Hi y’all. The other day I got an email from someone asking about the status of my website. They gave me permission to publish below under condition of anonymity.
Hi Kaile,
I just wanted to see what the deal is with No Escape. It’s been a long time since you’ve seemingly accepted any pitches, your Children of Lightning project hasn’t really been posting anything worthwhile, and you haven’t written any reviews of new games, indie or otherwise, in like a year. It feels like your site is dead aside from a rant or two, and you barely post on social media anymore. Should I cross No Escape off my list now or are you waiting to make some kind of announcement?
At first I wanted to respond point-by-point with a rebuttal about how nothing this person said was true – I have accepted pitches, I have written reviews, I have written interesting criticism of FFXIII-adjacent games lately – but I understand their broader point, and think that’s more worthwhile to respond to.
The truth is, I don’t actually know what’s going to happen to No Escape yet. Last year, my mom’s death triggered a countdown, and that countdown is nearing its conclusion. I’ve got just a couple months to get my financial shit together and find a new place to live. I have been struggling very heavily with grief-related depression and a combination of existential and situational anxiety. I feel locked in place, unable to move in any direction, and the things I’ve attempted to pull myself together and out of what feels like hell have fallen apart on me. Last year I relied very heavily on the community to help pull me out of a dark financial spot, only to fall back into that same financial hole less than six months later. I do not feel like I have a lot of options on the table for saving myself this time, and I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve been so stuck that I put off writing this very post for like a month.
The thing is, even if I was in a perfect financial space and my mom was alive and I didn’t have to figure out where I was going to live, I don’t know if I would be in any better of a mental state vis a vis writing about video games. Politics being what and where they are at the moment, writing about games feels like contributing to brain rot, no matter how interesting the thought is. Writing about politics itself makes me want to [redacted]. So, with that, again I’d be stuck.
What I know at base is that I need help. I don’t know what that help looks like. I don’t know how to ask my close friends, or family, or the folks who have gathered inexplicably in my discord to hear my hot takes, for the help I need. I don’t know if No Escape will be here at the end of June. I hope it will be! I would like to say that shit works out. But I feel pretty bad about it.
So, I am sorry if we’re not posting a whole lot or we’re not posting the kind of thing you initially followed us for. That kind of posting may or may not resume when morale improves. I do appreciate you being here to read this, though.
Maybe you can check out some of our older content, if you want. There’s some good stuff back there, I think.
—kaile
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