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Full Moon in Leo – Monthly Illuminations

I got a planner for 2024 that encourages monthly full moon illuminations and new moon reflections. It’s an interesting idea and something I’d like to try and stick to as a way of journaling. I probably won’t write a blog post for each and every one but I’m also feeling a desire to write so it makes sense to go with it. With the moon at it’s fullest it’s a time when things should be coming to fruition, or realisation. It’s a good chance to get ready to, prepare and let things go as the moon falls into it’s waning phase. With a full moon in Leo comes with the message to acknowledge self worth exactly as we are. Leo is a brave, proud and loud sign of the zodiac.

I recently did a birth chart for myself, something I’ve never actually done before so I took the time to figure out my Sun, Moon and Rising signs. I am a Capricorn Sun, because I was born in the sign of Capricorn in late December, with a Libra Moon and Leo Rising. Reading more about this has given me my own illuminations and reading the first full moon of 2024 is in Leo, I think listening to that message and affirming for myself that I am worthy of love, of joy, of happiness is what I have needed to hear.

For such a long time I have been struggling with the many facets of self, my self confidence, my neurospicy diagnosis and my image. I have struggled to accept and believe in other people’s positive opinions of me yet I’ve constantly found myself looking for my self worth in the opinions of others. I think there is nothing more empowering than being able to create an unbreakable shield of acceptance for yourself, and I’ve often envied the ability to do so in others. I may not be able to create that shield instantaneously but I am going to start working better on the foundations a little more.

Self acceptance comes in many forms, not just of our good qualities but what we consider our shortcomings and limitations too. I think it’s important to understand our struggles and to build boundaries from them instead of letting them get to us and creating this spiral of low self worth. I have trauma, and many anxieties and issues I need to work on but the desire for me to do so is there. The other day, I did my makeup, I put on a dress I love and I wore a perfume that I like. I felt good about myself. I’m not completely happy with how I look but I took the time to just appreciate what I have. I looked at my face, one that is textured and aging with creases and I thought for the first time in a long time that as far as faces go, mine is alright. My makeup may not be as flawless as other people but I like the style I’ve developed for myself. I am complemented on my bold choice of colour in my hair and clothing. I have, in small ways, started taking up space in a world that wants voices like mine to be squished.

I have also struggled with writing on this blog for the longest time. The desire was there but the energy and inspiration was not. For the longest time I’ve been told to focus on building an audience, to write for that audience and that audience only. The trouble with that is that I lost a bit of myself there. This space started out as a personal one for me to just write and connect with other people. The content and topics have changed as I’ve gotten older because this space is over a decade old now. The 35 year old me is quite different to the 23 year old me yet a lot of it’s foundations have stayed the same. Writing about what I like, what I enjoy and trying to reach out to people that struggle with things I have done. Sometimes that’s been parenting, sometimes that’s been my health. I’ve always written about my hobbies and interests as varied as they’ve been. I’ve been lucky enough to earn money writing here too which has been a great privilege.

My content, the words I’ve wanted to share, have always been dictated by my interests at the time and with the mindset of writing for an audience that has been hard to capture. Right now, and for the last couple of years I have been playing a lot of video games. That’s not been an uncommon presence of my blog as I’ve always written about games but there’s always been a small niggle in the back of my head that ‘this is not your audience’ and it’s true, it’s not. My best post is still about Disneyland Paris. I don’t write video game write ups with the intention to hit big on google. I just write them for me, and I share them occasionally with people that might be interested in what I have to say. I wouldn’t really even call them reviews, so they aren’t the most informative or instructional pieces of content. They’re more about sharing my experience of playing something rather than giving a constructive critique.

In a very long winded way I think my self acceptance is that I am fine in what I do and who I am. That I don’t need to do any of those things for anyone else, for external validation. That I should, really, focus on doing what makes me happy, even if it’s small or irrelevant to others or doesn’t really serve any other purpose than because I want to, and because I can.

January 25, 2024
I Tried to Complete Persona 3 Portable in Three Days

I could have left playing Persona 3 Portable in such a short space of time honestly. These games aren’t exactly known for being done quickly. I know, for one, having already played Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Royal. However, nothing kicks in my ADHD hyperfocus quite like a deadline, particularly if it’s something I enjoy. So how did I do, did I manage to actually complete Persona 3 Portable in three days? A game that on average takes around 65 hours to complete if you’re just there to enjoy the main story?

Persona 3 decided on using an Evoker to access your Persona power which involves your characters and party members shooting themselves in the head…which is, a weird choice but okay.

First, the backstory – you might be wondering why I thought I would attempt this (probably not), around all of the usual parenting and life things I do (because I do do things, sometimes) and a perfectly respectful answer would be for the challenge. But no, that was not the case. It is much more longwinded than that. Last month I took advantage of one of the Discord Nitro, I think? offers for a free three-month game pass through Xbox. Once applying and logging into an Xbox account I didn’t know I had I browsed through the games and saw Persona 3 Portable was available.

As I’ve said I’ve played 4 and 5 and have been wanting to play this particular version of the game for some time purely because it has the option to play as a female protagonist. I much prefer playing games with a female lead, I’m not against male leads, but for RPG’s, I like playing the character of the gender I most feel comfortable associating myself with. It frustrates me that the other Persona games don’t have that option, even more so that it was added in for P3P but not for the subsequent games. Anyway, I digress, the reason I thought I would attempt to finish Persona 3 Portable in three days is because I didn’t realise that when a game is taken away from game pass, you can’t play it anymore and have to buy it if you want to play or continue.

This, is dumb. I’ve had access to Playstation+ for years and as long as you continue subscribing, any games you download are yours to play even if they’re removed from the PS+ ‘store’. Apparently, Microsoft say no to this. So I immediately felt a rush to complete it. For one, I want to make good use of this free trial to actually help me decide if I want to continue subscribing afterwards but this revelation that games are removed and then inaccessible (although, information on this is varied, for some games have remained accessible, for others you have to go offline the day before it’s removed and complete within 30 days without going back online during that time or you lose access) has me having my doubts.

Persona 3 Reload – the remake of the original Persona 3 game (Not the portable version, no female protagonist – big sigh) is going to be available through game pass on release day and as I now have a very decent spec gaming PC I might as well make use of it rather than paying the £50 on the PSN store. I’m hopeful it will be available for some time, although I’m keen to play it on release and have it preinstalled/downloaded for the day it becomes available, I would much rather take my time to play and enjoy the remake. And because I’ve kind of sped through Persona 3 Portable I’m not sure how I’m going to feel playing the remake so close to this speed run.

There are much less places to navigate in P3P but it can still be a bit overwhelming trying to find where everyone is at times

Anyway, the TLDR version of this is no, I didn’t finish it and with the time left of me today, I don’t think I’m going to finish it. In some ways, that’s a good thing, a lot of things are unresolved, I missed out on maxing out certain social links so in a way that’s enough of a motivator to finish playing P3Reload and maybe I’ll buy it again one day in the future. The trouble with Persona games is that they do require some amount of level grinding and I am getting to the point where I have been skipping random encounters and now finding things way too challenging. I got pretty far into the game though, I’m closing in on the end of October so I’ve got the jist of the main story and if I haven’t found out all the big reveals and things yet then I feel like I’m pretty close to it. I think the highest floor I got to on Tartarus was 146 out of I think 263 floors. That’s still quite the climb!

Dark and Creepy. Just the sort of game I want to play.

Persona 3 Portable is, like the other Persona games I’ve played, a weird game. It’s dark and creepy, with some pretty heavy content in contrast to the incredibly upbeat tracks that play during the game. I played as the female protagonist which I believe has a few different social links to the male protagonist so that at least gives me some level of variety when Reload is released. It features, as always, a whole host of Persona’s to draw from to make you stronger as you level up. I think that’s really what you want to grind levels for not exactly your own character stats but because higher levels allow you to fusion and collect really, really strong Persona’s.

When I grow up I want to be Elizabeth. She makes choices.

I have really enjoyed what I’ve played so far. There are some creepy and questionable characters that did make me inwardly cringe a little bit, as almost every JRPG game I’ve played has done. There were some heartwarming conversations and relationships too. As usual I seemed to max rank a lot of non-party member social links rather than actual party members. I really need to stop doing that…However, I did max rank the Moon social link which I think is pretty critical to do so from the content I’ve seen up to this point although the fate of that character is yet to be determined and I’m going to do my best to abstain from reading spoilers.

It’s always the characters I like that the bad things happen to!

I really liked that character too and I was fully committed from the moment you first meet them that I was going to max rank that link no matter what. Brooding, grumpy guy in a long coat that kinda has a heart of gold and apparently quite skilled at cooking delicious meals? Where a lot of your social link time is spent talking, or eating food? Yes. Really there was no question that I was going to spend time figuring out what Shinjiro’s story was. I liked most of the characters. A lot of the female relationships were really nice to see develop over the course of the game I played. In fact I think really it was only Junpei I didn’t like, but as he’s the token creepy perv that was a given. I’m highly suspicious of him anyway.

Mitsuru (also a bit suspicious of as I haven’t started a social link with her yet…) telling Junpei how it is

I still don’t really know the full story behind Strega, the rival group to the SEES team who are also utilising the Dark Hour. I have encounted Death and managed to escape because I was not ready for that challenge. In P3P I have encounted Death more times than any other Persona games but I believe there’s a very good reason for that given the name of the tower you climb is called Tartarus and one of the very early cutscenes where you summon your Persona for the first time it looks like the Death persona Thanatos kind of takes the place and attacks the shadow you’re fighting really rather violently…haven’t had an answer for that so I sort of feel like I’m either making it up or missing something.

More suspicious characters…

Despite playing on beginner, because I rushed through, I did find some of the combat a challenge. Persona uses turn based combat, which is my preferred way of fighting because it gives me time to think but it really doesn’t lend itself to speeding through things. I found getting new Persona’s through shuffle time not nearly as generous as Persona 4 and doesn’t quite compare to how easy they are to get in Persona 5 Royal. Lack of items, quest deadlines and trying to remember where everyone was on what day to spend time with them was very overwhelming although having experience with Persona games already I was kind of expecting that and did follow a guide to help me get as far as I did. You also have social stats like charm, academics and courage to level up through going to school, doing exams, or going to certain venues throughout the gameplay. I maxed out all but Academics, although I was pretty close to doing it.

Either way, I enjoyed what I played and I’ll play Persona 3 Reload at a much slower pace, making much better use of the compendium and hopefully finding whatever changes are coming in the remake enjoyable.

January 15, 2024
125 Hours of Balders Gate 3

Spoilers below for the RPG video game by Larian Studios Balders Gate 3 based on Dungeons & Dragons.

Balders Gate 3 is an incredibly good game and worth putting in the long hours to get to the end of the story. I finished a complete play through last night which was the second campaign I started after kind of messing things up on my first campaign and deciding to start again. I have since gone back to my original campaign knowing more, being able to play better and to see if I can still make it through to the end despite some poor bad choices I made at the start. Because ultimately, this is what the game is about – it’s about choices and seeing through their consequences.

For my complete playthrough my campaign was mostly that of a good character, or that of the hero. I tried to save as many people as I could which largely benefitted me towards the end. In Act Three the main scenario is to gather your allies and I had a lot of allies to talk to or finish quests with which ultimately lead to a huge number of support in the final battles. I was locked out of some quests because I killed Lae’zel at the point you can free her after the Nautiloid ship crashes. My character was a Mephistopheles Tiefling Warlock which made Kagha changed her ways, saved most of the other Tieflings, killed all the Goblin leaders, stole a Githyanki egg from their creche, lifted the Shadowcurse from the land, saved the Nightsong and so on. All those kind of ‘good’ character choices. I romanced a few characters with permission from my romantic lead choice and finished a lot of the companion quests. I ended the game with Karlach as my love.

Balders Gate 3 was a really fun game but there’s so much to do it felt really overwhelming at times. A lot of quests are kind of stopped by certain perception checks and so on or, in my first campaign, seeing that I was limiting myself by making non-committal choices. That actually ended up with a lot of mistakes being made and not really doing very well in general whilst playing however I’ve learned a lot and I don’t think my first campaign is completely beyond hope now I know more of what is to come. I also know that now I’ve made all the ‘good’ choices I feel I can be a bit more direct with my own dialogue options as my first character I created was a Lolth-Sworn Drow, or a dark elf, Ranger and now I have seen more gameplay I am convinced I can fix it and still see the game through to completion however I have a lot of fun options ahead of me.

I have started a Dark Urge playthrough once I realized you could still change your character’s customization and job but it just gave you a dark, bloodthirsty backstory. It’s recommended as either a completely dark, evil character or as a redemption arc character.

I really loved the vibrancy of Balders Gate 3 from the colourful appearance choices during character creation to the world map in all three acts. Although Act 2 is more on the dark and gloomy side it was still darkly enchanting. Each act sets up the scene really well and further dramatizes the choices the character needs to make. I actually can’t wait to go back through the game and make some of the darker choices to see how things play out that way not to mention being really interested in all of the other jobs and the ability to multi-class sounds kind of fun. I want to finish the original campaign I started but I am very drawn to the Dark Urge origin character especially knowing that you can, if you wish, choose to become an Unholy Assassin which I kind of really want to do to see how things play out that way.

There are a lot of animals to pet or speak with if you have the ‘Speak with Animals’ spell or potion activated. As a ranger I felt communicating with animals would add to the roleplay experience.

As a warlock character that eventually…transformed…I felt pretty powerful during my final confrontations and had a lot of powerful spells at my disposal. Some of those big kill everything spells are excellent and really turn the tides in your favour when fighting a huge number of enemies which I found pretty fun. They made what seemed like it was going to be a very challenging, difficult fight into something much more manageable. That’s something I feel I can take into further campaigns or playthroughs.

The combat in Balders Gate 3 did take me a very long time to get used to and I found it challenging but once I understood things a bit more I felt like I could play better and took more advantage of my environment. Having speed potions, haste spells, misty step, dimension door and equipment like boots of speed or permanent stat buffs like longstrider made a huge difference and something I really took advantage of. At first I saw those kind of things as limiting your actions from hitting and killing things but actually sometimes you really need the movement. And when you get further along in the playthrough and have access to multi-hit actions combat and movement in a turn become possible. Buying potions and using them tactically, particularly the ones that stay on you until your next long rest are very handy to have. Some of these you can make yourself if you forage around for alchemy supplies which saves you some gold but resources are limited. Looting bodies for potions is another great way to give you an advantage. Stealth can also be really beneficial, although I am not someone that usually plays in stealth mode as I’m not very good at being stealthy. The game is largely strategy based and a player that takes their time with things is going to find it particularly enjoyable.

Just before closing in on the final battle of Act 3

The story is really compelling and some of the companion quests I did manage to complete did make me shed a few tears in the end. The narration throughout the story is great and immersive and reflects upon choices you’ve made. The romance options are a lot of fun and much more adult than I was expecting but then I suppose in a game where you can choose your genitalia why not have it on show at points during the game. I also found out that by pressing Triangle you could toggle your armour display on or off. You’d still be wearing it but you’d be walking around in your camp clothes instead, or, at one point I was just walking around in the city in new underwear I’d purchased for my character. I’ve always enjoyed RPG’s and Balders Gate 3 is quite unlike any other RPG I’ve played with such a unique combat system and having to pass charisma or deception checks during dialogue options or things don’t quite go your way. Adding advantage to your rolls throughout by certain gear, spells, potions or race choice really adds to that roleplaying factor and made it a lot of fun to play.

Balders Gate 3 is incredibly fun and really rewarding RPG. I can’t wait to see the rest of the options I missed out and thing the replayability of the game makes it well worth starting various campaigns. I am really excited about the prospect of completeing a dark urge playthrough. After all, there are still trophies to be gained…

January 10, 2024
January 2024

I want to try this year. I want to try and make things better for myself and for my loved ones. It isn’t that I haven’t explicitly tried in years prior but I feel a little lighter right now and I want to try and embrace what I am fortunate enough to have.

I am going to look for a neurodivergent therapist for myself. After a very long and daunting process I was awarded PIP at the end of 2023 and want to use that allowance to help improve my mental state, understand my limits with my disabilities and I know if I am better, I can be better for others. I do not remember a time where I was anxiety and depression free not to mention completely burned out. I have struggled a lot with my diagnosis over the last year and I have acknowledged that I need some help.

I am going to reconnect with my spirituality. Parts of magick, witchcraft and the occult have been an interest of mine for well over twenty years now and it’s a part of myself that I have kind of pushed to one side for the last few years. I think it’s because the pull towards witchcraft has always been there but the sheer amount of information and tools are hugely exciting yet overwhelming. I want to start bringing magick back into my life regularly but in small, comforting ways. I feel particularly drawn to shadow work which, as someone that acknowledges they need therapy, I think will go well together. Fully understanding myself, the good and the bad, will help me to heal and break this cycle I feel stuck in. I’ve always had an infinity for Tarot and Astrology and feel they can be really useful tools to help me make decisions about my life. As someone that is constantly scatterbrained I feel my intuition can be clouded and things like Tarot help me to connect the dots through the clutter.

I want to do more things that bring me small joys in my day to day. I am going to use the good notebooks. I will burn the best candles. I will find comfort in the soft and fluffy. I will try and relinquish feelings of guilt and shame about things that bring me joy even if people think I’m too old for them. Regulating my emotions, feelings and sensory stimulation is so vital for my survival. Reading YA books because I love that sense of fearlessness from the protagonists, playing video games that allow me to roleplay as other characters and having pink cat ear headphones as I listen to my favourite music whilst may not be the taste of every 35 year old but it’s harmless, and it’s how I am. I have been judged, from others and myself, for far too long and it has proven to be a pretty miserable place. It may take some time to stop feeling shame or like I need to hide some of that stuff away but I will get there.

January 8, 2024
Turning 35

Today is my birthday. I have spent it with family and chatting with friends. With delicious food and buying nerdy things. Cuddling my cat and pampering myself with face masks and bath bombs. It’s been a nice day, although hectic and busy. My daughter wrote me a birthday card that made me cry with such a thoughtful message and the first time she has gone out of her way to get me a gift of her own money. Not that I expect my children to get me anything but her thought really mattered. I had a friend send me my favourite cake which is delicious.

There are times in recent years where I’ve felt I’m not quite adult enough. That I haven’t grown up enough. I sit here today in a pokemon t-shirt with a sailor moon cup at my desk and pink headphones with cat ears over my monitor. What I have realised, is that my thirties are allowing me to be unapologetically me. The me I wanted to be at 15 but got told things where too young for me. The cute stuff, the cartoons, the video games…all the weird and wonderful witchy things that I have found comfort in over the years but felt like they should be kept away or guilty pleasures.

I am tired of feeling guilty over things that bring me joy and I am not going to spend the rest of my life trying to be someone I’m not because of this fake ideal I’ve had in my head of what a grown up should be. No more shame over playing Animal Crossing or other cutesy games, over my interest in tarot cards and my fondness of cake. I will use the things I have purchased. I will burn the good candles. I will wear my favourite perfume even if I plan on staying snuggled in PJs all day. I will tell the people I care about how much they mean to me, that I love them. I will ruin the good notebooks. I will bend back the pages of a book when I can’t find a bookmark. I will embrace all of this because these are all things that make me, me. And honestly, I’m not that bad really. I’m a bit weird and a bit awkward but I’m okay with that.

In a way I’ve been struggling with my identity for some time but recently I think I’ve come to embrace it a little more and that’s kind of thanks to a character I created to play XIV in because it kind of got me through a tough time. I felt for a long time since creating ‘Avalon’ as a video game character that I was just creating another mask to play behind but the truth is I’ve been my most authentic self as Avalon. Introducing myself as Avalon isn’t introducing myself as a character, it’s all the great parts of me that I want people to see. Sometimes that has been clumsy but it’s really helped me, mostly through the friends I have met as Avalon, come to show a little kindness to myself.

December 30, 2023