I’m Quitting Twitter! (Temporarily…)

That’s it! I’m doing it! I’m quitting Twitter!

…for a week, anyway. At least initially.

This may not sound like a big deal, but when you consider the fact that I’ve checked Twitter almost every single day since the 9th July 2008, the situation becomes a little more apparent. Add in the fact that that date was more than half my life ago – when I exactly thirteen years and one month old, to be exact – and suddenly it should sound reasonable to say I’m questioning the impact it’s had on my entire life.

The thing is, I’m not doing this in reaction to anything. I’ve “quit” Twitter a couple times before in some of my lowest, angriest moments, but I’ve always come crawling back the next day. And whilst it’s common to refer to Twitter as a cesspit of doom nowadays, I actually have a lot of positive opinions about it. There are cute animal photos and funny jokes. I enjoy using it to keep up with people I know and people I admire. It’s been a prominent source of education from viewpoints I may not have discovered in my personal life otherwise. It’s these things which make the decision to step away all that much more difficult.

But the concerns here are just as numerous. Checking Twitter has been an impulse for years of my life now. According to the usage data on my phone, I open Twitter between 50 to 65 times a day. I also spend about an hour a day looking at it, which isn’t so bad but could certainly be time spent doing something else, like enjoying a show or some comics or reading a book.

I think the biggest impact Twitter has had on my life these past 14 years has been in how I share thoughts and opinions. Without Twitter, how many passing thoughts would I have shared in a message to a friend instead of a tweet? Might my relationships be stronger for doing so? It’s even more concerning when you consider that a majority of my tweets don’t get a single interaction. I’m not a voice in a community, I’m literally just voicing my thoughts to myself in public. And while I have no qualms about doing so, I do have other platforms to do so in more creative ways.

I wonder… have you ever had that moment where your phone runs out of charge, and for the moment between plugging it in and it coming back online, you felt disconnected and alone? That’s probably not healthy, right? I wonder if that feeling is as universal as I thought. And I wonder if I’m going to feel that way when I stop using Twitter. I plan on using my reclaimed time in constructive ways; I’m sure I’ll feel lost at first, instinctually reaching toward that app or bookmark before remembering I’ve removed it, and should spend my time elsewise. But perhaps, in time, that instinct will fade away, replaced with a stronger presence in my day to day, or more frequent messages with friends.

I’ll probably write another post on this in a week, or if I do decide to wait longer, some later date. In the meantime, I’ll continue to talk about all the stuff I love talking about on my weekly YouTube series, in livestreams, and perhaps in more blog posts right here.

To Be A Time Traveller…

I recently found myself staring at this picture of my home city from the 1950’s and – not for the first time – being absolutely fascinated by history, place, and the passage of time.

Plymouth’s Royal Parade in the 1950s.

Specifically, this photograph is interesting to me because of just how high quality it is. I don’t know if it’s been artificially touched up or if somebody just had a cracking good camera, but it’s so high quality that it feels all the more relatable. I know that road, but the cars on it are different. I know those buildings, but the shops inside have changed. I know those trees, but they’re massive great things in comparison. I’ve sat on the bench where the man in the hat is sat. A man seventy years removed from this very moment, long since dead and buried. And that’s fascinating.

If I had a time machine – oh, if I had a time machine. I won’t bore you with tales of where I’d go, but 1950s Plymouth would be one of the earlier stops. I can just imagine how surreal it’d be to explore the city before my father was born, before anyone in my family stepped foot in the city, before the people in my life existed. I know exactly which streets I’d visit. I know exactly where I’d go.

One of the main things I’d do is just listen. Find a spot, people-watch, catch snippets of passing conversation. The day-to-day of the average person in the 1950s isn’t exactly long-lost lore, but I’d be interested in all the little things you don’t think about, the unexpected tidbits that catch you off-guard and remind you that certain shops used to exist, certain people were still around, and of course, there would be plenty popular topics of conversation that people just don’t consider anymore, things that weren’t important enough to be noted in history but were a common talking point at the time.

I am, of course, romanticising things somewhat. Day-to-day life in the 1950s must have felt as unspectacular to someone living their life then as the 2020s do to us now. But maybe there will be people in the 2090s rifling through old photos and videos from the 2020s, perhaps not eager to come and visit due to our… current issues, but feeling their own bout of nostalgia for a time which they never saw for themselves.

The thing that gets me, looking at all those people walking down past the shops, is the fact that history isn’t just the division of separate eras or decades – it’s a direct line from A to B. I like to imagine myself as a fly on the wall, albeit one with an exceptionally long lifespan and an attention span far greater than one I have now. Imagine sitting on that wall and watching people arrive for work, or meetups with friends, coming and going day-by-day as the world ever so slightly, imperceptibly changes around them. We already know, from our perspective, the differences the years brought – some good, some bad – and we categorise them by decade or by technological advancement. But every single day, the invisible web of cause and effect changes infinitesimally, and nothing is ever the same as it was the moments before.

My point is that ultimately, the Royal Parade in that picture and the Royal Parade I know are the same place. (I mean, give our take the thousands of lightyears hurtling through space in the meantime – we’re talking relative place, right? No smart-arses in the comments!) It’s tempting to see history only through the lens of the major events and the stereotypical aesthetics we associate with certain decades, but this picture really brought it home for me that the past is so much closer than we tend to think. The houses we’ve lived in for half our lives have been lived in by multiple families in the past. The streets we live on have seen countless stories unfold throughout the years. And given everything going on in our lives on a day-to-day basis, it’s so easy to forget that, and assume that the present is something that’s been the state of the world forever. Not when you think about it for more than half a second, obviously, but just passively – what’s now just is.

Lately, I’ve realised just how much old media I’ve been consuming. I’m reading Amazing Spider-Man from its 1960’s origins, and watching Classic Doctor Who from a similar starting point. Since subscribing to Britbox for that, I’ve also found myself weirdly intrigued by the smattering of old EastEnders episodes they have available. It’s all due to the same fascination I have with that picture at the top of the blog post. I’ve always been fascinated with ancient history, but it’s only in the last few years that recent history has really grabbed my attention. Not the World Wars or the politics, or anything like that – but the mundane, every-day history of the average life.

What Am I Up To In A Parallel Universe?

Something that I often think about is what alternate versions of myself may be doing in parallel universes. Assuming they exist, and assuming they exist in infinite variations from slight to severe, it’s often fun – or a little depressing – to consider my own path through life, and find points of divergence where I may have chosen a different path. Of course, with low self-esteem, it’s often tempting to portray my current self as one of the least successful or meaningfully defined versions of myself in these scenarios, but that’s only because I’m characterising other potential versions of myself as the embodiment of success in one of my potential paths.

The first and most obvious consideration is often the cruellest; what if I’d succeeded in establishing myself as an author by now? I’m quick to add that this could still happen at any time; many successful authors only found success when they were well older than I am now, and I’m not about to give up. (I should probably start before I give up, right?) But a part of me always desired to be a prodigy. Probably borne of no small amount of arrogance which I held before going to university, I initially dreamed of being a successful author at a young age. But looking back on some of my earliest short stories now, I can only wonder how that would translate to a more successful, published version of my 26 year old self. Would I be looking back on my earliest novels in alarm? Or would I have failed to learn some of the most crucial lessons I learned during university, and written stories of a lower quality than I’m now able to, should I apply myself?

Here’s something different: As I approached my late teens, I became fascinated with history, and this fascination feels like untapped potential to this day. What if I’d gone to university for a historical course instead of creative writing? How would my life path have been altered? Well for one thing, I’d have a different group of friends. I don’t do a good job of keeping in touch with my uni friends, but I’d be sad to have never met them. I also find it amusing that I don’t know what the average day-to-day life of a historian is even like, so it’s a little difficult to ruminate on where my life would now be. Maybe I’d combine my love of writing with my love of history and write historical fiction.

Anyone who knows me knows that my biggest hobby by far is gaming. I’m not only interested in playing videogames, but in how they’re made. What if I’d opted to put all my eggs in the game design basket? What kind of games would I make? Well, most games are made by teams, so it’s perhaps more apt to imagine myself joining a well-known developer studio after years of working my way through the industry. But, woof, I can smell the ignorance coming off of that last sentence. By all accounts, the games industry is a cutthroat workplace with all its layoffs and contractual positions. Even in this daydream what-if scenario, it’s hard to imagine myself settling somewhere and making a name for myself. With very rare exception, that’s just not how that works. All the same, I’d like to think I’d be working on some cool collectathon platforming levels, or maybe assisting in the world-building of some grand MMORPG.

Of course, these all assume I’m going down one of the paths that still interest me. Once upon a time, though, I was interested in drumming, and while I only had a few informal lessons, I was told that I had potential. Assuming this was the truth and not merely the platitudes of my sister’s then-boyfriend to keep my interest, perhaps there’s a universe where I’m touring the country in a rock band? It’s… difficult to picture, but if the multiverse is truly infinite, as I’ve arbitrarily decided at the top of this blog post, then there’s also a universe when I’m a purple elephant tamer in the employ of the grand galactic army, so…

Grounding our feet firmly back in reality for the moment, let’s stop looking at potential presents and dive back into the past. I’ve already documented on this blog post about how cause-and-effect fascinates me, how the butterfly effect affects everything we are. So who would I be if I’d been enrolled in a different secondary school? Our teenage years are some of our most formative, and the friends we make are central to that transformation. My interest in writing was instilled from a young age, but not my interest in history. What interest might I have picked up if I’d been introduced to a different school, a different group of people? I’d be very interested to talk to that version of myself… but not to be that version of myself. I made friends at my secondary school that I wouldn’t trade any opportunity in the world for.

To finish things off, I’ll end on the reminder that yes, it’s fun to think about the different versions of myself that could be out there – assuming multiverse theory is true, which is quite the assumption. And it’s tempting to measure myself against them. But at the end of the day, they’re all me. All people I could have been, but also people I could still be, if I truly wanted. I still have time to be a novelist, and while it may be more difficult to change tracks now, I could still try to break into the field of history – although I certainly have no plans. I could be a teacher, or an artist, or a cook.

Or I could just be myself. And be a little of all these things.

But I would have to learn how to cook…

I Should Probably Say Hi

It’s been nearly a year since I posted an update to this blog, so instead of sitting here like Spongebob trying to figure out what to write beyond the word “the”, I should probably crack on and provide a general update about my life. After all, this is not only a blog, but part of my Tombstone Project, a series of memoirs written during the years of my life instead of a hazy recollection at the end of them. If it’s 2084 and you’re reading this, hi there! I hope the planet’s slightly less on fire these days.

The reason I hesitate to provide an update for my life at this point is that I don’t wish to repeat myself too many times with “nothing much has changed”. My life – at least, in macro – remains in a sort of state of stasis. I haven’t met anyone new, moved anywhere or changed jobs since we last spoke. In fact, I recently received a badge for being at my current job for five years, something which was celebrated more by the automated system which generated the badge request and sent the thing than the recipient of it. You often hear about how five years is a sizable gauge of time in which to measure the movements of one’s life and personality, but the only thing that was really different about me five years ago was that I had a second job.

I don’t mean to be too down in the dumps about all of this. After all, it’s not like my day-to-day doesn’t have meaningful joyful moments, or that being the same person I was five years ago means I’m not a person worth being. In fact, quite the opposite – I think the fact that I’ve changed so little in so long is because I’m too comfortable. Beyond psychoanalysing myself and oversharing, the simplest and most innocent reason for my current state of being is because I’m too ambivalent about furthering my life path. But that’s not necessarily something I’m trying to solve by sharing it with you, it’s just something I felt necessary to put out there to contextualise the lack of change in my life.

As for world events, yes, I’m watching on in horror as the government continues to strip back anti-COVID measures. That “light at the end of the tunnel” post really didn’t age as well as I’d have liked it to. I’ve avoided it so far (to the best of my knowledge), although the rest of my family aren’t quite as lucky. Still, it’s not quite the scare it once was, being vaccinated and all that. I should probably free myself of the restrictions I place on myself – I’ve not seen most of my friends in years at this point and practically everyone thinks I’m absurd to still be hermiting it up as much as I am. I just can’t get it out of my head, the whole action-and-consequence thing, the butterfly effect of it all. As someone who’s mostly fine getting their social interaction virtually through text and voice chat and videogames, I hate the thought of putting anyone at risk – even the tiniest percentage of risk – because I wanted to go on a day out. But then, the rational person reading this would be quick to point out the countless other avenues in which we put each other at risk by pursuing leisure, and suddenly I sound mad. But even as I write this, I’m watching cases rise again…

I want to add a little bit about the Russian invasion of Ukraine here, although I feel shitty doing so. In the context of a personal update about my life, including my reaction to these events feels like a selfish indulgence, because they don’t directly affect me. I have the privilege to sit here and talk about how awful it all is without having to deal with the horrors of it personally. And yet, it has affected me, as it’s affected all of us. I can think of nothing more vile than the outright murder of so many innocent people. It weighs heavily on my mind. In the earliest days, the weight of that horror was accompanied with outright fear as to the ramifications of this invasion on the rest of the world, and likely still should be. In time, of course, I became desensitised to that fear, partially through my own making, for the sake of my own sanity. But the weight of the horror is still there. If a future version of me is reading this, I hope that I am reminded of it. It’s not an event that can un-happen, and should not be forgotten.

I didn’t intend to make this blog post a marching out of all the horrors of the last year, but if I’m being pragmatic, it’s not been a year of much else, in terms of landmark events. As I alluded to earlier, though, my day-to-day has moments of joy and love, and I want to counterbalance with that. I may not have any major life milestones to give a tour of here, but that doesn’t mean I’m not smiling and laughing plenty at the myriad of little things which make up the tapestry of meaning in our lives. I felt that I should mention that. Because even against this backdrop of problems too large to be changed by everyday people like me, we still live.

I don’t mean to keep my life in stasis forever. I’ve got some stuff to work through – that thing about oversharing comes to mind again – but five years from now, I should be able to do that look-back-and-go-wow thing. I’ll probably even write a blog post about it. You’ll see. And I hope you’ll be there!

April 2021 – Wait, People Read Me?

One of the perils of monthly updates is in its very nature – what if you’ve not had a very interesting month? Or what if you have, but you’re not ready to share with the public yet? Therein lies the reason for the shallow nature of this month’s post. That being said, I do want to talk about a fun little revelation I had about my sister blog, 32 Bit Brain. Namely: that people read it!

I create a lot of content online, and I approach most of it with the mindset that I’m doing it for me, and anyone else who enjoys it is a bonus – albeit a very much welcome one. I create a video series called The Weekly Waypoint where I talk about my week, typically in terms of what I’ve been playing and watching. This month, I hit the three year milestone, without missing a single week. And most videos average somewhere between 2-5 views, which most people would call nothing. But in all honesty, I’d make them if they got 0 views, because I love being able to jump backwards in time by a year or two to see what I was up to at that particular time. And I won’t lie, there are definitely times when I wish I had more views, but then, every time I consider putting myself out there I remember the toxicity that can come from online forums, and swiftly continue to enjoy my own peace and quiet. That being said – you’re invited, dear reader, if such videos pique your interest. You may find the playlist here.

But I digress. My point is that earlier this month, I happened to glance at the follower count for 32 Bit Brain and was shocked to find it that it currently has 411 followers, around triple what this blog has (and I appreciate each and every one of you!), making it my most successful creative project at this time. The reason this surprised me so much is that, until I began my monthly Xbox All Access Adventure series, I’d only post there very occasionally, and wouldn’t even put a ton of thought into the content I was creating. Hilariously, I spend much more effort on my Youtube channel, which has 10% of my gaming blog’s engagement, if we’re matching followers to subscribers. There’s probably a lesson to be learned there. Nevertheless, I’m going to try and make two blog posts a month over there from now on, so feel free to give that blog a look if it interests you. I recently wrote about my childhood games on the Playstation 1, and plan to continue writing about the games I played on later systems over the coming months.

This also prompted me to consider how I talk about videogames on this blog, and in the context of life in general. The depth of my love of videogames is enough that I think I can safely call it a lifestyle, more than a hobby, but outside of game-related discussions I always treat that aspect of myself as something that isn’t worth talking about. The easiest example I can compare it to is that people often mention in their blog posts about which movies they’ve gone to see, not as a main topic but as a sidenote, as part of their everyday life. In contrast, I only mention that I’ve “been gaming” if someone asks me what I did with my time off or my weekend, usually by way of demonstrating that I “don’t get up to much”. That should change! I should share my passion with people. And I do, with some, but only if we have a love of gaming in common. I should open up more to people, albeit without monologuing about something they aren’t all that interested in. And in regards to this blog, I should feel less guilty when discussing it as part of what I’ve been up to this month, though this isn’t about to turn into a gaming blog, I assure you.

So anyways, that’s that. Other things I’ve done this month include becoming heavily invested in the MMO Final Fantasy XIV, getting my traditionally overdue haircut, seeing family for the first time in months from the safety of back garden visits, writing a poem that will likely never see the light of day, finishing the first book in the Wheel of Time series and enjoying the second volume of the Cirque du Freak manga omnibus edition. Oh, and I fished out my old Top Trumps cards to have a gander, because why the heck not.

See you next month!

February 2021 – A Month of Fatigue

When I logged in to start writing today’s blog post I was informed that it was my seven year WordPress anniversary, and given that I created this blog at university as part of a writing project there, I did what any well put-together adult would do: I mentally crumbled and had an existential crisis about the passage of time. Because, I mean, seriously. 2014 was seven years ago?! That’s not allowed! That’s illegal! Stop that at once! I haven’t grown enough as a person since then for seven years to have passed! Aaaaaa!

But anyways, we’re here to talk about my February. My hilariously empty February. What happened to me in Februrary? I scream, for I do not know.

The optimism I had in January slowly slipped away as more and more news came out about how long the vaccination process will take, the restrictions that we’ll still need to adhere to post-vaccination, and the government’s subsequent ignoring of most health official advice. Don’t come at me about politics either, I don’t even know the details because they’re too depressing to keep up with. All I know is that I walked into a room with a TV on a week or so ago and heard Boris Johnson talking about school re-openings and “unavoidable deaths” in the same breath. That light at the end of the tunnel may be farther away than I initially had hoped.

I’m not completely down in the dumps, though. We’re closer to the end than we are to the start, and throughout this entire thing I’ve been relatively successful in staying positive by not thinking too far ahead. When I think of the months ahead I’m not thinking about continued isolation and arguments about what risks we should be taking, I’m thinking of videogame releases and upcoming shows, and how we’re finally starting to see sunny warm spells outside, which are not to be underestimated in how effective of a mood-booster they are to me right now. I’m continuing to only leave the house for work and necessities whether the government lifts lockdown or not, as I have been this entire time, with the knowledge that in another time, in another place, this will all be a distant dark memory. I hope that anybody who is reading this is able to find some similar comfort in that.

As far as what I’ve been up to… well, I have a stumble I need to address. In early February I got very excited about the prospect of applying my creative philosophies on video series and blog posts onto fiction writing, in an effort to get me writing more. In that vein, I launched a new blog named Have It In By Friday, the core idea behind it being that I’m to publish a new short story every fortnight. But after my first story, which I’m very pleased with and put together in about two days, I went on to miss the second deadline, and we’re now less than a week out from the third and I have little to show for it. The easy conclusion to jump to here is that forcing deadlines on myself isn’t a strategy that’s going to work, but if I’m honest, I’m not sure how to get myself writing otherwise, as I’ve produced very few short stories in the years since I finished uni. Waiting for motivation to come to me isn’t the right answer, because it’s unreliable and either abandons me for months or strikes at times when I can’t write, such as during work or when I need to sleep. It’s a very frustrating problem, but it’s not one I’m going to give up on trying to solve.

I sometimes wonder if I’m trying to juggle too many creative projects at once. Besides the two monthly blog posts I do, one at the end of the month here and one on the 10th at my sister blog, I also create a weekly gameplay video series that I’m 148 consecutive weeks into. Outside of time specific content, I typically make two more videos per week for my channel, either gameplay highlights or commentaries on books or shows I’ve been reading or watching. I love doing all of this, but fitting a fortnightly short story around that schedule has proven difficult, and as an aspiring author I feel like I’m betraying myself by refusing to make room for it. It’s something I’m still grappling with, but perhaps I’ll have the answer by the next monthly update.

Beyond my creative endeavours, I spent February taking a hard left from my obsession with Elder Scrolls Online on Xbox to an obsession with my new Ironman account on Runescape. I also enjoyed reading through the first omnibus volume of the Cirque du Freak manga, started to care about Nintendo consoles again thanks to some actual Nintendo news, and enjoyed Blizzard’s BlizzConline event more than I thought I would.

If it sounds like I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel for the “in other news” part of this blog post, that’d be because February was sparser than a parsnip basket in winter. See you on the other side of March!

January 2021 – Light at the End of the Tunnel

2021 is here, and with it, all of 2020’s baggage because time is a human construct and events don’t cease for arbitrary milestones. Except for man-made events, like the inauguration of President Joe Biden and, more importantly, the end of Trump’s wannabe tyranny. It wasn’t clean, and it certainly wasn’t pleasant; the fascist’s parting gift was to incite an angry mob to overrun their capitol building, taking innocent lives in the process. President Biden certainly has a divided country to contend with. That being said, though, I’ve never seen a politician (besides perhaps Obama) with an outlook on life that’s more promising or full of hope. I suppose the thing that remains to be seen is whether he and his administration can manifest those ideals into tangible change. Personally, I believe in Biden. And that’s an incredibly refreshing feeling.

But that’s America. That’s a country all the way on the other side of the world. Things here in the UK aren’t as promising. Our death toll continues to rise and our leadership continues to apologise, look pitiful and then continue to make the same mistakes which directly results in more death. Infuriatingly, all it took was for Boris Johnson to bow his head in shame for many people that I know to suddenly feel sorry for him. Nah. Where I’m from, apologies don’t mean anything unless you actually pledge to change your behaviour and not repeat your mistakes. In fact, I’m pretty sure that apologising and looking pitiful only to continue your abhorrent behaviour is a common manipulation tactic. Schools won’t be any safer just because Boris is sad.

Okay, sorry. Political segment over. But if these monthly posts are to document my life as it happens, then the state of the world directly affects that, no?

Personally, this month – I’m going to be 100% honest with you, a lot of it has been me replaying a bunch of storylines in The Elder Scrolls Online for Xbox, as you can’t transfer saves from PC. And I’m loving every second of it. For more on what I’ve been playing on Xbox, visit my sister blog.

Other than that, though, I finally bit the bullet and subscribed to Audible so that I could listen through the Wheel of Time series. I’m a big lover of fantasy fiction, and the only thing that’s stopped me from reading that series until now is the price of all the books together. I’m fussy; I never want to have to wait to continue a series that I know is fully released. That, and I’m worried that I’d forget important details between book acquisitions.

The thinking behind getting an Audible subscription is having more time to read, as I’ll be able to do so while walking to work, a not-insubstantial commute. In the same vein, last year I often found myself watching Youtube on my phone before falling asleep, which is the time I once reserved for reading; now, I’m reading at night once again on top of listening to audiobooks. My nightly reading is currently reserved for re-reading The Saga of Darren Shan… again… but this time for the purpose of talking about it in my new video series, which you can find right here. I’ll also be discussing the Wheel of Time novels as I go through them, and whatever comes after.

So yes, my life is as introverted as ever. I’m at the start of a week off and I fully intend to spend it gaming, reading, writing, recording and editing. The ongoing pandemic doesn’t leave me much of a choice outside of this, but again, besides the occasional meetup with friends this is probably what I’d be up to anyway. Regarding the pandemic, though, there is light at the end of the tunnel. There’s vaccinations, and while they’re not being rolled out to the general public just yet, you’d better believe I’ll be in line as soon as possible. It’s been a harrowing 10 months, and there’s a few more to go yet, but when we’re all vaccinated and it’s safe to go out again, I’ll be making efforts to see friends more often. I’m not suddenly going to become an extrovert, and I’m not going to beat myself up for who I am, but if this past year has taught me anything it’s not to take social occasions for granted.

And that tyrants are ephemeral.

November – A Month of Good Things

Yes, you read that right – good things! Relatively speaking, anyway. I know a lot of horrible stuff probably still happened somewhere to somebody. But for me, November was a much needed break from the eldritch horror of tentacles and words without vowels that has been 2020.

Let’s get the main one out of the way: The people of the United States of America have voted for Joe Biden over Donald Trump as their next President!! And yes, it shouldn’t have been that close, and yes, there are some very legitimate concerns about Trump not wanting to surrender the White House, but let’s put that aside for a second and talk about how for many years now, it’s felt like evil rules the world. Men with thoughts of money and power have ascended to the coveted seat of world leader and divided the common people with carefully rehearsed lies or incompetent blundering. I remember some time ago feeling optimistic about humankind embracing modern perspectives, but these last few years have seen so much regression on that front that it breaks my heart. So much more hate crime, so much more fearmongering and division and cruelty. So much infuriating political rhetoric about non-political matters.

I watched the election through the gaps between my fingers as the frightening first numbers came in. Memories of countless elections past returned, that feeling of hopelessness as thousands of disadvantaged people voted for the government that impoverished them due to some loud or silver-tongued individual selling them lies. It’s a bloody familiar feeling at this point. (Seriously. Fuck the Tories.) But as the hours and days passed, as the postal votes came in, hope began to take root, and my not-so-great overtime shift at work turned into one of the best shifts ever when the news finally broke that Biden had won. No matter the numbers – which are less depressing too when you look at the stats of individual votes – hope and love and knowledge had finally won, in one of the most influential places in the world. Because, like it or not, whatever the United States do, the United Kingdom seems to follow, be it war, preference of politicians, or fast food chains.

But that’s not all! Don’t take this blog post as a source scientific information because I am absolutely not an expert, but by the looks of things a vaccination for Covid is on the way! And it has like 90-95% effectiveness! That’s so good! This long nightmare may finally be over soon, though I hasten to add that while we’re all excited about the removal of restrictions to our lives, this pandemic will never leave those who have lost loved ones to the virus. Plus, the way we’ve collectively handled this virus – at least in the UK and the US – should serve as a massive red flag as to our effectiveness to tackle global issues that threaten our very lives. Disinformation, politicisation of preventative measures and general idiocy has cost us irreversibly.

Good things, though – this post is about good things! Well, personally, it’s been an absolutely fantastic time to have the hobbies that I do. Firstly, on the general gaming side of things, the new consoles launched and for the first time ever I got one on launch day! I’m doing the £20 a month for 2 years thing with my Xbox Series S & Game Pass Ultimate, and so far I’m having a grand old time. For more on that, head to my sister blog where I’ll be discussing my first month with Xbox in detail on December 10th. Furthermore, on the slightly more niche side of my hobby, the latest World of Warcraft expansion just released, and it’s absolutely fantastic. I’ve been playing since 2014 and I’ve never felt so invested in the game’s world and story.

2020 has been pretty fucking awful, but November for me was a much needed reminder that good things can and do happen, and hobbies can shine outside of just being a necessary escape. Here’s hoping November was a portent of things to come.

October – A Month of Changing Faces

September was an incredibly difficult month, and October has been no walk in the park either. Just the other night I had a very long and drawn out dream about a financial advisor (dreams are weird) trying to convince us to get rid of Coral. She’s very much still on my mind, and if I’m being honest I don’t think she’ll ever truly leave. I don’t think I’d want her to. That being said, I believe the rawest part of grief is behind us; I no longer think about days in terms of how tough they’ve been, or actively avoid content that’s overly sad.

In fact, about a little over a month after saying goodbye to Coral, we welcomed two new furry friends into our lives – Bert and Earnie! To be immediately clear, these are my parents cats; I’m enamoured with them for sure, but I’m not going to grow too personally attached to them, to save myself some heartache as I move onwards in my own direction through life. But they adopted them from a couple who are moving countries soon, and while they’re already nine years old, they’re both happy and healthy. Bert can be nervous at times, but she’s already shown us her playful and cuddly sides on multiple occasions. Earnie can be grumpy and reclusive at times, but he can also be very vocal and affectionate in his own prideful way. I’ll admit that I had my reservations about adopting cats who had spent nine years with another family, but they’ve settled down and accepted us amicably.

In less fuzz-related news, this month saw some disastrous news emerge about a content creator I’ve been following for almost a decade. James Ryan Haywood – who I will refer to by name, so as not to grant the mercy of anonymity – threw his co-workers at Achievement Hunter into turmoil when it was revealed that for years now, he’s been having affairs with multiple young women in the community. Not only is this a blatant abuse of power, it’s also a pretty diabolical thing to put your family through.

The reason I bring it up here is because I’ve been watching Achievement Hunter almost since its inception, and I’d be lying if I said this didn’t affect me. Like, I wasn’t personally torn apart by what Ryan had done, because it’s not something which has personally affected me, but it certainly hurt to watch people who have brought nothing but joy to my life for years be so deeply wounded by this betrayal of trust. It also hurt to see members of the community taken advantage of by this insidious bastard in the first place. It’s just been a shitty time all round.

I very much believe in giving back to creators, not out of a sense of duty or necessity, but just as a way of putting positivity into the world. If somebody makes you laugh every day, maybe send them a tweet letting them know, thanking them. Doesn’t matter if they don’t reply; doesn’t matter if they might not even see it. There’s this mindset that it’s embarrassing to send a message to someone and have them not respond, even if they’re someone who receives thousands of messages a day. It’s a pointless way of thinking, especially when it apparently doesn’t apply to the many trolls sending hateful thoughts to people for the most insignificant of reasons. The majority of people are happy or content, and because of that we don’t tend to let creators know this; someone with hateful thoughts is more likely to have a desire for the creator to know of them. That’s why I think it’s important to support creators in this way, especially new ones who are integrating into an established group for the first time; they get the most hate.

Anyways… this month I’ve also been losing myself in nerdy worlds, having a grand old time in World of Warcraft, Pokémon and Doctor Who. I also watched through the genuinely fantastic Avatar: The Legend of Korra, began outlining a new creative project (ohp), and got myself trained up on a department I was slightly anxious about at work to get more overtime! Turns out I am as functional on it as any other human being with two brain cells. Go me!

By the way, I just realised that this month marks a year of monthly updates!! Woo! I think I can safely say that I much prefer monthly updates to weekly ones. I actually have stuff to talk about! Most of the time. And because I feel much less pressured to write blog posts constantly, more passion is put into them as a result. I hope you agree that this format is better. And if you’ve been reading them: Thank you!

Here’s what I was up to last year.

August – A Month of Changing Winds

This month I gave The Tombstone Project some love; both to the project itself, and the actual Word file. Firstly, I went back and dug up some old poetry from my teenage years, some of which turned out to be surprisingly decent, especially given what I thought about it at the time. Secondly, I began writing more “journal” style entries specifically for the project, talking more personally about my life with the freedom of not having it made public until after I’ve, y’know, snuffed it. This doesn’t mean I’ve immediately begun spilling everything that goes on in my brain onto the page – people I know will still be reading this, after all – but so far, irregular, personal updates have provided me assurance that my autobiographical works aren’t entirely made up of phrases like “I can’t go into specifics”, or otherwise silent omissions of importance.

As for the Word file, well, I added page breaks after each entry. I won’t bore you with the specifics but it was a pretty unorganised mess before this. Anyway, now that I’ve done that, we’re sitting at 450 pages, although that’s at paperback size because I don’t know how to change it back. No, seriously, I am stumped, and not even Google is helping. It sounds like a simple problem but it’s not, okay? I’m good with writing and I’m good with software but apparently I am not good with writing software. Add it to the list of life’s great ironies.

Am I rambling about inane nothings? Sorry. I have plenty that I could talk about in terms of what’s happened to me this month, but at the time of writing, that’d fall under the “silent omissions of importance” I mentioned earlier. I won’t give a vague impression of what I’m omitting, either, because people jump to all sorts of incorrect conclusions. Instead, I’m just going to apologise for the low word count this month and jump straight towards the section where I ramble about my hobbies for a paragraph or two.

I took a bit of a left turn and streamed for 10 days in a row, after having not livestreamed anything for a few months now. The reason? World of Warcraft! We’re ramping up to the release of the new expansion, and anyone who knows me knows what the game means to me. I’m beyond in love with the world, characters, and gameplay of that universe, and I’m super excited about where the next expansion, Shadowlands is taking us: the afterlife. As you may be able to surmise by the existence of this project, I spend a lot of time thinking about death, and while that’s usually in more of a serious, existential way, I also thoroughly enjoy fantastical stories which explore what happens to use when we die.

Besides that, though, I’ve also enjoyed Gamescom this month (not least for the animated WoW short it premiered), dabbled in poetry, delved into the book Mythos by Stephen Fry in the hopes of better understanding Greek Mythology, and took a breath to appreciate the changing of seasons. Much of this month was spent in a sweltering heatwave, but in recent days the heat has broken and the coolness of autumn has taken its place. This time of year always makes me nostalgic and introspective, reminding me of starting school, or university, of taking comfort in certain fictional worlds; of rare quiet moments where I’ve sat and appreciated the breeze, the waning sun, the distant sounds of life in various gardens and roads.

There can be no perfect afterlife. It would always be autumn, but the winds of autumn are appreciated for their heralding of change, and perfection demands stasis, lest it be imperfect for its ephemeral nature.

It’s been quite a month.