Noobette-little-box - Tumblr Posts

this is probably a kinda dumb question but i've been meaning to ask this since i first heard your voice on one of your streams have you started voice training yet i ask because i genuinely can't tell

not a dumb question at all! actually, this is a great springboard into something...

i haven't done any voice training at all, no. often on phone calls, people will get confused about whether to call me "ma'am" or "sir"... but the higher the quality of the call, like on discord or on streams, the easier it is to tell. IRL it's rather obvious that i've got a nerdy guy's voice.

i've always been a little self-conscious about it – before i transitioned i was too self-conscious about getting called "ma'am" on the phone, now i'm self-conscious about "passing" as a genderfluid person (whatever that means). funny how gender roles always play into it, even when they don't make sense.

honestly, i'm less concerned about it now that i've been streaming for so long... it helped me get used to hearing the sound of my own voice, helped me understand what strengths and weaknesses i have when i do silly voices on stream. and, really, isn't that kind of what voice training is about?

that said, i have wanted to sit down and proper voice training one of these days, not because i want my voice to sound more feminine (though that would be nice) – rather, i'd like to expand the range of my voice.

cause as a kid, my voice used to have range! i would mimic voices of TV characters and sing all the songs in the hymnal at church. i LOVED getting to express myself like that!

until one day i was at church singing my heart out and i felt my voice crack. and i stopped singing so loud, and i stopped parroting cartoon quotes, and i stopped being so confident.

it's one thing for my voice to crack and deepen and start to sound like a man's voice... but that wasn't really the problem. the problem was that i lost my entire upper register. i would go to sing or use that register and nothing would come out. even now i can reach for that part of my vocal cords when i speak – like i can still feel it there! – but nothing comes out, or at best i get a weak little noise.

so when i do voice training i want to build up that part of my voice again... not just because of gender roles, not just because i miss it, but because i think that would be amazing for my confidence as a streamer and entertainer. i don't expect to ever go pro with voice acting or anything, i just want to make silly voices and sound like what i hear in my head!

Hey sky how do I convince someone they're cool

like people haven't been believing me when I tell them they're cool

I thought I would ask you for advice since you seem to know a lot about being cool

the thing about telling somebody with chronically low self-esteem that they're cool is that it inadvertently becomes an invitation to argue. "cool" is, after all, not much more than a value judgment; it doesn't give anyone an idea of why they're cool. when they bite back with a "no i'm not," that's not them being mean – that just means they have different criteria for what cool means!

the best thing you can do for somebody who adamantly refuses to believe it is to invest in their self-esteem through other means. do they have a special interest that you're not familiar with? ask them questions about it and be an active listener! do they make art? leave them comments about specific things you like in each of their pieces! are they a good shoulder to cry on? lean on them and tell them how much you appreciate their support!

the exact method will vary for each person, because everyone is good at different things; the goal in general is to find their strengths and amplify them with love and support. be specific in your encouragement, rather than using generalized words. no one can argue with you when you show them that they inspire you, that you appreciate their friendship. it's tangible proof that their presence changes the world around them for the better.

...and if they somehow do still argue, be firm in your encouragement. "take the compliment" is a powerful rebuttal, but it can be dangerous. use it wisely.

Hey its me again

I want you to remember to be nice to yourself because

uh

well I don't have a reason but I just think it's nice to be kind to yourself

hi friend! you have impeccable timing. last week i was struggling with a multi-day-long depressive spiral – and the moment you sent this ask, i was in the middle of spiraling and calling myself "incompetent." your ask helped me snap out of it.

"incompetent" is of course a value judgment, but this one has a little more punch... having to stop taking that adhd med really threw into sharp relief what an incredible struggle it is for me to just focus when i'm sitting at my desk. it makes all my struggles feel like my own fault, you know? like maybe i'm just too incompetent to understand what i'm trying to do, or how to fix my problems, or why i'm this deep in the hole.

none of this is true, of course, and that's easier to see now that i'm clawing back out of that depressive spiral. there are a TON of factors that are making it harder for me to get my work done right now, and i'm working on addressing each of those circumstances as i get the opportunity. but, god, it was SO hard not to see those circumstances as Personal Failures that i'm too incompetent to address.

so hey, seriously, thanks for sending this ask. it stopped my anxiety from kicking me while i was down.

y'know people always ask what you're favorite game is

but nobody ever asks what your least favorite game is

truth be told, that's a much harder question to answer! i'm usually able to wring some enjoyment out of the worst games, if only to laugh at them, explore them in a historical context, or find lessons on what not to do when making a game. even the time i streamed "Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade" – the lowest rated game currently on Metacritic – i got some enjoyment out of laughing at the game with my friend, and i still think of it as one of my favorite early streams!

that means that, generally, my least favorite games sit somewhere in the middle; they're competent enough to not have laughable flaws, but boring enough that i have no desire to finish them. unsurprisingly, i remember very few of these, because they don't leave any impression on me!

so discarding that angle... in the vein of my favorite games of the year being ranked by my favorite memories, the most fun i had – i need to dig through my memories for something so horrifyingly bad that it left a lasting impression on me. and i might just know the answer. so without further ado, here's the story of:

My Least Favorite Game Ever

i like to brag that my first console was a sega dreamcast at any opportunity i can get – it's worth bragging about! that cute little console was way ahead of its time, and i was proud of the library i had built up. sonic adventure 1 and 2, daytona usa 2001, chu chu rocket, rayman 2…

every saturday my friends from the area would come over, and we would all take turns racing each other at sa2 or daytona. my parents would provide us with snacks and drinks – one time they even hosted a daytona tournament! those saturdays are why i love streaming so much, why i love playing mario kart with friends… they were essential to my growth as a kid, and i cherish the memories dearly.

one day, though, we had to move away from my friends in the area, because my dad was graduating and we could no longer live in the apartments on campus. it was a time of great change for many reasons: right before we left, mom found a big gaming deal – we could trade up my dreamcast for a gamecube with a memory card and a free game! so mom managed to drag me to e.b. games and jump on the deal, even though i didn't understand why… my dreamcast works perfectly fine, right?

but it was 2003, and nobody told me that the dreamcast had been dead for two years. few stores carried dreamcast games anymore, and frankly, it was a miracle that e.b. games was offering a trade-up deal this late.

i nervously brought my dreamcast and my precious library of games to the counter. they handed me a list to choose my free game from – just a simple printed list of names, with no covers or gameplay details, no way to look at the back of the box.

i did not recognize a single game on the list.

i nervously tried to back out of the deal, but we were already here, and mom was growing impatient. so i chose the one franchise i recognized – a game called Shrek: Extra Large – and took my new gamecube home.

i HATED it.

the game was dull, short, and crude; it had no life in it whatsoever. i remember 100%ing the game in just the short week between trading everything in and the time we moved. i hated the story, hated the gameplay, hated the music, hated the humor.

i wished i could play anything else… but i had no other games anymore. the dreamcast was my only console, and i sold it all. for this.

worse still, the game had no multiplayer. on my last saturday there, i had to tearfully explain to my friends that i no longer had my beloved dreamcast, so we could not play sonic adventure 2 anymore, and we couldn't even play the one game i did have together.

it stung all the harder when we moved, and i no longer had my dreamcast… or my friends.

as soon as we finished moving, the first thing i did was sell that accursed game. i got a couple bucks back, which was just enough to afford a used copy of Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly – a game that, these days, has a reputation for being glitchy and repetitive.

…and i had WAY more fun with it! the gamecube wasn't a total wash after all!!

before long, i gathered a library of new games i was actually happy with: sonic heroes, crash bandicoot: wrath of cortex… games that most people these days would call "mid." it didn't matter. i was too young to care, too broken myself to notice how broken the games were. i made do.

and then, one day, i finally found Sonic Adventure 2: Battle in the store – and i begged my parents to buy it for me. the void in my heart was finally filled, and the gamecube would go on to become my childhood favorite console.

was Shrek: Extra Large actually that bad? honestly, i don't remember enough about the game itself to speak from experience. wikipedia suggests that it was heavily panned by critics, so it probably was that bad. one day i want to revisit the game on stream and find out for myself…

but does it matter whether it was good or bad? the game is associated with some of my worst childhood memories – trading my familiar dreamcast away, moving away from my friends without getting to play one last game with them, losing everything i held dear as a kid. the game could be an underrated gem, and it would still be tarnished enough that i could never engage with it in good faith.

if that doesn't qualify for "least favorite game," i don't know what does.

————————————

one last footnote… i've always been curious about which other games i passed up on when i traded in my dreamcast for a gamecube. what other games were on the list? a broken fragment of a memory says that Luigi's Mansion might've been on there… which makes sense, because i wouldn't have recognized it as a mario game from the name alone! but given that shrek was even on the list, it was probably just a bunch of other underselling tripe.

so if you know of any way to dig back through time for that info, let me know! it would've been in December 2003 at e.b. ɡames (or possibly gamestop?), and i imagine it was a nationwide deal rather than a local one. i would love to go dig through some old promo paper scans or press releases…