#i didn’t follow the first and last name format here as Bez has specifically requested to be referred to as Bez in the past fwiw

[thesophiades]

[Review] A Single Ouroboros Scale

A Single Ouroboros Scale, by Bez

I talk a lot about my own bleeding disorder (hemophilia) and its associated injuries below. If you think that might make you uncomfortable, I’d suggest not reading this post. Only text follows, there are no videos/audio/visuals etc.

It’s a tricky thing, speaking about semi-autobiographical works, as I never want to offend or strike a raw nerve unwittingly- especially if it pertains to a topic that I don’t feel as if I can relate to. It’s easier to sit with someone’s grief if you feel like you have a connection, your own source of experiences to fall back on while discussing their creation. It’s part of why I was able to write some thoughts about Let’s Talk Alex, as I have experience with leaving an abusive relationship- and not Sting, as I’m fortunate enough that I’ve never had a brush with death outside of my own near-death experiences.

Still, I figured I’d try. I’m disabled, and have grappled with the feeling of having my illness take away from me relentlessly: not only my general quality of life (it can be excruciating to have joint bleeding: the blood stretches the capsule to its limit, displacing the bones- causing severe, accumulative arthritic damage: as if it weren’t a slap to the face enough to have your joints set ablaze from the heat and tear wrenching pain of the spontaneous bleeding itself) but also my means of creative expression- whether it be from literally losing the ability to hold a pencil and having to slowly relearn how to draw/paint and radically changing my entire process and art style to accommodate, or being in a fog from being in so much pain my brain is mush and writing is out of the question.

It’s hard. It’s devastating. Unless you’ve experienced that loss of not only yourself, but also your means of interacting with the world through self expression- it’s hard, I guess, to explain the terror of losing months at a time to the endless sea of pain. Of not wanting to be defined by only your capacity to endure, but struggling to be a person when you’re barely clawing onto existing. You aren’t as sharp when you’re sobbing and trying to desperately unbend your knees because they’ve locked up into place from internal bleeding. So while I may not be able to relate on the particulars of cognition Bez mentions here- I’ll be approaching this from the perspective of a creative who has had their sense of self and work threatened by major illness.

This game made me sad. That sounds like a rather childish way to express how I felt- but I really struggled to find any dressed up metaphor or simile that rung as true as just… sad. My experiences with my genetic disorder are not ones I’d wish on anyone- and it’s always sad to see when someone else has experienced similar difficulties. The inevitability permeating the piece- the deletion impending no matter how you choose, the lack of real, meaningful change you can make in their fictional community: it reminds me so much of the way walls seem to close in with depression, or long term illness- how no matter what you do, it feels as if it doesn’t matter, because things are awful and out of your control.

I wrote a metastudy paper this semester for one of my courses- on the impact of stress on depression, and while knowing about the typical globalization of negative thought patterns associated with the illness is comforting in an abstract way: knowing the answer behind something doesn’t change the emotional processing part of things, I guess.

I know what it’s like to be so hopelessly down a hole that you can’t see a way out. How the world keeps rushing on without you- the fear and sorrow at being left behind, of being forgotten. That is such a hard thing to handle, let alone with grace. I try to strive for strength and grace in my own troubles, but I fall short of the mark so often- I am so thankful for my loved ones and medical team, and their perpetual patience.

I was a little puzzled by the poems included in the bottom links, but I did listen to one of them, and sat for a little bit to let it sink it. I can see how it ties into the piece- the question of immortality, stars going out, a universe rushing endlessly forwards, but I missed them at first blush since I don’t believe there was any mention to poetry in the actual game. I did bookmark the site though, it’s always nice to find new ways to engage with, and pull others into engaging with, poetry.

This is a complicated little piece- not because of any technowizardry that was impenetrable to me, but because I feel as if I’m at a loss for how to really express how I felt, besides sorrow. I hope too, that one day Bez is able to look back at this game and be able to have a bit of a chuckle at a past self- that the situation won’t be as dire or harrowing in the future. I can’t promise that it will be. I can hope, but I also hope that Bez is able to make it through things OK, no matter how things shake out.