Spoiler Warning: Here is your one and only warning that most of this post will talk about Fire Emblem: Three Houses and a whole lot of spoilers for the game. Anything below this paragraph might include spoilers for the various paths, choices, and secret of the game. While it has been out for three years already and that’s probably plenty of time for everyone who is going to play it to have played it, adding a spoiler warning doesn’t cost me anything and I want everyone who might become interested in the game to experience it. So stop reading if you don’t want spoilers because I’m running out of junk to put here so you don’t accidentally see a spoiler in one of the paragraphs below.
Continue readingThree
Fire Emblem Is A Comfort In My Exhausted Evenings
I have once again dived into a replay of Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I know there’s a new Fire Emblem game coming out in January. I know there’s a new Pokémon game coming out in just over a month. I know there’s a rerelease of a Kirby game coming out in just a couple weeks. But my heart yearns for entertainment now and what’s more entertaining than strategy games, my favorite podcast, and nothing but the cool darkness of a crisp, fall evening? Plus, they’re all comforting. Being under blankets, listening to familiar voices tell comforting stories, playing a game that engages my brain just the right amount (and maybe trying a new, more intense difficulty if I decide I want more than additional support conversation unlocks out of this play-through). I have a tendency to focus on familiar comforts when I’m stressed and BOY HOWDY am I stressed this week, so I’ve decided to go all-in on comforts in what remains of my evening awake hours now that I find myself dozing off well before my usual bedtime.
Continue readingThree Hundred of the Most Occupied Hours of My Life
In my nightly video game time, I’ve been doing another run-through of Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I’ll admit I’m not particularly interested in the game any more and I approach playing it the same way I approach playing Sudoku: I don’t expect to really get anything out of it other than a stretch to the non-artistic parts of my mind. I enjoy strategy and puzzle games for this specific reason, but a lot of the time I play them, it’s because I think I need some mental exercise or a monetary occupation rather than because I actually enjoy it.
Continue readingTwenty-Three
Stilted prose and dirty floors
Are all that exist between the doors
Of my mind and of my home,
But I’m tempted to leave them alone.
What right have I to tell them how to be
When I am at the fluid age of twenty-three?
The age of emotion and the flower of youth:
Constantly warring with the iron truth
Of absurdity and the joy of friends
Until the drinks are gone and the talking ends.
The bitter nights of solemn thought;
The bitter-sweet kiss of love sought;
The serendipity of friendship found;
The stoic, solid feeling of the ground
Beneath your feet as you spin the tales
Of loving friendship amidst the empty ales
and liquor bottles from the night’s escapades
Believing life has dealt blessings in spades.
What right do I have to be
So sad and melancholy?
Young but wise beyond my years,
Already immune to most the fears
That keep others awake at night
Despite the fact they’re doing alright.
The envy of many of my peers
Who, despite workshops and endless tears,
Cannot seem to make things work
And wind up as some poor sales clerk.
Stability and fortune are my reward
For spending every night I could afford
Working or studying despite the call
Of friends who are out having a ball,
So tell me how I can justify
A feeling for which I do not qualify?
I have luck and skill both,
The opportunity for growth,
Talent and determination,
Praise and edification
From those who can see just how far
I’ll go and not think it bizarre
That I might have some attribute
or great masterpiece to contribute.
Yet here I am at night’s darkest hour
Wishing I could ignore the nascent power
Of my roiling emotions and troubled thoughts
That tie my gut in non-euclidean knots.
With all the clanging, clamorous noise,
One thought maintains my outward poise:
The moon is so full and bright
While I sit here alone tonight.