A return, a new format, and dealing with loss

Let's get back to our regularly scheduled programming, eh?

After spending the last few months of 2022 (and the last 4-6 weeks in 2023 here) healing myself mentally, I'm ready to start these newsletters up again! So, what is the exact plan for this newsletter? That's the problem, I have my hands in so many different things, I'm not sure what I want to focus on exactly! I'm thinking I'll eventually be moving off of social media (at least in the sense of where I post daily) and this will be the best place to get updates on what I'm working on, but in the meantime... what??

Writing?!

Considering that writing is the thing I'm doing most of these days, it makes the most sense to focus on that for now. But, I think what this newsletter will be is focusing on some sort of subject each week—be it about a subject I'm knowledgable in or a subject I'm passionate about—and throw in some updates about the things I'm working on or into at that time. That said, let's get to today's topic, shall we?

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Philadelphia Eagles Lose The Super Bowl

And How We, As Fans, Should Accept Loss

Today's generation of Philadelphia Sports fans may live in a world where their teams win championships. Heck, if you were born in the early 2000s, you saw the Phillies win the World Series as a child and the Eagles win a Super Bowl as a teenager. AND both teams made it back to their respectful championship games by the time you hit your early 20s (more than once for the Phils). Kids, that's not how it was for us elder millennials. Before I saw a Philadelphia sports team win a championship in 2008 (as I approached my mid-20s), I had only seen two championship games (the Phils' 1993 loss and the Eagles' 2004/05 loss). Y'all don't know what it's like to live in a 28-year drought (though we're getting there again) or to go 30+ years waiting for that Super Bowl win.

But what we all just experienced together for the first time as Philadelphia Sports fans is both incredible and heartbreaking. In just over 3 months, we saw three of our teams head to their championship games—the Union went to the MLS Cup Championship, the Phillies to the World Series, and the Eagles to the Super Bowl—and lose those championships. First and foremost, we should be incredibly proud that Philly had THREE teams that were championship caliber. Has that happened in another town before? Three teams going to championship games in the same year? On the flip side of that, we also experienced three teams lose those championships in a span of 99 days—it hurts and it sucks.

But with this historical sports history comes something else. A stronger love and respect for my Philadelphia sports teams. My entire life, these teams have been counted out—no matter how good they are. Hell, just listen to Jason Kelce's speech during the parade for our Super Bowl LVII win. While it was about the 2017-18 Philadelphia Eagles and their journey to becoming Super Bowl champions, the essence of that speech is Philadelphia. Sports teams and all. And during the losses we had in that 99-day span, what did our teams do? They owned those losses and didn't make excuses. They admitted they made mistakes, that they were outplayed, and that they were outcoached. The loss sits on their shoulders, not because bad calls were made or because of bad field conditions.

And so, as fans—and not just Philly sports fans, but all sports fans (and, honestly, just in general as human beings)—we too should be humble in those losses and not make excuses. Will we get mad in the moment because of a bad call? Yes. And that's OK. But it's when it's all said and done, that we need to recognize that one bad call or play or whatever isn't why we lost... why we failed. We weren't our best that day. And guess what? That's OK. We learn from it. Players take what didn't work and fix it. Fans, hopefully, won't let those moments and the loss consume them. Fans, hopefully, will apply what we witnessed these Philly sports teams do in that 99-day span to their real life—when something doesn't go our way, let us not make excuses (again, in the moment, when passion is at its peak; it's OK), but own that failure and learn from it. One of my favorite quotes come from Kevin Smith and has never been more applicable as it is here:

General Updates

I don't have a HUGE update on what's going on with my various projects. As I mentioned at the top of this newsletter, I was on a mental health break and am just getting back to everything from that. Currently, I'm back to writing—mainly for Dork Side of the Force, Bam! Smack! POW!, and That's Entertainment. For the remainder of February, I'll be scheduling out my other projects for pre-production and then going into production in March. I'll likely have more of an update for you next week on that stuff.

One thing I've been doing differently in 2023 is that I'm tracking as much media as I can that I'm consuming. Movies, TV shows, books, comics, games, etc. I'm going to try to do a monthly recap for that, though it will be a blog post for either That's Entertainment or my actual blog. I was hoping to have January's recap ready for this newsletter, but I likely won't have it done until the end of the week. I'll share it in the next newsletter, but if you follow me on Twitter (@ThatNerdyKev) I'll be sharing and talking about it there too.

Media of the Week

The Bad Batch!

I'm late to the game on The Bad Batch, but it's a wonderful continuation of this corner of the Star Wars universe. While Rebels was a bit of a deviation, it still felt part of the same world. Watching Resistance took me a bit longer to finish and I'm not sure if it's because it was about an era of Star Wars so new that I wasn't as invested or if it was the animation style, which made it physically feel different than Clone Wars and Rebels.

But, The Bad Batch returns to not only a similar animation style, but to characters and an era I'm more familiar with. I've been loving the series thus far and while Season 1 had a much larger over-arcing story as compared to Season 2's more mini-arc-based storytelling (though, I'll be curious if it all really just connects by the end of the season), it's one of the best-animated series to date. Clone Force 99 (aka The Bad Batch) is such a fun and unique take on the clone troopers and I love that they not only have a unique look about them but that Dee Bradley Baker is able to give a unique spin on each of their voices while keeping the essence of the "clone" voice.

Links of the Week

• On Dork Side of the Force, Matthew Roth asks Is there such thing as too much Star Wars?

• Meanwhile, on Bam! Smack! POW!, Michael Patterson went through the tough task of ranking ALL 31 MCU FILMS!

• There's a new newsletter, The Soloist, about Solo TTRPG games and I couldn't be more excited about that as I jump back into pre-production on Single Player.

• There are a couple Kickstarter projects happening right now that I'm super excited for and involve TTRPGs:

  • Sanctuary & Sentinel by Meghan Cross is a zine containing two full GM-less TTRPGs about a place of great power and the guardians charged with protecting it.

  • Hungry Gnoles Eat the Rich by Z.W. Garth is a rules-lite TTRPG of chaos and community as you run feral through the streets to protect your neighbors and feed your hunger.

  • Four Kingdoms by Tanuki Games is a storytelling and map drawing TTRPG that allows you to develop a new world in this GM-less game!

  • Finally, Dead Air by Fiona Ruthven is a solo TTRPG about radio after the apocalypse.

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