17 Upcoming Releases for Current Gen Game Consoles

Game title	Price	Suggested Release Date	Additional features or requirements
**Editted to include contributions by Cookie - 6/27/16
Attack on Titan	?	Aug 30, 2016	-
Batman Arkham VR	Varies by edition	October 2016	Playstation VR release title
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare	Varies by edition	Nov 4, 2016	Early DLC to PS4
Destiny Rise of Iron expansion DLC	$30	Sept 20, 2016	Requires current console gen games
Final Fantasy VII remake	Varies by edition	2017 or 2018	-
Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age (FFXII remake)	Varies by edition	2017	-
Final Fantasy XV	Varies by edition	Sept 30, 2016	Playstation VR compatible
Gran Turismo: Sport	Varies by edition	Nov 15, 2016	-
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild	?	2017	-
Mass Effect Andromeda	?	March 2017	-
Persona 5	Varies by edition	Japan: 2016 US: Feb 14, 2017	-
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice	?	September 2016	3DS only
Playstation VR (Virtual Reality headset)	$399	October 2016	Playstation Camera
Resident Evil 7	Varies by edition	Jan 24, 2017	-
South Park: The Fractured But Whole	Varies by edition	Dec 6, 2016
The Division: Survival DLC	?	Summer 2016	-
The Last Guardian	Varies by edition	Oct 25, 2016	-
Titanfall 2	?	Oct 28, 2016	-

The Fantasy Fiction Mumma Blog

Hey friends. I've started a specific blog regarding my pregnancy and parenthood journey. If you'd like to follow me, head over to fantasyfictionmumma.tumblr.com and follow away!

A little note about that blog, though. It has a distinct writer's humor, comparing baby to aliens and baby's actions to the tryouts for Quidditch. You should follow with caution.

But I would LOVE to see you there! Thanks

~~James

As Long As You Don't Answer - A Mental Health Story

Okay, self, let's get real for a moment here. We don't ever just sit down to talk to one another, do we? And whose fault is that? Well, I suppose that would be the fault of the critics of mental healthcare. I know, it seems like pointing the finger, doesn't it? But hear me out for a moment, because I really don't mind if you completely rip apart my wild theory. It's not even a theory as much as it is one of those random thoughts that I need to talk about to figure out the right or wrong of it.

Here goes.

We, as a society, have something of a saying in regards to talking to ourselves and being simultaneously overheard and questioned on it. We'll be standing there at the weight scale, measuring tea into a bulk tea bag for a customer, and we'll say, "Just a little more..." because we need to put a little more tea into the bag to get it to weigh two ounces.

Of course, just our luck, the customer would overhear just enough of our comment to know we'd been talking. But, no no, not enough to know exactly what we had said.

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. What was that?" the customer will ask.

"Oh, I was just muttering to myself."

And the customer will respond, "Oh, as long as you don't answer yourself," with a little giggle, because how amusing of the store clerk.

That statement. That statement right there is the one that causes trouble for everyone. But not in a way that I feel like they even notice it. How could they be expected to notice it? They were conditioned to think it was a natural, normal, perfectly acceptable response.

What's wrong with it? You haven't figured it out, have you? But no one has ever asked you to look beyond the initial statement, I suppose. There's always the somewhat silly or snarky responses that we can throw out there.

"I wish someone would respond. At least I'd have someone to talk to when I got bored!"

"I respond frequently, but sadly, they're not always things I want to hear!"

"But who better to converse with than myself?"

Now that I've given myself time to sit and think about it, though, I wonder if by saying, "As long as you don't answer yourself," you're criticizing the reality of mental health? Perhaps I'm not really getting my thoughts out there the way I should. But we do all talk to ourselves, and what is wrong with that? We all have a logical and illogical side to ourselves. When our rational side takes over, we do smart things, and when we let our irrational side take over, things can get pretty crazy.

If we don't let our rational side work things out with our irrational side, though, would we come to the correct moral decision regardless of what we're doing? Regardless of the example of myself measuring tea into a bag, we wage a war mentally all the time.

My therapist told me when I'm feeling down, or confused, or even having random thoughts or anxiety attacks, I should continue to write down how I feel and how I'm thinking. I should continue to use my sketch pad to illustrate how I'm feeling in my drawings and comics. I'm not ashamed to admit I need help anymore.

I was terrified to need help. If I admitted I needed help coping with the spiraling depression and overwhelming anxiety I was dealing with, then something was wrong with me. That's how I felt. I felt like I would be considered broken, damaged goods that were useless and required a trip to the garbage can. I felt like the people in my life would soon replace me with a better, unbroken version.

Because that's what we do. We throw away broken things and buy something new. Why fix something that could still work, when you can simply get a better version for simply a little more? And hell, no one wants to buy already damaged goods for anything. That moment we say, "I need help," is like the moment we begin advertising how broken we are and no one wants you anymore.

And it hurt. Holy, ungodly, burning venom, this disease of the mind was physically painful. I couldn't breathe, but to cry. I couldn't stop the poison from spreading to every nerve in my body. I've dealt with the mental unwellness before. I always thought it was bad to ask for help, so last time I had a break down, I dealt with it all on my own and over time, the ship that carried me sailed into more stable waters. My world calmed, and that poison stopped hurting me.

It stopped hurting me. It didn't go away. These things that burden us, that bleed into our lives both good and bad, they remain there forever. They don't simply go away because we want them to.

But like all things that remain unprocessed and even some that are positively dealt with, that sickness in my mind returned. I was left plummeting down a deep hole of despair and it was all I could do to shove a pillow in my mouth to keep my sobs silent and not wake anyone else. I was curled up into the fetal position, suffocating myself on a pillow because it was a better idea than going to the most supportive person I've ever had in my life and saying, "Something is wrong inside me, and I can't understand it."

That, right there, is what is wrong with mental health. We allowed ourselves to slowly be conditioned to feel like we can't even talk to ourselves about things. So why the heck would we ever consider talking to friends, family, or professionals when a problem arises?

And in some cases, I really am the best person to talk to about things. That's not me being narcissistic, but who could know me better than me? And who could know you better than you? Do we follow the little devil on our shoulder or do we seek the angel's guidance? And at the same time, sometimes our little devil and our little angel need a little help to speak up in our lives, to rationalize or even make us take a chance on something that seems impossible.

So why can't I answer? Why can't you answer? The unspoken message is that there's something wrong with you if you do answer yourself. Sure, we laugh it off as just a joke, but some of us read into things a lot more than others and you don't know which of us can't just let that go.

You also don't know which of us need to know its okay to talk to ourselves, to need help when the going gets rough, to seek out other people's help. Society looks so far down on mental health, acting like it isn't real because it can't always be scientifically examined. Not every person who has a mental health issue is Ed Gein, but being completely healthy in mind doesn't exclude people from doing bad things either.

The first person we go to when determining complicated moral issues is typically ourselves, or the version of ourselves that has been trained to think by family, friends, and society. I would probably call that side of me my rational side. But if I can't talk to myself about something, I'm more likely to simply keep my mouth shut. Why bother anyone else with something I can't bother myself with?

That's how I got into trouble. That's how my anxiety managed to overwork itself into severe overdrive, and how my depression managed to sink me so low I was drowning in the feelings of complete despair. Barely grasping for a thread to pull myself up, I messaged my sister and showed her the final straw that had broken my camel's back.

Whatever she had been doing at the time, she stepped away from it, because I was worthy of her time especially at my lowest point. She called me on the phone and I can't even remember everything I said that day. Usually, as a writer, I can remember those pesky details. I was so wrapped up in my mind, all I remember were her words, and her words mattered so very much.

"It's not a shame to need help. It's not disgraceful to ask for it. Help is there for a good reason."

Shipwrecked Romance

**This story was inspired by Gina Brillon, a rather impressive young woman who is an actress, comedian, and writer. On top of those accomplishments, and having very fabulous hair, she also sings and does poetry and squeezes in a little time to interact with fans in spite of her social anxiety. Gina comes from the Bronx (pronounced BR-awhn-kzsu) which is in New York (or so her website states, but I'm geographically challenged so you could tell me she lived five houses away and I'd still get lost trying to find it). Her sense of humor is very realistic, down-to-earth humor with a grown-up feminine-styled twist. If you can't picture that, I highly recommend you head over to Amazon and pick up a copy of her one-hour show, "Pacifically Speaking". Check her out on her Facebook here.

I was inspired to write this little piece because she spent a few minutes chatting with me. Don't worry, I'm just as amazed as you. I got to talk to a celebrity, wooo! Do the famous person dance... So anyway... Awkwardness aside, I made a joke based on a joke of hers in the show, "Pacifically Speaking". One joke led to another, and I learned she met her current significantly different person of interest while she was working on a ship.

I geeked out at the romantic-ness of it (in spite of the fact that you'll never get me on a boat, stories of them are romantic... I mean, look at Titanic--erm..or...) and concocted a story in my head of how it obviously all went down.

So this is what Gina said, "I met him while we were both working on a ship."

And this is what 30-seconds of my brain looked like, "Once upon a time, Gina Brillon found herself shipwrecked and drifting off into the sea! And along came another ship, and she was pulled aboard and given a mop to earn her way back to shore. It sucked having to be a cleaning staff person, but..."

And she said, "Bravo!" and now I'm intent to prove that I can do better than that.

Considering I haven't actually started writing the story yet (that I was inspired to write), let me see if I can whip something up for you. In the meantime, kick back and pour yourself a drink. We might be here a while.

******NOTE: SWEAR WORDS IN STORY. This story should be considered age appropriate for people who lead moderately adult lives and pay their own internet and cellphone bills... All others should consider the ramifications of how clearly influential the media is (not) on their young lives before going forth with reading.... Um........

*****ALSO all similarities to real life are coincidental and the story is fictional?

SHIPWRECKED ROMANCE

You know the irony of life was not only making itself known to Gina, but it was practically driving a car straight into her metaphoric vehicle before getting out and smashing at any remaining decent portions with a damn tire-iron while laughing maniacally.

Could Gina identify why the hell she was on a giant bit of driftwood in the middle of a body of water large enough to have no idea which direction the shore was in? Not really... She gave up on the identification of reasoning hours prior. It probably had something to do with being character-jacked for a ridiculous short-story or something.

But on the positive side, Gina could work on getting a little in-story tanning time, so.. bonus!

Boring topics aside, there Gina was. Stranded. On driftwood. No sign of the shore in sight, and no crows-nest to climb up and call, "LAND HO!" when it did come into sight... Granted, this day and age, if a sailor called out "Land ho" of all things, they would probably be slapped upon arrival with a huffy personality in the most modern of fashions demanding, "Who you calling ho, asshole?"

Damn the politically correct.

Now, according to her website, Gina was a many-talented young woman. On top of her ability to not kill herself in stilettos (or, presumably lead a secret life identity as cat woman--I know who your secret identity is, no one is that talented in heels!) she could sing. So for the sake of the story Gina has found herself stranded on some moderately precarious driftwood wearing her favorite pair of stilettos and a white gown straight out of a Regency novel based in the 1800's. And she was singing to pass the time.

Sometimes it really sucked to be a damsel in distress. No one actually wanted to read a story from the damsel's perspective, because what would they read about?

And then the young girl paced back and forth in the high tower again, because, well, the damn dragon was guarding the tower's base door if she at least stayed in the high tower she could have someone to talk to--AKA the dragon--when said dragon wasn't dealing with severe indigestion. "I told you to remove the metal armor before you ate him," the princess yelled out the window finally after the dragon belched yet another stream of flames. At least the dragon had the decency to turn away from the tower before belching...

Actually, that wouldn't be too bad of a story to read either. Gina hummed to herself and kept imagining about the stories of a damsel in distress.

She was stuck on a piece of driftwood, mermaids circling around her. These weren't the pretty, Disney-style, sing a song for the King of Mermen every morning type of mermaids. No, these were hideous, vicious looking creatures. Each one had the obvious lower body of a sea creature, and where the torso of the merfolk of a more delightful fantasy would turn to the shape of a human with brilliant hair and fabulous shell covered boobs or washboard abs, these creatures were almost skeletal with long, spindly arms and webbed, clawed hands. Their faces were a grotesque combination of a hammer-head shark, an angler fish, and what she imagined Medusa must have looked like in Greek Mythology before Perseus beheaded her.

Well, that fantasy took a rather drastic turn. She went from imagining being a princess in a dragon-kept tower to a drifting survivor surrounded by insane death sea monkeys with a severe case of the munchies... Neither story really sounded like a good, happily ever after.

A sudden wave of water hit Gina squarely in the face.

Feeling disoriented, Gina sat up on her elbows, trying to keep her legs together in a form of modesty. Even in the middle of the ocean, she probably didn't need to be flailing her legs about and sitting like an overcompensating tomboy. Because, well, duh. Not every day could be "cute panties day". Today just so happened to be "Joe Boxer smilieface" day, because the only other pair not in the laundry had "Monday" on them and it was obviously not Monday...

Gina began to register the details of the world around her. Solid walls of a cruise ship's kitchen area, fast paced movements of kitchen staff, and oh look. A tray of water cups and a carafe were shattered on the floor. There were days when being a server were wonderful, but this was not it.

She was embarrassed and this moment felt like it would never pass. Her face was already feeling far too warm in spite of managing to splash water all over it. No need to worry about her mascara. She paid more on a bottle of mascara than on six pairs of stockings, because good mascara that was waterproof was worth the extra hour of hard, grueling labor. And to top off the whole cake of a freakish moment caught daydreaming (daydreaming horribly, but still daydreaming), it had to be an adorable guy who was attempting to speak to her and help her clean up the mess, and she was staring with a gaping jaw.

Oh no. No no no... "H-hi."

He stopped talking and looked at her with a quizzical expression on his face before grinning. "Hi. What's up?"

"Did you hear the one about the clumsy girl?" Horrible joke. Just awful. For a comedian, come on, Gina.

Still, who knew a guy could smile so brilliantly and look so cute? "No, what's up?"

"Not her!" Awful. Simply wretched.

He began laughing. "Well, let me get her up." Gina took his hand, feeling sheepish but unable to keep the smile from her face.

Take a chance, Gina, she told herself boldly. "Can I get you a drink later?"

"Do I have to drink it off the floor?" He teased but he was nodding. "I'd like one."

Across the room, the cruise ship chef yelled, "Oi, love birds! This isn't the Bachelorette. Get back to work!!"

Gina wanted to tell the guy her name and get his phone number, but when she turned back to look at him he was already disappearing out of the kitchen with fresh glasses and carafes of water. By the time she got to the hall, he was gone. Still... it wasn't like they were in the big city! They were on a ship. How big could it be? Surely they'd run into each other again.

the end

copyright 2016 jagross