State Of Sterling: An Interesting Minute (Patreon)

Well hello, lovely friends! It’s been an interesting minute since the last update. Rest assured we will be touching on the events of that minute today. There’s a lot going on, and some of it’s even positive! Heck yeah!

Positivity is important. The concept is often fused to platitudinal bullshit (see: games sites that pledge to “focus on fun” during times of uncomfortable industry news), but it’s been pointed out to me enough times that I propagate and elevate a lot of negativity in my community interactions, and it’s helped inform an unhealthy relationship with my job. Taking Phoenix’s advice, I’ve been trying to share nice fan interactions on Twitter and Facebook as I attempt to reconnect with the things that used to make me love my job.

A lot has happened over the years to disillusion me with work, be it the immutably circular nature of the game industry’s problems, the obvious write-off of the YouTube channel, and the run of depressing Jimquisition subjects just over a year ago. I’d been getting quite resentful in what used to be a beloved job, truth be told, but with recent changes and upheavals both professionally and personally, I’ve been taking the opportunity to improve my attitude.

Returning to game reviews and writing in general, as I’ve said before, is a huge step in that improvement. It’s possibly the biggest. Writing is my first love when it comes to making content, and I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I’d started again. Oh, and that Zelda review is coming very soon. Expect my thoughts on the sequel to reflect how different Tears of the Kingdom is to Breath of the Wild. That is to say, I feel pretty much the same about it as I did last time.

The subject choices and subsequent critical success of recent Jimquisitions has really helped shape my attitude of late. It’s brought into sharp relief just how dark a lot of episodes had gotten in the past. My video about the term “JRPG” is still getting cited, and it made me want to do more informative and thoughtful work as opposed to pure emotive stuff. I like to think I’ve done that (while still covering some more contentious subjects), and I couldn’t be prouder of the recent run.

Personally I think the year so far has addressed practically every criticism of the show, from how dark it got to the overabundance of “something something capitalism bad” to the fact its visuals had become a slideshow of the same images. Now, I don’t anticipate it’ll actually lead to any improvement of performance, but I’m proud of the work, it’s pleasing folks, and it’s been a lot of fun to do the full edits again.

Speaking of which, the elephant inhabiting my room just slammed its trunk on the table.  Soooo, after taking far too long to respond to the fallout of my last State of Sterling, I have a record to set straight. Some deeply wrong shit occurred that I simply let fester. Rather than force it onto those of you who might be burnt out on it, I’ll just link to my statement here. All I’ll add on this post is that I poorly handled these past few months, and I’m truly sorry you had to see that.

Tying into the theme of positive interaction, one thing that’s been made abundantly clear to me lately is the need for a comfortable and safe community space, not just for the audience, but for me. I’ve always been hesitant to have any sort of official group, I didn’t want the responsibility and hassle. Given that existing spaces can get really shit and hostile, with little to no moderation, I want to run something of my own that feels like my Twitch livestream chat, which is the chillest, most welcoming space I’ve ever had the pleasure of hanging out with. That chat is the reason I stream. I want more of that.

I’m going to have an official Discord set up, planned to launch on Monday. It’ll be well moderated with comfort, safety, and obligatory queer merriment in mind (though of course, the straights are welcome 😉). I was hoping to have it up and running to coincide with this post but we still need to put it all together. If all goes well during my ridiculously busy weekend, we will be good to go in time with the next Jimquisition.

The Discord’s gonna have the expected channels (stuff for Jimquisition, podcasts, written content etc), and we’ll have a channel reserved for patrons too, as while I don’t paywall content, I always feel it’s nice to do something extra for the support. Some of the other channels will be a place for fixations (expect me showing off my Manta Force tat), a wrestling channel that only I’ll care about, and a nostalgia channel to post obscure old media. I guess we might have one for those videoed gamings too.

I’ve wanted this for a while and I’m pretty excited about it. If you turn up, I hope you like it!

The wrestling world has been rewarding and tumultuous in equal measure. As I’ve beamed about in videos and streams, in March I won the PCW Women’s Championship, defeating the prolific (and wildly entertaining) Harley Hudson.

I wanted to make statements as a transfeminine and non-binary wrestler this year. I’d say becoming PCW Women’s Champion is a hell of a statement! While I always prefer fully intergender wrestling, the Commander will choose a division when required. Non-binary means that I’m not binary - it doesn’t mean I’m genderless, androgynous, or that I fully reject gendered terms. My personal presentation carries a lot of obvious femininity, I use fem words to describe myself often, and while my pronouns are they/them, I’ve become increasingly accepting of she/her in my personal life.

Being Women’s Champion doesn’t mean the Commander is the top woman wrestler, it means they’re top in the women’s division! The difference might not be clear from a cishet mindset, but it’s there. Gender is a fuck!

Thank you PCW for having so much faith in me, and to all the promotions I’ve worked with - particularly True Grit & Sov Pro - for not just being accepting but specifically stating that my enby status would not preclude me from any championship divisions. That means so much.

It’s funny watching the terfs get offended at my title though, banging on about how I “beat up poor women” and should only wrestle men. I wonder how many of them know what pro wrestling is 😂

Oh, and the WWF Attitude Era “legend” Scotty 2 Hotty accused me of defamation for suggesting he didn’t want to work with my transfem ass. Wild! He didn’t actually dispute the assertion that my tweeting about my gender is what set him off, and his opinion of intergender wrestling is well known, but he did say that me doing a hypnotism spot (where I sold the fuck out of another wrestler’s gimmick) made me an embarrassment to wrestling that “degrades” the medium. To each their own, but I’d advise any wrestler to not thoughtlessly agree to a match and back out later (after it’s been announced!) when you decide an opponent is beneath you.

I’m really proud of the hypnotism spot, anyway, hence why I posted it in the first place. I put someone’s gimmick over, I did a great little bump, and most importantly, the crowd loved it. God, this year has been surreal, though.

Biiig summer coming up. I am gonna be in two main events (first being Pride of the Ring in Blackpool on June 10th), and in August I’m having by far THE biggest match of my career at True Grit in Leeds. I know and can vouch for my opponent too, so there won’t be any backtracking on this one!

As far as personal life goes, things are hectic but good. I’ve finally got my appointment with a gender clinic in a few days after nearly a year and a half of waiting. I’m nervous about that, as it’s going to determine if the NHS will officially continue my HRT prescription. I’ve been getting my hormones via a bridging prescription ever since moving back to the UK. Researching the place leads me to believe I have a good one that isn’t gonna be a terf nest, but I’m pretty anxious nonetheless.

Viewers and Instagram followers may have noticed I’ve ditched wigs pretty much full time. Since this post has gone longer than planned, I’ll hold off on everything I want to say, but suffice to say I’m really glad I finally feel confident enough to show my real hair, even though I’ve had to really start rewiring my self perception after over two years of wearing wigs thicker than even the fullest head of hair, much less mine. I still need to see a stylist, but the way it naturally looks is turning out nicely!

I had some other stuff I was gonna go over, but this thing is becoming a novella. I shall look forward instead to another update in future. Thank you as always for your continued support of what I do. It really means so much to me, especially at the moment. I hope the moves I’m making will allow me to greater repay that support through my work.

Right, time to reinforce the gates of Fort Sterling before my next review goes out…