The Nostalgia Is Killing Me

While I was away, I unknowingly revisited my childhood. And it killed me. Like, really badly.

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Exactly like that. This is, like, really weird for me because I've never really been a nostalgic person. The whole idea that once you turn a certain age you sort of abandon all of the things you liked as a child just doesn't sit right with me. And I don't mean things like music because my music taste grows all the time and it's very rare that I'll just stop listening to a band or artist. What I mean is things like video games or TV shows that I enjoyed as a child, and even still enjoy now because I don't think that there should be an expiration date on things that you truly love (and while I'm on that, it's perfectly fine to outgrow things that you liked when you were younger. I used to be obsessed with Evanescence when I was in my early teens. But once they went away for a while I grew out of them, and now they kind of make me cringe a little bit because it reminds me of who I was when I was a lot younger). So, what I wanted to do for this post is share with you guys the things that have made me so nostalgic that it hurt. And this is going to be a painful post to write because even though I aim to make the things I enjoy as timeless as possible, these things still remind me of when I first encountered them as a child.

To be more specific, The Sims 1. Not The Sims 2, because I play that all the time. Like seriously. Internet not working? Play TS2. Bored of everything? Play TS2. Just procrastinating? You guessed it: play TS2. You get my gist: I play TS2 so much that I don't get nostalgic from it.
But anyways, back to TS1. I still own the base game and almost all of the expansion packs (I'm missing one because I have no idea where it is), so one day I just decided to install it onto my computer on a complete whim. I was actually expecting the discs to not work because they're so old and my brother and I had a bad habit of not taking care of our things when we were kids. But, they do work and, holy shit, I forgot how glorious this game is.
I also forgot how difficult it is. Because TS1 is the first game in the series, there aren't many cheat codes or hacks, which took a lot of getting used to because if there is any word to describe my way of playing TS2 it's 'cheating'. I rely so much on cheat codes to stop my Sims from complaining all the time that I forgot how fast the motives decrease in TS1 and how difficult it is to get them back up to being full again. I must have had the absolute patience of a saint as a child because managing that game without cheat codes can be a bit of a challenge sometimes. And here's the other reason why it's more difficult: nobody wants to be your friend and there isn't a cheat code to make people be your friend. In TS2 you enter 'boolprop testingcheatsenabled true' into the cheat code bar and then you're able to make people be your friend, but in TS1 you can't do that and nobody likes you.
I was planning on showing you guys my 'family' (it's basically just one Sim), but I couldn't find the in-game files of the photos that I took while I was playing. Then I found them but then decided two things: 1) I don't want this post to be image heavy 2) I'm too lazy. So, yeah. But basically, she's a celebrity and got that way by using magic and being an awesome witch. She also has no friends because everyone else is an asshole and won't talk to her for more than three seconds. God, I wish there was a friend code in this game.

(inconsistent design because the white text couldn't be seen oops)

I grew up with Pokémon and I've played nearly every single main series game (I still haven't played Black/White or their sequels), so it's kind of weird that a Pokémon game would make me all nostalgic. Like pretty much everybody else who got Pokémon for Christmas, I've been playing Alpha Sapphire and it kind of means a lot to me because Sapphire was the first Pokémon game that I owned and I never finished it. Yeah. It gets worse though. Not only did I not finish it, I lost it too. Yup. It still hasn't surfaced anywhere in our house so as soon as ORAS was announced, I could have fucking screamed.

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Since Christmas day I have done played Alpha Sapphire every single day. Well, I've actually played as much as I can. And while I'm not to the Pokémon League yet, my team is still looking pretty good. I have one main rule when making up my team and it's that I only ever have Pokémon that were introduced in that region, so I've only got Hoenn/Gen 3 Pokémon on my team.

I have:

• Swampert - lv. 54
• Gallade - lv. 52
• Manectric lv. 53
• Altaria - lv. 55
• Camerupt - lv.53
• Roserade - lv. 53

Their levels will have gone up by the time this post is up. I've pretty much binge-played.

Want to battle me? You might win, you might lose (I haven't battled any real people in a long time). Here's my friend code: 1478-3357-8893

If you're into animanga and you've never heard of the Dragon Ball franchise, you need to reevaluate your life because this is probably the most famous animanga series in the history of forever. And it also means a lot to me because this is one of the staples of my childhood. I watched Dragon Ball Z more than I watched Sailor Moon, and that's probably why I like shonen manga more than shojo manga. When I was a little kid (up until I was about 9 or 10), there wasn't any way of me watching TV in my room, so I watched TV with my brother in his room, and we both loved watching DBZ. We also played the video games together (I always lost), and either last year or the year before, I started to read the Dragon Ball manga. I've only got the first five volumes so far, but it's almost like experiencing something new because even though I know who all the characters are, I didn't watch Dragon Ball as a child (it just wasn't on, but then when Toonami started to air it, we just didn't watch it for some reason) so I only know the bare bones of the story.

I also bought a preowned copy of Dragon Ball Z Budokai 3 for the PS2 (my favourite DBZ game ever), and the nostalgia there was just crippling. I haven't played that game since I was about 12 because our copy broke and then my brother traded it in (don't ever try to sell things that are broken), so I just completely forgot how good it is. And other things that have contributed to my nostalgia trip is the YouTube channel TeamFourStar, who do a comedic fandub of DBZ. This nostalgia trip just gave me a huge kick in the ass and reminded me that I really want to continue on with reading Dragon Ball. And I will do that. Because the first part of the series is only 16 volumes long. Then I'll start reading Dragon Ball Z, which is longer. And then I'll binge watch the anime which will take about five years of my life, but I don't care because I just love this series so much (I might watch GT, but we shall see about that).

What makes you nostalgic? Does nostalgia ever kill you?