Shellzilla_515
F1 fan who loves pancakes
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My highlights of 2023Phew! 2023 has been quite a year with it's ups and downs for me. I made a gigantic post highlighting the stuff that's made me happy throughout the year, so I don't blame anyone for just skimming through hehehe. Anyways, here goes!
January
- Going for a car stroll with my mother and sister on New Year’s Day where there were barely any cars on the road. I was just cruising and relaxing all the way through while listening to a lot of music in the process.
- My first drawing of 2023 and how I absolutely loved the outcome of it.
- Getting to watch some episodes from Sailor Moon R with my sister which we enjoyed all the way through.
- Commissioning @/-Mars- to make a drawing for me and how I absolutely loved seeing it once it was done.
February
- Getting my full driver’s licence! I remember failing it the week prior which left me devastated, so it felt extra great overcoming it. I also remember driving a 2021 Honda CR-V which was a rental car because the car that my dad and I usually drive had to be serviced at the time.
- The event where we had to make an island journal that initially started in January. It was fun basically getting to do some writing and ended up getting the lost book collectible after meeting the minimum requirements!
- Receiving Valentine’s roses from @/Midoriya, @/Roxxy, and @/xSuperMario64x.
March
- Not a lot of stuff worth mentioning during the month of March, but I do remember finally caving in and purchasing the Booster Course Pass for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe! The tracks that made me happy the most are the ones that first originated from Mario Kart Super Circuit for the Gameboy Advance.
- Feel free to skip this point. I remember while I was at the library in college studying for exams, I saw a Chevrolet Corvette C6 ZR1 and a Nissan Skyline GT-R (R34) casually going through the parking lot which made me extremely happy.
April
- The April Fools Day event where people were mining tons of posts for turnips. I love how a lot of us were throwing banters about NFTs and also having profile pics of horrendous looking turnips generated by (what I assume is) AI lol. A couple of highlights for me are seeing notification numbers I have never seen in my life and watching @/Ananas Dragon going absolutely crazy for @/Satori Suzuki for some reason lol.
1,515 notifications!
- Watching the Super Mario Bros. Movie with my mother and sister! I was absolutely smiling for the huge majority of the movie and understanding quite a lot of references from the series! However, it really hit me the most when there was a very small snippet of the athletic theme from Super Mario Bros. 3 which legit almost made me cry since it was the first video game ever that I played in my life.
- Suffering through the TBT Egg Hunt, but managed to find most of them if I recall correctly! I really appreciate the rules where we can give each other hints to at least have hopes of finding eggs on our own. If not, then I’d have a bad time lol.
- Installing a new cabin air filter in my father’s car lol. It’s nothing special, but I remember being very happy about it despite how simple it is!
May
- Making a birthday drawing for my awesome friend, @/Midoriya! It made total sense to include Midoriya from My Hero Academia and his favourite villager Lucky vibing together.
- Finally getting to play The Legend of Zelda - Tears of the Kingdom after years of waiting! I still remember getting my one and only game over just because I miscalculated a jump and splatted against the ground narrowly missing a body of water lol.
- Making a self discovery for myself and coming to terms with it after I initially rejected it back in February. This point may sound confusing to you, but it’ll all make sense in the next month in one of my points…
- It’s a bit of a silly one, but I finally completed a new helmet design in Gran Turismo 7 which left me feeling very happy about it. Prior to that, I created a helmet design that was heavily based off of the racing helmet from New Horizons, so to branch off from that and create a more original design is a good step!
I would like to give a shoutout to @/Roxxy who originally drew Blue for me.
- Creating a birthday drawing for @/xSuperMario64x featuring Sterling the Silver Fox getting hugged by an absolute unit bluebird of happiness plush!
- Participating in the Celebrating Diversity event and going through the entries where many people had their own interpretations on what diversity is. From my end, not only did I pour my heart into my entry, but also took the opportunity of coming out at the same time being demiromantic and panromantic. I’m really glad that the TBT community is accepting of LGBTQ+ people.
As an added bonus, I even changed up the design of my helmet slightly resembling the pan and demiromantic colours!
- Getting the good news that I landed a job after so much waiting and pain going through interviews and being ghosted for weeks!
July
- This month marked the first day of starting my new job! Admittedly, there were a few things that didn’t sit right with me, but I can’t deny that it’s helped me gain some valuable experience in the career field that I’m going into.
- Creating a late birthday for @/Roxxy featuring her character and her cat, Brandy!
- I went to a Filipino street festival with a few of my coworkers! We walked around here and there, but my highlight was when I bought some taho where they claimed it was “authentic” in terms of taste. I can confirm that it’s true hehehe.
- Feel free to skip this point. On my way home from the said festival, I finally spotted a Chevrolet Corvette C1 two years after I started hunting identifying cars out on the road. I legit almost wanted to cry.
- While Space Camp TBT 2023 initially started sometime in July, I enjoyed participating with my fellow Galaxolotls with @/-Blue- strangely going crazy for cookies. It was a great time in The Lopez before things started getting a little sketchy near the end hehe.
- This month marked another year of me existing in this world lol. I’m grateful for the good and happy stuff that’s happened in my life.
- Going karting with my sister while my mother watched the two of us! I definitely enjoyed it with the twists and turns. Later on that same day, we watched the Gran Turismo movie together!
September
- Early in the month, my sister and I went to a carnival and went on a lot of rides! We also got to check out at some vendors where various things were being sold.
- When my mother made apple pie for the very first time and how much I absolutely loved it. Since then, she baked it again and again and it was always a treat!
- Near the end of the month, @/xSuperMario64x came to visit me for a week which felt (and still is) so surreal that it actually happened. I remember on the first day of meeting him, we went to the mall, chilled at a park, went for a nice car stroll in his 2007 Volkswagen Beetle Convertible (with the roof down for good measure), witnessing me identify recognizable cars on the road that appeared in the Gran Turismo series, then ate at Jollibee. Bug even gifted me one of his fox plushies which I treasure dearly. In fact, I gave him a name which is Jenson!... This point will continue on to next month.
October
- Bug and I did a lot of stuff vibing together. This point will get very lengthy if I go into detail for everything I’ll be mentioning, so I’ll just cut to the chase. What we did was head out to a restaurant and eat food (which Bug tried poutine and loved it hehe), visited his place for a bit and getting to play Animal Crossing on the Gamecube for the very first time, went karting, went to the bluffs, went on numerous car strolls, watched the Barbie movie at the theatre, and relaxing at the library making a drawing for each other.
- When my mother baked brownies with the outcome of it being totally delicious!
November
- Taking exactly six months to beat Tears of the Kingdom.
- Winning a collectible from the potion raffle which gave me a choice of one of the potion collectibles… I chose the eerie star potion!
- At work, I finally overcame my fear and attempted to at least move a car that had a manual transmission. I successfully did so as a result! Huge shout out to an eighth-generation Honda Civic for giving me the opportunity lol.
December
- Doing some participation during the Stole-iday Season winter event. I may not have found all the reindeers (only found one rip) and missed out on crafting stuff, but at least I got a bit of fun out of it considering I was very busy at work.
- Participated in a Secret Santa organized by @/Balverine and made a drawing for @/-Mars-! While it took me weeks leading up to completion due to busy things, I’m really glad that they absolutely loved my drawing.
Other stuff that happened throughout the year
- Watching the Formula 1 races throughout the 2023 season. My favourite race of the year was the Singapore Grand Prix merely because Carlos Sainz who drives for Ferrari managed to take the one and only win that’s not a Red Bull in the entire season lol.
- My overall enjoyment of playing Gran Turismo 7 whether it’d be doing online time trials, doing silly custom races, making car liveries, participating in online races during a short free trial period back in September, and the new addition of cars this year. In fact, I’ll drop a bunch of photos from the game!
Don't ask lol.
The C8 Corvette meeting its great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather.
The C8 Corvette meeting its great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather.
Note that some cars have been visually modified from their stock appearance. From left to right, bottom to top, here they are in order. As a bonus, underlined names indicate I've seen them in real life!
- 1965 Honda RA272
- 1992 Jaguar XJ220
- 2019 Mazda 3
- 1957 Chevrolet Corvette C1
- 2022 Honda Civic Type R (FL5)
- 2010 Lexus LFA
- 1991 Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3 Evo II
- 2021 Aston Martin Valkyrie
- 2004 Subaru Impreza Sedan WRX STi
- 2018 Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3
- 2022 Porsche 911 GT3 RS (992)
- 1987 Porsche 959
- 2018 Toyota Alphard Executive Lounge
- 2021 Toyota Himedic
- Reading the posts in this thread throughout the year! I remember that there was a time where @/LadyDestani kept updating us with the progress on her bathroom renovation and how it turned out! Also, let's not forget the consistent pet pics by @/Xara and @/themysterybidder where they featured bonk and Blossom respectively haha.
- It brought me happiness every time when a few people made drawings of my animal villager OC, Pag-asa which I initially created way back during the 2022 Celebrating Diversity event where people created their own animal villagers representing themselves.
Drawn by @/-Mars- back in early February.
Drawn by @/Foreverfox back in May.
Drawn by @/jadetine back in July during the 2023 Space Camp TBT event.
These last five drawings were drawn by the rad @/xSuperMario64x throughout 2023.
Bug made this drawing for me as a late birthday present featuring my dream car.
And this is the secret Santa drawing he made for me. Out of 27 people who also participated, I was quite amused he got the opportunity again to draw Pag-asa once more!
Drawn by @/Foreverfox back in May.
Drawn by @/jadetine back in July during the 2023 Space Camp TBT event.
These last five drawings were drawn by the rad @/xSuperMario64x throughout 2023.
Bug made this drawing for me as a late birthday present featuring my dream car.
And this is the secret Santa drawing he made for me. Out of 27 people who also participated, I was quite amused he got the opportunity again to draw Pag-asa once more!
- Feel free to skip this exhaustive point. I saved this best part of last where I list all of the cars I’ve seen throughout 2023! I’ve actually spotted fewer cars compared to 2022, but you could argue that it’s still just as interesting to see the variety. Obviously, the ones that make me happy the most are the ones that appeared in the Gran Turismo series, especially if they’re hard to find! This also happens to be the year where I reached a huge milestone of 210 unique cars in my list since starting the identification game for fun back in 2021!
Asterisks beside the car names indicate their appearance (or at least similar) in Gran Turismo.
Total of cars appearing in the Gran Turismo series: 24!
- 1991 Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3
- Subaru Impreza Sedan WRX STI (Third Generation)*
- Mitsubishi FTO*
- Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth*
- 1968 Pontiac GTO
- Mercedes-AMG GT R*
- 2019 Mazda3*
- 2023 Nissan Z*
- Nissan Skyline GT-R R34*
- Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 C6*
- Honda CR-X del Sol*
- Porsche 911 GT3 (997)*
- Infiniti FX45*
- Mercedes-Benz A 160*
- Toyota Supra Mk3*
- Aston Martin DB11*
- Porsche 911 (930) Slantnose
- Lotus Elise 111R (Series 2)*
- Buick Eight
- Chevrolet SSR*
- McLaren 650S*
- Chevrolet Corvette C1 (facelift)*
- Toyota Previa
- Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano*
- Triumph TR7
- 1980 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am*
- 2023 Tesla Model 3*
- Aston Martin V8 Vantage S*
- Honda Civic Type R (FL5)*
- 2018 BMW M2 Competition*
Total of cars appearing in the Gran Turismo series: 24!
I may be missing some more stuff, but that'll be everything for 2023. Happy new year, and I'll see you in 2024!
I hope it'll bring all of us health, safety, and happiness! 
and patience with me not posting or chatting much since I’m really struggling now and before I came back. 
.
I never thought I would be able to keep it going for 24 days, but I am very pleased that Buck saw in the New Year! He's having a rest, but I'm sure he'll be back shortly with another adventure!
