Wake Me Up Inside - R.A. Young - May 7, 2024
Excused Absence
It’s been over two months since I last sent out an email. Less than two months if you take into consideration the multiple half-finished drafts I never sent out, which I do. I’m sorry for the delay, but trust me, I have a great excuse. I was on drugs.
The last time I dropped an update on my brainz, I was working with a psychologist on what drug to take for my newly diagnosed Inattentive ADHD. He, being a good doctor, was reticent to start me on a stimulant given a general consensus among seemingly everyone that stimulants can fuck you up a bit. Instead, we settled on Strattera, an SNRI antidepressant. That’s what I took through March and April. Long story short, I’m no longer on Strattera. It wasn’t a bad time, but it didn’t help me. It didn’t mess me up like Lexapro did, but it wasn’t fun by any means. I felt better as soon as I stopped taking it.
Despite my psychologist’s misgivings and my trepidation at taking something so intense, we decided to try out a stimulant next. Starting yesterday, May 6, I began taking Adderall XR. That’s a delayed-release amphetamine. I take it in the morning and it lasts all day. So far, to my surprise, I’m positive about the decision. I’m writing this newsletter, for example. That’s a thing I struggled to do for the two months on Strattera. Also, while I’m not going to say I was productive, I did play multiple games instead of just zoning out watching streams. I chose to do things I wouldn’t have done otherwise —and had a lot of fun doing it. No tilt, just good vibes.
These drugs are supposed to make you feel good. If I tried to describe it, I’d say it’s a bit like drinking enough coffee to get to a good spot and then staying there all day. Except there’s no feeling of being wired. Instead, there’s this sort of tense calm. It isn’t coffee, of course. These are heavily controlled prescription drugs. Their purpose is to put me in a good place! This is what should be expected! I supposed I’m just surprised after all this time on meds that didn’t work for me.
No med is perfect, of course. I still don’t feel “productive,” whatever that means. This newsletter will have taken a full day to write by the time it’s sent out. But I do feel better than not. We’ll see how things feel in a month, and decide where to go next from there.
Final Fantasy Giveth, Final Fantasy Taketh Away
It’s been so long since my last newsletter that I have a ton of games to talk about. Cutting to the chase — I’ve played around half of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and dropped it. That makes for two recent Final Fantasy releases that I haven’t enjoyed. The combat tries to do too much, mixing real-time action with structured ability/spell casts to try and modernize the original Final Fantasy 7’s turn-based system. It struggles to deliver on either front, instead making for plodding action that’s still too fast to feel deliberate. Also, the mini-games. There are so many, they’re all so bland, and yet the rewards are significant enough to feel necessary. What really killed Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth for me, though, was the story. Somehow these rich, wonderfully performed characters struggle to come together to create a compelling narrative. It’s just too slow, yet still reliant on exhausting narrative dumps. I have no idea how the game manages to create such complex inter-party relationships, rife with emotional tension, only to churn out such a generic, emotionless plot. It’s also packed with Nomura drama that’s excessively silly when it isn’t just gibberish and nonsense. And it felt like it only got worse as the game went on.
God help me, but when I set Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth aside I took up something terrible to replace it. I started and am still playing AFK Journey, a gacha RPG. The simple monotony and formulaic progression felt comfortable to me. It was something I could do well in, that I could spend an hour or few in a day and be rewarded in. And hey, the story turned got pretty good by the end of what’s currently available, too. It’s still terrible, though. It’s pay-to-win, progress-limiting even if you spend tons of money, and never lets you feel like you’ve accomplished your goals. It’s the worst kind of game. I hate it. I’ll stop playing soon, I promise.
With Final Fantasy 7 not working out and AFK Journey feeling gross, I’ve since turned to an old friend — Final Fantasy 14. The Dawntrail expansion arrives in two months and I figured if I start now I could pace myself with all of the story content I’d missed since I last stopped playing. I figure I’ll even level up a new job to play through the expansion, too (job still undecided). It’s been everything I’d hoped for. It’s a relaxing grind with great MMO combat and supportive gameplay systems, and just fuckin’ awesome epic fantasy storytelling, too. I can’t wait for Dawntrail.
To quickly sum up what else I’ve been playing, I spent a good few days neck-deep in Vampire Survivors, continue to play Overwatch 2 regularly with friends, and just picked up the Hades 2 early access. I’ve also got Eiyuden Chronicle that just arrived in the mail, and will hopefully get into the Marvel Rivals beta. It’s a good time to be gaming, and a good time to be taking ADHD meds so I can actually focus enough to play.
Lightning Round
Here are some quick takes regarding the various media I consumed over the past forever:
Rebel Moon Part 2 — Why, oh why, is Snyder still getting so much money to make such absolute trash? I could forgive the slo-mo, the CG, the bad action, if any of these characters didn’t suck unbelievably. Garbage script turned worse by a garbage director.
Late Night With the Devil — This little 70s period horror flick is a lot of fun. It doesn’t all come together as well as it might have, but the story’s build is delightful. Fuck the use of AI for the commercial break title cards, though.
Red Seas Under Red Skies — I devoured the first Locke Lamora book, so I was expecting to feel the same way about its sequel. I’m not sure if it’s my ADHD med issues or what, but I’ve stalled out hard. I’ve spent the past two months on it and I’m not even halfway through. It’s moves too fast, wants every chapter to end with a gasp, and thinks it’s too clever for its own good. I mostly just want more of the empathy seen in the first book. Now it’s all just about the heist. I’m honestly just going to DNF it. I have Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Shards of Earth arriving tomorrow, which I’ll probably start right away.
Fist of the North Star — Finally getting around to reading my Fist of the North Star hardcovers and man, this manga is really dumb and fun. Dude just punches his way across the apocalypse, running into old friends, women and children exploding to drive up his righteous anger, and all that with zero personality or intelligence. The action is rad as fuck, though.
Comics — I should really read some of these books I’ve bought, huh? Oh well.
Thanks, everyone, for being patient. I know this is supposed to be newsletter about writing a book. Instead, it’s become a diary of a man not writing a book. But we’ll get to the book, I know it. What’s past is prologue and all that.
Until next week,
Rory