User blog:MetaMachine/2018: The biggest year of my life

Hello everyone! MetaMachine here and it’s been awhile since i posted any blogs on the wiki...Again. And i’ll get into that later but this blog is going to be a sort of, “Retrospective” of what 2018 was like for me. Because most years kinda blend together with a few notable good and bad things. But this year i’d say has been the most important year in my life as some of the best AND worst moments of my life came from this year and i want to talk about what happen this year that affected and changed me as a person. Good and bad, And I’ll give a general update on what i’m doing and what I will be doing on the wiki now that more people are back on it with the reveal of Season 6 of ERB coming out in Spring and the surprise upload of Musk vs Zuckerberg.

So I have a vague idea when some things happened but some things I forget when exactly they happened so i’m going to try to go over things as the year went on but things might not be exact. But i know that the first big thing that happened was January 30th. When i was invited to join the old Discord server for this wiki and got to talk to people in the community outside of the wiki.

To give a little bit of background early this year i made a blog called, “Top 10 Fanmade Rap Battles of 2017” Which got a good amount of the wiki reading and talking about it. And i do want to say that while i think rereading it’s okay my opinions on the list have changed a lot and i’m going to make a quick atonement saying my new opinions and what i would’ve changed if i made it today.

Satoshi and Satoko vs Satoshi vs Yuka is MUCH better than Rick and Morty vs Peabody and Sherman and i would’ve picked that as the Skeep battle for the list and it would be higher than number ten.

Kirby vs Pac-Man isn’t as good as i thought at the time and wouldn’t be on the list

Jirachi vs Victini would’ve replaced Froslass vs Chandelure.

I’d replaced Bendy vs Tattletail (VGRB) with Engi vs Torbjorn.

And due to me just FORGETTING Comic Book Rap Battles Lizard vs Killer Croc would’ve been on the list probably replacing Kirby vs Pac-Man and being very high on the list

Now I don’t know exactly how it spread to the community or how many people read the blog but on the 30th wiki user SoothSaiyaman! said that he wanted to talk to me in PM on the wiki and he said that Multi saw the blog and kinda liked it and said if i wanted to i could join Legion’s Discord server. As soon as i got the offer i said yes and starting from then Discord has been a daily part of my life. I started just being in that server but over time i quickly realized that many people in the community have public servers i could join. And now i’m in many people’s server like Skeep’s, Dustin’s, UBERocity, The new ERB server, the XRB server, and many more. (more on XRB later).

After this i got to talk to a lot of people in the community and it was mostly fine with a few hiccups that either aren’t important enough to mention or the people involved didn’t want me to talk about. But things were pretty fine with me. The main thing was i didn’t have any super close friends for the first month or so on discord. Not that anyone was bad. But i guess i was still kinda thinking, “OH MY GOD I’M TALKING TO THAT ONE GUY WHO WAS IN THAT ONE RAP BATTLE I’VE BEEN LISTENING TO AHHH!!!”. So while i enjoyed talking to people it took a bit of time for me to think of them as close friends. But obviously i don’t think like that anymore and i would get my first real friends sooner then i would’ve thought.

Spring generally isn’t my favorite season compared to other seasons but this Spring was a blast for me since i being more social than i’ve ever been due to Discord and me, my parents and younger brother going on a cruise in May. And to add to this Spring season on April 4th on the UBERocity server someone who at the time went by Jughead Jay said he was looking for people to help him with Scott Pilgrim vs the Angry Video Game Nerd. And while we are currently rewriting this battle that battle was the first battle i took SUPER seriously with writing. (Even if before this battle i helped people like Creep, Henry, and Kamren with battles). And at the time i wrote some stuff that me and Jay thought was really good (And even today i still think some of it holds up). Me and Jay. (Along with some help from Julian and DCA). Wrote that battle in like three days. And now ten months later I’m one of the main writers for X Rap Battles and have helped with battles up on soundcloud to hear right now! So if you haven’t heard them check out the XRB Soundcloud account and all the battles I helped with.

   (My first rap battle role lol)  [Link to the XRB account]

And with all the writing i’ve been doing I thought about it and I decided something: I wanted a microphone to rap in rap battles. I’ve always liked the idea of being a voice actor since i think i have pretty good range and have always liked the idea of it but i never really thought i would be able to. Think of it as my, “Dream job that only has like a one percent chance of happening but i’m okay with that and still might try it as like a hobby or something”. I’m sure someone reading this has something like that!

But with rap battles, People need to do voices for characters. I like rap battles. So i thought, “I want to try this so let’s do this!” Between knowing people who did rap battles and even seeing Jay (Who was and still is one of my closest friends in the community). Get role after role made me feel a lot of things. It made me feel happy for him since he was working with big name people in the community, It encouraged me to try since he was pretty new at it and was the first thing to make me realize “Wait! I can do this!” And for awhile i even had a little bit of playful jealousy since i really wanted to try and i didn’t have a mic while he kept getting roles. So on March 16th i sent a email to my older sister telling her all this and she said she would try to get me a Blue Yeti as soon as she got the chance!

Taking a break from rap battle community stuff i also went on a cruise with my Mom, Dad, and younger brother and it was the first time me and my younger brother went out of the country. And let me just say if you ever thought of going on a cruise you need to do it! We went on a Carnival ship so my thoughts and the stuff we did might only be on Carnival ships and even then i don’t know for certain if everything we did are on all Carnival ships but on sea days we spent the day on waterslides, We spent one night playing at a arcade, And the ship we went on even had a movie screen by the pool! They normally show movies that aired a couple months ago. My family only went that on the second to last day and saw Star Wars: The Last Jedi and i haven’t seen any Star Wars movies before this so i can’t really give my thoughts on it but thought it was still worth sharing. (Though if we were able to i would’ve wanted to watch Coco but i saw that around Halloween).

The islands we went to was Amber Cover and the Turks. At Amber Cove we rented a Cabana that was uphill from a Margaritaville next to our port and spent the day there where we had a little jacuzzi in our cabana and everytime we wanted to go down to the pool area next to the port we would take these two water slides right by our cabana. Me, My younger brother, And my dad also went ziplining which was both one of the most exhilarating times of my life and the most terrifying. But i still had a blast and will probably do it again if the chance is given to me!

Meanwhile at the Turks we went to a couple beaches and rode around in a golf cart we rented and let me just say riding in the back of that golf cart with no seatbelts and just getting hit by the wind and watching everything pass by is AMAZING and gave me a love and appreciation for outdoors that i forget i have. If the chance is ever there for me to me again i would do something like that again in a heartbeat! Personally one of the if not the best part of the cruise. Kinda a random thing to like but it gave me a sense of adventure that i’ve never really had growing up. So it was a new feeling and i would LOVE to have again.

Also i need to say this before i move on if you go on a Carnival ship you need to and i say NEED TO go down to the dinner hall for no other reason then to get some Chocolate Melting Cake. I could try to describe it but words aren’t good enough. It’s so chocolate-ity that they give you a small bowl of vanilla ice cream with it to wash it down. Sometimes the consistency is like cake. Sometime it’s like pudding. There is a bit of powdered sugar on the top of it Just google it after you read this. It’s the best dessert i’ve ever had and we went down to get them four out of the five nights regardless if we went to the dinner hall for dinner or not!

So I have close friends and was and still am one of the main writers for a new rap battle series, I had a blast on a AWESOME trip, And i was looking forward to a microphone and my birthday in July. Sounds like a great way to start off the year! A few bumps sure. But so far so much good has happened! At the time i wondered just how long all of this would keep up!

Only thing is…Even though all this good happened. It went downhill fast.

It’s hard to explain. But starting in the middle of June i starting getting more and more sad. I was still waiting on my Microphone that was going to be my birthday gift to my sister. (She said she would try to get it before my birthday but it would count as my birthday gift but as you’ll find out later it took a LOT longer than we thought). I went through a bit of writer’s block on rap battles, And the worse thing about all of this was i didn’t know why it happened. I was happy before all of this and now all of a sudden things felt different. Around my 17th birthday (Which was July 16th). I starting questioning if the way my life is heading was even a good idea. Or even if i deserved it.

Now so far things have been happy for the most part but a lot of the rest of this isn’t going to be. During this time i went through i realized that i might suffer from depression. (Or at least i went through a depression). I don’t know for certain since i never went to a therapist but i was getting sad more and more. And after doing research on the signs of depression. I found out that a lot of symptoms that problems or traits that i have had for years. The symptoms in question are the following:

Low self esteem that i’ve always had about myself. A lack of concentration that i kept having with my responsibilities Being sad or angry about small things involving my family and friends Overall feelings of emptiness and hopelessness that things won’t change for the better and that i’d be stuck with how life is no matter what i’d try to do.

Again some of these were things i’ve always struggled with and some of these were new things I was dealing with. And a self diagnose should NEVER be trusted. But i was feeling this way and thought things that i never knew i felt about life or thoughts that i wouldn’t wish the worst kind of people in the world to think about.

Now i’m sure at least some people are going to ask why i started feeling sad or thinking like this. And i still don’t know exactly. But i think the main reason why is because i’ve never had a lot. My family isn’t the richest given how many mouths we have to feed. I have a lot of responsibilities to take care and i have a habit of putting so much on me weather or not it makes sense to. But the fact that i had a lot of friends that i talked to, Worked with. And shared some personal stuff with me about serious things. I didn’t think i deserved it.

For awhile i keep telling myself that i should be happy but my mind kept saying otherwise. I do a lot for other people and my mind kept telling me that i don’t have time to do my own things. Because i have to help other people with their problems and do what i can around the house for my family. And with this mentality while i seemed nice and caring on the outside. On the inside, I felt broken. I was the peacemaker that tried to keep everything and everyone fine. But who does a peacemaker go to when they aren’t at peace?

For too long. I thought the answer was nobody.

I told some of my problems with other people like my closer friends online and my older sister who did give me advice on this. But the more i did this my mind kept telling me that i was being selfish. Saying terrible things like,

''“Really, Again? Did the last time you talk to them not mean anything?”

“They have their own problems and you’re just burdening them with you small problems.”

“Keep that mask on and smile you idiot.”''

I tried to take their advice to heart but every time i felt sad no matter what they said. And that only made it worse. They were trying to help and the fact that i kept feeling this way made me think i was wasting everyone’s time and only made me have MORE sad thoughts that wouldn’t leave my head! No matter what people said these thoughts would not get in my head and only made things worse. But the first day and person that really helped me with this was on July 24th when Discord user, XRB admin, and very close friend of mine GengoMain DM’ed me.

Gengo and i started talking in April when he was starting to practice making cover arts for battles and he would show me whatever he made for feedback in DM’s. And we talked pretty regularly about his cover arts, XRB stuff since we were both pretty good friends with Jay, And even random interests we both had and some personal stuff about us. At the time he was a pretty good friend but my thoughts on him would soon change from a “Pretty good friend” to one of my closest.

On July 24th I wasn’t feeling super good about myself due to what i said above being in effect. (This was at its worst from mid July through early October) And Gengo DM’ed me and I guess the way i responded wasn’t my normal way of saying hello because he asked if i was okay and when i told him that i’ve been kinda down and we talked and for whatever reason this specific talk we had made me feel...Happy. I didn’t tell him i was sad until he asked how i felt and he showed that he really cared for me by just talking to me. And from there we become very close. I would put him and Jay as my two closest friends no contest! (I can’t say who is closer to me since both are very close for different reasons and i don’t want to cause a civil war in XRB lol). And Gengo has said that i’m his closest friend AND his favorite person in the community. Which really helped with what i was dealing with. Weather he knew at the time or not.

During October if you lived in Florida like I do you were most likely hit by Hurricane Michael. And because of this i lost power for about 100 hours and while it was boring and hard at first overtime i adapted and it was a nice little break. I spent more time with my family then i normally do and got to do a lot of stuff like read some books i wanted to catch up on. Play Monopoly with them on two of the nights. And yeah it sucked that i couldn’t talk to anyone online but it really did give me perspective on how much time i spent on the internet. And since then i at least try to not be online as much as i’ve been and do other things.

After spending some more time with my family i tried to be more open to people about my problems. It’s still kinda hard for me but i have talked to some of my family about it. Including my older sister who gave me SO MUCH help starting in August and to this day if i tell her about things i’m going through and she is online to talk she is there for me and i couldn’t thank her enough! And while it took awhile to get it from a lack of communication over the summer. Having to save the money, Among other things. On October 24th at about seven pm a UPS truck came to my house with my Blue Yeti and the very next day to celebrate i had a voice call with some of the people behind XRB.

And now we are here: I still have my bad days sometimes but...I have friends that i talk to daily. From working on rap battles to just having a good time having dumb fun. I have a hobby in voice acting that i want to try and pursue more in the hopes and getting somewhere with it. I’ve never been closer to my family after i told them how i feel sometimes and they’ve helped me so much with my problems. And overall i feel like i have...Worth. Which is something i’ve also had trouble thinking i had. But now i know i have worth with how much people like me, How many people i’ve helped with their personal problems. Among other things i’ve done this year. I’ve improved as a person and I’ve had a blast throughout all of this. Even if i’ve struggled along the way, But i’ve learned so much about myself during all this and talking to other people. So if you were involved in my 2018 in anyway. Thanks for everything you’ve done and i hope 2019 will be just as good with less of the bad!

So now for a quick update for what’s going to happen to me on the ERB wiki. (So if you don’t care for that you can stop reading now). I’m still on the wiki, I check the wiki everyday even if i go a couple days without talking on it. I don’t want to say that MetaCriticMachine is “done” but for now at least i’ve lost interest in writing reviews for rap battles. But i want to leave the door open if i decide i want to get back into them. So there won’t be a “Top 10 Fanmade Rap Battles of 2018”. But blogs on any movie i see in theaters will happen. (I know i’m seeing the Dragon Ball Super movie in January so i’m going to make a blog on that for sure). And i will stay here during the wait for Season 6 of ERB and will try to talk as much as i can until and during then. Because while this blog was was about 2018. I wouldn’t have been introduced to the community if i didn’t make my wiki account in 2016 and made the best 2017 rap battles blog early this year. This was where my journey started. And i plan on staying here until the end of it too. So i want to give thanks to everyone here too. Even if i haven’t been here much I won’t forget the wiki and what it did for me.

I’ve talked long enough i think. So i hope to see you in the next blog. Thanks for reading this. And thanks for staying with me. Weather it’s been a month, Or almost two years now. So until the next blog, See ya!