11/03/26

Originally played both Xenoblade 1 and 2 back in 2023, but I still feel like writing about the experience I had playing them three years later.

My first exposure to anything Xenoblade related was much like everyone else's, that being Pyra and Mythra from XB2 being in Super Smash Bros. However, It wasn't till around 2022 that I had any real interest in any of the games, as my buddy Oleander introduced me to Klaus, aka Zanza.

I recall drawing a cat design of him around that time when I was bored and asking my friends of characters to catify. This guy had noooooo idea how much he would've ended up meaning to me when I finally picked up a copy of the first Xenoblade game in early 2023.

What really pushed me to pick up a copy of XB1 was becoming aware of the intense parallels it (And the rest of the Xeno games) shares with 2001: A Space Odyssey. Not only was it influenced by the movie, but also the novels that I don't see many people talk about.

The more I played through the game, the more references and parallels to space odyssey I picked up, and it drove me to play all of it as quickly as possible in order to collect all of these clues. (Important note: Xenoblade games take typically over 100 hours to complete)

Once I finally met Zanza, about 70 hours in, it was revealed to me that it was him that held the most amount of space odyssey parallels out of any other Xenoblade character, and that was the major player into him getting lodged directly into my brain.

His past self, Klaus, being an incredibly eccentric scientist type also likely contributed to this.

And its kind of funny when I've been gradually moving away from common bishie anime boys over the years. I much prefer older characters, but Zanza/Klaus was written during a time where characters like that were Good. He's such a fantastic and compelling villain that its a shame with how popular Xenoblade is, no one really brings him up.

I won't spoil much else (Including details on XB2), as this is another experience that is so much better going into blind.

11/03/26

Okay, I'll be honest: I didn't really like what's been put out by the show so far. I do think that handing a famously anti-capitalist franchise over to Amazon of all companies immediately fucked it forever.

Both seasons 1 & 2 are a very fun watch if you turn your brain off or have very limited knowledge of the Fallout franchise. My favourite aspect of the show are the little things added to appeal to longtime fans, because at least we get a good "Hooooly Shit" moment every episode. The eyebot that appeared for two seconds in the s2 finale had me straight up yelling.

The weakest part of the show to me is its pacing; trying to cram a show like Fallout with three whole ongoing plotlines into eight episode seasons is exactly whats wrong with the current state of television. We don't seem to get any filler to let both us and the characters breathe for a minute.

None of these plotlines were really wrapped up by the end of s2 except for Lucy finally catching up to her dad, and Cooper learning that at the very least his family is alive. It was very anticlimatic to me, but I suppose it works if they wanted to build up anticipation for the third season, which is going to take place both in New Vegas and Colorado.

The only protagonist I really found myself caring for was Maximus, he's actually awesome. I may be a bit biased towards him because I am so sick of the brotherhood of steel and he ends up deserting them. I also ended up liking Robert House a lot more than I did through my various FNV replays. I am very fond of his clear ambiguous disorders.

This is just me being a little hater, but a lot of the fans that the show pulled in who haven't touched any of the games tend to be unbelievably unsufferable. This is not a franchise for you to focus purely on a shitty het ship. Its full of so much subtext worth digging into and you will be hunted by 200 Cazadores if you refuse to step away from the conventional comfort the show brings you.

Shortly after s2's release, I saw someone complaining about the existence of Fallout OCs, when this is quite literally a franchise centered around roleplaying. Or, well. It was until Fallout 4 released with the most bottom of the barrel rpg functions that left it feeling extremely shallow in comparison to the previous games.

Despite my dislike for it, I will probably end up tuning into season 3 when it comes out next year due to my insane FOMO, and because Max and Lucy are still in Vegas, and I'll do anything for possible FNV DLC crumbs in particular. We've had a couple of cameos and easter eggs, but its not enough for me to be satisfied yet, especially when a major plot element [Mind controlling devices that explode] is right up Old World Blues' alley and not a single thing has been done with them yet. Ooooo the showrunners want to show us pre-war Big MT soooo badly oooo.

10/03/25

Figured i'd finally sit down watch one of the most iconic sci-fi movies of all time considering i'm a chronic sci-fi addict and, wow, this was a lottttt better than i expected. makes so much sense to why this is a classic.

Its a little bit of a drag and doesn't really get that interesting outside of my buddy robby the robot until the last 30 minutes, but when those minutes hit it gets really really good. I love you themes. and motifs

Men will be haunted by themselves forever and not notice it and when they do they refuse to acknowledge it until it manifests physically and starts to hurt people they know and love. or whatever.

i'm also a sucker for literally any sort of retrofuturistic interior design so that was also a huge treat for me. especially when it comes with shitty cgi. i love you shitty cgi. where would we be without shitty cgi. absolutely nowhere.

would definetely reccomend watching this one when you have the time, even if it's just for how iconic robby is. you can really see the influence he has on sooooo many different robot/ai characters out there, he really is the blueprint.

18/02/25

happy simon pegg and nick frost mass hysteria season.

watched shaun of the dead last year with my dad, however at the time i had no clue that there was a sort of series to this movie, and despite all films being set in different universes, the characters that pegg and frost portray are all very similar. they've all also got some of that good old fashioned homoeroticism going on. my dinnar.

don't get me wrong, i could talk about the individual dynamics and their place in each story all day, because there are significant differences, but one thing that remains constant is the attachment they have to one another. something something two halves of a whole.

i think about the world's end the most out of all the films, primarily due to the fucked up cycle they've got going on in there. however i think hot fuzz is my overall favourite.

"gary king it seems I’ve grown quite fond of you tho there are no sexual urges or desires you come to me as a long lost friend whom I once picked apples with in papa’s orchard." - me like 10 minutes after i finished watching twe.

28/10/24

really really underrated sci-fi flick. one of the few films i have on dvd that i bought myself.

i won't say too much about this film because it is a lot more enjoyable going in completely blind especially if you're a fan of space horror but god. anyone else love the strength of the human spirit.

i will say thought that i am very fond of the way it depicts the main character, sam bell, learning that he's grown so much from the person he used to be 3 years ago, something he never would've realized without seeing it for himself.

also shout out to my buddy gerty. he's actually awesome.

4/08/24

this has got to be the best fallout mod ever made, bar none. it's all i've been playing whenever i have free time for about a week straight [mostly to avoid spoilers, but i've only beat one ending so far] and oh my god it is what the fallout community has been missing for such a long time.

it's straight up the best fallout we've gotten since new vegas. and get this, it's fan made and completely free, huge kudos to team FOLON.

it's even got all of the bugs and crashing every hour or so that all bethesda game fans are familiar with, which in my opinion, truly makes it a fallout game. in all seriousness, it is a little bit annoying having to boot up the game again whenever it crashes, but luckily there are many threads on reddit already with modlists to tone down the bugs and crashing a whole lot. the 2 i used are Buffout 4 and Weapon Debris Crash Fix, which helped so much.

can't really blame team FOLON for this too much, since the mod's only been out for a week or so and they've had to work with the same shitty engine that base game fallout 4 is hosted on. thanks todd.

won't get into too much detail into fallout london's story here, as it is definetely something you should play completely blind, but i will say one thing; it surpasses fallout 4's story in every way possible, so if you really liked the gameplay in fo4 and hated the story like I do, this is the perfect substitute in my opinion.

i also really loved the amount of unique factions that had me invested the whole time. they were all such a massive breather with how well written they are, the characters all felt realistic with a sense of individuality, you aren't obligated to join up with the first one you see and given immediate leadership like you are with a few of the factions in fo4, you're given proper agency like all roleplaying games should have.

speaking on roleplaying, another thing i really loved is the reworking of the dialogue systems to that seen in fallout 3 and new vegas. finally, options other than "yes", "maybe", "no", "slightly less enthusiastic yes" in a shitty dialogue wheel that grately limits the freedom you have in fo4. The perk system was also reworked, and oh my god it's so much better than whatever was going on with fallout 4's. much less confusing too.

I only ended up meeting about 4 companions in this run, but they were all delightful to travel with, especially my best friend forever arthur mountbatten. loved pendragon too, although i did not travel with them as long as i did with arthur.

UPDATED: 10/03/26

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Haven't had a show (or anything really) rewire my whole brain since I was 14. I don't even know where to begin with this one there's just so much to be said.

Biggest shoutout goes to The Mighty Monarch; he woke up my dormant bug autism and it has genuinely improved my life tenfold now that I finally have a drive to Do things outside.

I will make this show it's own seperate page eventually, but I will say if you enjoy when an adult cartoon explores what it would really be like to live in a 60s boy adventurer world in a surprisingly realistic way, then you'll love this one. You'll be shocked at how much better the show handles a lot of common tropes amongst capeshit and associated genres.

18/07/24

Old World Blues has got to be my favorite piece of Fallout worldbuilding by far. I get so excited it hurts at the mere prospect of replaying the DLC.

Its really just this weird mix of the characters, setting, plot, and underlying subtext that always linger which make this an extremely addicting experience I like to think.

And do not even get me started on the themes and motifs in this DLC. Most of them are covered up by the genius use of over the top 50s sci-fi humor that somehow never gets old. Obsidian really went "hey, you know what would be funny-" at least 50 times during the making of this dlc, because it seems to me that most of the ideas proposed were accepted on first thought with how absurd they are.

Once you leave the safety of the center dome and The Sink and start exploring things for yourself, you start to discover the true horror of this supposedly goofy bit of FNV through the remnants of horrific experiments that happened here, and the environmental storytelling that connects OWB to both the rest of the DLCs and the base game.

Despite all members of The Think Tank (and Mobius) being war criminals with not a single moral to their names, I couldn't help but come to like them and their dynamics with each other quite a lot.

Dr. Klein's bitchy attitude and his constant contradictions, Dr. borous' boiling hatred of communists and twisted sense of love, especially for animals, Dr. dala's sexual fascination with the innerworkings of the human body that totally doesn't awaken anything in you, Dr. 0's lack of confidence in himself and his identity, Dr. 8's talkative nature, despite his voice module being broken, and being the only member of the think tank willing to truly make friends with the courier - these all add up into traits that make each of these shitheads extremely likeable, and also links back to the humanity they've lost over the years.

for Klein in particular, he tries to make himself seem perfect, that he cannot make any mistake in his calculations and judgements. this is very much not the case though, and ties into the fact that humans have never been perfect creatures, and that we are constantly making mistakes over the course of our lives.

You can also see a much more softer side of him during the bittersweet "good" ending of the dlc when you're pretending to be Dr. Mobius. here he realizes just how much he missed working with his "rival", and is willing to partner up with you with an agreement that he and the rest of the brains don't fuck up the mojave with their advanced science.

A peaceful ending to this DLC is a little more tricky to get without gaslighting Klein into believing you have the brain of Mobius in your skull, as you are required to complete all of The Think Tank's personal quests in order to want to convince klein to back down on lobotomizing you again (and a science skill level of 100.)

It made me consider that perhaps the relationship between Klein and Mobius was romantic in nature at some point, and that they had a category 10 divorce situation.

There's a couple more pieces of evidence that point to this, and the environmental storytelling in FNV has always been very delibrate, such as mentats [Mobius is addicted to these] being on a side table next to Klein's old bed in his house at higgs villiage, and the constant back and forth messages the two send each other on big mt's PA system, with one being mobius denying klein access to his "forbidden zone." which could be taken as both literal, as that is where he is located at, but also as an analogy, which is funnier in my opinion. thanks for announcing your insane divorce to me man.

I always thought I was looking into things a bit too much, but i've noticed that a lot of other people agree that there must've been a divorce at some point down the line. I love you shitty old divorced gay men.

I like to think it is one of the factors in mobius deciding to simply trap the think tank in a recursion loop for as long as possible instead of outright killing them. he'd be very capable at taking all of them out, but he doesn't, he chooses to keep them alive - but as complete shells of their former selves. he says it himself that they were effectively lobotomized with how he reprogrammed them in order to forget their history, location, and general sense of self to the point that Big MT turns into the only place they've ever known.

Total isolation would also just not do someone like Mobius any good whatsoever. He very clearly loves interacting with people whenever he can, as he states that he had a lot of conversations with the courier's brain while waiting for the courier themselves to get there. And he starts to become more and more curious about the courier as they inquire into the "why's" of this whole operation.

To quote arthur c. clarke; "no conscious entity could survive ages of isolation without damage."

Speaking of recursion loops, I've been weirdly obsessed with eternal cycles in media since I was at least 14, and now that I've realized that so much of old world blues revolves around constant repetition its been keeping me up at night. And it honestly makes constantly going back and forth between and in quest locations a lot less tedious, knowing they were designed like that with a lot of thought behind them.

Unfortunately, the structure of these quests have caused OWB to be heavily disliked by a lot of people, and its understandable while rather sad because of how good the DLC is in terms of writing alone. If you can ignore the quest design, there's a chance it'll become an absolutely lifechanging experience. that's how it was for me anyways.

This is getting pretty long, so i'll stop it here, but there's a good chance i'll end up making a fanpage for this dlc alone in the near future.