Nesta Jaxxon Presents: The 2020 Year in Review
Intro
Hello again, friends. For the first time ever I’ve decided to write a short companion piece to my annual Game of The Year write-ups. The goal of this “Year in Review” as I’m calling it is to talk a little bit more about some of the more personal aspects in my life that I had to deal with this year. And then move onto discussing some other forms of media that I spent time with this year aside from the usual video games subject that I can’t seem to ever shut up about.
This should be a much shorter read than what you might be used to, and perhaps that’s for the best. I really just wanted to give a quick shout out to some of the things my wife, Zara and I have enjoyed throughout the year. And maybe it will inspire you to check out some of these things too!
But before that…
2020. You know all about it by now. The global pandemic affecting everyone around the world, and the United States government and politics… also somehow sadly affecting everyone around the world in some way or another. That’s all been a dumpster fire from moment one.
For my wife and I however, we had a few other additional challenges we had to tackle this year, and I don’t want to spend too much time discussing private matters, but I feel I should at least explain a little bit about a certain crisis we had earlier on in the year that is actually extremely relevant to several things in this article.
For those who might not be aware. Zara was struggling with an opioid addiction until January 2019. She went to a rehab clinic, quit taking her prescribed percocets entirely, and switched over to taking a drug called suboxone which is used to help treat opioid abuse.
This was a key element in Zara’s recovery, and she continued to take the drug until around the beginning of May of this year, 2020. It was then, for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the cost of the medication, that she was forced to stop taking the drug.
What followed was probably one of, if not the worst months of her entire life. Around the time she first stopped taking the drug, we went through a hellish period of 72+ hours where it was impossible for her to sleep. When she was finally able to actually sleep, she spent the majority of the next week just sleeping.
But that wasn’t the end of the problem. The following weeks would see her dealing with various aspects of emotional and mental instability, and it was generally just a very rough time for her. And for me, to be fair, but only because I just wanted my wife to get better as soon as possible, because it hurt so much to see her struggle like that.
After a little over a month of perseverance, Zara was thankfully able to overcome that humongous obstacle in her life. And I’m so very proud of her, and glad that I was able to be here to help her through that.
But it wasn’t my support alone that helped her through it, it was also thanks to games like Animal Crossing New Horizons, and surprisingly Nioh 2, and Xenoblade Chronicles that helped keep her mind occupied during those tumultuous times. But there were a few other pieces of media that really helped with the recovery process. And we’ll get to those soon. But first!
Video Games
Yes, I’ve already made another lengthy game of the year list you can go read. But there was still one other game from this year that both my wife and I actually grew attached to again and that game was Fire Emblem Heroes.
We’ve both been playing Nintendo’s mobile spin-off of the Fire Emblem series since it came out way back in early 2017. And we never actually “stopped” keeping up with it entirely. But admittedly our interest has waned over time.
For whatever reason, about half a year back we both got sucked back into Nintendo’s first take on gacha games. It’s hard to remember what exactly drew us back in> Was it a particularly interesting banner? Or new game mode? Or what? I’m not entirely sure. But we found a new appreciation for the game nonetheless.
FEH has a ton of different game modes in it at this point, and not all of them are created equal. But the ones that are though inspire you to dig into the game’s surprisingly rich character and team building mechanics to come up with your best parties to tackle the game’s various challenges.
It also helps that Fire Emblem is a series close and dear to our hearts, so it’s pretty easy to get attached to a lot of the new additions made to the roster over the years. If it wasn’t for Granblue-Fucking-Fantasy I would say Fire Emblem Heroes was the biggest gacha related game in our lives this year, but what can you do, I guess?
TV
I guess I would include movies here too if I were more of a cinephile, but the truth of the matter is that both my wife and I spend more time watching TV shows than either movies or anime at this point.
The one anime we did really connect with this year was the first season of Re:Zero that I introduced Zara to with the lead-up to the series second season coming out. I had seen it before, but always wanted to show it to her. And it didn’t take her long to get hooked.
We opted to watch the dub this time, since that’s how my wife likes to watch anime at this point in time if it’s an option. And we were both blown away by how well the English VO was. I was worried it wouldn’t quite sell the drama of Re:Zero, but the English voice cast is every bit as talented.
Also my wife turned me into a… Rem ‘simp’? I guess? Because we both identify with her and Subaru. So… way to go Rem. And, sorry Emilia… orz
In the early parts of the year we were watching all 9 seasons of American Horror Story, which is a series that I really did not want to watch for the longest time. I admit to being a big old coward, and horror isn’t typically my genre of choice. However Ryan Murphy’s continuing horror anthology series proved to be the perfect “reintroduction” to the genre.
Sure, I’m not the biggest fan of every season. But the ones that I count as my favorites: (Murder House, Freakshow, Hotel, Apocolpyse, 1984) were all some of my favorite things I watched this year.
One of the series that we both “rewatched” this year for the first time ever was ABC’s Lost. Both Zara and I were in the thick of the Lost phenomenon back in the earlier days of our relationship and it was really amazing to revisit the show. Sure, some of it doesn’t hold up as well as you might hope. But in retrospect it’s really unlike any other pop culture event we ever saw on TV. And hey, we both learned to finally love the ending, thanks in large to finally understand what the fuck it actually means!
Another fun series that we binged through the second season of was Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy. It’s still hard to imagine that this TV show adaption of a comic by My Chemical Romance’s lead singer Gerard Way is half as good as it is, but it’s a really amazing fucking show. And once again I have to give special credit to Five’s actor Aidan Gallahger who is so impossibly talented at playing an old ass man in the body of a young boy that I had to frequently remind myself that it was still quite impossible for that to happen in real life despite Aidan’s killer performance.
Speaking of superheroes, in a year where people have been bitching about a lack of new MCU content, the superhero genre actually somehow got “super” interesting again in the past couple years thanks to shows like The Umbrella Academy, as well as Amazon’s The Boys, and HBO’s Watchmen.
My wife and I can’t help but associate The Boys with The Umbrella Academy, because not only did we discover them at roughly the same time, but the seasons seem to release at the same time as one another. Whereas The Umbrella Academy isn’t afraid to have a little more fun with its dark narrative, The Boys takes things to the extreme by having some of the darkest humor around.
I don’t know what it says about the fact that they were able to introduce Storm Front as a new villain this season who ended up being simultaneously great in her role, while also being an absolutely disgusting racist piece of shit. But writer/producer Erik Kripke of Supernatural fame was somehow able to walk the line on that one.
We’ll get back to Supernatural in a second.
I also mentioned HBO’s adaptation of Watchmen, a comic that both Zara and I love. We even ended up rewatching Zack Snyder’s Watchmen movie, a movie we loved at the time, but now can’t help but feel a little toothless after watching the HBO series.
Much like The Boys, Watchmen somehow wields a topic as heavy as racism with such an expert grip that it’s amazing to see these subjects handled in such a way. The Watchmen universe has always been deep in that nook of dark humor and storytelling, but this latest addition to the series is a punch in the gut, but in the best way possible.
Thankfully series executive producer Damon Lindelof (Lost, The Leftovers) was able to reign in his perchance for overly depressing as fuck writing after the tortourous The Leftovers that my wife and I begrudngingly finished at some point. Also Watchmen has one of the best soundtracks ever thanks to composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
Now then, speaking of epic soundtracks, dark humor, and Erik Kripke, we have — Supernatural.
Supernatural is an old favorite of Zara and I’s from back in the day. CW’s long running series about two brothers who are all about saving people, hunting things, you know, the family business has finally come to an end this year. And both my wife and I dropped the show around season 10–11 for some reason or another. With news that the show would finally reach its conclusion this year, we’ve gone back to the beginning to watch the boys grow up.
Supernatural is unlike anything I’ve ever watched on TV. And yes, we could sit here and talk about how the show takes turns presenting a monster of the week format, then follows it up with a dash of biblical “lore”, and ends up with episodes with enough “meta humor” to destroy the fourth wall for good.
But it’s really the stand out cast of actors who really make the show shine its brightest. For years my wife and I have been big fans of series leads Jared Padalecki (Sam), Jensen Ackles (Dean), and Misha Collins (Castiel). But there are many other familiar faces in the cast who we’ve grown to love.
Better yet, back around the time season 7 was finished, my wife actually attended a Supernatural convention, and not only met many of the show’s main actors, but gave them pictures she drew of her characters, got autographs from them on said pictures, shared an elevator ride with Mark Sheppard (Crowley), got hugged by Jared, and had a photo op with Misha who *whispered in her ear*!
Needless to say, I was jealous. Of her.
We’re midway through season 13 right now, and sadly we won’t see how it ends until sometime next year. But this is a show that we love more than most. Gonna miss it.
Music
Nearing the end of my article here, I have to take some time to talk about “Music”. Now, my wife loves music, a lot. As evident by the fact that we both go to sleep to the sounds of her phone playing her Pandora station all night, every night. But there are two “musical acts” in particular that I want to call attention to this year.
The first actually brings us back into the TV segment for a moment, back during the point of the year where my wife was going through suboxone withdrawals. One of the things we watched to cheer her up was the comedy series Brooklyn 99. And while that show is currently struggling to find new footing after the year that brought us Black Lives Matter, it’s still a show that is more about the actual cast of characters than actual law enforcement. So I think it gets a pass.
Zara has been a fan of the show for years, but this was my first time watching it. And we binged our way through the currently released seasons of the show. It’s fucking hilarious to say the least, but how this ties into music is thus:
You end up watching a show with The Lonely Island’s Andy Samberg as one of the main characters, and you’re eventually going to end up going and listening to a bunch of The Lonely Island. The trio that consists of Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone has been making us laugh for many years with their impossibly catchy “fake rap” songs that tackled anything from pop culture to punctuation mistakes.
This was an opportunity for us to catch up on their newer work that we hadn’t gotten around to up until this point. And while the feature length film Popstar and its soundtrack have quite a few bangers on it, nothing could prepare us for The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience. A Netflix special, and album of the same name from the trio. Or more accurately Andy Samberg, and Akiva Schaffer primarily (sorry Jorma!)
What started off with such thoughts as “Ugh. Baseball” eventually turned into a fucking obsession with the 80s era Oakland Atheletics, and baseball superstars Jose Canseco, and Mark McGwire.
We spent a *majority* of the year listening to this album on repeat. Singing the songs non-stop. Rewriting the lyrics to parody anything and everything we were doing. Aggressively trying to push the 40 minute long Netflix special onto anyone who would watch it. And I even ended up buying my wife an Oakland A’s baseball cap as part of her birthday present this year.
I think it would be impossible for us to say that this isn’t our favorite The Lonely Island album, and that’s even considering we’ve listened to most of the other albums hundreds of times over the years.
Then finally there’s Neil Cicierega. If you aren’t familiar with Neil, he’s best described as a “denizen of the internet”. He’s responsible for such things as the band Lemon Demon, the creator of things like the Harry Potter “Potter Puppet Pals” YouTube series, and the infamous “Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny” video you’ve probably seen if you know what a “Newgrounds” is.
But, more importantly, the man has given, or rather “cursed?” us with four whole remix/mash-up meme albums sometimes referred to as “The Mouth Experience”.
The first album “Mouth Silence” was first introduced in 2014 and features the most unlikeliest of mash-ups such as “Rollercloser” a combination of Nine Incn Nail’s “Closer” and The Ohio Player’s “Love Rollercoaster” later popularized by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers cover by the same name, and popular early urban myth on the internet.
This style of album would set the stage for the remaining albums in the series. Including the Shrek/Smash Mouth inspired follow-up to Mouth Silence, “Mouth Sounds” also released in 2014. The third album “Mouth Moods” in 2017. And most recently the nightmare infused “Mouth Dreams” from a few months ago in 2020.
When our obsession with The Bash Brothers was finally starting to wane, there was Neil to close out the year with some of the silliest, and irritatingly catchy jams of the year. And has also provided a soundtrack to our life for the past few months here.
Surely we’ve hit peak obsession when my wife starts requesting a Neil Cicierega themed birthday party complete with Shrek decorations and party favors for next year/ Yeah, this actually has happened.
Closing Thoughts
2020 was a rough year on all of us, and we can only hope and pray that next year will be better. Zara and I are already discussing plans to put into motion in the new year, and it will hopefully be a year dedicated to “healing” as we try to recover from what 2020 has wrought.
I forgot to mention another thing that was very relevant in 2020, and that would be the advent of Hololive, and when VTubers took over the world. That’s certainly been a part of our life, keeping up with favorites like Kiryu Coco, Mori Calliope, and Yukoku Roberu, but I don’t think I would be telling you anything you aren’t at least passing familiar with at this point in time. You’re either into it, or you’re not, and wonder why everyone else is.
I don’t blame you.
But with that, that’s another year in the bag for me. Nesta Jaxxon, the artist formerly known as The Nesta, signing out!
