The last month has felt strange to me. I have had a lot of ups and downs and it feels like my mood has been all over the place. The notable change is that I’m trying to ween off every medication of mine except for HRT. I had the realization fairly recently that all these meds may have caused more problems then I solved. I was given medication after medication for my depression since I was in fifth grade when I know for certain that it from latent gender dysphoria. Therefore I can gather that these medications are no longer necessary now that I’ve been on HRT for over a year. Not to mention I’ve looked up the side effects for a lot of these meds and realized that most of them have “depression” and “suicidal thoughts” listed, so I think I may have found a leading culprit.
Unfortunately three of these meds will have nasty withdrawal side effects if I quite them so I need to slowly ween off them. Simply decreasing my Propranolol dosage by 10 milligrams every 10 days has made me feel a lot better, and I will soon be off it completely. I then need to wait a month to check in with my psychiatrist before I quite Cymbalta and Trazodone, so it may take some time. However it does seem like things are going smoothly enough thus far. (Update: It didn’t go smoothly) Anyway here is last month’s article recap.
Standard Review: Heavenly Guardian (PS2/Wii)
Mutiny!! (PC): All Hands on Dick! (Detailed Review) (NSFW)
Political Rant: On Kristi Hanna and Trans Women in Women Shelters
Seanbaby’s Worst NES Games Countdown is Garbage. Here’s Why.
Poem #21: From the Shallow Grave
Deadly Towers (NES): Deathly Underrated (Detailed Review)
Amazing VGM: The Cave Where the Crystal Lies (Final Fantasy III)
Standard Review: Love at first Sight (PC)
Top 25 Saddest Video Game Songs (25-13)
Steam Greenlight Landfill: Venusian Vengeance
Poem #35: The Mystery of Purpose
Pac-Man World (PS1/GBA): Aged Like Milk (Detailed Review)
Amazing VGM: Buccaneer Beach (Pac-Man World)
Amazing VGM: The Path is Open (Persona 3)
So, just to get it out of the way because I’m sick of bringing this up in my Personal update pieces, I’ve made sure that I will finally be moving on from my breakup. I’ve done a lot of things I regret in the past five months, and I accept that I can never take them back. I also know that she will likely never forgive me, and I’m fine with that now. It went from being overly dependent and lonely to me being unable to accept my greatest failure. To me just not getting it through my head that I can’t fix this. This isn’t a video game where I could just reset and try again.
That’s why I messaged her one last time to make sure, to which she responded by blocking my last account. I was sad to see it, but also relieved. I was relieved because It let me know that this chapter in my life was over, and I now know what I need to do. This experience came with a lot of heartache and trauma, but I also became a lot stronger as a result and I literally saved a few lives since then that I may not have been able to otherwise. My regret stems from the fact that I hurt her, yet I know she’s fine. She’s one of the strongest women I know both literally and figurative so she’s probably fine. Besides, I’m much more meant to be a top anyway 😉
Okay hopefully that’s the last of this overly emotional breakup shit. Instead I plan to look towards the future, but that is a whole other quandary. It is an issue in that I am 23 years old, am dropping out of college, and can’t work due to agoraphobia and anxiety. Okay I probably could if I forced myself to but it’s not what I want to do. I have an overly powerful fear of working a typical 9 to 5 job or of going back to school. My mental illnesses prevent me from doing so even if I wanted to, but I’ve been thinking of if this is really the right approach. My dad has been trying to get me on SSI for quite some time now and it should happen at some point, but it’s just taking forever.
To be honest, what prompted this was a former friend of mine turning on me because she believes all mental illness is made up and bought into the far right “welfare queen” narrative, and thus thinks I’m a cancerous leech off my parents because I don’t know how to properly cope with agoraphobia. I know that she’s nothing more than a regressive bigot and I have cut off all contact with her, but it made me feel worse about my own predicament. I couldn’t give a crap about “being a productive member of society” when this crapitalist hellhole that only values people based on their labor considers me less human because I can’t work in the gulags while 50% of the country’s wealth is owned by less than 1% of the population who never need to work a day in their lives because they were born into their fortune and continue to accumulate more by exploiting the working class… what was I talking about again?
But yeah, the thing is that my dad does a lot of work and in the past I have had a lot of resentment built up towards him despite the fact that he has been trying his hardest to help me. Among the many things I regret is how I have presented my family in this blog. With the exception of my mom, I feel like I’ve taken them for granted in the past few years and blamed them for many of my own shortcomings. There are ways in which they don’t know how to accommodate my conditions due to not having them, but they do genuinely care about me, and thus I want to be able to make enough money to support them as well, but I make so little that I still have little to no agency.
My dad doesn’t seem to be struggling at all though and thus I shouldn’t let what that Nazi bootlicking ex friend of mine said effect me, but it’s just something I never thought about. Anyway I have considered trying to work as a professional game reviewer for another site, but i don’t know how to go about that and I also no longer know if it will be necessary. I’ve spent a lot of time depressed over things I lacked but I am in fact privileged in a lot of ways compared to other LGBT people. It’s why I spend so much time trying help other people. I’ve always made a point to use what I was given in a way to help others, and that is what I am going to continue to pursue.
I’ve been thinking back and forth about whether I should focus more on game critique or social justice activism, and I always felt like the latter was more important while the former I enjoyed doing a lot more. I believe I should likely keep things going the way they are since there is now way I can force myself to be a full time political blog, although you’ll be damned to get me to shut up about it completely.
Anyway let’s talk about last month’s content. It feels like it’s been forever and a half since then, and seeing all the poems linked would probably give that feeling. But I’m making sure to include the poem links just so I can think to myself “I made all of that in one month.” I am glad that my poems have been so well received since I was unsure how people would feel about the departure from my usual stuff but I really like this new outlet I found.
Of the ones I did last month, the most significant ones would probably be “New Land”, “The Cosmic Scale”, “Underneath My Skin”, “My Plea”, “The End”, “Into the Depths”, “An Anchor”, “Spectators”, “They Break Me”, “Nothing Left”, “You”, “Hall of Anubis”, “Shackles”, “Glass Heart”, “Looking Back”, “Worthless”, “A Cancer”, “The Way Forward”, and “My Love”. I like the rest of them to but these are the ones I’d like to talk about.
“New Land” was after three of my best poems (those being “Requiem for the Soul“, “The Will to Live“, and “The Cursed“). I wouldn’t consider it as good as those three but I am quite proud of it nonetheless. Given that I was still struggling to come to terms with the breakup at the time, I was trying to remind myself that there is still my entire life ahead of me and more to experience while also being careful not to repeat past mistakes. I really like the last line “A fresh start does little to a bleeding heart, for the future is always near but is never truly here” for that reason. Also I usually make a point to have the last line be the most powerful.
“The Cosmic Scale” was getting into Lovecraftian existential horror about how small we are in the grand scheme of things. All of us will be nothing more than small parts of a story some for future generations. I thus quite like this one for being different. “Underneath My Skin” I recall I was writing while feeling very agitated and thus felt with the sensation that something was building up inside. “My Plea” was written while I was suicidal and is a desperate cry for help. “The End” was written in the style of a Haiku except with two extra lines that follow the same format.
“Into the Depths” was a pure projection of grief and trauma, and the poem itself is just bleak as Hell. “An Anchor” was not originally inspired by my own breakup but I can’t help but look at it through that lens. I will admit the idea of using an anchor that drags you into the ocean as a metaphor kinda came from that one duel in Yu-Gi-Oh where the loser would have been dragged into the ocean, but I kinda gave it a double meaning with the depths also referring to the depths of despair like the previous one.
“Spectators” was about politics and people who just don’t give a shit how their actions affect others. “They Break Me” was an interesting experimental idea demonstrating a theme of helplessness. “Nothing Left” was another one written in a depressive moment of self loathing, and I admit that my inspiration for that last line came from the opening of Coolio’s “Gansta’s Paradise.” “You” was interesting in that most of my poems have been about me or the world around us, but rarely about you the reader. This one was another one that stemmed from self loathing and insecurity… I’ve been having a lot of that due to my last relationship. I also have been in the practice of hyperlinking these poems within each other whenever a line or the title is taken verbatim in order to give fewer words more intrinsic meaning to them. I was surprised that not many poems of mine had the word “you” in them.
“Hall of Anubis” creates a contrast from “Nothing Left” where I have a higher view of my actions but lament how they take a toll while also using the Egyptian afterlife as a metaphor. “Shackles” was another politx one that’s about how our society only views people as a source of labor, but I already talked about that earlier. “Glass Heart” was about me struggling to pick myself up after a tragedy and was referenced in the next poem, which may be one of my best.
The gimmick for “Looking Back” was that it was typed out backwards. It not only gives the shorter words more emphasis, but it also makes much more sense when you read “a tragic mind can only look back” out loud. And yes, it’s been how I need to stop looking to the past and move on. If you couldn’t tell, this breakup really did a number on me.
“Worthless” was another gimmick poem where the letter of each line spelled out “worthless.” it also touched on other societal issues and self loathing yada yada. “A Cancer” was another political one about the 1%. “The Way Forward” was meant to represent that I was finally starting overcome my own depression and gain motivation for the future. There were a few other bouts of grief since then but I seem to be mostly over it now. Lastly, “My love” was about how much I’ve grown in the past few months and yet I still miss her. I consider it a touching send off to her even though it was not intended as such. I doubt she feels the same way but I’m past that now. Also the ones that are currently up on Patreon but not on this site as of yet are ones I’m very proud of as well.
Oh yes, but I also do video game reviews that I assume is what most people are actually here for. I did get out three new reviews this month and I am quite satisfied with all three. The Mutiny!! review was something that probably took longer than it should have but I am satisfied with the end result. I do think that the Deadly Towers review was interesting, in addition to the Seanbaby piece that preceded it. I am also working on a piece about how I would remake Deadly Towers if I had the resources, and I think it is an interesting concept that I may want to write some similar articles to some time further down the line.
The there was the review of Pac-Man World, which I think is fairly interesting in its own right. While I wasn’t a fan of the game, I did see enough potential that could possibly have been improved in its sequels. As a result, I ordered a copy of Pac-Man Power Pack off of Amazon, a compilation of Pac-Man World 2, 3, and the racing spinoff Pac-Man World Rally. And yes I plan to cover all three games in the future, although I’m unlikely to do them consecutively.
In regards to future plans, I plan to review both Persona 3 and The Beginner’s Guide later this month. I have considered having one of those be my 100th review but it depends on how long it takes. I am still working on the Castlevania series but it may be a while until the next part is out. I have also been trying to get a review code for Nekopara Extra but the PR rep at Sekai Project that sent me the last code hasn’t responded. In terms of non game reviews, I plan on making another movie review as well.
Anyway, it is time for patron shout outs. I unfortunately lost a few but everyone seems to be losing some at this time so I’m not too concerned. Anyway I would like to thank Alex Silvey, IceTheRetroKid, Cesar Zamudio, Rinnie S, Meiastra, and Blue Desolation. Anyway that’s probably it for this update. Hopefully things continue to go smoothly from now on.
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