I'm back.

Hide your games.

Feel free to label that extended week or so without content as a totally unscheduled break because it only came about as a direct result of a bad fan killing my PC for longer than it should have. Were I to take an actual break it would have been something you would have never once been aware of because I'd have rushed ahead to make content to fill that coming void, and now I'm left holding the bag of a whole missing 8 days of content which means, much to my utmost chagrin, I'm going to have to conjure an extra 8 blogs over the coming weeks. Yes, this is a burden I've placed upon myself and no, I will make no excuses- this is how I'm going to be organising this blog in the coming weeks so be prepared for the odd double post day in order to satisfy some warped perception of 'self worth' that I posses. Luckily this week has been full of stories I'm just chomping at the bit to talk about. And so I very much will.

Let me first start by saying: Good lord what a terrible experience it was to not have this outlet for writing for an entire week! I was going, quite frankly, insane during the interim. Sure, the break gave me a chance to turn to those Switch games that I was dragging my heels on completing, but 'The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild' can only satisfy my wondering spirit of curiosity for so long before I start gnawing at my arm for something different and new. And 'Fire Emblem: Three Houses' can but tickle at my Persona craving for interpersonal relationship building between bouts of action, but it'll never truly replace that hole in my heart. Heck, even forcing myself through the many Demos on the Switch felt vapid and empty during that impromptu break, I truly am not one for vacations in the slightest. And that's just the stuff I was doing to keep the old rust-encrusted cogs in my head churning; what about all the stuff I was missing?

I can't rightly say if it was merely the forced perspective of being just a hapless watcher from the outside window staring in with fascination, or if genuinely and truly this past week has been a scatter shot of interesting industry news updates that have just happened to coincide with my purgatory. Every other day something wild was happening whilst I festered and pustulated in my head, churning on the spit like a trussed up duck, unable to squeak my irrelevant opinion from my tightly bound bill. I need that opinion! I yearn for it! Being driven from my opportunity to natter on into oblivion was akin to pulling nails with my teeth: torturous. And whatsmore, I feel like the break has made my already dizzy rhetoric almost totally nonsensical! Am I crazy, are you feeling that as well? I feel like I used to make more coherent analogies. Or maybe, to feed my own ego for a moment, I had become stale and the short break is allowing the creativity to shine through! Nah, I'm just losing it. Shouldn't fool myself.

Absence does, however, make the heart grow fonder; just like all the stories say. Because during the days leading up to the sudden and vicious deprivation period; I will admit I was starting to drag my feet when it came to this blog. I was handling it in parts, 4 blogs in the morning, 4 in the afternoon, and sometimes waiting until the day before it was scheduled to drop before editing it. There was a pattern of this becoming something of a chore, which three years without break is going to do to you, I suppose. But by that very same merit, having it ripped away from me like that, without recourse, was more painful than I could have imagined. I've formed my entire self worth around writing and finishing this blog every day without fail, and having that taken from me was like losing my soul. It's very rare when we as humans can actively feel a wave of contentment sweeping over us, but getting this computer back was that tangible wave moment for me.

Disgust, particularly that we point at ourselves, is such a complex and cunning beast to confront, and it can so very easily and commonly outmanoeuvre us. Personally I am harsh upon myself and my own lack of abilities, with good reason mind you, and that allows such 'detest-ing' to wrap itself around me like slimy tentacles. My solution for a lot of it was suppression, through forcing my own ideals of relevance and worth in this blog, and that brief time when I could no longer rely on this blog was like a no-holds-bar feast for that fouler side of my mental being. An assault that attacked every inch of myself and tried to call into question the years of this blog. What is worth anything? Had my ability to write grown any better? Is this just a gilded cage I've locked myself in and convinced myself it's actually 'freeing'? I was totally defanged to address these questions and even now they stab at my confidence like tiny pin-pricks of violent sense through the warm blanket of contentedness. But even if I can't rightly answer; suppression works wonders.

What I do is for a purpose. Not just here, I mean. My perpetual rhythm of writing is actually in aide of my ability to form and manipulate narrative, even basically, so that I can be a better storyteller. So yes, that does mean that I'm creative writing in my mean time, and up until the break I think I was starting to hit a stride with it. Not to say I'm best thing to land in the creative fields since Steven King, I'm not even on the same plane of existence as creative talents like that; but I was getting coherent and fun with my stories. One in particular, which I've never spoken about on this blog, called 'River of Dreams', was making such great progress. I nearly finished the entire first act and was working on the second act before all of this went down. I hope that comes back to me as naturally as it used to, because being able to finish a full novel, even a laymen's novel, would be a huge step in justifying my time here. I don't know if that's something I'd upload here or elsewhere on the Internet. Or both. Let me know what you think on that matter. 

Still, none of that is to say that I don't have fun sitting down to write these diatribes into nothingness. Of course I do, I love it. Heck, after starting this computer and trying out some Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade I immediately came back to the writing because I just couldn't drag myself away from this cycle for too long. So perhaps there is a slither of enslavement there, with me chaining myself to this blog as a victim of it's relief; but we do whatever works for us, right? I can't afford a psychiatrist, and I probably wouldn't make time for one even if I could, but I'd imagine the things I do now aren't too far off from what someone in that position would recommend. Or at least I hope that's the case, one of the key characters in that novel I'm writing is a psychiatrist, so I'd like to think I have some vague grasp over the sorts of angles their profession takes them.

And so this unscheduled little check in with me is finally over and we can go back to picking up on the many weird and wild stories of our silly little industry in order to fully achieve the escapism that the modern psyche needs in order to function. Won't you come along with me for that irreverent ride across the spectrum of gaming that we call our ecosystem? I certainly hope you will because with the coming year of cool stuff I can't see myself slowing down on covering any of this anytime soon, which is to say nothing about the stacking up reviews I have to get to, or the bigger blogs, or any number of obligation I have yet to invent for myself. God, it feels so good to have something to do again! I can't get enough of this!