dutch found some really good deals on some newer leon merch items and very kindly got me some as well!

we found a super nice seller on ebay that had everything really fairly priced. when the package arrived the seller even thrown in some freebies(a death island sticker and a capcom exhibit keychain!!), the capcom store bag, and the capcom exhibition pamphlets. dutch dm'd him to thank the seller for their generosity and they very kindly offered to get some more items from the capcom exhibition for us the next time they went! so we have a few more items OFD today... i hope we can continue to build a relationship with this seller, they're very kind!

when i found out the capcom exhibit had these really cute transparent leon photocards, i was so excited. i love taking pictures and i always want to bring a little leon with me but i'm always so scared that something will happen to them. this photo card is perfect! i've got it in a photocard holder from daiso, on a nice unbreakable keychain rn, so i can always have it on my purse!

the little leon uniform charm is very small, i was expecting it to be much larger. if you're thinking about getting this charm, i wouldn't spend anything over like. 15-20 USD max on it. it's not worth the 40-50 USD prices i've seen it going for...

i gave dutch the kigu leon plush keychain i got last year because it looked so cute with his weskers... he very kindly got me one of my own! it's so cute... i love this so much, they're releasing an ada soon and we're really hoping we can find her for a good price!! hoping they also make a wesker so we can have all three of our faves!

my leon collection keeps growing and i'm so lucky to have a butch like dutch that is always spoiling me!!

i was browsing neocities today and came across a site that had something like "i will automatically disregard your opinion on a game if you've only ever watched a let's play." with some cutesy emoji after it in their about. across their page were multiple "i actually played *game*" stamps and the like. like jesus christ. they will be handing out your gamer medal of honor any day now, babe. of that i'm sure.

aren't you embarrassed? don't you think that is an embarrassing opinion to have in the year of our lord 2025? like ur 30, be so for real with me.

are you not aware of the fact that video games keep getting more and more expensive? vintage games are even harder to find and prices are through the roof. it's ridiculous and people are incredibly lucky if they can afford the console/pc AND the 70 USD price tag(more if its vintage!!!) of the fucking game nowadays! like of course they're going to watch a let's play and i don't fucking blame them!

besides, what fucking standing does actually having played the game give you?

i'll give you a hint. it's none.

it gives you literally nothing over someone who "only" watched a let's play. i know plenty of assholes that have actually played the game and they know less than shit about it and their opinions are also. Shit. some of the worst people i know have actually played the game.

i don't understand the impulse to gatekeep or sort people into real fan/fake fan categories based on if they actually played the game. like if you are going to judge someone's "true fan status" shouldn't it be for their interpretations of the lore/characters/whatever? idk. like as long as they know what the fuck they're talking about shouldn't that be enough??

resident evil fandom, for example, is really, really bad about this. "if you didn't play the games don't call yourself a fan." this same person, who actually (apparently) played the game refuses to acknowledge the eugenics that wesker/spencer/umbrella employ to reach their goals, etc. meanwhile, someone that's only ever watched let's plays is pointing out all the real-life parallels the game uses to not so subtly smack you over the head with umbrella's eugenics ideals and the "real fan" is arguing that it's just a zombie shooter and if they actually played the game they would know its not that deep.

like you can have 2 million hours in a game and still be an idiot about it. people do it every day. actually playing the game for 2 million hours proves nothing, especially if you're still arguing a game about eugenics and biowarfare isn't about eugenics and biowarfare. it just proves you're a dense idiot who has no media literacy.

like i don't get it, of all the things to judge someone's fan status on, it would not be if they actually played the stupid game or not. you get the same information from a let's play that you do the game because someone is actually playing the game no matter what anyway so what does it fucking matter!!! stop being a cunt!

p.s: sorry for all the emphasis on actually LOL but i really want to drive home how stupid it looks and sounds

on friday afternoon, dutch's sister came over and we went to a sushi place that we all love. dutch and his sister got a deep fried roll and i got a delicious seared salmon roll... it was so so good. after dinner we went to a local book-off. dutch's sister is really getting back into her haikyuu era so we helped her look for some stuff in the giant wall of charms/pins/smalls that they had. we managed to find some which was cool! i also found some goodies while looking on her behalf, mainly some yakuza and pop team epic things. i also found a little chiikawa mini fig. dutch found me a lil pompompurin suitcase and a chunichi dragons kewpie charm! they're both so cute. everything was about 3.00 USD which is nice because sometimes these smalls on the resell market are... super overpriced! we also found a really cute plush bunny ears charm that we got because i thought it would look cute on my leon figs...

while looking around the store i also came across the pop team epic soundtrack on CD for like 9.00 so i got that as well...

here's my (incomplete) haul! click images to enlarge please! not pictured: kiryu magnet that's on our fridge, a pop team epic charm that's on my purse, and my chunichi dragons charm is on my DS!

after we got some taiyaki soft serve and went home. i've been playing silent hill 2 remake for dutch's sister so we played that until late into the night before going to bed.

the next day we really wanted this local hot pot place. and while i love their hot pots, they have these new really good pepper lunch sizzling plates! we each got one and some milk tea that was also really good.

afterward, we walked off our delicious meal at a book store that dutch's sister also happens to work at. we found the final fantasy vii remake material ultimania(only $20 with dutch's sister's discount!!) AND! on the way to a smile!!! i was so excited!!! i also finally decided to get this book, butter, that i pick up literally every time we go jfghfjkg. i hope it's good, I've been having such bad luck with books lol. dutch also got some books that we were both interested in reading but i was too nervous about fully committing to... v_v;

we went to a few more stores after the bookstore before going to get taiyaki soft serve again... it's so good... matcha ice cream, taiyaki with red bean filling... what more could you want...

we went home and played silent hill 2 for the rest of the evening(and into the early morning LOL) i beat it and got the leave ending, which i think is a good one for someone's first time experiencing the game. dutch's sister really seemed to enjoy it and afterward, we watched the other endings so she could get the full experience.

i had so much fun, i love when we all get to hang out, eat, and catch up. i always look forward to spending time with them!

i'm sure every millennial feels like we grew up in the golden age of tech, gaming, the internet, etc. but i genuinely think we did. sure, it wasn't perfect. the internet has always been horrific... at least it was relatively user-friendly back in the 90s-early 2000s. i mean do you remember when youtube had no ads to speak of and a majority of things weren't behind paywalls? there was also no ai slop to wade through, google was actually functional. like. i miss it so much lol

I've been feeling the same way about gaming. i've been so disenchanted with it for so long now i've kinda forgotten what it feels like to be excited for a game/console. consoles are so bad now. i feel like they do less and cost more. sure the graphics are better or whatever but i do not care if i can see a character's pores if it means the game is 135+ GB and i can't have more than three current gen games on my hard drive without having to buy an external. like it's so frustrating. user customization has been done away with in favor of having ads everywhere. sony won't let you do shit without a PS+ subscription, Nintendo has now adopted this mantra. i paid $500 for this console and you won't even let me have no ads or use the internet i pay for???? like fuck offfff. i'm so over it.

games are getting more and more expensive, have less content, and are seldom finished upon release. dogshit PVP microtransaction slop dominates the market. (thanks valve!) like its just fucking grim. if devs do decide to finish the game post-release sometimes they'll "kindly" patch it in for free, like GEE! thanks for completing the game i paid 70 USD for that's so fucking stellar of you, cunt(looking at you baldur's gate 3!). or they'll charge $30 and say oh hey it was actually DLC, LOL! fuck youuuu!

Like, i have most modern consoles and to this day do you know what i'm playing on them? Games from 20+ years ago. and from what i've seen, this seems to be the way it goes for a lot of other people too. i'm not gonna pretend like i don't play and enjoy new games, because i do. but it just doesn't have the same feeling it did was i was kid/teenager.

i mostly hate that they are trying soooo fucking hard to make physical media obsolete. buying digital at this point just means they can take the game away from you, it means less than nothing. even buying physically kinda sucks atp! like i have the disc and you're telling me i have to install the ENTIRE game and also still be forced to use the disk?? like girl. what the fuck are we doing.

finding older games physically is also hell on earth, silent hill is basically a pipe dream to own unless you get insanely lucky and find someone that doesn't know what they have. even old resident evil games that are much more abundant than the SH series are priced incredibly high for reasons i don't quite understand. like there isn't a scarcity of these things. like rule of rose, haunting ground... fine, whatever, i still don't think they should be $400+. like dude, i'm not paying that for a game i know you either A. Thrifted for $10, B. found beat to shit in your parent's garage. like sorry! no!

what's worse is that a lot of these older gamers are also just fucking snobs about it. "oh you only played the remake not the original.....?" LIKE YES, BITCH! BECAUSE THE ORIGINAL IS BEHIND A 300 DOLLAR EBAY TRANSACTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! other people are not the enemy, you jackass. it's capcom, Konami, etc. because they refused to port their old games. i still get talked down to in an re4 2005 shirt as much as i do in a re4r shirt anyway, so like i don't actually think any of you give a shit if someone's played the originals. you just want to be an elitist dickhole to feel better about yourself for some reason. but whatever. i'm getting off track.

my point still stands.

i just miss gaming. i miss when things didn't reflect corporate values and bottom lines. i miss when it was stuff made by people who gave a fuck about the experience and satisfaction of the players.

i'm insanely lucky that my gf and i are physical media collectors and have managed to keep a majority of the games and consoles from our childhoods. it sucks that this isn't the case for everyone and that gaming is becoming more inaccessible even though it's all considered "outdated" and now modern gaming is on the same track because companies are getting greedier and greedier.

dutch and i went to the zoo sunday! it was a lot of fun, i always love hanging out with him. we found these adorable magnetic plushies of a tarantula and a crocodile and he got them for us. they're so cute and so us :3c he looked so cute looking at all the reptiles with it clipped to his shoulder bag. i love him so so much.

click images to enlarge!

we stuck to one side of the zoo, the bugs and reptiles. we have such a big zoo i love walking it but usually, by noon it's unbearably packed so we dip and go grab some lunch. we went to a local japanese market and i got some of my favorite seared salmon nigiri with gochujang mayo! it's so good i could cry. i got some oi ocha, my fave green tea, and some matcha cookies.

after the market we went to a local book-off, it's a store that buys and sells video games, books, movies, anime merch, etc. their prices can be kinda insane but sometimes we luck out and we find a good deal. we lucked out and found FF7 remaster deluxe edition for a good price, the ff7 advent children movie, re6 deluxe edition guide and a cute tsum tsum costume for leon... :3

here are some close-ups of the artbook and steelbook in the deluxe edition:

after we were done with book off dutch was craving some taiyaki ice cream so we went to a local place. i always get the matcha flavor and whatever it's swirled with that week.

here's some purin stickers outside of the taiyaki place that i loved

it was a very fun day! i'm so lucky to have a wonderful butch like dutch that spoils me like he does!

chickpea had some dental work done last week and during her recovery, I was having a health scare of my own. i was really scared it was my heart or was going to end up being my heart. turns out being a bit of a hypochondriac with a paranoid anxiety disorder is a recipe for disaster lol. i was unsure if i was insured and knew that it would literally be cheaper to... die than it would be to go to the er. i love the usa. my mom and dutch both assured me that if it was my heart that i more than likely would've already succumbed to whatever the hell was going on. i was still scared, sent myself into a panic attack on wednesday and finally decided i should just go to urgent care.

i dug around and found out that i was insured thanks to the ACA(yay), so i looked in my provider network and found an urgent care that accepted my insurance. we went and i explained everything. they didn't seem at all worried about my heart and i told them the pain had started in my sternum and eventually most of it was just focused around the side of my breast and near my armpit. the fact that it was happening on the left side made me scared it was somehow my heart hence... why i was now there because not knowing for sure was driving me crazy. everyone was super nice, i was really thankful. i don't have a good history with doctors and it was refreshing to feel like i was being listened to for once.

the doctor examined my breast and unfortunately found a lump. She said because it was just now causing me issues and because there's no discoloration of my skin/visible lumps in the area its very unlikely its anything scary. she said it's mostly like an issue with a milk gland or some type of benign cyst that has decided to randomly become irritated. She told me either way i need to get an ultrasound done on it to be 100% sure what it is. she wanted to order one for me but it needed to come from my primary care doctor so she told me to call them and have it set up.

i called my PCP the next day and found out that the primary care doctor listed on my card no longer accepts my insurance so i had to call my insurance and get a new PCP. it was so. annoying. LOL but the people on the phone were really nice and helpful and told me they would be happy to change every but i unfortunately have to wait for the change to take affect in april otherwise i may be stuck with any bills, including my urgent care visit, that i had this month. so. i unfortunately won't know more until april.

i'm really relieved it's not my heart, but still worried it's something serious. still, going really helped take a huge weight off my shoulders and for that i am thankful.

i fucking hate leon kennedy fans. yes, i am including myself in this statement. my overemotional investment in this character has caused me more frustration than like. 90% of my hobbies, including learning how to code. something that's actually pretty difficult to learn(for me anyway), but somehow saying "i like leon kennedy" on the internet seems infinitely harder and more frustrating to deal with... it's actually ridiculous. and honestly, really fucking embarrassing, especially at my age! i hate it! like can i please just have like... a normal, passive attachment to anything? can i be chill about anything. i'm too old to be over passionate and over possessive with a fictional character.

but. my god. some of his "fans" are just. so fucking stupid.

i've been working on my leon shrine lately, something i usually kinda like doing. i get to just... drown myself in resident evil(leon) stuff. fill my brain and focus on a topic i really love. i was thinking about adding a gif of one leon's idle animations from re4r, so i stupidly went looking in his tag on tumblr. rookie mistake, looking in a character's tag, i know. but i thought i'd be safe if i searched for something specific like leon kennedy gif. it usually worked when i was looking for specific gifsets of games and stuff. but of course tumblr's search function is effectively useless at this point in time, so i was subjected to about 200 leon kennedy x reader fics, which. is annoying on the best of days, no offense. but like put that shit under a read more, holy fucking shit.

leon's tag is. a special kind of hell though.

look. i get it. fanfics are fantasy, kinks, not subject to criticism(apparently lol, but i disagree!), not that serious, whatever.

but i really fucking have to wonder. do any of these cunts ACTUALLY like leon s. kennedy??????? because WHY the FUCK are almost ALL of these dogshit reader fics shit like "stepbro leon finally gets you all to himself!", "yandere leon s kennedy", "corrupt cop leon kennedy extorts you for sex!", "leon s kennedy is an abusive drunk husband that beats the hell out of you", "leon s kennedy rapes you!"

HELLLLOOOOO??????????????????????????

did we play the same games??? watch the same cutscenes?????? see the same leon s. kennedy??????????????

look, i know i'm getting emotional and letting my own bias about leon's character show here. but i don't think even in "fantasy" leon would be down to roleplay any of the above shit if he were real. fuck even in his own canon, he wouldn't. even in his Worst iterations, leon has never been an abusive drunk, incest-prone, rapist. i know it's fantasy, but how can you get off to something like that when it's literally not even leon s kennedy's character being written or considered in this kink fantasy atp? like i CAN NOT wrap my head around it.

how is it a sexy character x reader fic when it ceases to be the character. like. i'm sorry. Leon's whole thing is basically that he's an incorruptible goodie two shoes cop. please be seriousssssssssss wtf do you mean 'corrupt cop leon' like shutttttttt uppp! tbh i think if his partner asked him to choke them he would hesitate. like. he doesn't strike me as a person who would be into rougher/darker kinks just because he would be hesitant/scared to "hurt" his partner even in a kink scenario that his partner was asking for. he's a very "vanilla missionary with eye contact and kissing" type of guy imo lol, but i know that's my own headcanon and that may seem just as absurd to these people as their x reader fics are to me lol.

idk, i'm not into "darker" fics so maybe i just.. don't get it or whatever but. like. i just cannot get over people stripping leon of any shred of his character to make him their weird incest fantasy daddy dom sex bot LOL.

and i even skimmed one out of a morbid curiosity that bordered on self harm bc i knew it would upset me at best and send me into a full blown panic attack at worst and also because it was just. there. not under a read more. for god and everyone to be forced to witness. and i know i can "keep scrolling" or whatever these profiction dipshits like to tell us supposed quaker pilgrim anti-sex police lol but like... its also your fucking responsibility to make sure this shit is properly tagged omfg. i didn't finish skimming it because it was Fucking Bad but what i did read was just really horrible awful porn dialog and a barely recognizable "leon" fucking some waifish pure milky skinned delicate thin womanchild cottage core lolita manic dream girl. that is my whole other issue with x reader fics that i won't get into. you're saying x "reader" but suddenly my fat ass is slipping into size 4 jeans and a tube top? or assigning this coquettish femininity to the reader. just say "x OC". also explode. and i mean that. anyway. another rant for another day.

like everything i've ever seen of these x reader fics just feels hollow and empty of the erotic thrill they're poorly trying to emulate LOL like it vaguely reminds me of this post that dutch showed me the other day.

"no hint of erotic, just an amalgamation of current internet trends."

they literally hit the nail on the head. LIKE... IT'S SO BAD! just cheap, knock-off "eroticism".

i'm all for writing nsfw of leon. i do it all the time. love it! but jesus christ, can you at least pretend to try to make him closer to his actual personality and character??? i know he's hot but if you write about leon without knowing anything about him other than hes hot, do everyone a favor and throw your fucking computer out the window!

idk. idk. like. i'm stupid for letting this piss me off but am i as stupid as the people posting these dogshit headcanons and x reader fics? i don't think so!

as i said, the 28th was dutch and i's anniversary, our 10 year to be exact! i can't believe it's been 10 years with him.... an amazing honor and privilege. i love him so much and it's been so amazing to be a part of his journey and watch him turn into the butch he was always meant to be... my darling dutchie... i love you so!

we started our anniversary with a favorite spot, the local zoo! i really love our zoo, we have some amazing animals and very large and beautiful aviaries, insect enclosures, and reptile houses. walking around the zoo and holding hands with dutch and pointing at cute little animals and going "that's you!" or "that's us" when we see a pair cuddling will never get old.

we mostly stuck to one side of the zoo as we were on a bit of a time crunch and couldn't stay as long as we would normally like. we went to one of our favorite sections because it has the reptile house, an aviary, and insects all in one convenient little corner so we could both see our favorites.

click images to enlarge!

i had so much fun... i love the zoo!

we left around noon and made our way to the cheesecake factory... can i just say the decor of this place makes no fucking sense. the cheesecake is so good though... we got the salted caramel cheesecake and omfg.... heaven...!!!

after our delicious lunch we made our way to the nearby theater to see... nosferatu! i loved this movie. the other 6 people in the audience were dead silent after, it was so funny. very good and beautiful film and i look forward to watching it again.

we had a wonderful day, i love hanging out with my handsome butch... looking forward to the next 10 years together... and forever after that!

the next day his anniversary present arrived! the beautiful ada 1/6 by master team! she's gorgeous!

my hatred for the soft "seamless" bodies a lot of these companies favor aside, she's gorgeous. for an unlicenced figure i think she's got an incredible likeness to her in-game model and i love her beautiful cheongsam...

she also came with her default re4r outfit and an extra head. dutch's hot toys ada he purchased last year had unfortunately been re-bodied so he purchased her original body on ebay and that left us with an extra that was now coming in handy! I dressed it up and passed her over to dutch. two figures in one was a nice surprise and that meant we both got to enjoy our adaversary ^_^!

sometime between now and march our present toys 1/6 scale wesker's are meant to be shipping out which i hope is true.. i am worried about how i'm going to rearrange my shelves when he gets here tho lol! the master team figures i have ENORMOUS stands and it's actually kinda crazy how much room they take up. but for now... my beautiful butch/femme couple looks great on my shelf and are anxiously awaiting their third wheel <3

goals for my website:

-picture a day diary. need to find a media-heavy free code i can use and tweak lol
-game logs for all games i play this year (except games i replay a lot?)
-archive all 2024 diaries and add them to my website map
-finish leon, ada, and wesker shrines.
-make shrines for carlos, jill, medic, isabelle, pompompurin, quiet, and michael myers.
-LEARN MORE CODING!!!!

goals for myself:

-work out more :/. dutch got a walking pad for xmas so i think i can manage this
-draw a leon a day traditionally. i really miss traditional art so. i wanna get back into it.
-finish all the unplayed games in my libraries BEFORE i buy any new ones!!!
-get back into journaling of some sort, digital or physical...
-read more. been on a huge reading kick and i've loved it. hoping i can keep it up through the year

gonna try to hold myself accountable this year and get shit done... fingers crossed!!!