Many of you already know this story, but if you’re new here I figured this was as good a time as any to tell it again. I started Nice Job Breaking It, Hero back when I was in my last year of grad school. I was working on a Capstone Research project about unintended injury rates among middle school aged adolescents in four South American countries, and I was getting burned out on all the literature reviews and methodology drafting and all the other riveting aspects of academic writing. So, on a whim I opened up WordPress with the intention of starting a blog, mind you, I’d tried starting a blog before (over on Blogger), but I never could manage to keep up with it. So, I figured this would be about the same. I’d write for a week or two and then my blog would fall to the wayside forgotten and abandoned in some dark corner of the internet. I wasn’t thinking long term, I just needed something to take my mind off the stuffy research paper I was working on, and I figured writing about anything other than broken bones and accidental falls was a welcome change.
So, on August 11, 2015 I wrote my very first post, all 92 words of it… my statement to the big wide internet. An introduction, short sweet and to the point, but it was mine. I’m not gonna lie, those first couple of posts were rough. I’ve read through them a few times and there are so many things I want to go back and change, but, I won’t, those posts as cringeworthy as they seem are a memorial of sorts to the me of the past. It’s kind of nice to look back on those older posts and remember just how much fun I had writing them. I didn’t have a lot of followers and my view counts rarely ever hit double digits, but, I still took pride in what I wrote. I still do.
It’s been four years since I started this blog and it’s still mind boggling to me how far Nice Job Breaking It, Hero has come since then. I’ve grown as a writer, as reviewer, and as a person and this site has grown along with me. Through all the ups and downs, the hiatuses, big life events, this has been one of the biggest mainstays. Despite taking a lot of time off from it in these later years, I truly love blogging. I love sharing my thoughts on things that I love and engaging with everyone in the WordPress community. I’ve made some great friends and fellow allies over the years and I wouldn’t trade any of it for all the world. But, I will admit that Nice Job Breaking It, Hero has outgrown the basic free domain and it’s name.
Yes, after giving it a lot of thought, I’ve decided to make some changes. The first being upgrading the site from the Basic WordPress plan to one of the Paid plans. I’ve seen a lot of bloggers take the plunge and I figure it’s been a long time coming, so I might as well jump on the bandwagon. But, with it comes the second and by far the most important change (at least in my opinion)… I’m changing the name of the blog from Nice Job Breaking It, Hero to Blerdy Otome, the domain will also be changing as well, but, I’ll update that when I take the plunge the new address is blerdyotome.com! This isn’t something I’m doing on a whim, I’ve been thinking about it for a very long time. When I was first considering a name for my blog I was really into TV Tropes, so of course I pilfered one of my favorite tropes for the title of my blog, because I suck at titles. But, more than that, the trope ‘Nice Job Breaking It, Hero’ kind of fit where I was in my life at the time.
The hero has accomplished their goal; they’ve killed the Big Bad, or defeated them forever, or at least scored a major blow against the antagonist. They’ve done what they set out to do…
…but not so fast! It turns out that by the very act of success, they’ve unwittingly made things worse.
–TV Tropes
I was still kind of getting my bearings with this whole adulting thing and more times than not I wound up making more mistakes than I’d care to admit. And, it still kind of fits, since I’m still just kind of making things up as I go along, sometimes I make it and sometimes I break it, so that even with the name changing, this blog will still kind of embody the spirit of the old Nice Job Breaking It, Hero name.
So, the new name… Blerdy Otome
I think the new name perfectly defines who I am, I’m a Black nerd and I’m a woman… pretty simple. My focus will still be on otome games and visual novels, like it has been in the past, but, I want to expand my horizons a bit to encompass a wider range of Japanese culture topics and nerdy exploits. So expect more diverse topics in the near future.
Thank you for sticking it out with me this long. I know I have been a little hectic and erratic lately, but your kind words and comments and things have really meant a lot to me. This blog would not be what it is without you guys and I can’t thank you enough. I’m always trying to improve myself and this sight so if you have any suggestions or want to talk or anything, feel free to reach out to me, I’m def down for it. I’m also going to make a conscious effort to be more active on my social media channels and in commenting on others blogs and things, so expect to see a lot of comments from me coming at you real soon. Like A LOT. Thanks for being super special awesome and I’m excited to share this new phase of my journey with you all. Thank you!!
*I’ll be making the change tomorrow, May 4th, 2019 (EST)!!*
