RPD

Japen 2020 is out! It was very fun to watch it during the premiere, which had about 800 viewers. Big events like this one are rare in our hobby so it feels amazing when I get to enjoy them. Overall, I really liked it. The edit and all the Easter eggs show how much passion Iteza has poured into this project. The combos are a great representation of what pen spinning has been this year, both regarding the cast and overall visual effect. The highlights for me were Jiv→Laku and AiMo→Rai as the last players. Seeing Jiv in was very emotional, he has practiced hard this year and appearing on Japen was well deserved. Both his combo and Laku's are also quite visually impactful, with the music being just on point for the transition. AiMo's combo is probably my favorite, the trick at 2:58 is awesome. Rai's precision and stability also made him perfect for the last player. Ashrount did a great job with the music. It's relatively different to his other works and deviating too much f...

After reading about the first PS tournaments, writing the PSO20 rulebook and seeing it unfold, I wanted to give some thoughts about tournament structures. The power of tradition If you wonder why a particular aspect is done that way in this context, the answer is usually "someone already did it that way the last time". You would be surprised at, for example, how little WC and WT structures have changed over time. I don't think it's a necessarily bad thing. More so, I believe that copying & upgrading good rulebooks like WT19's isn't done enough, but I believe that this mentality is hindering innovations. Most of the time the way things are done isn't necessarily the best, it's just the first thing that was tried. Then, what are some things that could be changed? Let's see: #1 - Number of rounds Classically, a tournament should be long. But why should that be so? Tournament PS heavily emphasizes not recycling, and 10-15 seconds of worthy new mate...

 First of all, the finished CV I've been wanting to do a small project (either express CV or promo) for some time, and that idea finally materialized into "Alba". Alba is an express CV which I announced in October 15 2020 with a 3 (in reality, 4) day period for video submissions and a 1 day period for editing. I wanted to be distracted for a few days. It's been tense lately, and spinning pens has been a good escape from covid and real life. What does "Alba" mean? "Alba" means "dawn" in Spanish. The word for "dusk" ("ocaso") is also very pretty, and indeed the footage I used for the intro and promo video is from a sunset, but sunsets symbolize something finishing, while I wanted to give the video a more cheerful note. Doki Doki Literature Club I haven't played many games, but DDLC is one that I'm particularly fond of. I wanted to translate the same vibe to this CV, thus the glitched middle section in an otherw...