The idea of this blog goes as back as Spring 2017. In fact, that was when I opened up the sate. But it was just an idea, a vague future plan, like my millions of vague plans. The name is pretty basic, I daydream and overthink about things pretty often and this blog is where I write about those thoughts. After a busy school season and a rough summer I finally had free time, motivation and energy to actually start doing things for myself. don't remember what exactly made me to do so at that specific time, it seems unlikely that I would do it without serious motivation though. Anyways, on that fateful day, A Half Life Retrospective was finally out!
If you have been following this blog for a while, you can realise I have a certain structure on articles. If it's about a media, I first begin with a central idea or feeling I am trying to convey then examine in on the media that is the topic of the article, or talk about a certain aspect of a media. That's not wholly present in all articles though. The low-key feel of Half-Life is probably the driving force of this article, but it is too much like a review, which something I would not write today. There is nothing wrong with reviews, in fact I enjoy them quite a lot. That's never what I quite wanted here though, yet I haven't decide a certain direction back then; and this was the result.
I often return to my articles after I wrote them, making little improvements and fixes. I have never touched on this article though. It stays just as it exited the first draft. It didn't even get spellcheck, I didn't know that was a feature back then. It has some awkward sentences, many missing prepositions and conjunctions, random typos and a generic review language that slightly annoys me. Considering it was my first ever long freeform English writing for an international audience however, I think it's not too bad. I think I will preserve the article as is, it is important to see where I have started and the article has some nostalgia factor too. I might round-up the thesis of this article in a larger Half-Life related article, if I get the chance to play other games in the series.
When I talk about media, I try to bring a perspective or an issue that has been not touched on a lot or try to cover stuff which I feel is deserving of more popularity. My second article is short but I think it communicates what I feel about Eternal Senia better. It has set the blueprints for my other media articles as it represents "my style" much better. I sometimes diversify a little by making listings or comparisons, but even then I still try to give a central feeling or a trend which deserves attention.
My 3rd article is kind of an odd ball. in that it's extremely short. Today, I honestly would not release something that short, I either wait it to grow and blossom into an actual topic or just make a thread about it on Twitter. Still, I guess it's not too bad for putting on this blog, after all one of my goals is to experiment and find my own voice.
However, things like video games and anime isn't my only concern, I like history and of course all corners of my life are surrounded by politics. I want to learn about history and political theory and want other people to learn more as well. This is why I wrote an article about the nationalism and liberalism. The information is there can be easily found but, I thought my followers on Twitter was fairly unaware of recent Turkish history, especially from a radical perspective. Overall, I think they do their job good enough. Back then, I thought of more articles like these but found out my knowledge is too lackluster for this. So, right now I am trying to learn as much as possible instead, as there is no shortage of misinformation and poorly thought or bad-faith arguments on the Web.
On the other hand, I can talk about things which directly is about my own identity much better, such as feminism and trans issues. Not necessarily because I see myself as some sort of authority or even a voice with any semblance of importance, but because they are about my experiences. I am trying to talk about these issues for the curious as well, but they are primarily about my (mis)adventures about making sense of... just about everything. This is why this blog partially feels so empowering. I am in fully closet in my offline life. Being open about myself and freely talk about things in my head probably improves my mental state a lot. Not to sound dramatic but without being able to just write my thoughts and people who even mildly care about "real me" reading it, I'd probably be had a much... emptier year.
And now, I am actually somewhat proud of it, even though as I am writing this I am anxious about sounding like I am bragging. With Trails in the Sky article series, I proved myself that writing is really more than a passing interest and I might be able to become an actual writer one day! I gush about something I really like, talk about game design issues which I don't think many popular games media do and with being a series of articles it is somewhat in-depth actually, like some long reviews I got the inspiration from! Speaking of which, I shamelessly stole both the idea of series of articles and making articles about game OST from queer_queenie (I highly recommend checking out by the way) I am happy to say I am actually nowhere near finished with it, not only there is room for more articles, there is also the entire Trails of Cold Steel games which are waiting to be covered here!
I am also proud of my anime articles, PMMM articles in particular. Not only the amount of thought I put into them, but I also feel good about the fact that I managed to talk about and praise Madoka Magica without using the word "deconstruction" once. It might sound funny, but if you know about anime discourse on Twitter or YouTube, you'd quickly see how much people love that phrase when they want to sound smart, especially how PMMM is so special. It's kinda of sad actually, because I do think , PMMM is truly special; not because its edginess or its meta importance. But because it is just meaningful on multiple layers and it truly touches to my heart on a fundamental level. That's what my blog is mainly about in the end, just things that gives me feelings. This is why I want to write about animation more as well! I love animation, but don't watch them nearly as I should, but I am slowly working on that as well.
Writing about other people's creations are always fun but I had always a deep-interest for fiction. A fictional world and stories about them is my one of long-time dreams. I want to experiment about them here too, things I did so far were mostly gifts to my partners, but they are not enough. One of my definite goals the future in blog is to have more place for small literary works, especially about fantasy fiction. I want to create my video game out of my fantasy universe or even write novels and stories. I don't know whether I will have the skill and means to be able to achieve it, but if I ever create something that is positive for people, if I have a good place in people's memory, I could truly feel my life has been meaningful. This, and the fact that I want money for my transition and moving out of my parents, is what made me to motivated about something this year.
In May 2018, I opened up my Patreon and this changed things in many ways. Of course, this blog will always be free to view for everyone and this will be always a place for turning the clouds in my head into words first and foremost, but I can't deny Patreon gave me a place of motivation where few things could. It's not even amount of money, which is by the way great as it is, but the mere fact that someone gives me money so I can continue doing this in a little more comfort, possibly as a serious money-making job in the future just makes you feel more responsibility. Having said this, I can't deny the terrifically low output in July and August, which one again I am deeply thankful for all those who held faith in me. But now, with the lifestyle and mindset changes I have made I am confident that I can be truly worthy of actually running a Patreon, perhaps even making some living out of it in the future.
Truth to be told however, I don't have much idea about how to actually grow right now. Most people who are decent at Patreon either do something popular, such as YouTube videos, can produce something that can be exchanged with money well such as drawing commissions, has a very good niche that draws people such as a comic or podcasts of a particular topic and often they start with a decent-sized fan base. I don't have any of it I was a small-ish twitter account and a small blog about my nerd ramblings isn't exactly exciting, to be honest. I can't give writings in exchange for pledges for the same reason too, but even if I could, it just doesn't feel right. This is not about how I have oh so great morals but it feels just wrong to put my knowledge, my mediocre articles and random opinions behind paywalls like this. Selling novels or games are different, although I could make them free too if I could and I am aware there is no realistic way about being completely fair about this under capitalism, but at least there is a certain time and effort investment in long projects that requires having a large amount of money. I think, if my Patreon is to seriously grow, it will probably come from something like that. I have some ideas in my mind, I can't give anything right now, but as I said before it will be related to a long-term creation.
I have more concrete plans what to do if I get a decent amount of money. I could pay for a WordPress server so you would be tormented with ads no longer. Regularly being able to buy newer media to write about has been a goal of mine for as long as I have opened the Patreon. I could comfortably make really in-depth research about interesting topics; like retrospectives about entire huge game series, history, niche literature, things that require travel etc. Aside from being able to write longer stuff, I could do physical publishing after I get out of current situation and create a somewhat decent living for myself. I could maybe start a video channel for essays alongside this blog. I will give further information as things continue to develop.
I think "video channel" part deserves further explanation. Normally I am cold towards it; I don't want to get my horrible voice exist on the web for a serious project, my usual content is not long enough for a video anyways but also I like writing as a medium as a whole: I usually prefer people read my stuff over watching it and to be honest, a lot of video essays could be just as good as text or pure audio. I would only make video essays if I see using video as truly beneficial to subject. Otherwise, I have an idea for video/streaming channel that could happen in 2019, but it wouldn't be related to any essay stuff, just playthroughs or random stuff. Essentially a gaming channel version of this blog. But remember, no side project will be prioritized above the blog and long-term projects.
Talking about positive developments, goals and dreams is always well and good but not everything is pasta and yoghurt. I certainly made mistakes along the way. My old working schedule was one for example. I wanted to create as much as content as possible and gain a good discipline of writing but an article every two days was clearly not sustainable for long. I usually forced myself to write in late nights and struggled to find good topics to write. I am not really ashamed of any article in the blog, but some articles could really be deeper, could be written better, some articles especially ones that talk about meta-topics definetely need a reevaluation, there is a noticeable fluctuation of quality between some articles that got released in the same week.
Today, I am following a 2-3 articles a week schedule and it's working fine so far, save the week where I got ill. It reaches 8-12 articles a mouth, unless I release longer stuff. It is a pretty good and reasonable number, I think. I don't think I will reach it this month, unfortunately, unless I can my side Pokémon project stuff, which is also going well. For October however, from some of the things I have talked about, you can be ready for some exciting stuff!
To people who supported me emotionally and financially, who read my blogs and even read it for the first time with this article, I am deeply thankful! This autumn really feels hopeful, I hope can be worthy of your support even more in 2019!
This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Acelin, Alexandra Morgan, Laura Watson and Spencer Gill.
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