Site Progress and Personal Update: November 2017

Still here folks, have been doing this for six months and am still going on strong! This is definitely a good sign as I am really enjoying this. It is really great to see that people are enjoying my content and that I get to talk about things I have not motivated myself to do so previously. Additionally, it feels like I am enjoying games a lot more than I have from 2014-2016. HRT likely plays a part in it since my body is now being purged of literal toxic masculinity, but it feels like there have been more games I have played this year for the first time that really made me feel the same sense of awe and wonderment I did back in my years prior to 2013.

Of course, the reason why It was that way for me back then was because I created a habit for myself after school each day of logging onto the computer and checking out my usual sites that usually consisted of checking Cracked, Gamesrader, and every Youtube channel I frequent (because I was too nervous to create an account of my own for some reason), and HCBailly’s forum some time in 2012 until I was finally inspired to create an account there after relentlessly stalking the forum’s conversations. There were some periods where I was less motivated than others, but I still was compelled to play games for at least a half hour every day at a specific time.

After I was done with high school, that stopped happening and I just was not as enthusiastic about gaming at the time. Yeah there were some pretty good games I played during those years, but 2017 has been feeling like one awesome game after another ever since I beat NieR Automata. Even before then, I had both Negligee and Kindred Spirits on the Roof, and I believe it was starting to spark back up while playing The Legend of Dragoon for the first time during December of 2016, but it was after Automata that I really started feeling it. Since then, there has been Rosenkreuzstilette, Yooka-Laylee, The Beginner’s Guide, The Tenth Line, Euphoria, Sweet Home, and currently Splatterhouse, and hopefully this trend continues.

Oh, and if it wasn’t made obvious, my next review is going to be of Sweet Home, which will be the first installment in a series where I look at fan translated Famicom RPGs. Of course, I’m a bit late since I likely won’t complete it within the next few days but still. I am also considering covering the movie, since that could become a thing now. As for Splatterhouse, I am planning on playing and reviewing the entire series in order of release. Since I just beat the arcade original today, that means I should review it soon. This is all while I am progressing through the 2010 reboot of course, which so far is fucking awesome! Based just on beating the first game and what I’ve played of the reboot, I already am in the position where I will consider this one of my favorite series in gaming. Also yes, I will be covering Wanpaku Graffiti as well.

But I do still have more reviews piled up. I still need to make that Steam Greenlight Landfill installment for FEMINAZI: The Triggering, and I also have played a game called Legends of the Universe: Starcore that applies. I still need to review The Legend of Dragoon, Inuyasha: Secret of the Cursed Mask, and The Beginner’s Guide as well. On top of all that, Asphyxia has been updated with easier readability so I may need to replay that to re-review it. Between those and putting up my older reviews, there certainly won’t be any shortage of content for this site.

Oh shit, it looks like I’m getting ahead of myself here. We need the article recap first.

Amazing VGM: Madness (Euphoria)

Quick Review: BAD END (PC/Ios)

Response to Blaire White on Trans Kids: Should we Allow Gender Dysphoric Children to Undergo Hormone Therapy?

Corpse Party (PSP/PC/3DS/IOS): A Horror Masterpiece… but Fuck that Ending! (Detailed Review)

Amazing VGM: Appetite (Starless: Nymphomaniac’s Paradise)

Steam Greenlight Landfill: BlackShadows

Steam Greenlight Landfill: Midnight Carnival

Corpse Party: Book of Shadows – Redundant and Unnecessary (Detailed Review)

Amazing VGM: Demon’s Gig (Shadow Hearts)

Steam Greenlight Landfill: Ghostie Quest

Why “#MeToo” Can’t Be Only About Male on Female Rape.

Corpse Party: Blood Drive – Scary? No. Intense, thrilling, emotional, and all around amazing? Definitely! (Detailed Review)

The Top 25 Most Disturbing Video Game Songs (25-13)

Euphoria: Beyond Horror, Beyond Hentai, Beyond Art (Detailed Review)

Amazing VGM: The Eye Awakens a Jungle (Earthbound)

Five Nights at Freddy’s (PC/IOS): Technically Scary, but also Annoying (Detailed Review)

Movie Review: IT (2017)

Standard Review: Eversion (PC)

Amazing VGM: Hell Chaos (Splatterhouse)

So, I definitely had a solid round of content here this month. There is a lot of stuff that I am really proud of. First of all, I really enjoy the Amazing VGM series, as it provides a type of content that can be both interesting yet not to taxing to create. If one did not guess, what partially inspired this was Peanut3423/AutarchOfFlame/AlexRochon’s old “Awesome Video Game Music” series, which was mainly just him uploading said music with the reasoning in the description. Yeah it was kind redundant, hence why mine consists of a bit more, but it was still interesting to see and is something I’m kinda nostalgic for. And yes, that is also the same inspiration for my disturbing video game songs countdown.

I am glad I finally got the review for Midnight Carnival out after I have been sitting on it for a while. Fun fact, I actually wrote the Ghostie Quest review before the Midnight Carnival one, but figured it would be more appropriate to put the latter up first.

I also found it to be very satisfying to put all three of my Corpse Party reviews up in addition to updating them. The series is very near and dear to me after all, and I have no clue why Dead Patient has not been localized yet. I do hope that they stop toning down the gore and go back to the level the first two were on. I should probably play my copy of the 3DS version at some point to, and finish watching The Anime Man’s LP of 2U (pretty much the only way you can get me to watch his content given how painfully unfunny he is). Then there is Rebuilt and a whole bunch of fan games, jeeze!

The Blaire White piece was one I am also proud of, but Blaire did not see it. I am trying to see what I can do to contact her, but there is also uncertainty. I don’t think I we should have any issues if I do get invited to debate, but my concern is more so if it is ethical to use the debate to boost my own popularity. Additionally, I don’t know how things would change for me, but no one got anywhere without taking risks.

TW: The next two paragraphs involve discussion of rape and trauma

The #MeToo piece… I pretty much already revealed that playing Starless gave me rape trauma syndrome (or at the very least, something similar), and I needed to hold this back because I know I would not be taken seriously if I said this in a piece like that. It sounds absurd but… I’m not lying. That fucking game broke me, and now I can’t stop thinking about it. Everything comes back to that fucking thing. I don’t want to derail this topic by talking about such an odd incident, but it really does harm when I still have the symptoms but can’t consider myself in the same category. I know people who have been raped for real, and I can’t try and claim victim points knowing they exist. This is perhaps why I felt the need to stick up for male victims or female victims raped by women. They at least had the physical component involved; I didn’t.

Trigger Warning Over

I have frequently heard how the left are all ideological puritans who don’t tolerate any form of dissent, and I’m not going to deny that these types exist. Perhaps the most glaring example lately has been with Contrapoints and the piece she had done on her by Jesse Singal. I’m going to say right here, I don’t know much about Jesse Singal, and to be quite honest, I don’t care. Apparently he is a TERF that had positive things to say about Natalie and the trans cultists are whining about her being respectful to him in turn. Yes, I am sure you can see what my impressions are.

Normally, I try to go for an even handed and understanding approach and I try to be understanding. However, I have my limits, and one of the few things I have no tolerance for is cliqueish bullshit like this. I already found the reaction to Laci Green being “red pilled” to be absurdly overblown, but with her I can at least understand given her blatant straw manning of trans activists and her palling around with Meghan Murphey (although I still have my own reasons for why I don’t consider Laci a TERF).

TERFon the smurf
But this is still funny.

With Natalie, she is till very much on our side and has probably done far more to aid the leftist cause than any of these fishhook theorists have. I’m not going to lie, when I first heard of the “fishhook theory,” I thought it was satire; I’m not lying. It really does speak for itself when you are saying that centrists are literally Nazis. That is not to say that both sides are equal by any means. If I had a gun to my face telling me I had to join either Antifa or the Alt Right, then you can call me Antifa Sarkeesian. However, a situation like that is the only way I WILL join Antifa.

As much as I hate to pull a “this is why Trump won” on you guys… but this is why Trump won. It was because you tried to force, intimidate, and shame everyone around you into voting for Clinton even if they did not like her. There was no attempt by the Clinton campaign to connect with the Bernie voters after he got screwed by the DNC, and they instead dismissed Sanders supporters as misogynist “Bernie Bros.” Oh yeah, nice female erasure there. They pulled the same shit on anyone who voted for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein.

It goes without saying that if you try to have a peaceful dialogue with someone and be empathetic, they are much more likely to do the same to you. I know this from personal experiences. I have spoken with multiple self identified “gender critical feminists” in conversations that were not hostile or angry, and they dropped their hostility towards me because I in turn dropped mine. Sure, they don’t change their minds completely, but in order to do that, you need to know where THEY are coming from. You need to show compassion for them, because otherwise they will dismiss you as just wanting you to obey them. I would highly suggest reading this Cracked article for further knowledge of how this occurs.

The irony of all of this is that I RARELY get this response these days. I know that I am a lot less popular, but what bugs me is that some of the SAME EXACT PEOPLE I see ranting on Twitter about how disappointed they are in Contrapoints have read one of the two political articles I wrote in the past two months. In one of them, I have defended Blaire White and said that I held a lot of admiration for her as a person and just think that she needs to ditch her sorority girl attitude, and I got maybe one negative response from someone that is still following me. The other one has me calling out aforementioned defense of Sarah Nyberg. I actively tagged as many of my leftist followers as I could when I posted these two articles and have got nothing but praise for them, and I am very glad to see that.

But it also distresses me because I don’t know what WILL set them off if someone with as small status as I do is treated differently from one of the most well known pro trans figures in internet culture. What makes me so special? Either scorn me to or give Natalie a break; I’ve said and done things far more sacrilegious than she has yet none of you seem to be offended by me, so why can’t you show her the same kindness?

Anyway I have said enough about this, and as usual I don’t want to dwell on politics for too long. I keep flip flopping between wanting to be a political activist and to just write about games. Hell the reason why I AM invested so much in activism is because I just want things to be peaceful again, or at least have that illusion of peace that I used to have before GamerGate happened. So many of you seem to want games to be free of politics so you can escape from this kind of shit, but where the fuck is my escape? I’m every bit as passionate about gaming as you are (let’s be honest, I’m probably more so) and if you look at the majority of the content of this blog then you will see that.

This is why I rarely do articles that flat out attack someone, and I’m not even sure how I feel about my Jed Whitaker piece in hindsight. Yes I agree with the points I made and I’m glad I made it if only because of the exposure that I got (and also because it may have opened a few eyes that not all feminists are perpetually whiny victims offended by everything under the sun), but I am not sure if it was necessary to lay such personal attacks on Jed himself. Of course, whenever I think about the content of his review, I start to remember why, but I am unsure if I would take the same approach if I were to write it now. Perhaps this may be the subject of a future piece.

Anyway, i should note that there is a bit of a disconnect between how I felt when I started writing this and how I currently feel. Currently, I have not had my estradiol in 4 days due to missing my appointment, and because of that I feel like utter crap and motivation is completely shattered. My appointment is rescheduled for the 7th but because my dad is an airhead, he probably won’t pick it up right away meaning I will be without spiro when for a few days to. God, it is fucked up how much of my well being is dependent on these fucking pills, and even more so that some assholes are desperate to keep us off said pills. Of course, the fact that I needed to look up and edit images for Starless which caused my trauma to relapse probably didn’t help, but god fucking dammit. (Update: I have them now, false alarm).

Other unfortunate news is that SSI won’t be a thing for 4 months because legal counseling advised that I get my name and documents changed first, which could take 4 months. So I still won’t have any independence until then, and am starting to debate whether or not I am actually ready to go back to class now. My step mom (nothing is official but that’s basically what she is to me, and I mean that in a good way) has offered to take me to the campus to show me around so I can familiarize myself and become more comfortable but she hasn’t followed that up. It is seriously infuriating that I am expected to press things that I am already nervous about doing AND talking about because of aspergers, yet both my dad and my (kinda) step mom are so oblivious.

But of course, I still have a few more months to figure that out, and I should probably have my HRT back by then. I have been starting to realize lately how much one can really do as long as they believe in themselves and that there are a lot less limits than I initially thought. How many of us don’t try to do anything serious because we think we can’t? This really is the gazebo effect in its strongest form… wait a minute

I have not finished off my planned Halloween content so I still need to finish this stuff off, those being my countdown, my reviews of Sweet Home, Splatterhouse, and one more mystery game. Afterwards, I can finally play and review Nekopara Vol. 3. There has been a bit more stuff I have considered. MangaGamer’s marketing team said they were impressed by how much thought I gave my review of Euphoria so I can assume they would not object to providing more review copies. But I still need to do Cosmic Star Heroine and Contraption Maker.

I have considered emailing Jast USA as well as they also have quite a few games that pique my interest. The concern is simply that the only review I have of a Jast USA product is of Starless, and I am unsure how they would react. I know that publishers are not really concerned about whether the review is positive or negative when it comes to small fries like me, but with something this harsh, I imagine that the reaction may be strange.

I do have another review of a Jast product written, and that is for Lightning Warrior Raidy III. Unfortunately, that review is also negative but not nearly to the same extent as Starless. However, it is a game I have considered giving another shot given that what made me ragequit was the convoluted design and obscure event triggers, in addition to there being no guides available online. If I have contact with the game’s publisher, then they should probably be able to help me out a bit if need be and I could tolerate the game’s over simplicity. If I do manage to complete the game that way, then I likely will re-write my review, hence why I am unlikely to put my old review up. But this adds in the complication that I may as well play the first two if I am approved to receive codes.

Additionally, I could try the same for other niche publishers such as XSeed, Atlus, NISA, Aksys, etc. Ironic how it seems like niche publishers seem more likely to give out review codes than even niche-er indie developers. Regardless, I already have a backlog larger than Battleborn’s sales figures so I am certainly not in any shortage of stuff to cover, and yes, I do want to focus more on games than political bullshit so hopefully this blog can remain in its most pure form.

Anyway, as usual,  I have a Patreon account for anyone who would like to support this blog. A reminder that if you pledge more than $5.00, you get to bump any game in my 778+ backlog, that is free to play, or that I have access to in any form without needing to spend money up to the forefront of my schedule in front of everything else. And yes, if this game is from a developer i can get a code from, then it is eligible. Also if it is a retro title that is easily emulatable then it is also eligible.

Anyway, time for shout outs. In addition to Ryumaou who has supported me from the start, I now have Ray Type who has pledge $3.00, and you both have my eternal gratitude, as every little bit helps. Additionally, I would like to shout out Christian Gordy, who is probably the longest lasting online friend I have had (he knew me pre transition for instance), and because he sent me some very nice stuff from his trip to Akihabara, namely a Senran Kagura art book, a trading card pack for Senran Kagura and Blazblue, and 2 Japanese Kit Kat bars (a brand that is FAR bigger in Japan than in the US and thus has some more unique variations. They were good btw).

I really would like to go there myself one day, hopefully after I get rid of this agoraphobia and dysphoria… fuck now I’m angry again. This goddamn shit always happens, I really fucking hate this shit. It’s like I’m a helpless princess locked in a tower, only no one is coming to rescue me and my only way out is to scrape away at the wall with a spoon Alcatraz style. I may be doing something, but it takes so long that I wonder if it is even worth it or if it works. I have virtually no hope, but I keep doing so because the alternative is death. Not that I would mind dying, but apparently my friends and family would, and I can’t let any of them get hurt. So yeah, you’re all stuck with me until the end.

Final Fantasy VII | Aint no gettin off

If you would like to support me or this site, then please support my Patreon if you would like to see higher quality content with more resources to put towards it. If you don’t want to spend any money on me, then you can also help out by simply sharing my blog on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, or anywhere else where others will see it. You can also follow this blog if you would like to be kept up to date on my stuff, or you could follow me on any of my social media pages (listed at the bottom of the page) and could stop by The Guardian Acorn Discord chat if you would like to talk to me and my homies.

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