Oh, God. I can’t believe I’m about to blog about this. Here we go.

I have an unfortunate confession to make here. More than Dark Souls, Overwatch, or any of the other games I’ve played (and blogged about) since moving back to New York, I have played one more than any other, to the point that it’s becoming a problem. It’s a cell phone game, which should come as no surprise, considering how much of my life is spent in transit. It should also surprise literally no one that the game is Dragon Ball Z flavored.

My drug of choice, Dokkan Battle, is essentially a trading card game. You build up your collection of cards into a team and solve a color puzzle to best opponents. It requires just enough energy to distract you, but too little to be anything of substance.

I have been playing the game for over 300 days now (and I know, because it just told me), and every attempt to stop has fallen woefully short.

I don’t even know what to say here. I can’t blog about the gameplay. Trying to justify it would be excuses of no value to anyone. I don’t even want to defend my actions in playing this game as much as I do. At least I can say that I’ve never spent money in the game, although that means I have actually earned everything I have in it through sheer number of hours spent playing, which is just fucking sad. I also can’t explain why I was doing this instead of literally anything else, such as drawing or working out. Taking that time and pouring it into those activities would have improved me in so many ways: my skills, my mindset. But I don’t want any of that.

Instead, I want to show you my cards.

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LOOK AT THEM, I say! Revel in my great accomplishment!

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This is madness, ladies and gentlemen. I am 30, and this is the most visible accomplishment I’ve made since moving back to NY from LA (er, minus Unlife).

And… well, maybe that’s why I don’t want to delete it.

The freelance world of writing is one of hits and misses. Opportunities and promises. Starts and stops. And during this, there’s nothing intrinsic that marks my accomplishments along the way. I don’t have a flow chart of accomplishments in my career, nor a corporate ladder I’m slowly climbing. Just scripts, some of which never see the light of day, sadly. And sometimes, when you want to escape that, you need something silly and dumb. Overwatch is a well made game, but I have definitely sunk into it more due to the heavy amount of writing and the ease of escape it offers. And that goes double for Dokkan Battle.

Everyone knows I’m a DBZ fan (if you didn’t, the pace of this comic should have clued you in by now). And at the end of the day, when I’m still trying to survive and find a career that truly feels like my own, when I’m looking for completion and acceptance, it may not be much, and it may be sad, but sometimes, starting with nothing and ending up with an army of powerful characters at your disposal…

It feels nice. Like having a trophy.

I miss trophies.