2025 Retrospective
This is a personal piece I've been hoping to write for awhile but have always put off due to, well, a lot of reasons. Would it get me in trouble, does it matter, and would anyone care? In the end, I decided to write it.
This document reflects my thoughts and my thoughts alone. Please do not harass or attack anyone mentioned in this blog, thank you.
This is not meant to be a personal attack on anyone as private names have been removed due to privacy.
If you’re also reading this, thank you.
Blogs
I started the year off on January 1st with Horror Sans VS Starved Eggman. This was a duo blog between me and Fenic, another blog creator and prominent creator. I handled Horror while she handled Starved. This was mostly done because I wanted to do a duo blog with someone and also Shifu Splinter was in heavy production.
I had fun going through Horrortale. Undertale AUs have a certain reputation for a cringe-like fanbase and I definitely was one of those. I grew up in the time of Undertale AUs, which was a terrifying fanbase to be in when I was my age. Horrortale is surprisingly well produced, I only remembered it from the game (which, funny enough, the demo to the sequel of the game got released during production?)
The blog had a surprisingly good reception. For being what I expected to either flop, or perhaps be slightly controversial due to the Sonic Character L, this blog put the matchup on the map for some people.
Again, shoutout to Fenic, genuinely one of my favourite people I've had the pleasure of working with.
My original idea for a TMNT blog was to do Baxter Stockman VS Dr. Animo, due to my own personal love for both that matchup and Dr. Animo himself. My mod team suggested that I should do this, covering KFP and TMNT in one big blow.
People had always had issues with comping the TMNT characters, me included, so we chose the 2012 version of Splinter due to thematic relevance. Shoutout to the KFP side of the team who locked in, doing everything they needed to so I could focus on TMNT.
This took a couple months to do and while it ended up being stressful towards the end, did actually end up fun. I think we made a good argument for all different ends of the verse, even if I’d rather be caught dead than buying uni for these two.
People hated this blog. Mostly due to the fact that I entertained the higher tier arguments of those who, some even stating that it’s bad to even do that. Uh, which is strange! It did bang in views though, so, can’t complain.
Dr. Manhattan VS Richard Nixon
I’ve always been a fan of this matchup, which was originally meant to be done by Matchup Madness, but he was gone long enough to where people believed that this could now be covered. I wanted this one, due to my love of analog horror and this matchup.
This ended up being a fun one. Watchman quickly grew into a comic series that I was enamoured with, even buying the physical book to read in between my breaks at university. Production time was great and everyone had a pretty fun time on the blog.
I’m proud of the final product. I agree with holding Manhattan just to Watchman due to the thematics and the creators intentions for Watchman, although i’m not going to act like some sort of moral superiority if you like DC Manhattan in this. Like what you like, goobers.
I still think this is very debatable, maybe even a Nixon W now given that there’s been a lot of developments with the Monument Mythos. The matchup came down to “Do you buy immeasurable Manhattan?” Which, within the context of Watchman, is a shaky feat. I'm glad people ended up liking this one, it also did well in views.
Adam Smasher VS Frank Horrigan
Ah. This one.
Adam Smasher VS Frank Horrigan was a matchup I loved. For a time, it was arguably my most wanted death battle idea. I wanted to cover Fallout and Cyberpunk, since Fallout is my second favourite franchise of all time and Cyberpunk is one that I loved. Fallout stats have always been contentious, especially with the nuke scaling and Cyberpunk haven’t been greatly covered. So, this was the perfect matchup for me to do, right?
It started out fine, progress on both sides was moving quickly and it was a fun discussion. At least, until it wasn’t. I’ve honestly forgotten about a lot of what happened, maybe because thinking about it hurts. I, for a lack of better words, fell out with a friend group I was a part of. This included one of the researchers on the blog, who I had planned many duo blogs with and this very summer was supposed to be a really big blog covering Majima vs Zenigata, which felt true. This ended up mentally messing me up, although I’ll explain more in the “where did I go?” Section. The end project of the blog was good, although I still think Frank wins, which seemed to be the common conclusion.
This started the end of my blogs. I didn’t know it yet, but this started a slow decline. I was so hurt and associated my work with such hurt. Why would I ever wanna do it? I considered deleting Frank VS Adam multiple times, over and over did I just want to remove that blog. But, due to other people’s work, I kept it up.
My next project would basically be last.
SCP-173 VS Weeping Angels
I made this duo blog with Sherm. I wanted to cover Doctor Who and Sherm is always a pleasure to work with, genuinely one of my greatest friends in this community (watch fan battle cast ya’ll)
Easy work progress, as me and Sherm just did this casually. We would find things, talk about it, put it into the document, all done! This was great work, even if the blog died as soon as I went to update it with a thing Sherm forgot (thanks Sherm /j)
The verdict is correct, although it probably has some nuances that could change it. Specifically into if 173 can bypass regeneration or not through their fights with SCP 682. Weeping Angels also had some things missed, like the RPG which the wiki just omitted.
Cornetto Trilogy BR
I made this when i was in a depressive episode, I needed to get something out and I had watched all three of these movies very recently. I don’t have much to say, you can kinda see the rushed quality of the project.
Doomsday Duel
Doomsday Duel was a project I started with another member of this community. I wanted to make a VS show in the style of Fan Battle, because that show showed that people can cook outside of visual stuff.
It was just meant to be a bit of fun and that’s what father Belos was, just to get eyes on us and adapt a great matchup. It’s also one of the first times I worked with Sherm (from the fan battle cast) who did an amazing job.
It did have a lot of flaws, which showed early. I’m not an editor, far from it, and the format really limited it. What helped was the community that we had built up, which were incredibly excited about what we made. Boros Battle Beast turned out better, at least.
I just kinda got overwhelmed. Production became slogs and my mind just deteriorated, so I stopped making them. Just turned off production and left without Cyn Smith (although the fight was done lol)
With the (upcoming) segment on Nebula Theater, I probably won’t be bringing it back. Not that it’s entirely impossible, I would just want to work with a bigger team who want to work on a vs show. Mainly, just someone who can edit because that is not my talent.
Where Did I go
I ran.
In the summer, I lost my friend group. It’s difficult and still hard for me to talk about it, but I ended up alone. I had, without a doubt, fucked up. While the situation was far more complex than even I thought about, I hated myself. I didn’t think that I deserved to have any of the good things that happened to me, that I was always going to this fucked up failure. It got bad, so bad to the point where my life felt like it lacked meaning. If it had ended at some point, I wouldn’t have minded. I cried and hated myself for so many months for things that I blamed myself for.
Considering I had made those friends through VS, VS became a source of sadness for me. I didn’t want to interact with anything that I had enjoyed before. Blogs, scripts, I associated so many matchups with that pain. I couldn’t even look at certain characters, which is dumb, but it’s how I felt.
I was locked into the perspective of everyone who hates me. Which isn’t new for me, I assume that most people don’t like my presence because of what I constantly blamed myself for. Everyone knows everyone, right? Why the fuck would anyone want to be around me with such a horrible person I was?
Most days I would struggle to get out of bed. To the people I was around I just kinda chose to try and hide it from them, as successful as that was. (It wasn’t). I wasn’t great to be around, kind of liked a black hole that swallowed happiness and joy, at least from my perspective.
One night, during a breakdown, I had enough. I had just tried to join my own podcast server back to revive it and was told to promptly fuck off. This event spiralled and spiralled until I removed most of the VS people on my friends list who I wasn’t in daily contact with, and left every death battle server I was in.
Around that time, I lost my dog. She was a part of my family for so many years and that just kinda broke me. I couldn’t do anything I loved anymore.
Even now, as I’ve poked my head back into certain vs spaces, I’m scared. I’m scared that I’m this literal monster that people think I am, which still happens today. My feelings about myself, the self hatred, I feel is so baked into my identity that I assume quite literally that everyone I knew hated me.
Despite all this, I'm not looking for pity. I just want an outlet to get this out. As much as this is “Saul cries at the wall for ten minutes.” I just want people to kinda understand why I’m not publicly anywhere.
Nebula Theatre
I’m a member of Fan Battle cast, a show made by Sherm. A YouTuber known as Plimepf started to review it and apparently, due to the fact he was apparently impressed because of…something?
Anyway, I joined the show and quickly started to gain many jobs. From starting off as a researcher, getting into writing, being offered the director position to becoming the lead Researcher. I’m a “man of many hats.” Or “hate free time.” Depending on who you’re asking.
I think nebula came at a time I needed it. I started to just kinda resent my feelings towards the VS community. I want to thank the team for giving me a chance to be apart of this, it means so much to me.
The Doctor
I approached Fiction in October about his upcoming Doctor character blog. I had heard that he was doing it and wanted to, at least, offer some of my services. Doctor Who is my favourite franchise ever and someone taking on that big of a task? Funny enough, Fiction was going to approach and ask me the same thing. I’ll be honest, I was terrified. I didn’t know Fiction that well apart from some blogs and I felt like I had been hurt enough to not want to help. But, I did offer, so I helped.
While Fiction said I was a big help, I felt like I could’ve done more. This was my favourite franchise ever and I felt like I left him to do all the writing, I could’ve done more audiobooks. But, if he thinks I helped, I can’t particularly be the judge of that.
Most of all, I was terrified for this blog to come out. Having my name publicly attached to a project like this was scary. I considered asking Fiction to take my name out of the research part or go under a fake name, be cheeky and call myself John Smith, but ultimately the blog came out.
I’m not in Death Battle servers like the official, so I don't know how people reacted. But those I talked to was proud of what I did, so, i'm happy with that.
Conclusion
Life is weird now. I still have things going on, between therapy and medication I’m definitely better than I was, but it still all hurts.
But i’m not surprised with everything that’s happened that my name, seemingly, gets whispered around the community. I understand why people who I thought I was on good terms with have suddenly begun to cut me off, I really just really resent it.
Life sometimes feels like looking at a waterfall. With everyday I inch either closer or further away from it, for better or for worse. I have some good days, some bad days, but it feels like a constant battle.
I didn’t want to leave you guys without an update, I think that would be unfair for the people who still want more content out of me. I will not be returning to blogs. I just don’t feel right in that space anymore, mentally not welcome, which is fine. Maybe i'll come back one day, but things would have to chance in my self-perception, but I wouldn't be going to therapy if that was the case!
It’s hard to type, but thank you. Thank you to everyone who worked on these blogs, who read them, who commented and shared them around. It started out as me sitting in my home, dogsitting, watching Hello Neighbour audiobooks on my TV because I was interested in the matchup.
If you have one take away from this, please, just leave me alone. Don’t start drama off of this, I just wanted to use this to get my own thoughts and grievances out. One of the only reasons I haven’t released Dalek sentinels is out of fear of people seeing me.
Also i’m going to fulfil my bait on reddit (Sorry Folks). Junko Joker will hopefully be out sometime in March, at latest, with Genm VS Kaiba being out in May, at latest. Being a late-stage university student does mean I don’t have time to cook as much as I would want to.
Also watch Fallout season 2 plz.
