I was recently nominated for the Mystery Blogger Award by the awesome Robert Ian Shepherd in this blog post, which is so amazing and humbling that I still can’t even find the words to express my appreciation. And I feel sick. From happiness. It likes to show itself in weird ways. Now then! Time to accept this wonderful nomination and spread the word while being as awkward as humanly possible! It’s going to be great.

The Rules

– Put the award logo/image on your blog
– List the rules
– Thank whoever nominated you and provide a link to their blog
– Mention the creator of the award and provide a link as well
– Tell your readers 3 things about yourself
– You nominate 10 – 20 people (I will be nominating 5)
– Notify your nominees by commenting on their blog
– Ask your nominees any 5 questions of your choice; with one weird or funny question (specify)
– Share a link to your best post(s)

My Nominator

I was nominated by Robert Ian Shepherd, as I mentioned above, and he runs a blog called Adventure Rules. I went and checked out his posts afterwards and they’re WONDERFUL. Video game themed, Robert’s blogs are thoughtful and carefully crafted, peppered with a great sense of humor and much appreciated honesty. I obsessively began reading his archive and commenting on things willy-nilly, and it’s been a lot of fun checking out his work. Every video game fan should too! Check out Adventure Rules, you won’t be disappointed!

Mystery Award Blogger Beginnings

The creator of the Mystery Award Blogger is Okoto Enigma, who discusses the origin of the award here. There’s a particular excerpt from the original post that shows up a lot on nomination acceptance posts, and I’m going to post it here too because it’s relevant:

“Mystery Blogger Award”  is an award for amazing bloggers with ingenious posts. Their blog not only captivates; it inspires and motivates. They are one of the best out there, and they deserve every recognition they get. This award is also for bloggers who find fun and inspiration in blogging; and they do it with so much love and passion.

This description is beautiful, and when I’m not mesmerized by how poignant it is, I quickly begin to wonder if my blog posts match the caliber of what it says. When I started writing for Objection Network, it began as a casual project on the side. Posts were pretty infrequent, and while I usually wrote about things I liked, I didn’t write with the goal of wanting people to read them. I wrote them with the thought that, “if they were read, great, and if not, oh well!” But eventually I became a lot more passionate about my posts and excited to get responses and feedback. It became less of a rare occurrence and more of a commitment to my hobbies and interests, but the good kind. The point of this tangent is to say that I’m hugely honored by this nomination, and while I never considered my writing to be really “captivating” or “ingenious,” (still not sure if I do), I can at least agree about the passion part.

A Few Things About Me

If you’ve kept up with me over the years, you’ll know that I’m a huge video game and anime nerd, so trying to think of three new things to tell you about myself that may or may not be obvious already is incredibly difficult. Get ready! (I’m not ready)

1. Super Smash Bros. Melee is perhaps the game I played the most growing up. My friend and I would team up against Shaun (and still lose), but there was one time when a bomb fell out of the sky on Shaun/Roy’s head and got us a KO, so that was fun.

2. I like making scrambled eggs with a dash of maple syrup in the mixture so that they taste sweet (my sweet tooth is a touch intense)

3. Almost all of my favorite characters in video games either die or have horrible fates. Gravitating to the tragic characters is my specialty apparently.

Answering the Important Questions

In Ian’s post, he asked five questions for his nominees to answer, so here we go!

1) What made you decide to take up blogging?

The beginning of my blogging journey was five years ago, when my brother suggested that I write a guest post under his name for the site. At first, I was EXTREMELY intimidated. “Post my writing on a website that people might actually read? Hah, no thanks” was my first thought. But luckily he didn’t let me off the hook easily, and after publishing a few blogs under his name, I was given authorship on the site, which was really exciting and freeing. It allowed me to post when I wanted and taught me responsibility to being committed to writing blogs. It wasn’t scary having people read my work anymore, and it really improved my writing throughout college as well by keeping me consistently working on something. At that point, that was when I really took up blogging as a true, fun hobby of mine rather than just a casual side venture.

2) What is your favorite video game?

Final Fantasy IX. Hands down. Okay, moving on!

. . . . . .

Just kidding, I have so much I can say about this game. SO MUCH. I could go on forever. But I’ll do my best to keep the gushing short and sweet. Final Fantasy IX was the first one I beat in the series. Prior to this one, I had tried to play Final Fantasy IV, V, VI, VII, and X (all of which failed spectacularly within the first few hours either because I either thought it was too hard or I got lost and immediately gave up, the mark of every good gamer, clearly). I became interested in Final Fantasy IX after our panel published our Best Video Games List. Final Fantasy IX ranked pretty high, and I had heard Shaun speak highly of game in the past and wanted to experience it too.

I loved Final Fantasy IX right from the very beginning. All of the characters are so endearing and wonderful (with Zidane and Vivi being the best, cutest bros of all time), and the story is incredibly well paced. What begins as a simple, even tropey princess kidnapping evolves into something much more sinister, and the progression feels really natural. The music is great. The combat is challenging yet rewarding. It really required me to be mindful of my decisions, which to that point I hadn’t really experienced before. It was a great experience.

Sometimes I wish I could forget that I played it so then I would have the excuse to play it and relive those moments all over again. Sadly, I can’t. But I’ll leave you with this story that I’ve probably told a million times in other posts but it’s still relevant: I have a fond memory of watching my brother beat the game when I was like, six. I didn’t remember that I had watched the ending with him until I beat it, and making that connection was really exciting. Who knew that I would be playing the same game over fifteen years later and loving it as much as he did? It was really cool.

3) Why should people read your blog?

…So you can experience my awkward rambling in all its glory? YAY? On a serious note, I think my posts are pretty focused towards video games and anime, and I think that attracts a certain crowd. I usually post reviews of anime I’ve seen or games I’ve played, but every now and again I also have longer, expansive blogs that discuss controversies or things I like within games or anime, and those are really fun to write (and hopefully fun for people to read too?). But I do think the variety of types of posts helps, and keeping the content to primarily video games and anime helps build a reputation and expectation as well. Really, I just like to write about things that I am passionate about, and my hope is that I can find people who share in those passions too and create a dialogue with them. Therefore! …That is why people should read this blog so we can all nerd out together and it will be GREAT.

4) What video game item do you wish you had in real life?

Ooo, this is such a great question! I wish I had…a Carbuncle. From Final Fantasy XIV (does this count?), and specifically the blue one because DUH it’s the best. I have a plushie, but can you imagine having a Carbuncle in the flesh? I can, and it would be INCREDIBLE. An immortal, adorable little cat creature to call my own who would follow me around without fail, make cute noises, and spew wind magic at people when it’s angry. It’s a perfect match.

5) If you could set up two characters from different games on a blind date, who would you put together? (Weird Question)

You’re telling me I can ship characters from ANY GAME EVER?! This is incredible! Okay. I think…I want to feature two different blind dates, a heterosexual and homosexual one (because diversity for the win, and I’m cheating again!). For the heterosexual blind date, I’m going with Dunban from Xenoblade Chronicles and Mia from Golden Sun. Dunban is charming and a true gentleman, and Mia’s really sweet and cool too, and I think they’d probably enjoy themselves during their blind date, just casually chatting and having a good time. For the homosexual blind date duo, I’m picking Prompto from Final Fantasy XV and Magus from Chrono Trigger. Prompto has a really sweet and funny personality, and I think pairing that with Magus’ more solemn and brooding attitude would make for a really interesting dynamic. Prompto would also probably take a million selfies with his date and it’d be the cutest. The best blind dates are the most crazy, unexpected ones, and I think Magus would definitely feel that way? Or he’d fly out of the restaurant without saying anything like a cool guy, who knows.

My Nominees

My selections are all bloggers who’ve been awesome and commented on a variety of posts on Objection Network, in addition to writing amazing content of their own.

1. simpleek, with a variety of posts ranging from posts about fashion, anime, and video games, such as a progress report of Mass Effect Andromeda.
2. The Otaku Judge, with a review applauding the amazingness that is Captain America: Civil War.
3. Nintendobound, who has so reviewed so many video games, including fantastic, fun 3DS games such as Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright.
4. Robobeat, with a great post discussing some notable RPG Leads in the video game industry.
5. Revaryk, with a post gushing about the great Persona 5.

Asking the Important Questions

Here are my questions for my nominees!

1) What got you into playing video games?

2) What’s your favorite part about blogging?

3) If you were trapped on a deserted island, which fictional character would you bring to life to help you?

4) What’s your favorite video game soundtrack?

5) What’s your favorite game to rag on/love to hate? (Weird question–although it could be funny too, whatever works)

The Best of the Best

Obviously, if I had to link to my best posts, it’s clearly ALL OF THEM MWEH HEH HEH! But truthfully, I think some of my stronger writing shows in the longer discussion blogs, ranging from ranting about things to gushing about good games or cute couples. If I have to pick, I’d like to share one video game themed post, and one anime themed post. For my video game post, I’m linking A Critical Rant of Final Fantasy VII, which, as the name suggests, is a rant of the things I found polarizing about Final Fantasy VII. I’d like to think it turned out pretty good and stirred up conversation too, which is always fun. For my anime post, I’m linking the post that started it all, Nia and Simon – The Best Part of Gurren Lagann. This post was just the first step to becoming more confident in my writing, and of course I have to thank Shaun for pushing me to step outside my comfort zone while doing something I love.

Thanks to everyone for the support, and to Robert Ian Shepherd for this nomination! I really appreciate it, and I can’t wait to read my nominees posts as well!