Younger Me

(Written in 2021)

Unsurprisingly, I was a much different person back in the early 2010s. I loved anime, striped toe socks, Tamagotchis, computer games and playing mermaids in the pool. I always get a strange kick of nostalgia whenever warmer weather rolls around because summer memories are the bits of early 2010s me that I remember most, so, I thought I'd share a few core parts of what made me me back then.  

Kingdom Hearts 

As I mentioned in my story games post, Kingdom Hearts was a major game-changer for me. It not only introduced me to anime, but it also took over my whole damn life. The ultimate source for nostalgia for me is the KH1/KH2 soundtrack, (really, anything Kingdom Hearts related). Thank you Utada Hikaru and Sora for making my childhood.

Ghibli

Over the years I've come to realize that I only scratched the surface of what Ghibli had to offer. Once I found a Ghibli movie I liked, I watched it on repeat. Kiki's Delivery Service was one of the first movies I ever watched in my life so it will always have a ginormous place in my heart. I really loved Ponyo, Arrietty and Totoro, too.

Everything I did back then was done with my then-best friend 'Noel'. We were lucky in the sense that we had so much in common at the time. We loved Ponyo so much that we used the entire soundtrack for our summer backyard circus.

Vocaloid

Vocaloid was the frontrunner for me at that time, I couldn't get enough. I memorized the dances in my basement and garage, I made my own Vocaloid OC to ship with Gakupo (also made her a Wiki page 👀), I memorized the lyrics, I swear some of those songs will never leave my brain. My friend 'Bean', Noel and myself went to the Lady Gaga concert just to see Miku in the pre-show lol. She may have just been a projection, but we cried. Or at least I did. The first cosplay Noel and I ever did was Len and Rin Kagamine, I loved it. Juvenile by Rin and Len was the first Vocaloid song I ever heard.

Disney World

We were very fortunate in the fact that we got to go on Disney World vacations back then. Cirque du Soleil's La Nouba at Downtown Disney was the core inspiration behind our backyard circus - I remember the second we got back home we started planning. I'll never forget farting around in Disney Quest or how mine and Noel's eyes lit up every time we walked into the Mitsukoshi store in the Japan Pavilion at Epcot. We'd once saved up our money and each bought kimonos (obo and detachable bow and all). I miss that kimono, I got a lovely pink floral patterned one. 

Anime

I have to admit, Noel was way more dedicated to watching anime than I was. But I did watch a fair amount of shows including Black Butler (love of my life at the time), Attack on Titan, Free!, Beyond the Boundary, Inu x Boku SS, Vampire Knight and K-On! (which is where I got my old cosplay nickname from). The last anime I watched was The Ancient Magus' Bride and I adored it. I think I want to get back into watching anime. But Black Butler, holy moly that one consumed me. To this day a self-insert fanfic I wrote based off of that show is still semi-thriving on my Wattpad. 

Little Big Planet

Whenever we think about our childhood, my brother and I always mention Little Big Planet. If we had core games, ours would definitely be LBP. I remember how every day after school we would race home to turn on the PS3 and log on. We made our first online friend in that game (shoutout Fortyabajo) and I remember we always took him to community-made hotel and theme park levels. The soundtracks from both the first and second games are insanely nostalgic for both my brother and I. Definitely a comfort game, in incredibly deep ways.

Kik/TextPlus RP

Back in the day Noel and I were obsessed with RPing and our main hub for doing so was through TextPlus. We kind of skipped the Tumblr boat and went straight to the less popular RP avenues, lol. We would write up our character bios, create a theme and then weave these stories for months on end. I've lost track of how many we made, well over twenty. We always ended up with supernatural themes (vampires, demons, shapeshifters) and of course, the plot existed through romance. I even remember writing up our chapters on Blogger way back when. 

Our in-between periods consisted of finding other people to RP with on Kik and TextPlus. We were once part of a love triangle self-insert (shoutout Maru) and I found two separate people to do Black Butler self-inserts with (shoutout to Alexandria x Desdenova and Oziel x Morio!) 

Wii

Good god, the Wii was everything. I remember Noel and I practicing one specific song on DDR over and over and over for a month straight. And luckily there were many games her, myself and our brothers could all play together like Mario Kart, Wipeout, Super Smash Bros, Rock Band and Just Dance. I remember us spending way too much time on Super Smash Bros, like, an unhealthy amount. 

Gaia Online

As much as I loved playing games with our little crew, I am an introvert so I loved my solo gaming time too. And my solo gaming was spent on computer games - one frontrunner was Gaia Online. I spent an ungodly amount of time on Gaia Online, sitting and people-watching in the Towns, selling special items in the Marketplace, putting transparent pngs on my profile. Shoutout to my girl and all of the dodgy things she experienced (shoutout to the guy that randomly approached me in the Towns one day, then sent me messages about travelling to New York to stay with him at his place and go to NYCC together...)

App Games

App games were crazy popular back then but the two that I loved the most were Restaurant Story and Line Play. I remember getting in trouble for how much real money I was spending on those games for gacha machines and gems. Child gambling at its finest. There was also a Tap Tap game with songs from the Muppets movie rock-edition in it. I gobbled that up on road trips.

VMK

Yikes. Yikes yikes yikes yikes. One of the deepest heartbreaks of my life was this game shutting down. VMK was my happy escape game. I'd spend Saturday mornings on the computer going on the virtual rides, playing the Pirates of the Caribbean game, dancing with strangers, farting around on the outer space race track and at the Sci-Fi Dine-In. I would basically roleplay by myself in game and pretend that I lived at virtual Disneyland (I pretended that the alligator waiter at Blue Bayou was my boy). There were even pins and kiosks for this game at the actual Disney parks. Love of my life. I remember on one of our Disney trips they had VMK kiosks in the Magic Kingdom and I logged in on one and was so giddy to say I was at the real Disney World! Literally nobody cared, lol. My lore started with VMK (Toontown was my runner up).

Shrek Franchise, Lights, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, The Incredibles, Cooking Mama, Crazy Frog, Animal Crossing, Barnyard PS2, Over the Hedge PS2, Spider-Man, Pirates of the Caribbean, Kalel and Anthony

These movies, YouTubers, games and musicians also defined this period of my life. They were on repeat constantly. I remember the four of us kids having sleepovers in sleeping bags in the basement and the second we woke up we'd turn on Shrek the Third and have cinnamon buns for breakfast. Noel and I had our shared loves like Kyary, Cooking Mama, Animal Crossing and Barnyard, and The Incredibles were a group obsession.

Mermaids in the Pool

Who didn't do this? We'd have a neighbourhood friend come over and him and our brothers would be the Mermaid Catchers while Noel and I tried escaping them. They'd stick us under the netting of the pool floaties when they caught us. I had my *hair tuck* moments when the neighbourhood friend bridal carried me when he caught me. I'll be upfront, I kept hoping he'd do it, lol!

Our 'iCarly'

And finally, our 'company'. With our old video camera and our imaginations we filmed commercials (eHarmony, Zhu Zhu Pets and Colgate included), TV specials (a tiger giving birth and being found by two Russian babas), music videos and our own iCarly ripoff. We also had make-believe games like 'Imaginare' and Power Pack (our own Power Rangers) and wrote TONS, I mean TONS of novels. I think that was what I enjoyed the most in this period of my life. We were obsessed with creating characters and choosing how they looked with Lunaii Dollmaker. I was obsessed with this source of escapism and running away into our made up worlds to hide from reality. It birthed my love for OCs and will always be a core memory in my life. 

This period in my life was so turbulent behind the scenes but being able to escape with games and media was a godsend. Luckily the fun and imagination outweighs most of the bad when I reminisce.