Joy

See, I loved the new Doctor Who season.

I probably shouldn't have. It was kind of a hot mess in places. It was full of cracks, full of places where the tight production schedule and maddening constraints where poking through. In a nine episode season (if you count the Christmas episode), it is frankly insane to not only have two doctorlight episodes (73 Yards + Dot and Bubble) but then to run them back to back. But where else are you going to put them? The Christmas episode has to be first due to the release order, you need space babies second to set a tone and it's really the only lighthearted and silly adventure in the bunch, you need to run Devil's Chord early to foreshadow the villain, you need the finals paired, etc. There's not a lot of play.

And like, look, I get the doctorlight episodes. It's a hectic show. Ncuti Gatwa had other things to film. Millie Gibson is brilliant and absolutely deserves to star. 73 Yards was designed to appeal to me, specifically, and I adore it. But come on, we're losing 2 episodes to the finale as well. It's just not a lot of time. And the pacing issues riddle the series. Ruby and the Doctor have excellent chemistry from go, but she grows to trust him way to quick. She's dropping "you've gotta trust this guy" lines way too soon in the progression. It's gotta build. But there's no time for the progression! Companions are at their strongest when they're strongly connected to Earth, in my opinion. When they have families and friends and go back and forth, interweaving lives of excitement with the gentleness of home. I think that's important to remember. I loved the way the three specials wrote David Tennant out again. They gave him a home. They let him be happy.

And really, that's the thing about the season that I love. It's joyful. I can't get over that. It's joyful. It's nice to see the Doctor get excited over dressing up for the 60s. It's nice to see him cheerfully chanting about babies. Even in moments of tension, there's a magic to the way he mournfully recites a poem to keep calm. Him and Ruby are just both full of so much joy and appreciation for the universe and its wonders and I'm honestly kinda they have to keep fighting gods instead of just appreciating it. I want to see them happy. I want them to be happy.

I think it's strange to be so moved by joy. It feels unusual to me. I want to be happy too.

There's something growing inside me these days. It's gnawing and dark and angry. It's quiet on most days. Sometimes its loud. I don't know what it is. I don't know how to let it out.

I've been playing Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous lately. It's a big computer RPG, based on Pathfinder 1e. It's kind of a masterpiece of a game. Don't get me wrong, it has flaws. It's poorly paced in places. Some of the writing and voice acting is weak. Some of the mythic paths are less developed and outright not what they seemed (aeon goes from "cool envoy of the universe" to "fascist" way too comfortably and inevitably for my taste). But I love it anyway. It's really effective at using its tools to make you feel powerful, feel the weight of what you've done. I've played through lots of times, but only finished it twice (once lich and once aeon). I have several hundred hours recorded.

The problem with disability is the totality of it. I need to spend most of my days doing "nothing" in order to maintain energy for the precious few somethings that let me maintain my sanity. But boredom starts to seep in round the edges, wrapping its fragile tentacles around my brain. The actual content of the "nothing" becomes life or death. An activity needs to be active enough to keep me happy but slow enough that it doesn't drain me. Thinking is hard. Following movies is a challenge. I haven't read a novel for a lot longer than I'm happy with. Video games I know very well has been a somewhat effective stopgap. It's a fine line to walk. Trying to go through the Factorio DLC accidentally put me in a crash. I'd underestimated severely how much complexity they'd added. So I booted Pathfinder.

I had plans to go through one of the "good" routes. Just a feel-good happy times hero run. But I saw that they'd added an interpretation of the Red Mantis Assassins (via warpriest archetype*), one of my favourite organizations from the tabletop, and my heart was set. So I played through the game as this hardened mercenary, headstrong, confident and proud. And something else that's new to the game, that I hadn't seen before, is a party at the end of the game. Just a pure celebration. In a game haunted by the spectre of war, absolutely rife with hard choices, impossible sacrifices, and the physical manifestations of evil, there's a party to celebrate their heroes, to celebrate the possibility of the triumph of good. It comes right at the end of the game, right when you're preparing for your run up on the final dungeon. I played through the party yesterday and it broke me.

I'd been playing the legend path, mostly by accident. But something in it really moved me. I wasn't expecting the folk hero-ness of it. The way you become an icon for humanity, for the people. The way you can reject your the leadership thrust upon you, reject your privilege and bare your soul as just a human. Just one among many, standing shoulder to shoulder with your armies and marching against impossible odds.

It's all about joy, right? I want to be happy. I want everyone to be happy and it breaks my heart that the world seems determined to render that an impossibility. The world is about to end or be saved or something in between. Everyone you know or love is dead or dying or fighting or running or betraying you. The land itself has been rendered bare, scoured of everything useable. And they had a party to celebrate that good might prevail.

But there's something growing in me lately. It's dark and it's vicious and it leaves me smiling sadly. I haven't been writing and I miss it so much. I'm so tired. I'm so tired all the time. I don't cook anymore and I miss it. I miss fencing and biking and swimming and laughing and random midnight trips and life. I miss life.

I think the thing that's growing is the fear that I'm not really living. It's not depression. I've fought that demon before. I know the fear I don't exist and I reject it. Rather, I'm afraid I might never exist again. I see my face in the mirror and I love it. I'm pretty and I'm gorgeous and I have a closet full of sexy outfits I never wear because I never go anywhere. Why do I bother fixing my hair or planning to repierce my ears? Where's my love going to come from? I've learned to smile and laugh when people have to go on without me. I make wry jokes about the wheelchair.

It's joy as a vicarious thing. I haven't been writing not because I'm too tired, as convenient an excuse that was. I'm not writing because I'm distancing myself from my emotions again. Because I can't feel the weight of it. To have lost a year of my life. It's too heavy. It's too much. I can't bear it, really. I can't bear needing this much help. I'm independent and stubborn and proud and I can't even do my own fucking laundry anymore.

I applied for disability the other day. I had to write a page to the government explaining in calm and controlled words the weight of what I've lost, the ways in which I can't work, the ways in which I struggle so that maybe if I beg they'll give me enough scraps to cover my rent. I think I'd be dead by now if my parents weren't caring, available, and had some money to burn on me.

I'm just so sad. I can feel my dreams dying. I want to sleep beside someone, to kiss their forehead in the morning and cook them a divine breakfast. I want to feed them cookies and give gentle kisses and laugh during sex. I want to hold hands and watch old horror movies and carefully study their face when they read my first drafts.

I want to play board games and roleplaying games and video games and just games. I want to have picnics and snowball fights and casual improvised jaunts along the train line. I want to do things. I want to live. I want my life to be bigger than the four white walls of my apartment, my parent's car, and the confining constraints of their home. I want to follow the cat around when it meows instead of pathetically begging him to come to me for cuddles instead of the other way around.

I can feel my dreams dying one by one. I'm going to write a novel (actually I already did), but how can I finish it? Editing is active work, scary and tiring and requiring me to be honest with myself. I'm going to make a thousand video games but my eyes blur on the editor. I'm going to take someone I love camping out north by canoe, slipping down the trails until we escape the grasp of humanity completely and appreciate how dense and beautiful nature really can be. Do you know how long it's been since I've been camping? Do you know how long it's been since I've been out of this god damn city at all?

I used to ride trains at night. I used to think about legally changing my name. I used to be a nice person.

I can't handle the thought that I might be like this forever. I can't handle the thought that I might not be. I can't handle thinking about how easy it is for people to drift away, to move on and past me. You have to do things to grow and I'm stagnating by chewing on the dirt. What is left of me in the cracks between exhaustion? What of my raw components survive? What will I use to one day rebuild myself?

I think about the end of the world a lot. I think it doesn't really matter.

It's about joy. I like the season of Doctor Who because it's joyful. Because Ruby and the Doctor are both so happy to be alive and that's what I love. It's a season about being alive, about the triumph of life over death. Death is inevitable. But so is joy.

May I be happier in 2025. May I be more in touch with myself. May I find a place where I can feel honestly without being afraid.

May it be about joy.