[August 9, 2026]

Trying to get in the habit of expression again, creative and non-creative. I guess everything is creative, but you know what I mean. I don't really want to turn this into a review section or analysis of media yet. Despite trying to muster a meaningful comment for each and every last VN we've played this year... I don't yet think we're getting any better at it.

Admittedly, analysis and critique are tough. And I think getting to see some excellent responses delivered by people with more training and/or experience than we have... well, it's one of those "my insight isn't sufficiently insightful, so why bother?" I know it's not a competition. I just don't want to like, fuck, I don't know what I don't want to do. I want it to feel meaningful.

This is all to say that I read SWIM4SWIM and found it a phenomenal, well-researched work with great polish and (despite being a trans, queer ex-athlete) I could think of very little else I needed to say about it. I am very happy it was made. I would like for more athletes to read it. I would like more sports fans to read it. I think it really digs around in the guts of "having a complicated relationship with something you're good at". If I had any critiques to lob at it, it's that on a first read, despite being about decidedly transgender experiences, and humanizing everyone involved... would it soften the hearts of the bigots who wish to deprive trans people from sport, from school, from public life? (Why do I care? Why does it need to have that function? Why do we have to fight in order to live?)

I don't know. I don't know that it needs to. I don't really know what would. I don't even really know why I question if it would. A thought I keep looping back around to is that I have a tendency to believe that if I just put the right words in the right order, I can actually fix or change or heal hearts or minds or spirits. I think the more I write and the more I read, the more I flip-flop on this. I have no clue what the fuck I'm doing. I barely know who I am most of the time.

God, this is whiny.

I just have to trust that if I keep engaging with art and creation and more importantly engaging with people and the world then I will feel at peace and make the world a better place. Even if it doesn't always feel like that.

Apart from that, I've been doing therapy homework and cleaning and stuff today. I wrote a letter from Mom to me, and that was cathartic, I think? I cried a lot, so that's good? I miss her a lot. I wish she could tell me what happened so I could make sense of my heart. I really need to do more Therapy Worksheets (tm) so as to be able to make some myself (or at least to find some to use for "Homework").

I missed blogging. I missed writing letters. I'm going to try to make another VN before my surgery, for the queer infidelity/NTR jam and the mixed media queer VN jam but I am not sure that my body will survive that and preparing for surgery and cleaning the old house. I hope I can make something again. I would like that.