I did what I vowed to never do: spend more than 15 minutes editing a video. For two hours, I slaved away at stitching together scenes to make a pleasant Frankenstein monster. I think it’s my best video yet (sans Editor One).
This edited video looks (relatively) more polished, and the jokes have some level of timing. My ICDIB entry for a Gummy’s Life looks amateurish by comparison, as if a completely talentless person was given a microphone and a controller. My newest video looks slightly less amateurish, as if a completely talentless person was given a microphone, a controller, and editing software. It’s like I went for the second lowest hanging fruit instead of the first, and that level of mental exertion makes me uncomfortably sweaty.
This experience, admittedly, is a gateway
drug. Now that I’ve tasted such refinement, I will no longer be satisfied by
simply recording and posting. I’ll need to chase the high. I’ll spend more time
in Vegas and more energy in creating scripts. My articles will grow sparser
until I barely post any writing at all. All of my creativity will be siphoned
into videos, harnessed into well-timed jump cuts and desperate pleas for likes
and subscriptions.
By the time I’ve plastered my
over-animated face onto thumbnails for reaction videos, it’ll be too late. The
video drug will have destroyed all of my humanity. My family and friends won’t
recognize me. Instead, if I’m discovered, I’ll forever be known only as that
guy that kind-of, sort-of, sometimes sounds like Markiplier.
No, I don’t hear the similarities, but
somehow others have.
Regardless, I’m intoxicated on pride now.
Offer me your criticism so that I may binge on self-pity or arrogance.
When I had planned to propose to Player 2, I plotted what historians now call “the Mega Date.” I would begin the day by taking her out to a quaint waffle restaurant. We’d then go see a movie of her choosing. We’d follow up by returning home to open small gifts and binge on video games/Magic. I would end the day by taking her to a ritzy restaurant which featured an ornate garden where I would deliver the smoothest proposal ever known to humankind:
“You look absolutely stunning tonight. Spending
all of today with you was almost perfect. There’s just one thing missing.” At
this point, I would get down on one knee and throw the ring at her. The plan
was sappy enough to drown us both in maple syrup, but I knew she would devour
any form of romanticism.
Here’s how the day actually went:
Hipsters crowded the breakfast place, but
the food was solid. Unfortunately, it oozed grease, and it attacked Player 2
with a vengeance during the movie. She excused herself from the theater, threw
up, but came back, insisting on watching the rest of the film. When we returned
home, I battled a panic attack as I questioned if a fancy dinner reservation was
a good follow up to vomit. She assured me she was fine, so by dinner time, we
trucked off to the restaurant.
I had not anticipated that it would be dark at 5:30 pm on a November night. Supposedly I had an aneurysm at some point because I should’ve anticipated it’d be dark at 5:30 pm on a November night. As such, the garden proposal was a no go unless I hoped to use the darkness to hide my shame. I wandered around aimlessly, dragging Player 2 with me as I searched for a suitable replacement for the proposal. After ignoring her questions about where we were going for a good ten minutes, I discovered a cute balcony, turned to her, and delivered my monologue:
“You look pretty good but not perfect.” At this point, I collapsed to one knee and gave the ring as a peace offering. Fortunately, she was smitten enough by the ring that she couldn’t see how I had rammed my foot down my throat, through my stomach and intestines, and out my ass to kick myself in the balls.
And we lived happily ever after.
My first official entry in the “I Can Do
It Better” franchise is a little like my proposal. I had a grand scheme to pick
apart a game and reform it into something greater, and I was pretty good for
the first ten minutes, and then I lost the plot. Random issues (such as Elgato
sucking) made the journey harder than I would have liked. Part of me also
feared I would blow chunks over my microphone.
Despite all of this, the whole experience
was well worth it, and I would do it again if I had to. I believe I was the
funniest and calmest I have ever been during a video. The sound quality was
good, and I was able to add a nifty little sound byte at the beginning of the
video. I even had a good time when I watched it the day after the recording.
For once, I do not feel scared to post it on Twitter (apart from how I may
offend the developers).
The moral of this story is shoot for the
moon, and even if you miss, you’ll look pretty when you burn up in the
atmosphere of some far-off planet. Things rarely happen as we expect them to,
but sometimes it all works out. For today’s video and for my Mega Date, it did.
Four months in the making, and I’m finally finished with Angels of Death. I’d say it’s been fun, but that be a lie, and I only lie about my weight and generally everything else. I could also call it a learning experience, but I’d be repeating myself, and I only repeat myself when I lie. Let’s just acknowledge that I made it through with my sanity and a little bit of motivation.
I don’t think I’ll make another “Let’s Play” series, at least for a while. With the 14 videos made for this Angels of Death series, I’ve collected a little under 50 views total, and 75% of those are likely my views. My videos do not typically garner much attention, but with GoNNER and Angels of Death, not even my family and friends were willing to give them a gander.
Nope, it’s time to move on. I experimented
with a new concept with this video, and I think I might roll with it in the
future. For those of you who only read
the video journal and don’t see the video (do you exist?), I pretended to know
how to make Angels of Death better.
First and foremost, I am a critic on this website, and the more I can complain
and ridicule, the more my ego grows and lifts me up to new heights. As such, it’s
logical for me to act like I know more than video game creators. I don’t quite know what game I’ll critique
first, but my current freedom to do whatever I please certainly has me feeling
calmer.
I haven’t said this in a while, but if you
have your own critiques, send them my way. I’m onto the next stage of my
YouTube career.
