I've mentioned before in a few places, and even touched on it in a previous blog, that I've spent the last few years basically trying to re-figure out just who the hell I am.  Self-discovery's great and all, but less so when you're a 40-year-old with Severe Depression who feels like much of your life up to now was wasted and you've missed out on so much and it may be too late to start over, but that's neither here nor there.  The point is I've come to another realization about myself.

I wrestled for a while over whether to talk about this here or not - even now, I'm still not sure - because, if I'm being completely honest, I'm scared of the reaction.  But, in the end, I've always been open with you all about my mental health in an effort to both normalize those issues for myself and to hopefully show someone that might be watching me on the Tubes that there's nothing necessarily *wrong* with you if you have mental disabilities; you're still valid as a person.  So, that's why I wanted to talk about this.  Because, while this particular revelation I've made isn't a mental disability, I still link it partially with mental health in general since, at least in my view, who I am has just as much to do with my mental health as what's going on in my brain.  Plus, if I let myself be too scared to talk about it, I'll never normalize it, so here goes...

I'm currently exploring the probability that I am polyamorous.  I use that precise phraseology - "exploring the probability" - because, as I've gone through this journey of self-reflection and discovery, I've realized that I've felt for a long time, at least since I started dating, that polyamory as a relationship structure just makes far more sense to me, but as I've always been in monogamous partnerships to this point and have never been in a poly relationship, it just doesn't feel right or accurate to straight up say "I am polyamorous" at the moment.  I did have a difficult discussion with my wife about it - "difficult" in the sense that I absolutely sucked at expressing what I was trying to say to her and ended up breaking into tears thinking I ruined everything, but she's accepted it.

So, yeah, that's the latest on the me front.  And if that revelation hasn't sent you running away from me screaming in terror, thanks for sticking around, and let's shift to a (for want of a better word) happier subject: gaming news!...specifically, the fact that I'd like to talk more about it.

Some of you may remember that I was part of a group of YouTubers that all shared a love of Adventure Games known as the YouTube Adventure Roundtable.  At some point we started our own channel which, while we haven't posted anything new to it for a few years, is still around and we each presented different shows.  In my case, I was the moderator of a podcast called YAR Talk.  Some time ago I discovered to my pleasant surprise that one of the notebooks I keep by my desk (usually for the purpose of making notes for games I'm playing) still contained the topics of discussion for most of the episodes of the show, and it got me to reminiscing about how much fun it was making it, even if compiling the topics was a bit difficult, and I remember thinking as content creation for the YAR channel started winding down how I'd like to do something similar to that for my own channel.

Now, I tell you all that to tell you this.  I'd still like to do it.  My interest in the idea has waxed and waned in the intervening years, but it started surging again from a couple of things happening in the past few months, namely Tom Hall saying on social media how he's planning to release the full story of the game Anachronox, and the recent situation with Xbox basically gutting Id Software.  Granted, if I did news items on this new show, I'd probably tend to stay away from AAA-related topics, since everything on that front these days tends to be "Corporations screwing over everything", and besides, my current computer can't really handle running many current AAA-titles, so I tend not to play them.

But I'd still like to talk about gaming news in some capacity.  Hell, here's a perfect example: within the past couple of months, there have been two instances of games from years ago (both of which I've done Let's Plays on, coincidentally) suddenly getting sequels.  It was announced in May (though I didn't notice til toward the end of June) that Tormentum: Dark Sorrow is getting a sequel, to be released July 23rd.  That was the whole reason I decided to replay the original, to refresh my memory on it.  Then, just last week, I happened to see Defy Reality (dev of Neyyah) share on Facebook that the maker of Alida of all games has made a sequel to that game, coming out at the end of August!  What's with the sudden, unexpected sequels??  Next, you'll be telling me they're making another Journeyman Project!...which, I actually wouldn't mind.

Anyway, back to this potential podcast.  The main questions I see that would need to be answered are the kind of format I want - what I'd want to talk about, would I want to do interviews, etc. - and, if I am going to talk about gaming news or other such current events, how to make the show in some kind of timely manner.  I know that at some point in YAR Talk's life we switched from recorded shows to livestreams, but I'm still not sure I trust my internet connection enough for that, so that's out of the question. There's also the problem of just finding the time to do it.

Another thing I'd like to get back to doing at some point: the thing that I started doing on YouTube in the first place, review shows.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy typing up the occasional text review for the website, but putting together videos, as difficult and time-consuming as it can be, has always been far more fun for me.  At the moment, I'm trying to decide whether I want to bother with setting up some kind of green screen in my tiny-ass office.  I know it's been ages since I've made a Low Budget Gaming, Quick Time Event, or even Board Game Obscura episode, and it hasn't been because I didn't want to, it's just been a question of needing the creative energy, a lot of which was drained when I moved to North Dakota, and only recently have I felt that drive starting to return.  Much like the new idea I mentioned above, it's mainly a question of figuring out when I could devote enough time to it.  I'll keep you posted.