State Of Sterling: It's Been A Minute...

Hello you lovely patrons!

It’s been a long time since I posted an SoS update. And oh no, it just hit me, I think there’s an Asking Sterling podcast that’s looooong past its due date as well. For this, I can only apologize. Life is difficult - not exactly bad, just full of responsibilities and obligations and physical pain management.

Also, I should say that I really struggle to reply to messages sent to me via Patreon itself, which I also feel bad about. The site itself sucks for doing anything on. If you’d like replies, please hit me up via email, Bluesky DMs, or the Asking Sterling channel in the Trash Palace Discord. Emails might take a while due to ADHD, but I try to get back to any I receive. 

So yeah, been a while. I’m on a bit of a hypomanic one at the moment however, and felt overwhelmingly compelled to finally do another SoS post. I find it best to go with my brain’s flow during these times. 

I could offer a bunch of excuses for the lack of updates, but I’ll just say that it’s all I can do to get a Jimquisition and Podquisition up every week without sacrificing quality. Speaking of, I do hope that the recent output has been to your liking. 

You’ll have likely noticed that the show more regularly adopts a “video essay” approach as opposed to purely ranting about the state of the games industry every single week. This week I decided to drop the series name from uploaded video titles and present the essay episodes as “The Jimquisition Presents” in title sequences. I mostly want those essays to appear more standalone since they, well, kind of are, and deserve to be seen as individual videos even if they’re still under the same umbrella. 

To be honest, the distinction only matters in my own head. 

While current affairs videos are still in the rotation, one can’t overestimate how much more I enjoy the job when I write these more thoughtful videos. 

Ever since I did that “Political Dark Souls” video many years ago, I’ve wanted to do more evergreen essay stuff, and that recent Mouthwashing video was such a fulfilling thing to make that I’ve decided to keep at it. We had the Sengoku Basara episode two weeks ago, the fandom/Dynasty Warriors/critique one yesterday, and there are multiple others to get done. 

One of the benefits of no longer having any stakes left with YouTube is that I’m much more comfortable following whimsy rather than wasting my effort trying to build anything on the platform. I rarely bother to look at viewcounts anymore but I did see some when uploading yesterday’s video and noticed the Basara video seems to be the least viewed episode ever. It was, however, one of the most positively received, and was a joy to make. So sod it.

If there’s nothing to lose, there’s nothing to stop me making videos about any obscure videogame nonsense that pleases me. Maybe I’ll do something on Chaos Legion. 

Expressing a lack of care about the views side of things has often been characterized as “coping” by the internet’s usual gang of chudsome twats, and maybe there’s been some of that, but we’ve had over three years of Number Go Down - almost anything loses its novelty by that point. 

It did bother me a lot once - the sub losses after coming out hurt and the channel’s algorithmic burial was scary - but emotionally I’ve moved on. I’m confident I’m putting out good work even if far fewer people see it, and my sense of upward mobility comes from writing these days, not YouTube. 

The only people to whom it’s still exactly as interesting now as it was in 2021 are the aforementioned twats, some of whom apparently refresh the channel all Monday so they can post triumphantly about it within literal seconds of a new video going up. I believe the record is 30 seconds, and how starved of a win are you if you trip over yourself weekly to celebrate a really old secondhand “victory” over an online D-lister? 

Despite the tanked visibility and inability to reach new people, the Patreon has held steady for over a year and I cannot thank y’all enough for that. I am guessing a combination of written reviews and the overall quality bump of the show have had a big hand in that. I’m just incredibly appreciative of y’all still believing in the work.

I certainly feel the show is at least on a high creatively. 

The videos aren’t just longer, but more varied and in-depth, and of course I have to give a TON of credit to Z. Mann Zilla, whose editing work is astounding. The effort they put in coupled with the talent they have makes every video better by miles for their presence. Not only that, they “get” me in a way few would be able to, and they cared enough when they started to note what I’d add/change in my final edit drafts to such a degree that final drafts require a lot less of my direct input, at least when I’m not going overboard with them. Basically, they nailed it. 

Zilla really is, as they say, the extra poo that makes the difference. 

Right now, reviews aren’t as regularly posted as they have been in recent months, but that’s only due to the time of year. Once releases pick up, so will they. I do believe returning to reviews helped keep me ticking to a tremendous degree. Readers love them and I love writing them, so that’ll continue. 

Podquisition is Podquisition, it just persists, and that’s a nice, stable thing. 

We “celebrated” ten years of the show and podcast a little while back. The Jimquisition has technically run longer, but the day the show went independent was the most trackable and important landmark. Whatever else may have happened and regardless of one’s opinion of me, there can be no denying that ten years of publishing an episode every single Monday without a single break is a phenomenal accomplishment. 

The first half of last year saw me struggle with the worst depression of my adult life, and it led to me dropping off live-streaming among other things. A few months ago I returned to doing them and it’s been lovely. While I can’t do a regular schedule due to life factors and pain, I try and at least stream once or twice a week. Do feel free to check it out.  

Outside of the main work, I’ve been continuing to pursue videogame writing gigs and build that career into something as sustainable as it is rewarding. The disgusting rise of inadequate AI and tumultuous state of an exec-ravaged industry makes things way more difficult than they should be, but I’m confident enough in my talent as a writer that I think I’ll survive.

Writing and surviving are the two things I know I’m truly great at. 

Date Everything is out on February 14th, and it’ll demonstrate what I’m really capable of. I can scarcely believe that a project I joined years ago is now so close to release. Vampire Survivors continued to be a fruitful thing for me throughout last year, with Ode to Castlevania being wonderful fun to contribute to. Some of my bestiary entries for that still aren’t in the game yet because game dev is fun - hopefully you’ll see them at some point! 

I also am attached to a lovely little queer indie game, Quantum Witch, currently with a demo on Steam. I’m responsible for a chapter revolving around one of the game’s gods, Laticauda, who has been immensely fun to write. This project had me sold the moment I was introduced to The Skeleton Who Can See Through Time. 

Wrestling continues to be a big part of my world, with the focus mainly being on Tidal in Huddersfield, True Grit in Leeds,  and Pinfall in Manchester. I’m also still the PCW Women’s Champion - three years in March! I turned heel at that promotion and at Tidal recently, bringing the cackling supervillain version of the Commander back after years of being a face. God damn I adore being a baddie. 

That’s about it for updates. As I draft this, Laura wrapped up subs on what’ll be yesterday’s video when I publish this, so I gotta go get that done before I forget! As always thank you so so so much for all your support - it means the world to me. 

Thank you,

Stephanie.