Let's Be Honest... Who Do You Write For?

This is a post a long time in the making. Which makes sense considering I haven't written a proper, pure discussion post in a long while now, as I've been slumping pretty hard blog-wise. But every time I thought to myself "what post should I write next?" THIS is what came immediately to mind;

Who do I write for?

This blog is not very popular. In a lot of ways, perhaps in all the ways that matter as an online blog, it's not a success. I'm hesitant to say it is a "failure", but that is perhaps the most accurate description. No doubt a huge part of that is my fault, as I post irregularly at best and not at all at worst.

The facts remain that my average comment number on any given post is a huge zero and I only have about one reader who comments regularly (hey Stephanie! *waves*). It's nothing like my very first blog in 2012, where I got between three and five comments a post. I thought that was lame back there and was disappointed by it. I find that ironically hilarious.

That old blog closed because of the same thing that is happening now; irregular posting schedule, low interactive-ness, etc etc. But whereas I had so many thoughts of closing down the blog back then, of moving on, I do not have those same thoughts now.

For all the disappointment of getting no reads, and the huge slump of not reviewing many of the books I read... I've never thought about stopping reviewing books on this blog. This made me wonder... who, exactly, do I write for? What has changed since 2014?

Any reviewer who tells you they are not writing for others to read is lying. If we weren't writing for you to read it, we would do so on a personal journal that no one ever has to see. If I didn't want you to read this very post, I wouldn't have put it online where it's available to y'all.

We all wish and hope others will read and enjoy what we're putting out there. It's part of the magic of reviewing and this whole community in general. Where fandoms have fanart and fanfiction, the Bookish Fandom has reviews and discussion posts and tags.

And yet, I find myself replying to the aforementioned question with...

I am writing for myself.

Now, don't be thinking it's an altruistic desire... because it's not that at all. If anything, this is as selfish as I can possibly be. I am putting this content out there for the chance someone could enjoy it and maybe even validate me and my opinion a little bit (hey, I'm just a human), but the content itself is written for me.

Because it gives me something incredible. It gives me a shortened re-reading experience... without ever cracking the book open.

Do you have any idea how many times in the past I have encountered a book, or a movie, or an anime, or a show, that I have read/watched... and yet I can't remember anything about it? There is nothing more frustrating to me than looking at a cover or a title and drawing blanks despite knowing without a shadow of a doubt that I have spent time in this world.

It bothers me on such a personal, deep level.

But you know what happens when I have written a review on whatever it was? the words on the page trigger a slew of memories. I am suddenly able to put myself where I was when I read, what I read, what I thought, where before there was nothing. I am able to relive the emotions and have a shortened re-experience with the novel.

Be it good or bad, I am able to remember.

I love this. I love doing this and being able to recall what a book made me think and feel because of the words I put down on it in a review.

So I'm not going to stop this blog, even if I write barely five posts a month, on a good month. Because at the end of the day, while it's online so other people could read and enjoy it when I can just have a notebook for all those thoughts (although, let's be honest, at this point this blog is dead enough to be considered a personal notebook), I still write for myself. For that ability to re-read the novel through my review. And if I could maybe make some else feel emotions through this, all the better :)

Side note: if you're looking for more consistent content from me, friend or follow me on GR. There are a lot of thoughts that don't appear on this blog simply because I don't put unedited reviews on here. On GR, though, I puke all my thoughts straight after finishing a novel and then later edit them for the blog. So it's a lot more consistent, if also a lot messier.

Life Is Strange: A Choice Game With No Choice (Spoilers)

I know I don't normally make gaming posts, and that's because I'm not a big gamer. But sometimes, I like to immerse myself in a good game... or at least, watch someone else play it on Youtube. This is how I got to Life Is Strange - a choice game where your decisions effect the outcome of the story, butterfly effect style. Or do they?

Choice games are still a fairly undeveloped area of gaming, because despite the premise of having choice... most of them end up leading to the same place, with just slight branching changes based on dialogues you picked and choices you made. So you might determine how many people will survive the game (i.e Until Dawn), but it won't change the development of the narrative and its progression.

So this brings us back to Life is Strange, a game in which you play as Max - a girl who is obsessed with photography and attends a prestigious photography program in her home town after moving away years ago.

Max is your normal shy, geeky girl (who's also quite judgmental and prone to just staring at people really close to their faces as she inter monologues about them) who feels out of her element and has a hard time making friends.

One day, after witnessing a murder, she discovers she can control time (because plot) and here the game really starts, as you manipulate time to save people, make yourself look better in front of others, and possibly uncover something sinister going on in town, alongside with your childhood best friend Chloe.

The game is fairly interesting and has it's gut wrenching moments, and the story is quite good. At any given time you have a bunch of decisions you can make, and while they don't really affect the general narrative, they do affect your reception by other people, more than anything. However, there are some BIG decisions that can affect characters in the story. Or at least, the game wants to make you think so.

The entire game is based on you choosing what to do... but at the end of the day, none of it matters.

Your actions throughout the game - the multiple rewinds to change the outcome of certain decisions and the way you keep saving your best friend from death - lead to the town being wrecked by a huge tornado, as you've offset the balance of the world. Bringing us to the final decision Max is faced with... go back to the very first decision you made and let your best friend die, or say screw-it and let the whole town die.

Either option you pick, you're negating every other choice you've made in the game.

In one option you literally undo every decision as you go back to the start point, and in another you kill every person you've saved, befriended, or made enemies with throughout the game, making everything mute. 

You comforted Vicotia after she got paint splash all over her? Woopse, she's dead now so that don't matter! Maybe you should've taken that humiliating photo of her after all. You've prevented Kate from committing suicide? Joke's on her, she's dead anyways! You saved Alyssa from TP attacks, soccer balls to the head and falling into a burning building? You really shouldn't have wasted the energy. And Warren. Dear, sweet Warren... dead by the side of the road somewhere.

LOLZ.

The final choice in the game leaves you with absolutely no choice but to erase everything you've spent an entire game to build.

This is a "choice" game where the player doesn't really have any choice at all. He can either choose to submit to "fate" and let it have its way, or measure the life of one girl to be worth that of an entire town and iron things out that way. That is the only choice the player can really make in this ten hours long game that pretends to be based on making choices.