Thread by @SquidHominid

It is currently 12:06 AM, January 1st, 2022. We made it. A whole 'nother year.

I'm sitting here, full up on green grapes, herring, black-eyed peas, and champagne, and I'm thinking about how strange things are and have been.

🧵 (1/25)

I make no secret of how my mother wasn't a good person. But something that stuck with me was her New Years traditions. Champagne, black eyed peas, herring, and green grapes. I never questioned it.

It's only now, just after my 29th birthday, that I decided to Google it.

(2/25)

It turns out, it's an amalgamation of traditions. The American South eat black eyed peas and collard greens on New Years, to symbolize luck and money in the new year. Poland and parts of Scandinavia eat herring on New Years to bring bounty and prosperity.

(3/25)

And Spain has 'las doce uvas de la suerte', or 'the twelve lucky grapes'. They eat twelve green grapes, one for each month, to ensure good luck in the coming year.

She wasn't Spanish, she wasn't Polish, she wasn't even from the South.

She was 100% New York Italian.

(4/25)

I have to wonder how these traditions came to her, and how she came to follow them. A strange mixture of traditions, distorted over time and space, until they became embedded in my mind, something I do with the passing of every year, for, no reason, really.

(5/25)

It makes me think of all the happenstance to get me to where I am. @HachiKitsune1 introducing me to V-tubing. @minty_cups and @querrieoh making my model. But, let's go even farther back.

Let's talk about a canceled Pokemon fangame and a forgotten sprite comic.

(6/25)

Pokemon Internet Online: Rising Sun, or 'PIO:RS', was a fanmade Pokemon MMO in the early 2000s. And Kid Radd was probably the greatest sprite comic ever made. One was given a cease and desist, the other forgotten.

Without either, I wouldn't be myself.

(7/25)

Without PIO:RS, wouldn't have been the forum post that led me to both Homestar Runner and the sprite comic Bob and George. Both formative for my sense of humor.

(8/25)

Without Bob and George, I wouldn't have seen the ad for GameCheetz, the comic whose community formed the impetus of my tween-age social circle, and would cause aftershocks through my life for many, many years.

(9/25)

Without Kid Radd... I wouldn't know about EarthBound. Kid Radd was a comic that lovingly parodied games and the act of games preservation, in an original setting, from the perspective of when it was made, 2002-2004.

In it was a game parody called 'MOFO'.

(10/25)

I was unaware Kid Radd was an original work. But its parody of MOTHER enraptured me in concept. A game with an unkillable boss, and a secret ending if you hacked past it?

I set to Google. I did not discover MOFO. But I discovered EarthBound, and Starmen.net.

(11/25)

Starmen.net became, of course, Fangamer. And the community begat many facets of internet culture... Of course, Undertale, but even Homestuck owes its name to a parody of the name 'EarthBound'. And I was there, not posting, but watching. Absorbing.

(12/25)

There were, of course, other influences. The Protomen. Splatoon. My experiences as part of a plural system, and my interactions with the plural community at large. My growing and ongoing obsession with media preservation. Desert Bus. Innumerable influences.

(13/25)

All of those things brought me here, now. If even one thing changed, who would I be?

I would not be myself.

(14/25)

I don't really know where I'm going with this. Just... Think on your past. Treasure the things that made you 'you'. Treasure the people you have, and the life you live, if it's one you enjoy.

Happy new year.

(15/25)

To get back on topic... New Years resolutions.

I want to foster a more healthy relationship with content creation and content consumption. I want to find things that make me happy again that aren't just streaming.

(16/25)

But I also want to be able to take those passions and put them back out into the universe. TikTok. YouTube. I want to finally start executing on the plans I've laid but never followed up on.

I want to share myself with the world.

Streaming is not all that I am.

(17/25)

Of course, I want to keep growing. But I'm blessed to have the following I do already. The friends I do already. I can only hope 2022 lays the foundation for me to chase my passions for the rest of my life.

Lacking any other topics, I'd just like to thank a few people.

(18/25)

@otokagetouka_ch: thank you for being a friend and an inspiration. I know I keep saying it, but you are a shining light in this community, and I hope that you continue to burn, long and bright.

(19/25)

@cheshirepepper: thank you for being you. Your presence is invigorating, your passion for the things you love is intoxicating, and you're just a wonderful person to be around, and a most excellent host.

(20/25)

@mechachoi: thank you for everything. Your presence stabilized me and many others during early 2020, and you've continued to be a force for good and a source of joy well into 2021. Never change.

(21/25)

@missylanieous: thank you for always being there. You were one of my first supporters on Twitch, and I am eternally grateful to you for always believing in me as a creator and as a friend.

(22/25)

@Its_Dooper: thank you for...god, so much. You're one of the kindest, most outgoing people I've ever met, and one of the most talented streamers I've ever seen. Twitch doesn't deserve you, and you deserve nothing but the most profound success, in everything you do.

(23/25)

I only have two tweets left so I'm gonna just tag as many people as I can who I left out. @ClydeMandelin @floatypoe @reidman @lalalei2001 @PBYukiOnna @BubblyOasis @corvidkai @obskyr @venort @ns_maxd @G1mbal_ @HachiKitsune1 @minty_cups @Maple_QB @paddlesnake @cyanrabitt

@Zemixy @RockwellLight @CapnCocoCharms @piggehpublic @Fuwakami @vidStrickland @Ulnerr @yourgayerFriend @MassMonarch @RevelGeekdom @SkullyVT @silv3rs1de @LadySylvianas @querrieoh @retrotink2 @melonyswife @bnuy32 @SaxClips @rassicas @fannypakpak @SkylaeraTV @MadiTheImmortal @SRylof

Adding one extra tweet on the end after the fact please go follow @ickacangmachine

ok thank you bye

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