guess what I mean is that I was even further away from getting anything done than usual. It's odd because I felt like I'd have more drive today, after doing that hand-stand against a tree yesterday. Even writing that now, it already feels like a feeble achievement, that's comparing myself to others again, remember it's better to beat your own records, not others.

The main reason today was different was because I had a sudden urge to stream or at least set up the stream after breakfast. I then spent a while getting my MiSTer to dual output between VGA and HDMI but I had issues, I kind of got it working but I wasn't satisfied with the results. The image quality on the screen I'd be playing on was a bit rubbish so what's the point. The MiSTer continues to be a disappointment, I'm rarely disappointing with my games related purchases come to think of, in fact have I ever been disappointing any any of them? I'm getting buyers remorse and may sell it.

After that (I didn't stream) I decided to go out even though I was planning not to today, I called my mum on the way there and while I talked through the part. It was colder today, that wasn't the reason I wasn't going to go out though. This morning I had this kind of resentment towards my new routine, even though I've only been doing it for like what, a week, less? Was that because I realised I have no choice but to do that routine now? I can't really change it, I don't think.

After failing with the MiSTer I've had a feeling of caring little and having little motivation today. After I got home I decided to stream just my webcam, something I've never done before, usually I'd be playing a game. No one watched of course. I did speak but to be fair I was walking around and sometimes I wasn't even in camera. Now the thing is I totally understand why no one talks in chat or watches so why did I bother to do it? It was awful just like I predicated, it was basically me talking to myself but it's worse. At least normally I probably wouldn't be talking to myself and I'd be mulling things over in my head. I'm not sure if they're both as delusional as each other or whether that's a good thing, because not streaming and mulling things over feels better. It feels like I'm figuring things out in my head and building confidence, but now that I'm writing about it, does that ever lead to anything productive anyway? No, not really. So I stopped streaming because just like when I stream a game, it adds an extra layer of loneliness. Playing a game on my own is really fun, but playing a game on my own while online suddenly feels crap even though on the surface I'm doing the same thing. I guess it's simply that ones frame of mind changes when you're streaming it.

More Buffy the Vampire Slayer (kinda)

I realised it makes it makes more sense to write my intro which usually has something to do with the virus, that's the part that's becoming more like a diary by each day. I'm already regretting what I just wrote because it shows my insecurities rather clearly. But, and I know I say this constantly, no one besides perhaps a family member will (probably) ever read this. Even that family member will probably skim over the media and self-centred related stuff, which is... most of it.

Myself and others are more limited in our lives at the moment, due to the virus, as if I need to say the reason all the time. But I realised that while in-doors I'm no more limited than I usually am, what I'm trying to say is that I could actually do other stuff around this time than watch Buffy. I could watch other shows or films, or play video games. I already started thinking this a day or two ago but I keep going back to Buffy instead. Like I said before, I guess it's because it's a comfort blanket.

It does nonetheless make me feel sad, in both popular meanings of the word. I could write about the show more and I probably will soon but I feel like saying more about the feelings I get while watching it. If I can think of any. I think I have some but I'm currently writing off the cuff so I'm not sure - The picture I chose today, it came up when I put in season 2 so I guess it's some kinda promotional photo for that season. I kind of said it in an earlier post, that some of these photos make me more aware of how old the show is than when I'm actually watching it. There's something exceedingly old fashioned about this style of photo, it makes me feel old and then I think about how these actors will be a lot older now too, I think I want to avoid looking up what they look like now. I have of course seen some of them accidentally in the past, the Willow and Angel actors are the ones that come to mind.

I forgot to mention that when I started re-watching the show, I realised that the characters are supposed to be my age, season 1 is 1997 and the main school dwelling characters are 16, that's for of them. I was 16 in 1997 too and I don't think I ever thought about this when I used to watch the show. I'm pretty sure I didn't think or care about my age back then, oh how things have changed. I'm sure most of the actors were older than their characters though, I think this was common practice until fairly recently in-which we now get younger actors playing their real ages.

How 16 year old Brits acted in real life in 1997 was completely different from how American teens were in Buffy, come to think of it. Alien, even. Incredibly different. I reckon Buffy was quite realistically acted at the time, compared to older shows, but still far from actual real life. Just think about shows like sitcoms and even dramas were before 1997, the scripts, how people acted was very unreal.

Actual Direct Buffy Talk

It's already been 40 minutes, unbelievable. I need to get through this so I can go watch more. I actually made notes to I'll go through them now and write about them. They are useful because I was forgetting stuff before. Actually I'm going to try to be more brief in my writings about Buffy today, as in, I'll get to the point quicker.

Jennifer Calendar

I mean't to say this several days ago - I completely forgot this character existed and after that I still kept thinking you was so minor that you'd just vanish after one or two episodes, but she kept coming back every time I thought that. I figured she was so dull and unimportant that they weren't even going to explain why she wasn't in the show anymore, you know like in other shows when a person simply doesn't turn up anymore and you often don't even notice. But no, Jenny appeared in  the eighth episode of season 1 and was in quite a lot of episodes up until her death in "Passion" which is the seventeenth episode of season 2. I do want to point out though that season 1 was shorter than all other seasons at a count of 12 episodes.

The word 'dated' is a confusing one and I should look up its definition before writing about it but I'm not going to. I'm going to say that Buffy the Vampire Slayer isn't dated in the rotatory sense of the word, but Jenny being a "Technopagan" is one small thing which is definitely dated! I mean, Technopagan? It sounds ridiculous, luckily it's not used much after her first episode, if I at all. Her debut is in 'I Robot, You Jane' and it is rather nostalgic to see the old PC's in the this episode, how they were used, the terminology and what the characters thought of them. I'm sure this entire episode is 'dated', depending on ones definition of the word, I just don't think it's a bad kind of dated.

I find it funny how there's a load of PC's set up in the library but only for this episode, though to be fair you do get to see PC's in later episodes in a computer class or something, where Jenny is the teacher. Jenny's main role is love interest to Giles, she has to do something else though so she sometimes, rarely, helps the Buffy team (I'll call them the Scooby Gang from now on) to do research. Now the thing is her role as Technopagan is rarely utilised because what would that entail? In the show it's essentially no different from being someone who is good at using computers, even that is being generous. All that ends up happening is shes in the same role as Willow in those scenes where someone will ask her to look something up. Willow will use a computer or book while they usually make a point to make it clear that Jenny will be using a computer instead.

I found Jenny not to have much of a personally but I found it a little odd how pissed off Giles and Buffy was with her when she's revealed to be a member of the Gypsies who "cursed" Angel to get his soul back. She did very little to scorn them and was against screwing with Angel and Buffy's lives. I guess the narrative was that they disliked the fact that she didn't tell them that she was there to keep an eye on Angel, whatever that means. Her keeping an eye on him didn't seem to consist of her doing anything. The thing is even by this early point in the show, Buffy and Giles had experienced more extreme stuff than Jenny keeping a secret so it didn't ring true to me.

Don't get me wrong the though, the show is fantastic. I'm writing like I think it's bad but it's just nit-picking, it's easier to write about the small flaws than the good stuff. For me anyway. I'd say the show is the best drama / comedy I've seen in my life, best pure comedy probably goes to Seinfeld.

Next - After Jenny is killed by Angel, he leaves her dead body at Giles house and there's important details to this which I'm not going to bother saying but this is the darkest scene in the show by that point, by far. This was in the episode called "Passion". This show in general has this interesting thing going in-which it's usually comical or wacky but then it does some incredibly serious stuff, especially for the time. Actually not many shows do that even now, honestly I think Bojack Horseman might be the closest thing to it since.

Ted

I'm not going to say much about this episode because I want to go and I didn't keep this brief like I said I was going to. Basically this episode is great. It's dark, kind of up there with the Jenny death I mentioned above. It's different though. All I'll say is the scenes in-which Ted starts talking down to and aggressively at Buffy are shockingly disturbing to me for some reason. There's this domestic abuse angle which I think really works because Buffy is portrayed as vulnerable, something we aren't used to seeing the character be. This comes through with the top-notch acting these two are doing in these scenes.

Imagine if that episode ended with the bit where Buffy killed Ted. Maybe the writers didn't have the guts to do something like that this early on. Later, they'd make episodes like the one in-which Buffy's mum dies, they were certainly brave by then.