Posts on WISH

Terraria: The first-time clear that took me over a decade

Fri, 25 Sep 2026 10:43:55 -0400

I don’t remember exactly when I got Terraria for the first time. What I do know is that actually getting it and attempting to play through it the first time was a very formative moment that marked a big transition period in my life around when I was in middle school, but before I moved. My achievements are marked from 2015 on, but I know I got the game before achievements were added, so I’m assuming that this was around 2013 or 2014. This game was my original game with absurd playtime; in the time since, Quaver, Resonite, and Warframe have each had their time at the top as my newest obsessions in turn. What I know I was a little ashamed of was the fact that my most played game on Steam, with 400+ hours logged on it, was mostly held up by me playing on public servers, my achievements being things that I got only playing on my friends’ long-completed worlds, and in that time, I had never beaten the Wall of Flesh legitimately.

Archipelago has been a huge game-changer for me when it’s come to sorting through all the games I’ve wanted to play, namely in the fact that it’s got me sorting through a lot of good randomizer games, of which Terraria is a pretty notable one by virtue of being core-verified; it’s because of this that it’s always caught my eye when I see it played in AP, because it’s something that’s sat on my shelf for far longer than it should’ve. I don’t entirely know what initially got me going on this game; it might’ve partially been Archipocalypse and potentially been just me wanting to have travel games for a road trip I went on one weekend (though I never ended up playing it while traveling because I did not enjoy building on controller), but ultimately, I got into it and sprinted down the line, realizing that maybe, just maybe, with the motivation I had, I could finally break a decade-long curse. From the looks of it, it took me about a week and a half all in all, and a satisfying 11 days it was: I picked up a class I had no experience with (mixed, generally yoyo-centric melee), setup some not horrible looking houses for my first time playing (though there were some exceptions I’d like to iterate on the next time I play), and tore through the game way faster than I ever thought I would. Finally, after a literal decade of larping, I can finally give my honest takes on Terraria.

My playthrough went pretty smoothly, all things considered, though there were definitely a few hiccups caused by my lack of foresight (and laziness, or determination to make it through to the end) that I never really touched up on. I definitely took the old approach to Terraria housing that left me punished on pricing, and didn’t have the game knowledge to know that the Truffle required a surface house before I built lodging in the existing mushroom biomes underground (though, it did give me useful access to the Underworld, so I’ll need to adapt to that for my next run), which meant I was paying a pretty decent sum for things like the autohammer, clentaminator, and the many reforges I ended up doing (which is definitely a house I should prioritize in the future) and denying myself pylons that I’d later use incredibly liberally (in a small world, this is definitely not something to obsess over, but I wasn’t going to bounce from map’s edge to map’s edge doing everything, especially since I was rocking only angel wings for half of hardmode). I also took a while to find the Shimmer, which I would eventually make into very convenient underground jungle access. The housing situation also meant that I’d quickly go into debt when it came to my crafting setup, as I had different stations in inconvenient to access rooms and eventually ran out of room for chests, which is part of the reason I’m calling said world there after getting the Terrarian and something I definitely want to keep in mind next time I play.

All that said, even when it came to housing, I’m very happy with what I did in this world on its own. When I did finally make houses, I was able to come up with a few interesting designs, especially early on, and put together some cool concepts I definitely want to refine in later worlds. I’m also impressed by the game knowledge I had of both the early game and the yoyo-centric build I wanted to go for and was pleasantly surprised by just how good some of the weapons I didn’t know very were, especially the Daybreak at the endgame and the general flail category from post-Skeletron on. I’m also a bit impressed by my progression: I gave myself a bit more hope that I was right about Eater before Eye (though I wasn’t able to do it here thanks to my lack of game knowledge) and did way better against the Destroyer and Skeletron Prime than I ever thought I would, as I always used to see those bosses as terrifyingly hard (though the Twins was still a struggle of a fight, especially for my build, when Spazmatism exists for most of it). All in all, progress came in meaningful bursts each night and I came out feeling far, far better about my progress each session, even when things were tough.

The greatest flaw of Terraria is how long and arduous pre-Hardmode is: Even when getting shadow gear as quickly as I did, each stage of it is a slow, slow grind, one with limited movement and limited destructive power to actually get you the resources you need to push on. For a yoyo player, the Rally is way too out of the way to be reasonable, but it’s not like I was pushing for that anyways when grenades were tearing up both the Eye and Eater (one of two bosses I had to build an “arena” for, which was really just two elevated platforms): I had learned at that point to resign to not building my class until Wall of Flesh (which I did need to build an “arena” for by having Rocket Boots and basically just building extensions out from certain gaps to run smoothly along the Underworld on), as the best tools were always off-class for me prior to getting the pre-Hardmode flails (Blue Moon -> Sunfury) anyways, and I think it was a bit more sage than I initially realized to skip Molten armor and just rush the pickaxe, as it proved to not really be necessary to push past shadow armor until Hardmode really started to kick in. It was an arduous grind I’m not surprised my younger self could never push through, and it’s disappointing that was the case, as the game in Hardmode is where everything about the game gets interesting.

I did not expect to be so powerful in Hardmode as soon as I got into it, but the best weapons in Terraria at this point were able to keep anything that mattered at a distance and chunk it down, especially my yoyo, which was starting to become more relevant at this point with the Chik (though I could’ve gone for the Dao of Pow at this point anyways, which probably would’ve kept up). At this point, I hadn’t made it to the Shimmer yet, so I made the mistake of re-clearing the Wall of Flesh and selling the emblem (I got lucky and got the melee emblem and Breaker Blade attempt 2), which wasn’t a bad decision particularly, but definitely a waste of time. I was glad I knew to just go ham on the demon altars, but I made the mistake of doing that before crafting the Night’s Edge and beating King Slime, so I had to scour the world for the last few demon altars to craft the last few important things before I could smash those, too. I’m also quite happy that my world got orichalcum over mythril, both because it looks good and also because the armor set bonus proved surprisingly handy for the bits where the armor mattered.

I am certainly very happy I went out of my way to get the Night’s Edge, though, as basically the entire Terra Blade line went far and beyond what I expected it to be to carry my waveclear. The Night’s Edge was a super meaningful craft right off the line of Hardmode and immediately useful, especially in its True form; I’m very used to the legacy Night’s Edge with no projectile at all, so I was surprised to see the unique effects on it, namely the far, far wider projectile the upgrade sends out. The range on the Excalibur I also found ludicrous for a true melee weapon, and the True Excalibur even more so; especially in the Solar Eclipse, this was really all I needed to be carried, and the buffed Terra Blade tears through many lategame events with only my own health management being an issue. I’m a bit disappointed I didn’t get to use my yoyo as much as I thought I would, save for the Chik, as well as the Terrarian in postgame, but I found a lot of creative alternatives for the class instead that I definitely liked a lot, so I’d say it’s a fair trade.

As for finally reviewing the game itself: This is the game I wish vanilla Minecraft was without some of the problems that this being vanilla Minecraft would have (and yes, I’m stealing this sentiment from someone else in the GEARS community). Adventuring is fun, yet bite-sized, quality of life is everywhere to be found for those with eyes to see it, and combat is varied and engaging. It’s a game that’s rich with flair and flavor and similarly ripe with variety: I already know the next run I’m going to do (after I churn through more of my Archipelago game backlog), and it’s going to be vastly different than what I’ve already done. The combat is definitely very fun, especially past pre-Hardmode, but honestly, with how strong some of the Hardmode bosses can hit, I wish there was a bit more mobility than what we’ve got so it doesn’t feel like I’m falling back on healing potions as soon as they’re off cooldown.

I’ll repeat this again: The greatest flaw of Terraria is pre-Hardmode. Yes, I know there are special seeds to immediately start in Hardmode, but that’s not what I mean: I just wish the combat was balanced like it is in Hardmode from the very get-go, with the pre-Hardmode tools feeling as fun and responsive. This game thrives when it’s fantastical, and thrive it does, because the best part of this game is when it goes completely off the rails and gives you access to something that feels like it shreds while still being balanced to your own health pool, and that’s something I know I was wishing for all the way back when I was a kid, bumbling around because I wanted to like the game, but pre-Hardmode was that difficult to get into.

For those with the patience to push through a little bit (and find the joy that can be found in pre-Hardmode, which is definitely still not lacking), Terraria’s combat once it really picks up speed is something that just feels right, and beyond the game’s combat, there’s definitely a lot to do, such that you won’t ever really be stalling in the same place if you put the time into discovering what’s really at your disposal. If you want a sandbox that doesn’t feel like a chore, Terraria is definitely the way to go; robust combat, lots of ways to play the game despite its size, and nothing past pre-Hardmode really feeling like a slog. There’s so much that I wasn’t able to play, and it’s certainly what’s got me looking forward to playing the game again. I am silently hoping the native Linux version gets a bit of love, though, because I was having some issues with it in MangoWM, but that’s for another time.

Archipelago APWorlds: My Thoughts

Tue, 25 Aug 2026 21:32:26 -0400

The Archipelago train continues, this time with me rating all of the APWorlds I have experience with, because I’ve wanted to do that in at least recent times, especially as the quality of them sees massive variance due to how community-driven the project is. I’ve been having so much fun with Archipelago in general, but with some recent snags, I wanted to relay my experiences forward to anyone considering a game I might have experience in for the next one; plus, this gives me an excuse to write about something, which is always welcome.

I’ll be using letter grading to rate APWorlds in four categories and give an Overall rating: Gameplay covers changes to the flow of the game itself within the context of the multiworld, Logic covers accessibility of checks and items, Accessibility covers how easy a game is to install and actively play, and Customization covers how robust the implementation is in terms of its settings. Any game with an A or higher as its Overall grade is a game I would personally make core-verified if I were a lead developer of Archipelago, with A- representing games I think would deserve to remain as core-verified if they were already. Games are listed in alphabetical order where possible, and I’ll detail my level of experience with the game prior to the review; obviously, everything here is subjective, but I hope my experiences are informative to some.

I condemn the use of genAI at large. I will include a disclaimer if I’m aware of AI coding being a major part of the development process of an APWorld, and my Overall grade may be adjusted as a result.

Archipeladoku

I’ve completed a small board of this solo and a very large board of this as a public slot in a friendserver async.

Atlyss

I included this game in a solo multiworld, but lost interest in this APWorld after learning it was vibe-coded.

Autopelago

I’ve goaled this as part of a Multiarchi async.

Balatro

I’ve goaled this as part of a solo async.

Beat Saber

I’ve goaled this as part of a friendserver async.

Blockupelago

I’ve goaled this as part of a friendserver async.

Bloons TD6

I’ve goaled this as part of an RPelago Casino async.

Bumper Stickers

I played through a portion of this as part of a Multiarchi async, but eventually set the slot to public after losing steam.

Celeste (Open World)

This is one of my staple games. I have run this in syncs and asyncs of multiple sizes, including a Big Async slot.

Gameplay: A

There’s a reason it’s one of the most played Archipelago games. The A-sides offer a simple strawberry collectathon that sends lots of checks, plus the strawberries in-game display exactly how valuable they are. Finding out-of-logic solutions can be very fun, especially in the earlier levels; in general, this game just has infectious movement that makes doing anything interesting.

Logic: B

For as many players as this game gets, many players will either complain about getting BKed in, or behind, this game. High check density per interactable unlock plus only a few interactable unlocks, as well as a large pool for macguffins, leads to some lopsided logic and long single sections of play. The logic flows well enough despite that; checks are already placed reasonably by default, and the game often goals well before it collects all it can, often meaning a huge release.

Accessibility: A-

About as good as it gets without it being made for Archipelago directly, with a dedicated mod loader being required to install the mod that you’re going to be used to for Celeste anyways. The Epic version on Linux needs a patch to convert it to a native Linux application, meaning support for the necessary Everest, and that’s about the most hassle setup could possibly have. It even comes with great PopTracker support.

Customization: A+

The YAML is great, too: Cosmetics, traps, interactable conditions, multiple logic difficulties, macguffin count, multiple goals, and a billion other things I can’t name off the top of my head. It’s one of the most customizable implementations in the game, and that’s awesome.

Overall: A-

It’s an instant classic: Easy to setup, long stints of gameplay, and great fun at that. It’s an incredible example of a modern title becoming an incredible Archipelago implementation and a great choice for both those who know the game inside out and those fresh off their first vanilla clear.

Content Warning

I force-released this during a friendserver async due to rampant logic issues.

Deadlock

I’ve goaled this as part of a friendserver async.

Gameplay: D

Nothing really changes. There’s no real new gameplay. It feels like the purpose of this is to support more AP-privy friends to me; it’s not like you can do much else for a game like this.

Logic: F

So many sphere 1 checks that are nowhere near possible in a sync setting and pipe dreams in an async setting. This APWorld is a sphere 1 merchant for literally no reason and holds up entire lobbies as a result; you practically need to setup an early goal to make it fun, and that just throws off balance; on top of this, it floods the multiworld with useless trash. It’s hard to make work at all and impossible to make work well.

Accessibility: F

The actual interface to the server is inherently flawed: Replays take quite some time to generate and the API is subject to constant rate limiting restrictions, meaning you could very well finish a game and not be able to submit it until two entire games later.

Customization: C-

A redeeming aspect of this randomizer, if not by much: Multiple goal conditions, final hero selection for the macguffin hunt goal, and a toggle to disable “hard checks” that expect you to perform well in lobbies consistently. It’s certainly something, but this alone can’t save anything.

Overall: F

Avoid this APWorld at all costs. I’d love to put together something one day that makes Deadlock playable in an async setting, like a Keymaster’s Keep preset, but it’s something better done in a manual format until the game gets improved for the purpose.

Dracomino

I’ve goaled this as part of a friendserver async.

Elementipelago

I attempted to play this in a large solo multiworld that I ultimately abandoned for multiple reasons.

Geometry Dash

I attempted to play this in a large solo multiworld that I ultimately abandoned for multiple reasons.

Haste

I have not goaled this, but have played it in multiple solo multiworlds and feel comfortable with its systems.

Jigsaw

I have goaled this as part of multiple asyncs, including a 1000 piece public slot as part of a friendserver async and a standard sized puzzle as part of a Multiarchi async.

Keymaster’s Keep

I’ve goaled this as part of a friendserver async using only Warframe as my selected game.

Kingdom Hearts 2

This is one of my staple games. I’ve goaled this as part of a solo multiworld.

Gameplay: A

The randomizer just takes the annoying parts of KH2 and strips them from the game: No Gummi Ship sections, basically everything accessible from the start through the Garden of Assemblage, and what I find pretty fun about the randomizer through the fact that you get a portion of The World That Never Was from the start of the game to start farming XP and drive forms immediately. The early game is a little slow, as is the XP grind, but having increased multipliers makes progression a lot smoother and interesting. Having your movement options from the get-go also makes the game feel way better; the game isn’t overly complex in some areas it doesn’t need to be, meaning you can just focus on the combat.

Logic: A

I don’t think there’s really any big complaints about the logic in this game at all, save maybe Final Form forcing being hard to telegraph, but that’s not even that big of an issue because you can get it from the pool as well for the extra total drive form levels. Despite the incredibly large check count, which is definitely a problem to some, the actual flow of the game’s logic is incredible; restrictions are reasonable and it feels like there’s an actual checklist of what to get that feels way better than my first experience with Birth By Sleep did; plus, with so many unlocks, it’s so hard to get BKed. There’s really nothing to say on this front; it’s incredible.

Accessibility: C-

The setup on Linux just isn’t there yet, and they acknowledge it with their beta release, but the beta release has been pretty bad for a pretty long time as far as I’m aware. You need to completely extract KH2’s data just to install the mod, for one, which takes up 40+ gigabytes of hard drive space, but you also need a separate Archipelago install through Proton in the same prefix just to get the game to talk to the client. KH1 just got there with its own beta release; how hasn’t KH2 yet?

Customization: A

This is what I want to see from a core-verified game. Independent multipliers for different forms of XP, various options for movement, three different goal conditions with increasingly lax settings for some, fight logic, final form forcing logic, optional objective toggles, and direct modifications to the item pool. It’s a shame that Scan has to be start inventoried manually, but that’s really about it; there’s nothing to complain about and so much to fine-tune.

Overall: A

The accessibility isn’t quite there for the Linux audience, not like KH1’s is, but other than that, you’ve got a cohesive APWorld for a great game building off of an already great randomizer. If you’re a fan of Kingdom Hearts, you absolutely need to try out its randomizer; if not, consider picking up Kingdom Hearts to try this game out, then potentially try out the randomizer, which I encourage because that is literally what I did. If you don’t play a lot of games that make for more traditional forms of randomizers, this might be a good game to break that mold with… because that is also what I literally did. There’s a reason this is a staple game of mine.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep

I’ve goaled this in multiple asyncs, including an RPelago Casino async. I have never played Terra’s story.

Gameplay: B

Birth By Sleep’s implementation does some things very well that other Kingdom Hearts don’t do at all, and its base game does some things very poorly that the other Kingdom Hearts don’t really have to worry about. The issues are definitely linked for the gameplay and logic, so I might not deliver all of that in here.

I love the fact that zones’ combat level scales based off of how many worlds you’ve cleared, meaning they can be played completely out of order and EXP grinding will never be a pain point, unlike how it is in KH2. The fact that the game is short is definitely a boon for it; it means you can play multiple stories in one async and have it still feel balanced, or that you don’t really have to fine-tune the game much to make it sync compatible. It just works. I’m definitely upset that anyone who’s not Ventus doesn’t get to have Glide, but considering the others have chest placements that align with their movement capabilities, I guess it’s fair; it’s just annoying that I have to manually do all of the parkour in Disney Castle as someone who isn’t Ventus.

The command deck is, as it is with base Birth By Sleep, the game’s biggest boon and bane all in one. The system itself is so fun, especially with the finishers, command styles, and D-Links acting as fun support systems, but the Magnet, Thunder, Mine, and Cure ability lines are ultimately so good that I would never consider running anything else in the endgame.

Logic: D-

Birth By Sleep suffers from an unfortunately lackluster implementation, potentially through the game’s own limitations on what can even be implemented, that allows and encourages so many ways to go out of logic, from shop purchases to melding to Command Board to whatever-the-fuck that makes charging your way through the game and turning logic into a suggestion way too easy. Movement logic in this game is fine, but the same can’t be said for commands: You could casually get access to Fire through a shop just by completing enough zones, which is a progression item you’re normally supposed to get through the randomizer to get literally one check. Combat logic isn’t ever questionable because of the level auto-adjust, but that’s never really the issue with this game: It’s just way too easy to get things that aren’t supposed to be randomized because the player gets way too much agency outside of systems that can actually be randomized, which even introduces bloat into the item pool that doesn’t do anything of use.

Accessibility: C+

It’s as difficult to setup on Linux as KH2 is, but not as draining on storage space as it is; however, it comes with drawbacks in other areas instead. The client and mods can be very awkward to setup; I know I had to go through a lot of hell to get it set up when the solution was ultimately a symlink that was technically possible, but annoying, and left a weird dummy folder in my home directory when KH1 was already adapting enough to not have to do the same. The support for Linux just isn’t there, not yet, and I really hope that gets to change, because however good or not the game is, it deserves that much.

Customization: B

It’s not KH1 or KH2 levels of good, but it’s pretty good. EXP multipliers, keyblade randomization, a generic option for “advanced logic”, pool size changes for HP, superboss/minigame/arena/Command Board logic, and options to include the final and secret episodes for Aqua means that you can squeeze what you need out of the game, and definitely explains why I can have my hat trick and random character YAMLs be so different and work out so well.

Overall: C-

The sad thing about Birth By Sleep is that no matter what you’d want out of it, there’s a Kingdom Hearts game with Archipelago support that does what it does better. KH2 is a great randomizer experience, that much I know, but I suspect even KH1 and KH3D have their perks over this confusing entry. If you’re a big fan of the game, this would be a passable implementation for you; however, you’d probably want to avoid it in general.

Kirby Air Ride

I’ve attempted to play this in multiple solo multiworlds, but couldn’t stick with it due to its difficult logic.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

I am currently playing this in a solo multiworld. Opinions are tentative.

Lingo

I’ve goaled this in multiple friendserver asyncs with multiple goals. I prefer using door shuffle instead of color shuffle, as color shuffle means no items and only a few massive unlocks.

Gameplay: B+

This game is definitely hard to navigate, meaning it’s very easy to miss a lot of checks if you’re aren’t using and abusing the tracker. The fact that you aren’t constantly responsible for your own areas somehow took a lot of pressure off of my shoulders; whenever I found a new area unlocked, I did it, and it was surprisingly straightforward and fun. It also means pretty easy access to a lot of postgame zones, including some that are just expected in logic, which is pretty funny.

Some of the weirdness of navigating in this APWorld is made up for by how cool the painting and sunwarp settings can be: They can generate in very limited ways at times, but they are incredibly fun in practice since logic will never feel the same twice. Despite how little can be unlocked in some places, this game still manages to work with what it has and makes something incredibly fun out of it.

Logic: A-

Logic is pretty cut and dry; there are some out of logics with wall snipes, but nothing that anyone really needs to worry about. The less than perfect rating mostly comes from how unbalanced color shuffle feels, but door shuffle is great and painting shuffle makes logic very fun. Useless trash is present, but not overwhelming. It’s pretty rock solid, which makes sense for a core-verified game.

Accessibility: A

It’s literally a Steam Workshop mod. That’s it. It’s maybe one of the easiest games to access in Archipelago that isn’t made for it directly; plus, it even comes with multiplayer across slots, which the base game doesn’t even have. My one complaint at all would be the poor tracker support for Linux, as the auto tracker is years old and buggy; I’d love to see that updated to iron out some of the issues, but at least it doesn’t detract from the main game.

Customization: A

Customization is also decently robust for how complex the game is; as I’ve said, the game has so little that really needs to be customized, but makes the most of it in a good way. Obviously, multiple types of shuffles are present, as well as a few funny optional traps, but there’s options to group doors, toggles for the pilgrimage and various progressives, and four ending conditions: The End, The Master, Level 2, and Pilgrimage; in fact, the nonstandard Pilgrimage ending with nearly everything shuffled is one of my favorite ways to play this, a navigation puzzle inside of the already confusing main game. There’s even puzzle skips and optional slowdowns if you’re really a masochist about it. This game is so easy to pick up and play… at least, on the Archipelago side. It’s just a perplexing game in general.

Overall: A-

Despite its limited randomization, this game very much warrants its place as a core verified title and more: It’s fun and very clear in its logic. If you enjoy the genre, definitely give this game a try, but maybe try to get to the end outside of a randomizer first.

Mario Kart: Double Dash

I attempted to play this in a solo multiworld that I gave up on for mostly unrelated reasons.

Minecraft Dig

I have played this as part of multiple public slots, including a friendserver async and a sync in the 360chrism community.

Muse Dash

I’ve goaled this as part of a Big Async.

Neon White

This is one of my staple games. I’ve goaled this in multiple asyncs of many sizes.

Gameplay: A+

I love this implementation because its gameplay is maybe some of the most interesting in the non-traditional format it’s in out there: Levels as individual unlocks, with the more general card systems further affecting logic, as well as the format of logic being fine-tuned to player skill, makes for one of the most interesting Archipelago implementations out there. Finding solutions to the levels is incredibly fun, just as much as speedrunning them myself (in fact, I’ve gotten times that are even better than my leaderboard times on some of these levels just because of how persistent I have to be to get through them). This randomizer takes Neon White and makes something unique out of an experience that normally could ever be played in one of two ways; now, I find myself coming back to the randomizer every so often just to experience more of it.

Logic: C-

Now’s the part where I have to dog on work-in-progress logic. What logic exists is honestly quite good, with levels being added to logic as time goes on and people find new solutions to levels; the actual difficulty settings are quite good, with more being discovered as the game goes on; ace medal maximum is good for the semi-casual player, while dev medal maximum is quite fun and challenging for a longer run.

The issue isn’t in the levels themselves as much as the filler that has to accompany them. Right now, every level (that isn’t a sidequest) can come with up to six checks: Five medals, for dev and below, and one gift, meaning that, depending on the way you play (and excluding sidequests just to get my point across), there are anywhere from 4x to 6x the amount of checks as there are level items in the pool, plus the fourteen items to unlock soul cards, which is ultimately pretty limited. The rest of the pool is filled with Heavenly Delight Tickets, which are completely useless and ultimately come in the hundreds. It’s a lot, even if it goes by quickly; plus, it used to be worse, as Heavenly Delight Tickets used to be labeled as Useful and tended to flood other peoples’ games as a result, more than they already are, to the point where I’ve made so many jokes about checks in multiworlds that don’t even include Neon White being Heavenly Delight Tickets.

It’s a lot better now, but it needs work, and that’s fine because the implementation is in alpha. I hope it’s able to get to a point where things are stable enough to recommend to absolutely everybody, but I’m glad it’s at least something I can still recommend.

Accessibility: B

The current APWorld is literally only found in the Archipelago Discord thread, which is very disappointing. The client mod is open, at least, which is nice, but it all requires a manual BepInEx install, and if you don’t know about White’s Storage, it’s difficult to get your hands on the quality of life mods that go very nicely with the client mod. It’s not the easiest game to mod, that’s for sure, but it’s nothing extremely hard.

Customization: B

For what it is, it’s not bad. Two different forms of logic difficulty, freedom on maximum medal caps, optional checks on gifts and sidequests, multiple methods of level unlock, and options on what medal is required for the bosses. There are some NYI settings that are exciting, such as deathlink, options to disable progressive checks (such that 1 level = 1 check), and traps, which I’m excited for.

Overall: B

The quality of the implementation means I can’t recommend it to everyone just yet, but I’m incredibly glad I can recommend the game as-is to the dedicated Neon White fan, or at least someone playing with themselves or a larger group that is fine with seeing a lot of filler. I’m really hopeful for the direction this APWorld is going and I’d love to see it shine.

osu!

This is one of my staple games and the first game I ever played in Archipelago. I’ve goaled this in syncs, as with a cjya community sync where I was the only osu! player, as well as many asyncs, both public and private, including solo multiworlds as well. I play all gamemodes, mostly osu!mania, but the APWorld doesn’t have any meaningful differences between modes anyways.

Gameplay: A-

I love this, but I know I’m biased as hell: The premise of getting any random song from the featured artist ranked pool within your skill level is incredibly fun and it means you just get to experience whatever songs the randomizer has picked out for you, which has led to some very surprising moments (including some surprise close-to-top plays). I’m disappointed that the entire ranked pool can’t be selected and hope the changes they’re thinking about to potentially make that a reality can come through, but even of the featured artists’ songs, there’s a lot of variety, so it’s quite fun.

Logic: A-

A for airtight: Only progression items, a simple macguffin hunt, and a goal song. The logic is about as simple as it gets, and that’s all it really needs to be. I will definitely complain about the fact that the randomizer makes some lopsided song pools if you pick multiple gamemodes, but it’s not as much on the developers as it is on the mappool in general, what with osu!standard being such a popular mode.

Accessibility: C+

It’s a nuisance the first time around, but once you get it, you can just save your information in the client and get it any time you play in the future. You need to make an API key with certain settings that are detailed in the Discord thread, then you can just submit scores to the server that the client reads. The client is very accessible, with options to manually update or auto track. On the official Archipelago servers, there’s a slight delay between submitting the score and seeing checks get sent out, but that’s a non-issue; really, all it is is first-time setup.

Customization: A

About as robust as you could possibly get for an implementation this simple: Gamemode inclusion (with seperate pools for osu!mania between 4K, 7K, and other key modes), difficulty selection, adding loved maps/explicit lyrics maps to the pool, toggling difficulty reduction mods or an optional minimum grade, and length settings for the entire slot and each individual song. The APWorld does not track mods from osu!lazer, meaning you can use LN affecting mods and DA.

Overall: B+

It’s solid. It’s maybe the best thing you could do for an osu! APWorld, and that’s awesome, but it’s definitely a bit scuffed, which is literally the only reason I’m not giving it an A-. It’s a solid implementation, but it takes a bit of work to make perfect, which many of the other rhythm game implementations do just a bit better.

Peggle Deluxe

I have not goaled this, but have played it in multiple solo multiworlds and feel comfortable with its systems.

Rabbit & Steel

I’ve goaled this as part of a Classroom async in the 360chrism community.

Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal

I am currently playing this in a solo multiworld. Opinions are tentative.

Refunct

I’ve goaled this as part of multiple asyncs, including an RPelago Casino async.

Simon Tatham’s Portable Puzzle Collection

I’ve goaled this as part of an RPelago Casino async and maintained a slot eventually made public as part of a Multiarchi async.

Tetris Attack

I am currently playing this in a solo multiworld. Opinions are tentative.

ToonTown

I have not goaled this game yet, but I got quite far in it in a solo multiworld I abandoned for unrelated reasons.

Twisty Cube

I’ve goaled this as part of a friendserver async.

Gameplay: B-

It’s unfortunately more annoying than actually solving a Rubik’s Cube due to hidden stickers causing apparent parity issues, but is still quite fun. Much of these issues are offset by being in a larger multiworld, but I find the game intensely unfun when it’s mostly dependent on itself. It needs variety that it often doesn’t get.

Logic: A+

It’s airtight as hell; one sticker solved correlates to one sticker sent, anyways. This implementation really flexes the fact that the goal and check count don’t need to overlap, as some YAML settings can allow you to goal early out of logic if only a portion of your stickers are visible, but everything, including hidden stickers, are already solved. No questions need be asked here.

Accessibility: A+

It’s a made for Archipelago browser game, so really, all you need to do is log in, type in your slot name, and let the magic happen. It’s great.

Customization: B+

Enough for the job. Size of the cube (2x2x2 through 5x5x5), color shuffle, and percentage of revealed stickers to goal, hallmarks of a simple, yet effective APWorld.

Overall: B

It’s a great BK game if you have Rubik’s Cube knowledge, but it requires patience some might not have. It’s for the people who know this thing well enough to solve it well and not for the masses who can’t, but I do wonder if it’s gotten at least one person into speedcubing like Archipelago in general gets me into so many games.

ULTRAKILL

I’ve goaled this as part of multiple asyncs, including a Classroom async in the 360chrism community.

UNBEATABLE

I’ve goaled this as part of a friendserver async.

Gameplay: A+

I could describe it as a leg up or simply a sidegrade, but one thing makes this APWorld stand out compared to those of other rhythm games, being the burden of effort placed on the player and the unique, freeform unlock system. Instead of individual songs sending out checks, they contribute to a modified version of your player rating, which is what is tied to unlocks. This effectively means you can play what you want when you want, as long as you’re not BKed (a tall ask in a game like this, with the amount of songs and checks you’ll be sending out early), meaning there’s less immediate pressure to do well.

It’s also a game that’s very tuned to your skill level, using your actual in-game rating to determine how much you need to play to progress the expected amount. This means that as long as you play decently well, you’re going to have a fun time, as you’re going to be scoring higher than what the randomizer expects of you, anyways.

Ultimately, it plays well and is incredibly freeform. It’s a dream rhythm game randomizer: No stress, just gaming.

Logic: A+

The rating system means that every check in the game will just be squeezed into the same window anyways, so besides the cosmetics that count as filler and traps, this game is literally completely airtight. Everything flows smoothly. Difficulty for songs is handled progressively if you select multiple. There’s nothing to complain about, pretty much, and I’ve never really seen complaints about anything.

Accessibility: A-

It’s a BepInEx mod for a game without much of a modding scene, so it is a bit awkward, but the setup is mostly confined to putting things in your game folder and setting launch commands, so it’s definitely very cut and dry. Everything is handled in game, and there’s even a fully functional text client inside, hence the high rating; it all flows smoothly without much thought needed once you get everything setup.

Customization: A

As I said before, this APWorld is quite robust for what it is. There’s a place to put in your skill level, difficulty selection (which controls randomizer length), DLC selection, and options for traps and cosmetic filler. It’s not like a rhythm game needs much to do with its settings, but this does those settings well.

Overall: A+

This game deserves to be core verified, potentially over the rhythm game that is actually core verified (for all I hope there’s not fierce competition in that regard): This APWorld oozes with quality that some others don’t really have and sets a precedent I hope I get to see with more rhythm game APWorlds (I know Beat Saber wants to do something similar down the line). I hope I get more opportunities to play this one.

Yacht Dice

I’ve goaled this in multiple asyncs, including a Big Async.

YARG (+ its forks)

I have not goaled this, but have played it in multiple solo multiworlds and feel comfortable with its systems.

On August 25th, 2026, this page underwent a massive overhaul, with the WIP new reviews above. The below reviews have been preserved until I can replace them above and do not represent my current opinions on each game.

Autopelago

I haven’t goaled this game yet, but I’ve played a lot of it and seen a lot of it.

Gameplay: 0/10

It’s a slow release simulator. What do you expect? There’s a reason I ban it from my lobbies; it’s trivial, even if not as trivial as Clique, and it’s not fun to have to sit behind while a rat slowly chugs along the line. This isn’t an experience I would recommend to anyone.

Logic: 3/10

If you want to treat this like an actual game, the logic can be very annoying; there are a million blockers despite the low sphere count, and it can be very annoying to get anything done, especially in larger lobbies. This game is perfect for simulating what a lobby could look like, and especially what a heavy blocked/blocker game could end up playing like with your game of choice, but it’s not a great choice for many.

Customization: 8/10

Autopelago was made for APWorld testing, and it shows with how much goes on in it for just being a slow release simulator: Custom chat messages, filtering of buffs/debuffs, multiple goals, and lots of fun little options to make this game a better fit for your lobby.

Overall: 2/10

Avoid without purpose.

Content Warning

I ran the Monster Hunter goal in an async as a solo slot and had to force-release my slot after techincal issues started coming up, so I expect some pretty heavy bias in my review that could be fixed a few ways. It should be stated outright that it’s been a long time since this implementation saw any activity, so be wary when running it anyways.

Gameplay: 0/10

Yes, I cheated, and I’m okay with that.

It’s a friendslop game, and I really went into it solo. The issue with this is that there’s no one to save you when you go down (and you do go down pretty frequently), and if you go down, you basically kill your run right there and then, making some later game checks a nightmare. By the end of it, I had to download multiple cheaty mods just to not constantly die and kill my runs, something I felt guilty about while still putting myself up to try to make footage I’d never send anywhere entertaining, throwing off game balance and making progression items feel moot, somehow even more than they already did due to just how bland the game felt with or without them.

It should also be mentioned how RNG-dependent the entire game is, from hats to sponsors to spawns in the Old World, to the point where some checks that really should be easy are impossible. Many checks are bugged to not even register, in fact; I never got my Arms checks and it never counted against anything, which inevitably forced me to release, and I never saw the Black Hole Bomb again after the first time I died with it in my camera roll, meaning I was straight up locked out of my goal. I’m sure that I’d have a better experience with a different goal, but I’m already too burned.

Did I mention that filler items are sent on connection and are often sent before you even load your save? This makes certain checks impossible in an async, especially as Meta Coins, which are required to buy hats, are just straight up not sent to an offline save.

Logic: 0/10

Almost everything is a sphere 1 check. This game really wasn’t meant to have good randomizer logic and it shows. I’m sure this is an issue lots of friendslop games have, but this one definitely has it the worst with everything else stacked on top of it. There’s going to be a pattern in this document of games that have horrid logic having so many things in sphere 1, and it’s painful when you finally do get a sphere 1 check because it turns out someone’s progression item is behind something you should’ve been able to do if the game didn’t intentionally screw you over. Why are Meta Coins marked as filler when they’re literally required for sphere 1 checks, anyways? It’s just a mess.

Customization: 7/10

Multiple goal conditions, inclusion and exclusion of goals and checks, inclusion and exclusion of monsters, and a surprisingly thorough set of rules for a run that would probably feel a lot better if the game was actually good, even down to filtering in multiplayer-exclusive logic and deathlink.

Overall: 0/10

They call me 007: 0 Gameplay, 0 Logic, 7 Customization. Nothing could possibly save this dumpster fire of an implementation short of a major clean-up operation, potentially a complete overhaul.

Elementipelago

I was never able to goal the solo I put this in and I’d love to potentially give it another try as a result, but I did play it for quite a bit and have thoughts on it regardless.

Gameplay: 1/10

This is an alchemy type game with absolutely no logic as to what goes together with what. Gameplay of this is predominantly performed by trial and error of a million combinations of random entries in your list of literally any type until something finally happens, after which you just have to do it all over again because you forgot what works with what and what doesn’t. I’d love to see recordings of trial and error or a proper hint system for combinations because I don’t know when I’m BKed or when I’m not, and it just becomes a mess after a lot of items come through; maybe a system that shows what items have checks in logic, still?

Logic: 7/10

Take this rating with a grain of salt, but the logic… actually isn’t that bad? The theming of what you get in-game literally being the checks other people send you the items with is a fun touch, and there’s heavy customization when it actually comes down to how complex you want the logic to be. It’s quintessential BK game, which is really going for it.

Customization: 3/10

You can customize exactly how long or short your game will be, as well as if compounds matter beyond sending checks, which is a fun touch. You can’t disable intermediates entirely, disappointingly, and you can’t set how many checks there are directly, which is definitely fair if the implementation demands it a certain way.

Overall: 2/10

I’ll give this game some credit for being a solid BK game, but there are a million better BK games to run to the point where I don’t know why you’d bother.

Geometry Dash

I never goaled the slot I played of this due to the difficulty of the game that I’m still bad at.

Gameplay: 3/10

It’s Geometry Dash. I never could really get into it, as much as I tried. It’s not even custom level oriented, so it’s just old levels and pain. Electrodynamix is a 12 star level, somehow. The game resets your configuration and login when you enter this, which is also very disappointing and I’d love to see an alternative to that to keep my cool icon and my very important settings.

Logic: 1/10

Checks are in the low double digits total, even with everything turned on. No partial level progress, which would fit this game very well: Just level clears (and secret coins, apparently, but I never saw those be sent) and that’s it. It’s hard to tell what the goal even is. It’s incredibly punishing for people who can’t beat every level up to either Electrodynamix or Deadlocked, and definitely not as fun as I’m sure many custom levels would be. It’s just disappointing. I’d love an implementation of this that was custom platformer focused so that I could put some energy into it, but that unfortunately just doesn’t exist, and I’d expect that the logic for making something like that just isn’t there, in part. Give me more.

Customization: 5/10

There’s some, actually, so it’s not that bad: Deathlink is present, coins can be toggled, there’s a dedicated checks shop… Some fun stuff. I just don’t know if any of it works.

Overall: 1/10

Try to steer clear of this one until it gets completed, or play one centered around custom levels if it exists, which I hope it does.

Muse Dash

I’ve goaled this as part of the Big Async. My normal YAML is harder, and I’ve played some of it, but have not goaled that.

Gameplay: 10/10

Rhythm games generally make wonderful APWorlds, and with Muse Dash being the quintissential rhythm game implementation, it’s perfect for the cause. I don’t even like Muse Dash that much and I definitely have quite a bit of fun with it in multiworlds; I get to play random songs and just have a ton of fun doing it. It’s great.

Logic: 10/10

No need for filler if your implementation is this airtight: Just songs and macguffins. Pacing just works and the checks don’t need to be high for you to have a ton of fun. It’s perfect.

Customization: 9/10

Customize how long your run is, your song pool, your goal song, clear requirements, difficulty of songs, and enable deathlink and certain VFX/SFX traps depending on what DLC you have. It’s a pretty small YAML compared to some other Core-Verified games, but it’s still quite good, and you can’t expect too much out of it.

Overall: 10/10

If you enjoy Muse Dash, you’ll enjoy this APWorld for sure. If you don’t enjoy Muse Dash but enjoy other rhythm games, you’ll probably have more fun with this APWorld than you usually do with Muse Dash. If you don’t enjoy rhythm games normally, maybe this would be a good way to expose yourself to a new genre of Archipelago games.

Rabbit & Steel

I’ve goaled this before in a solo and am pretty close to goaling this again in an async. I run with kingdomsanity and classanity as must-haves, as well as set-based itemsanity.

Gameplay: 6/10

It’s pretty damn close to the original experience and it’s great for that. Limited item pools make it possible to stack dupes of the same item, which can lead to some very fun builds. The only thing that feels off is when runs cut off early, which can feel very limp and generally disappointing. It should also be mentioned that runs do take a very long time, making it a pretty difficult sell in a shorter sync setting unless you’re running a very short 1 Shira 1 Witch YAML or something like that. It’s certainly not for everyone, but it’s not bad per se, and you know what you’re getting into.

Logic: 9/10

At present, run length settings and progressive regions are broken, which one of my runs uses, leading to some very long and unfun stretches of BKs, but if we count that out… I’ve genuinely never seen this implementation send out trash, and it’s actually pretty flexible on how you get to your goals. It’s a challenging experience that’s light on checks and items unless you turn on a -sanity, and with a curated YAML, the logic is pretty airtight and enjoyable. It’s a very solid roguelike randomizer for what it is.

Customization: 9/10

Fits the bill literally perfectly. Multiple different randomization vectors as -sanities, varying goal conditions, and even forced kingdom orders. You can even turn off randomization entirely, from the looks of it… but at that point, what are you even doing? It’s that robust.

Overall: 7/10

It’s an incredible roguelike randomizer; as such, it’s not for everyone, but if you’re a fan of this game, you’re gonna have a ton of fun here.

Refunct

I’ve goaled this in a single-game run; in fact, I literally bought this game just for Archipelago. It’s so cheap that I did it by selling Steam cards, even.

Gameplay: 10/10

It needs to be said outright that this is more than the base Refunct experience by a mile, and it’s great. The main game itself is very nice and meshes well with Refunct as a move randomizer that harkens to any well fleshed out randomizer out there, but the selling point for this APWorld is the minigames, custom variants of the base game with their own set of checks that are just incredibly fun to play in an already fun movement set. You’ll be completing Refunct in a million different ways with so much of the character of Archipelago inside it. It feels like a love letter to both the game and the community it’s based for. It’s incredible.

Logic: 6/10

Much of this game’s item pool is filler, and the check pool can be massive, leading to a case of Ticketpocalypse; however, this is offset by the use of macguffins on top of a decent number of progression checks, which can offset it quite a bit; however, minigames can be forced to contain trash after a certain point to make reliance on them less necessary and decrease the amount of flowers in the multiworld. Minigame selection is random, however, so this can be an unpredictable solution.

Customization: 9/10

Macguffin count length control, many options on how a goal would work (including unknown goal conditions), unlockables and minigame count to control the amount of checks somewhat, multiple levels of traps, and some fun cosmetics, on top of a low-stakes deathlink implementation. It’s incredibly robust, and the default settings already lead to a level of replayability.

Overall: 9/10

It’s an incredible implementation, an expansion of Refunct that practically serves as its own game, and for a game so cheap, it’s an incredible experience. Just be careful if you’re running it in a smaller lobby.

Twisty Cube

I’ve goaled the 3x3x3 cube.

Gameplay: 6/10

It works well as a BK game, but becomes more frustrating the more thought you have to put into it, I find. The gameplay is reasonably boring, not much more than I’d expect, and it’s kind of annoying to get new pieces early on when you’ve set something up already, especially as someone who still can’t wrap their head around commutators. It’s somewhat offset by how satisfying this game’s late game can be as the cube comes together and you can actually start to solve it like a regular cube, but it can be very annoying otherwise.

Logic: 10/10

This is as airtight as logic gets, with checks being linear despite pieces being as random as they are. It plays no different from the non-Archipelago experience, just with added delay between checks, and that does it so many favors: No trash, all action. It’s a perfect small addition to any run.

Customization: 7/10

It certainly doesn’t need much, but it has what it needs to: Different starting sticker counts, random color layouts, and how soon or late you want your goal if you just so happen to accidentally solve the cube without seeing everything (a statistical improbability). It’s not much, but it doesn’t really need to be.

Overall: 7/10

It’s a fantastic BK game and will serve you perfectly there, but it falls flatter and flatter the more time you spend thinking about it and the less time you spend thinking about anything else.

ULTRAKILL

I’ve goaled this before in an async.

Gameplay: 10/10

It’s peak, straight up. Unlocks feel natural even when they’re out of order, and the challenge of running this game with whatever weapons you end up getting is interesting and leads to some very fun ways to play around logic. The collectibles lend themselves well to the game and the trash still actually does something, even if it’s ultimately moot. The game already has systems to make running low weapon counts near the start interesting, and including your arm in the randomization pool could also be an interesting experience. It really speaks to the challenge of ULTRAKILL in a unique way.

I’ll also mention here that you do need to be very careful of how you disconnect from the lobby to make sure data saves, but obviously, that’s just an issue for the end of a session and doesn’t cut down points.

Logic: 9/10

The game definitely serves up a bunch of trash at times, especially with the more checks you put in, but the trash at least feels satisfying. There’s definitely no strict logic for progression items, thankfully, as long as what you’re doing leads to goal and you feel confident with what you’ve got to learn. I definitely don’t like the fact that clearing a level on its own does not send a check and only contributes to the goal, which definitely forces me to go for P-ranks to contribute to the multiworld if those are on, but things are very flexible around that, even, so I’m chill.

Customization: 10/10

It’s so, so robust. Custom starting level, goal level, clear count requirement, special handling for certain types of unlocks, multiple types of filler and traps, levels of trap toggling, “-sanity” settings that can go pretty deep down, starting weapon pool, many levels of loadout handling, movement restrictions, and even cosmetic randomizers, as well as deathlink with amnesty. It may not be as jam-packed with features as the biggest implementations, but that’s downplaying how advanced what’s going on here is.

Overall: 10/10

I can’t pretend I don’t have the most minor of qualms with the logic that do throw me off, but that doesn’t stop a masterpiece of an APWorld in its tracks on its own. Go frag out and have fun.

Yacht Dice

I haven’t goaled this game yet, but I’ve got a ton of experience with the game in preset YAML asyncs and my own YAML submissions to the point where I feel qualified to speak on it. I think the distinction of Bliss and the core-verified version being different games is stupid, so I’ll just treat them as one, with Bliss being my version of choice.

Gameplay: 9/10

Despite being luck-based, it’s a surprisingly satisfying implementation with a solid gameplay loop. The inclusion of alternative categories makes for a lot of interesting play with the most random of things popping up as important chases, and the buildup of power feels satisfying, especially with the exponential explosion in power that just an extra die, roll, or category makes for the run. Logic being as clearly defined as it is means there’s not as much pressure to overperform, but hitting things way out of logic is incredibly satisfying. The dice skins are a fun cosmetic touch, as well.

Logic: 10/10

This APWorld designs itself around low trash counts unless you explicitly ask for them, and I don’t think I’ve seen anything useless be sent to it to date, which makes for very clean multiworlds. While it does have a pretty small check count, at least how I have it set up, it still feels like enough for a lobby much of the time.

Customization: 10/10

Customizable logic difficulty on multiple axes, game length, check count, category filtering, and lots of fun ways to fill the last bits of remaining space.

Overall: 10/10

A random branded BK game being core-verified should be a sign of its merit as a solid APWorld. If you need a BK game in a panic, come give this a try.

YARG

I’ve not goaled this one before, but I do have experience in it and its forks from various solo runs.

Gameplay: 8/10

The game itself is solid, as all rhythm games tend to be, but there’s definitely less freedom of play. I’m bummed that the randomizer can’t filter out songs that don’t have a chart for my instrument of choice, that being pro keys, without me having to turn on instrument shuffle, which isn’t viable for only one instrument. The song selection, however, is great, and the game is very flexible.

Logic: 8/10

Three checks per song is a bit much. I guess it’s offset by higher macguffin counts, but it doesn’t feel right running anything higher than 50% on macguffin generation. YARG could almost become a load-bearing game for progression. The higher rating is mostly because I haven’t had any issues with it yet.

Customization: 7/10

Not bad, actually. Deathlink, energylink, run length, setlists included/excluded as needed, song exclusion, and an instrument shuffle mode for those who care about more than one instrument. Well thought out.

Overall: 8/10

Not a stellar, airtight rhythm game implementation like they tend to be, but I don’t even think it’s bias speaking when I say it’s still a solid APWorld for a game I’m sure many find enjoyable.

Kingdom Hearts 2 and Birth By Sleep were fun games that deserve a lot more to themselves

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 11:24:36 -0400

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR BOTH GAMES AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

I played through Aqua’s story in Birth By Sleep first, thinking it’d make a good Archipelago game, then played both her and Ventus’ stories in an Archipelago randomizer; I haven’t played through Terra’s story at all yet, but if I return to the game outside of randomizer, I might. Afterwards, I played through 2 Final Mix over the course of a week. I enjoyed both for different reasons; the combat in both games was very fun, the progression was interesting, and at its high points, the lore was captivating. I do acknowledge that I played them out of order and that isn’t exactly the best, leaving me with a weird slice of lore insight, but I think I at least partially made up for that by watching Do No Harm in two sittings after finishing 2 (I do jest, but knowing what I already did about KH lore, this helped me understand the bits I missed surprisingly well for what it was); beyond that, I think 2 is a wonderful Archipelago game, despite its currently dismal Linux support, and Birth By Sleep does a passable job on that front as well for how short it is; in fact, I’ve been test genning my YAML for Kingdom Hearts 2 recently, and it’s been very fun so far.

What this series does well, it does incredibly, but what it does poorly can be just as grating. What’s weirder to me is that what one game between the two I played fails to do, the other does wonderfully, most times. I wonder how I’d like Dream Drop Distance if I played it again as an adult, because I have a feeling it could either disappoint or be the best of both worlds.

Combat and character progression: Each game gets it right in one way, but falls short in others

Birth By Sleep is short. Its progression for all three characters is comparatively limited, 20 levels shorter than KH2 with much faster zones of progression that almost feel like they start and end in a heartbeat (unless you’re playing them in Archipelago, after which you will dread that stupid maze in Maleficent’s castle for a long time). What’s weird is that it does this while flooding the game with mechanics on top of that: The command deck, finishers + two layers of command styles, shotlock, and D-links, just to top it all off. It’s unfortunate that the latter two systems feel like afterthoughts, especially because they also feel like they would only ever work in BBS, partially because shotlock feels optional, even if it is strong (especially as some commands replicate its niche anyways), and the entire game can easily be completed without worrying about the D-Link mechanic at all and just building your own deck up to par instead, which is what I did (not helped by the fact that D-links just seems to be inaccessible at points where you’d actually need them for health and cooldown resets, which is weird, because Sora can basically do that exact same thing with a drive form, especially Limit Form, in KH2FM).

What Birth By Sleep is at its best is a game centered primarily around the command deck and command styles, both of which are really fun systems and the former of which I have fond memories of thanks to my time playing Dream Drop Distance as a kid (though it’s clear that 3D evolves considerably on the system). Command styles are arguably the easier thing to talk about first, because I’m going to have a ton of things to say on the actual composition of a command deck itself: They are satisfying to pull off and fun to use, to which they feel more akin to what I like about drive forms while being as flexible as BBS allows combat to be, mostly compared to 2. Command styles feel powerful and somewhat limited without being a chore to get one’s hands on in a way that gets me to not really complain about the base kits, and that’s quite nice; to an extent, it makes up where progression in this game doesn’t tread.

Though I’m very fond of the command deck system, I ultimately have mixed feelings on the subject matter thanks to how fun the system is and how flexible it makes kit building in this game compared to 2, but the meta I eventually find myself settling into in it. The command deck system is super fun; you can build into either strike or magic without much worry and commands come back in their own time, plus it means you don’t have to fuss over potion management ever like you’re forced to at times in 2. It is fun, it makes combat feel responsive even without command styles, and it is incredibly, incredibly versatile to just how you want to do things. The issue is that, thanks to having zero checks and balances on what you can run besides multislot commands that ultimately aren’t worth their weight in many builds, I can easily just pivot my build into magic and run a relatively safe build comprised entirely of Thundaga, Curaga, and Mine Square, and the endgame bosses make me feel like I have to do that to stand a chance: Fire and Blizzard are too unreliable for what they are, strike attacks that don’t work like Sonic Blade feel too risky with their windups, and CC is useless against bosses (save Mine abilities against Vanitas), so the easiest build to run just ends up doing a lot more than I feel it should. The command deck did its purpose, but I wish there was a way for it to do that and to feel better about working with it without a loadout like that.

2, on the other hand, has a very different, more traditional system, albeit with a party behind you to offset some of its limitations, such as the use case of Cure. The issue I had with nearly all of KH2’s extra meters is that they all feel really limited in application: The drive gauge can fill up quite slowly at times, but worse off (without drive forms to refill MP and HP for you), the MP gauge has so much downtime in its usage: MP orbs from opponents aren’t ever nearly enough to sustain the meter save for one or two more attacks (as I abused in the Thousand Heartless War to level up Limit Form), and MP charge is very slow, further accentuated by the fact that so many things put you in MP Charge: Overcasting any magic type that isn’t Cure, using Cure a single time, and calling in a Limit (which made me not want to use Limits at all), as well as I’m sure other things I’m neglecting to mention, and in MP Charge, you’re left without tools like Reflect or Cure that’d save you so much hassle if they were just there. Again, the drive forms do help in offsetting that deficit, but if you decide to choose Valor Form, or worse, accidentally roll Anti Form, you’re left without the reasonably safe option that is Leaf Bracer Cure.

What makes up for the loss in MP is the entire drive gauge mechanic, as it ends up acting as a second invincible heal and a full mana regen whenever used, on top of the fact that it makes Sora feel all the more satisfying in combat. Valor Form is fun even without access to magic, Wisdom Form has some very nice use cases while making most magic types feel more fluid to use (especially the stationary Fire, which, despite its utility, feels a lot less useful here than it does in any command deck game), Limit Form is a literal cheat code in fights where Donald or Goofy isn’t present, Master Form is the coolest shit ever and makes magic cooler than it has ever been, Final Form is just as cool as Master Form already was (which I say because I haven’t really gotten much of a chance to use it over Master Form, unfortunately), and summons… Personally, I’d rather just pop a potion on Donald and tag into Master or Final Form instead. My only issue with the drive forms is how annoying they can be to level up, requiring me to use a ton of forms and then inevitably get punished when Anti Form procs instead, especially because they end up gating some useful movement tools (which are more useful if you don’t play on Proud Mode, but are just massive quality of life to have at all, which the randomizer is really showing me); for one, I was pissed when I realized Glide was locked behind Final Form of all things (which is fair, just annoying), even after I spent a lot of time leveling up the other forms to get those movement tools, which are all still quite cool.

That does bring me back to one more thing about Birth By Sleep that upsets me to no end: Of all three of the characters you get to play as, none of them actually have a complete kit; sure, none need it, but having access to Glide in Disney Town’s miserable platformer section was such a breath of fresh air after playing Aqua through. Sora only gets Glide at the literal end of the game, but at least he actually gets it; Aqua and Terra never even get Glide to begin with, and it makes handling them feel all the worse. Even though Flowmotion exists to make up for it, it is still quite disappointing to know that Riku doesn’t get Glide in KH3D, even though Sora does. …Maybe another game.

Where each game drops the ball on lore and where they ace it instead

Kingdom Hearts 2 has an incredible final chapter: A reunion with Riku, Kairi using a keyblade, Ansem the Wise revealing himself, and the culmination of so much that was barely even drip-fed throughout the Kingdom Hearts story. Even though it wowed me thoroughly, it pointed out how poorly paced the entire story of the game is: We see so much elaboration on Roxas’ life at the start of the game, only to have to wait until the very end of the game to fight him, and for Sora to learn what really happened, despite literally having a photo of the guy that Riku airdropped him. I feel like half of what happened in the World That Never Was could’ve been spread out across the game, as opposed to Sora jumping from world to world only to find dead ends; while both games are absolutely burdened by the Disney plotline quota, this game falls victim to it a bit too hard, when Riku, Kairi, or someone like Axel showing up earlier would’ve made things a million times more interesting on the throughline. I would’ve massively appreciated the plotline that Ansem is back all of the sudden, but now as an ally with a keyblade, and Sora is having to grapple with his trust before realizing on his own that yes, that is in fact Riku; on that note, I do think Riku suddenly getting his old form back feels really forced thanks to how close to the endgame it is, and I would’ve loved the atonement to happen over time with his first appearance to the end as opposed to suddenly because Ansem the Wise was an idiot and nothing else. It’s definitely telling of 2’s plotline that I have literally nothing to say about most of the rest of the game (save Hollow Bastion, which I do appreciate as that sort of non-Disney focused zone and a proper place to drive the plot): So much happens in the World That Never Was that the lead-up to it is practically lost.

Where 2 fails to pace itself, Birth By Sleep does a much better job at the same task, even with its shorter narratives: Key moments are executed well and contain inklings of the important story that do build up nicely when it’s finally time to go to the Keyblade Graveyard, namely the encounters with Maleficent that demonstrate her rise to power as commander of the Heartless in 1 and 2, as well as, at least in Aqua’s case, the encounters with Vanitas that tie into story points and tease her final boss. The pacing is nice, any cross-encounter between the trio makes for good, lore-filled moments, and there’s a lot of good attention to detail in the overarching plot. It’s a shame that the Disney quota plotlines and a lot of the voice acting are dry, stale, and at times, just hard to listen to, in a way that makes me wonder how they managed to do so much better with a game released five years earlier. This point is the reason I’m even reviewing my experience with these games together, because actually going back to play KH2 is such a breath of fresh air when it comes to enjoying a game for the story, even if it is a lot longer and harder to sit through all at once. It’s a shocking world of difference.

In short, if you take 2’s strong plot and give it the pacing you gave Birth By Sleep, you’d be in a lot better hands than the story I ultimately sat through in 2.

How do they play in Archipelago?

To conclude this all, I’m going to speak on the thing that ultimately drove me to play these games in the first place: The randomizer integration. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s the sort of thing that’s actually getting me to play through new games recently, which is definitely a breath of fresh air compared to the stale routine I found myself on for a while before of wanting to play so many things I would never get to; in the case of both of these games, I think I definitely reaped something positive with enjoyable implementations all the way around, one alright and one unsurprisingly great.

Birth By Sleep’s implementation is nice, somewhat short and sweet for what it is while not having too much to do to get to that point, but suffers from a key issue, being that commands as randomizer items is a gate easily circumvented by the game. You only need one of a command to buy many, and commands will often come as part of bundles you get for visiting new zones anyways, so it’s difficult to track logic when Fire and Thunder are supposed to be blockers that you can instead just buy at the store if you go long enough without them. Navigation in this game isn’t nearly as interesting as it is in 2, especially given movement at the start in that game, so it isn’t as interesting, and all you really need to get a loadout that will get you through Keyblade Graveyard is Thundara and Cura, which aren’t that hard to come across when your game has so many items. It’s an easily defeatable implementation that’s balanced out by its other progression items and fun combat to make something that’s nice, but not great like 2 is.

2, on the other hand? Thanks to a very robust array of mods, including one that turns the Garden of Assemblage into an access hub for all of the worlds in the game, as well as the option to give yourself a level of all of the movement abilities right at the start, progression isn’t unnecessarily difficult, save for the amount of farming one needs to do in the World That Never Was in order to compete in some of the later zones, as unlike Birth By Sleep, zone levels are not adjusted to their point in progression, a quality of life change I really wish was present here. It is definitely upsetting that, as a Linux user, I have to install an entirely seperate Archipelago client through Proton to play with any reliability, especially given the amount of hassle that is to boot compared to the much more streamlined Birth By Sleep implementation that feels just like any other game would, so I’m looking forward to playing the updated client whenever it finally comes out of beta; that’ll be a game changer.

I’ve played Birth By Sleep multiple times in multiworlds now and am still pushing through my test gen of 2, but am looking forward to playing it the next time I get the chance to toss a YAML somewhere. I had a ton of fun the first time around and I know I’ll have a ton of fun again.

Archipelago, my new hyperfixation: How (I think) the randomizer experience has circumvented my inability to return to games

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 18:53:42 -0400

I’ve really been slacking off on this blog, haven’t I.

I wanted to write something about Umamusume while I was in Italy, and at this point, that was last year. I wanted to write a review of Project Hail Mary (spoiler alert: It was good, probably one of the best modern-day space movies I’ve seen in a while, even if that’s not a very high bar), and it’s been so long that I don’t have any concrete thoughts on the matter anymore. I’ve been keeping up with my album reviews, at least, but I’ve been able to make that into an obligation; it ends up in me avoiding listening to new albums at times, as it means I’m going to have to do a review, but at the same time, it’s what keeps me attentively listening to new music at all.

…That might be a theme of this, actually: My executive dysfunction, and how a randomizer hijacked it in ways that a lot of games couldn’t on their own.

The idea of Archipelago is one that expands greatly on the idea of randomizers in a lot of retro games, even serving to bring it to a lot of modern ones: Take every “item” from the game, or multiple games, and shuffle them between all of the “locations” you could get them in. Archipelago was very much designed with games with many progress items in mind, catering pretty heavily towards metroidvanias like Hollow Knight, easily the most popular game in multiworlds, but the beauty of this implementation is that there is no set in stone way to define what a “location” or “item” is in these games: Celeste will lock mechanics behind unlockables in the world, requiring you to collect strawberries from your game and others in order to eventually unlock your goal level, while ULTRAKILL will restrict everything about your arsenal down to the secondary fire on all of your weapons, tasking you to find secrets and complete challenges and P-ranks in order to unlock new levels and eventually complete enough to unlock your goal, or rhythm games like osu!, Beat Saber, and YARG will put you up with a random subset of songs within your skill level, making you clear them all in order to sniff out collectable “Macguffins” from your item pool and eventually unlock your goal song with them. The internal system handles generation, taking whatever is marked as a progressive item and building “logic” out of it that determines what you’re expected to be able to do with the items you’ll probably get by a certain point, so all you really need to do is play your game(s) and see what comes of it.

When I’m not overexplaining it for the sake of correctness, it’s a very simple premise in practice: Toss together some game files, either that you’ll be playing alone or with a group, and open up everyone’s goal. Especially considering my first real Archipelago game was osu! of all things, I’m surprised it drew me in to the point where I’d eventually come back to it months later; I don’t normally love RNG-dependent things, but that’s mostly on a stance of balance. I think the reason it did at all is that people could play so many varied things, yet all be playing together, hunting for things for each other and interacting directly over a wide variety of games, and while the experience is ultimately closer to parallel play in practice, what looks cool about it is what is cool about it: Even over asyncs, you can see the people you’re playing with talking about vastly different games, and what you do ultimately has bearing on them as much as they have bearing on you. More important is the reason I was probably so scared of it initially, but have now come to frequent it, is that idea of accountability: Playing a game through Archipelago does wonders for keeping me focused, somehow.

It’s a thing I can’t really pin down, because this is something that’s somehow been more of a thing when it’s come to solo runs than anything with other players, especially because I’ve been running some decently big solos, but playing some of the games through Archipelago has genuinely been the first time I’ve actually played them to completion, likely because it’s one of few times I can actually sit down with some of them and play them through at a reasonable pace. It’s the first time I managed to complete Celeste’s A-sides in a single sitting, for one, when it would normally take me a session per chapter, and also how I put in the effort to find all of the strawberries (using Berry Camp, admittedly). I think that term of accountability encapsulates what seems to be the reason for Archipelago changing up my mindset: There’s checks locked behind pretty much everything that I want to build up before I move on, leading me to want to play the game, either out of earnest or just in an effort to push through, and ultimately, that’s taught me to stick through something and push the pace a bit, which is an issue I’ve had to great extent in a lot of singleplayer games that I ultimately didn’t have it in me to return to, despite still having interest. It’s also satisfying for my specific brand of mental disability, in that I’m not going to be tied down to the same game for a while: If something’s going wrong in one game and I’ve got multiple slots in the multiworld, I can just switch slots and push forward with the same level of progress I was getting before. In essence, it actually gets me to play the games I want to without feeling like I’m super burnt out on them in no time at all. It’s been a huge change, too: I’ve been playing games I wouldn’t have been able to sit through before over the course of a few days, returning to games that truly promptly deserved my attention, and having a ton of fun discovering the games that do have Archipelago integration; there’s been a lot to learn and a lot of fun to be had in doing it. It’s been liberating for me in an era where I’m still seeking where I really belong, and honestly, it’s hard to not feel like I belong in a place where pretty much everything has an integration.

Speaking of integrations, I should definitely speak on some of the games I’ve been playing in these, because I do think they’re worth shouting out, namely Neon White: I got into that game with Archipelago in mind, going in to shave some seconds on the earlier levels before I tossed it into a solo multiworld, and I’ve been hooked since. I’ve been enjoying the game a lot; after I finished that multiworld, I went back into the base game, grinded it to 100% in just a few days, and snagged a few dev medals through tons of grinding. I think Neon White’s APWorld is easily one of the most fun Archipelago integrations I’ve played so far; in many of these games, my attempts to break logic can be pretty fun, and this game’s got its fair share of that; plus, this game is heaven for checks without being too demanding itself. Celeste is also a game I’ve revisited with Archipelago in mind thanks to its fun and highly customizable APWorld; however, some checks, especially the strawberries in 5A, can be pretty annoying to get, even if I can manage that nowadays. Beyond that, I’ve obviously been playing osu! and a number of other rhythm games, for which the APWorld just serves as a fun random button that hands out a ton of checks. I’m definitely running out of steam writing this, which is telling of why I’ve been slacking off on this blog in the first place, but there’s too much to speak on here anyways.

This hyperfixation has come at a really interesting time, with me struggling to find my place on one hand and me just struggling to put in the effort on the other hand. It’d be silly to assume that anything here is the solution to any of my problems, but the realizations help me take a better look at myself, and for that, I am immensely thankful.

WISH's rapid-fire album reviews

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 12:36:43 -0400

This post has survived me almost a year of music discovery, and I know for a fact I’m not done with it yet.

Below is every album I’ve assigned star ratings to in Cantata, alongside a brief review of how I felt about the album as a whole, as well as the songs I liked (or hated) most off of it. For me, any song at 7 or higher is something I’d go back to regularly, and while I try to average my ratings around a 5 or a 6, most of the albums here are probably going to be averaged around that 7 mark just because I’m the one picking them out to listen to myself and I gravitate towards music I like. I’m gonna be as harsh as I can with these reviews, though, especially nowadays, I worry I’m factoring in the criteria of whether this deserves to be on my playlist or not a bit too much; that shouldn’t be a blocking issue, hopefully. A list of songs I’ve yet to listen to that I want to is at the very bottom of the page.

Here’s to the music of now and the music yet to be heard.

My One Pick (5/16/26)

As of today, my One Pick is status update music by leroy. There was no reason this wasn’t going to be my One Pick. Come listen to genuine peak.

6/10/26

PinkPantheress - Fancy That

Maybe the best album I’ve listened to by volume of high ratings. Four 9/10s, only one miss (the quest for the fabled no-misses album continues), and a solid vibe I wish there was more of in the world at present. I love the aesthetic of this album, from the genre choice to the specific sound to even the visual language associated with it; it’s a very fun album, overall. It’s a shame this one is so short, especially because it’s more of PinkPantheress’ unique identity in the modern ages that harkens back to so much good and represents some forms of music I enjoy in a more mainstream, albeit still palatable and even good, way.

PinkPantheress - Nice to Know You (9/10)
- Easily the biggest surprise off of the album. Love how melodic the progression in this one is; it stands out from the other highlights of this album in an interesting way.
PinkPantheress - Girl Like Me (9/10)
- The song that got me to listen to this album. This sort of thing is really what carries PinkPantheress’ neo-Y2K identity, and she even doubles down on it in the music video. This one’s lovely.
PinkPantheress - Noises (9/10)
- Yummy yummy liquid drum and bass! It’s incredibly liquid drum and bass, which is a surprise to me, but it fits this identity so well.
PinkPantheress - Illegal (9/10)
- THe weakest top performer, but still quite good. Smooth, yet fun.

5/16/26

leroy - status update music

The search for the WISH full-length album review without any misses continues. I thought this one was going to be it, and unfortunately, it wasn’t… but it blew my mind in a different way.

Five 9/10s. Two 10/10s (which, for the record, makes this an automatic GOAT contender for this album review thread). Jane put the spirit of dariacore into this album where she didn’t in Revengeseekerz, and her mastery of the style shows here: The album isn’t as one-size-fits-all about the genre as dariacore 2 was, blending together styles evocative of everything she’s done in the genre, especially her work on Grave Robbing, while sourcing very fun samples and keeping the energy up throughout. You can dance to this album. You can even make out to it. It’s goddamn great.

Thank you, trans women.

leroy - XO TOUR LLIF3 (10/10!)
- This was an instant classic before it ever hit the album. The energy is there, the sound is incredible, and the sample is well-integrated. This is the epitome of this era of leroy and evocative of 2026’s Jane at large, and I am so, so on board.
leroy - GET UGLY (10/10!)
- I didn’t expect to grow on this one when the SoundCloud uploads hit album form. I did, more than I thought was possible. The mix is incredible and full of oomph and the song leaps between intense and melodic, bassy and full, like it’s nothing. I adore the production that went into this one.
leroy - Summer Fling (8/10)
- This is what DJMAX sounds like to me.

5/6/26

Nujabes - Spiritual State

Wow. I’m kinda disappointed.

I had very high expectations going into this album; I’ve liked a good chunk of what I’ve heard off of it and expected a lot of the rest of it to be good. There were definitely some surprises and a lot of incredible tracks, but much of this album was middling at best. I’ve heard reviews of this album that it’s this “transition period” album in a career that ultimately never saw it to the other side; I finally understand what that means, and it’s deeply, deeply unfortunate. I’m glad that there’s still something interesting to remember through this album, even.

Nujabes ft. Cise Star - Sky Is Tumbling (9/10)
- Here’s my surprise of the album. All the other tracks off of this album that share this rating are ones I’ve listened to before and loved, so much so that they shaped my perspective of this album, but I never liked this one quite as much until I listened to it back. It absolutely deserves this spot.
Nujabes - Fellows (9/10)
- I put this one in my last mashup. What more do you want me to say?

Everything Everything - Get to Heaven

Honestly, I kind of expected what I got.

It took me two days to churn through this one. I found a lot of playlist padders and a few songs that stood out, mostly the few I’ve heard before, but there were periods of the album I really did not like. I found it hard to believe that there was just this chunk of tracks near the start of the album I really did not like, but no, they each have pretty good reason to be down there, unfortunately. It’s about as basically “alright” as it gets, which is unfortunate, but not at all bad.

Everything Everything - Warm Healer (8/10)
- Here’s the one track that really surprised me. I stopped listening for the day right after I finished this one and picked it up to finish the next day. I’m not someone who normally likes swing-y rhythms like this, but it works very well with the atmosphere of the track. This track stands in pretty clear contrast to the rest of the album while still speaking to it.

5/5/26

Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly

This album was not meant for me and I listened to it anyways.

The first three tracks off of this album are maybe the worst start to an otherwise very good album I’ve ever experienced, so jarringly bad that I spent months away from this album until I decided to finally come back to it, and I’m very glad I did. This is, once again, another very interesting side of Kendrick Lamar; the production is very consistently strong with each track standing out despite the consistent style. Kendrick’s vocals are filled with soul and the featured artists fill each track with bits of their own style. It’s a surprisingly (given the start) solid overall experience with some misses.

Kendrick Lamar - Mortal Man (9/10)
- I didn’t use to like this track when I was younger and less mature because half of it was just a skit. I still don’t love that about it, but the skit is incredible and the rest of the track is as well. This is a true surprise #1 for me off the album.
Kendrick Lamar ft. Bilal, Anna Wise, & Snoop Dogg - Institutionalized (8/10)
- A surprise high ranker from me that set the tone for the entire rest of the album. I love the contrast and various switch-ups; everything feels like it belongs in an otherwise evolving package.

3/4/26

Silentroom - In My Heart

I finished listening to this album at 1 AM while losing my mind over vanilla Minecraft mechanics, though that shouldn’t affect how I feel here.

I’m a little disappointed, but I think that’s because I went in with high expectations. Silentroom is an artist I expect a lot out of; hell, one of the tracks off of this album gets a 10/10 from me, but there were a lot of songs that weren’t standout for an artist I trust to place banger after banger. Don’t get me wrong, this album was wonderful, but it wasn’t a masterpiece like I wanted. Silentroom is able to show their multidisciplinary talent in their work, but how it ends up is lopsided in what I’m hearing.

Silentroom - 驟雨の狭間 Rainshower (10/10!)
- This is, so far, my favorite neurofunk track of all time. It has a magical feel to it that’s hard to replicate in a meaningful way. It plays off of Silentroom well and was an obsession of mine for god knows how long. I want more of it.
Silentroom - B-9 syndrome (9/10)
- Back before I ever listened to this album front to back, I named my vulpaphyla in Warframe after this song. It’s been a few years since then and my love for it has only grown. A solid highlight to the album with a footwork-y feel that still mixes in bits of a rarely utilized side of Silentroom.
Silentroom vs Frums - Aegleseeker (‘Afterworld’ Full Version) (8/10)
- I am mostly obligated to talk about this one rather than anything special having to do with it. There are a lot of tracks I liked better off this album, which should speak to its quality. This one’s just iconic.

3/3/26

Rob Araujo - Loading…

I was going to try to go without writing something on this (the audacity), but I think I could at least address the vibe here vaguely. I didn’t know this EP came out before Nineteen because I discovered it after I did; I think its highlights are about as solid as Nineteen if they don’t quite live up to it. I’m glad the two tracks off of this I haven’t heard live up to the two I have.

Rob Araujo - Appl (8/10)
- This track exemplifies the style of the rest of the EP quite well. I love how minimalist it is production wise while still doing a lot of interesting things.
Rob Araujo ft. quickly, quickly - 35mm (8/10)
- Back when I used Spotify, I believe this was one of this artist’s top tracks by a large margin. I can see why. Solid foundation; simple, yet inspired.

3/2/26

Supire - Lustre

This one’s a hard review for me, because I loved the experience of listening to the album, but you could not ask me to reliably pick out the songs from it just from listening to it all in one sitting… Save the remixes. They suck. I have a feeling I’ll be revisitng this review.

Supire - Cerebellum (9/10)
- Easily the best song off the album. I love the synthesis of gentle piano and glitchy breaks in a form that speaks to the style of the rest of the album in a great way.
Supire - Aorta (8/10)
- The most notable of the tracks I ended up liking. When this one gets going, it really gets going.

Tektheist - Tektheism-001; The Act of Tektheist

Came in swinging with a surprise hit and two of my favorite songs by the artist, then proceeded to disappoint the rest of the way through. I love the energy this album has for sure, but I think where it slows down and quiets down is where it starts to struggle; the later tracks feel weird and uninspired.

Tektheist - Read From My Pages (9/10)
- Huge surprise to start out the album. Fast, intense, and interesting, with a cool progression to boot. I enjoyed this one a lot more than I thought I would.
Tektheist - Dejection (8/10)
- I still remember how hell grinding this play was in Quaver. Thank god for that leading me to discover a cool new artist.

Rukunetsu - SAGA LO-FI ONE

Every single track in this EP but one got a 9/10. I’m just saying that off the bat. It’s tough to call this lo-fi in the conventional sense, but whatever it is, I wish I had more of it, because I could absolutely trust this guy with that. The energy in this album is just right, without being too much while still having a lot of interesting variation to it.

Rukunetsu - LO-VARIATION (8/10)
- When an album is this good, you can’t really single out a good track, so here I am singling out the only one that wasn’t up to spec. Still an incredible track with a great energy to it, it just didn’t have that mystical allure the other ones did.

nelward - nelward three

Absolutely not my speed. Teetering on the edge of decent for me. I think this artist in general is just a heavy hit or miss for me.

I don’t like how nelward presents himself in this album. It’s a lot of the rock type music that is very disparate from what I’ve enjoyed about the artist in the past; it’s like he’s trying too hard to be something that clashes with his own style in a way I don’t like, but I might just not like his vocal style. What I did like about this album I, unfortunately, found alright at best.

This man is an ear candy magician when he plays his cards right. Why didn’t he do this here?

nelward - gumdrops (8/10)
- Here’s the surprise of this album. This is another one of the songs I shouldn’t have really liked off of it, but I did, and I did quite a bit. I think what nelward is able to do well across his entire discography, it reflects in a track like this.
nelward - TUBE (7/10)
- Barely misses out on an extra point. This is production excellence from nelward and a very fun overall experience.

3/1/26

femtanyl - MAN BITES DOG

I think I just listened to a Machine Girl album.

The first track got me going instantly, but I feel like the rest of the album didn’t live up to it; all that said, though, I liked the album a decent bit, and pretty consistently at that. I didn’t understand half of it, and I didn’t really need to to get the manic energy I needed to do what I was doing in modded Minecraft. This vocalist always has a strange fit with this style that still works, but stands out in a not so great way at times.

I’m not at all kidding when I say I’m looking at this like a Machine Girl album, though; you hear so much of their style in this album, across all of said act’s eras, especially the things that they’re not doing much in the modern day. It gets to the point where I want to listen to more Machine Girl as much as I do femtanyl because of what I’m hearing here.

femtanyl - BODY THE PISTOL (9/10)
- This is levels of femtanyl I didn’t fully know I needed. The energy of this one is mad in ways I don’t think the rest of the album matches.
femtanyl - HEAD UP (8/10)
- This is the reason I’m saying this is a Machine Girl album.

Tyler, the Creator - DON’T TAP THE GLASS

A new album to start the month for me. I came in to add two songs to my shuffle play and came out with a bit of a surprise in the form of one track I really liked.

I think this album succeeds in its goal for a majority of people, but unfortunately for our dear Tyler, I am autistic. A lot of the album only barely clicks for me, with a few misses here and there, unfortunately, but the more melodic tracks all clicked for me and a few of the less melodic ones did as well. I love the feel of this album, but it’s definitely a lowlight in this discography.

Tyler, the Creator - I’ll Take Care of You (9/10)
- The big surprise. Easily my favorite off of the album, mostly because of the breaks that kick in halfway through tickling something right in the brain. In contrast to much of CHROMAKOPIA that puts Tyler’s lyricism front and center, it’s remarkable to me that the polar opposite of that track design, where Tyler’s involvement is very basic and the instrumental is the main focus, is hitting quite the same.
Tyler, the Creator - Sucka Free (8/10)
- I was hoping more of the album would be like this, honestly. I love the groove here.
Tyler, the Creator - Don’t You Worry Baby (8/10)
- Easily too much like I’ll Take Care of You to be more like Sucka Free, but I think they scratch the same itch.

2/25/26

in theory - singularity

A SaltyBet-sourced hidden gem with limited hints of amateur era dogshit that doesn’t water down the best of the album, a few tracks I have adored since I first heard them. I used to be a huge fan of this album and have always had it sitting somewhere on my computer whenever possible, as it’s a very pleasant listen for what it is.

It’s sad to see that nothing really exists under the in theory name besides this anymore, as I don’t know much more about the fate of the artist; wherever they are, I hope they’re doing alright, and I hope they know that I’m still a fan of their 15-year-old music.

in theory - clarity (9/10)
- This is the track I heard on SaltyBet that got me interested in the rest of the album, as well as the best track on the album. It’s a wonderful song that does a bit more than one might think at first without making it weird, and I like that.
in theory - singularity (8/10)
- What the artist specializes in here is beautiful use of the instrumentation available. I love this track because it does a lot with what it has.
in theory ft. Ravi Zacharias, Verbal - fingerprints of the maker (8/10)
- I think the sample here is a bit awkward, but I think I’m always too harsh on this track when I hear it. I think the instrumental is wonderful.
in theory ft. Shing02 - godspeed (1/10)
- Why are the samples credited as artists? Why is the sample entirely offbeat? This track would actually be listenable if not for that; still easily my least favorite off of the album, but maybe listenable.

2/4/26

Little Tybee - For Distant Viewing

This review disappoints me greatly. I wanted to be able to give this album a lot of praise, but besides the few songs I really like coming out of this, the rest of the album didn’t click for me. I get the style and all, it’s just too little in my eyes.

What this album does well is the strange time signatures and progressions mixed in with the glitch tapping, as well as those moments that feel more soulful than the rest; unfortunately, it feels like I already heard most of those moments before I listened to the rest of the album. I just wish Little Tybee did more of what Hearing Blue and Left Right each were.

Little Tybee - Boxcar Fair (9/10)
- There is an exception to the above, though, and it’s this song (which, apparently, my copy of the album had swapped with Jury Duty for no reason). This is the energy I wanted this entire album to have: Interesting progressions, a sort of magical feel that only a band like Little Tybee can capture… A lot of things to ask for that just work here, actually. Incredible work.
Little Tybee - Hearing Blue (9/10)
- It feels like a copout, but it is my actual favorite of the album anyways, so I’m not mad. It does everything I love about Jury Duty even better, plus it’s even more of an earworm with vocals I wish I could follow.
Little Tybee - Left Right (9/10)
- I’m obligated to write on this, but I don’t have too much to say. It’s a beautiful highlight of the full power of glitch tapping and an incredible transition from the last song with great solos. That’s about it.

Flying Lotus - You’re Dead!

To think this album is 12 years old now. The first time I listened to this was back in high school, when this wasn’t even that old. Time flies like it’s nothing sometimes.

This album was my first exposure to Brainfeeder, as well as what I referred to at the time as my return to normal people music, an ironic statement considering how unique Flying Lotus’ production style is; arguably, I went from weird to weirder. That weirdness is what drew me into this beautiful concept album, though, and I don’t regret that for a second; it’s infectious, it’s unique, and, for an album about death, surprisingly fast paced. Life changes in a moment, I suppose.

How I thought of this while I listened to this was “the longest shortest album I’ve listened to”; it’s a ton of one minute tracks interspersed with features that’s perfect for someone with my shot attention span and keeps things interesting throughout the long runtime.

I’ll add a few ratings to Flamagra now, as it’s filled with so many good features that I want to listen to in my shuffle play, but I don’t want to listen to the rest of the album… yet.

Flying Lotus ft. Kendrick Lamar - Never Catch Me (10/10!)
- Believe it or not, this was my first exposure to Kendrick Lamar back in high school. It took me quite a while to actually get to the rest of his stuff, unfortunately, but I’m glad I did. No regrets I started here, though: This song is a beautiful synergy of two artists, with Flying Lotus in particular putting 100% of his power into a solid and catchy, but interesting, beat with enough variety to last a long time; plus, what’s not to love about what’s basically drum and bass? I love everything about Never Catch Me, and no one could ever get me to change my stance on it; in fact, just listening to it again reinforces that further.
Flying Lotus - Eyes Above (9/10)
- The first half of this is very solid, sure, but what gets me going is the second half. This track is a good example of what goes on throughout the album in short, but sweet, tracks with energy and a lot of jazz in their step.

Plini - Sunhead

Wow.

I didn’t expect to like something so consistently, even if only four songs; I dropped one off of realize EP’s perfect tally, after all. This is stellar work, obviously, even if nothing world-shattering (except for the realization that yes, I would definitely like more of this), but it’s just… beautiful, simply put. I’m not sure what else I could say about it beyond that; it’s S-tier playlist fodder.

Plini - Salt + Charcoal (9/10)
- Oh, fake math rock, how I love you so.
Plini - Sunhead (8/10)
- I think this one just scratches the itches right. The track has just enough variety to not feel stale, many interesting sections, and a clean energy on a unique time signature, whatever it is.

Plini - Sweet Nothings

The first half of the Plini EP double header.

What I know this for shouldn’t be too surprising. I didn’t expect to so consistently like this EP, though, even if I feel it does show its age in comparison to Sunhead. I probably just like prog rock more than I know so far.

Plini - Away (8/10)
- Literally no surprises here. Such a solid track that has a surprisingly unique sound in comparison to the background of the rest of the album. Such an easy gold medal to give.
Plini - Tarred & Feathered (8/10)
- Now I just want to listen to a Little Tybee album. Another track that stands out in comparison to the rest of the album with a far less aggressive sound, a beautiful lead, and all the rest that Plini does well. Nothing to be upset about here.

1/20/26

Reliq - Amenty Session

It’s very sad how hard One Quest carries the album, especially when the rest of it doesn’t meet playlist quality in my eyes.

What Amenty Session at large is is an experimental take on Serph’s standard style. It’s experimental and it’s definitely a fun listen the first time around, but I can’t see this as anything special I would come back to.

Reliq - One Quest (9/10)
- Then there’s One Quest. Serph decides to sneak an earworm-inducing drum and bass hit into an album that otherwise doesn’t really have ground to stand on beyond the first listenthrough. It’s impressive how distinct this track is from the rest of the album, at that; I went into this hoping for more of this and got something very different instead.

1/19/26

clown core - 1234

One of Clown Core’s best works is an NFT. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

clown core - 3 (8/10)
- Nothing as spectacular as I recall it to be, but it’s got a special kind of beauty to it.

1/15/26

uyama hiroto - freeform jazz

I adored everything I heard from this album until now, and the rest of it was not going to disappoint. 18 tracks of really good jazzhop by one of Nujabes’ peers was going to be good, no surprise, but what was definitely a welcome surprise was how much variety there was despite the style limitations. Tracks like Spacemountain are so, so different from a majority of uyama hiroto’s work in general, and yet they work; everything makes sense, everything fits in the album… It’s very nice, I think.

uyama hiroto - Yin and Yang (9/10)
- Easily my favorite off of the album, and probably the one I’ve known about the longest. It’s a sublime sound.
uyama hiroto - Departure (9/10)
- This one’s a bit simple structure-wise, but the sound is something absolutely nailed here. I love the energy; it’s nothing calm by any means, but nothing super intense for what it is either. It works.
uyama hiroto - Yamato Damasii (9/10)
- This one seems like it’s meant to be a continuation of Departure, but it’s very much the inverse in some ways; far more consistent, slower, and not afraid to be a bit louder. It’s nice.

かめりあ - heart of android

Fucking finally, dude.

The only thing that sucks about reviewing this album as I am is that I’ve already listened to half of the songs on the album and all of my favorites are in that batch. What did surprise me, however, were the tracks I ended up enjoying more than some of what I’ve already heard off of this. Minimal disappointments, lots of fun, and new music to toss in my shuffle play; that’s the joy of this all.

かめりあ - FM Synthesis Experiment (9/10)
- Easily my favorite off of the album, a song I consider underrated. A rock-solid beat that’s neither too much nor too little, with a beautiful base and lots of variety happening throughout.
かめりあ - [ns] (9/10)
- I really just have a thing for breakcore, don’t I. Fast-paced with great detail and texture, this is definitely one of Camellia’s best breakcore works, surely an inspiration to anything he did later.
かめりあ - This Future (we didn’t expect) (9/10)
- Kind of a cop-out from me to myself, but honestly, it deserves it. It just sounds good, and the vocals work well with it, whatever they are.

Mr Jukes - God First

What a title of the album to be listening to today. Remarkably, this album is somehow less preachy overall than The Locket Was.

Compared to The Locket, I’d argue this album has far more personality and the highs are much higher, even down to being more consistent; sure, there were lows, especially near the end of the album like in The Locket, but nothing so bad as to drag down the album as a whole. Most of the tracks here are very solid, and it makes sense; these used to be earworms for me back in the day.

Mr Jukes, Lianne La Havas - When Your Light Goes Out (9/10)
- No questions asked, my favorite song on the album off of its composition alone. The tonal dissonance is a fun touch; the lyrics are ominous for sure, even if I’m really just in it for the overall sound.
Mr Jukes - Magic (9/10)
- Not too deep, but not minimal either. Has a cool sound to it that I like a lot. Overall, a very fun track.

Mr Jukes & Barney Artist - The Locket

Started off incredibly strong. Ended somewhat weak. Unsurprising.

This album is about as consistent as it gets style-wise. There’s not much variance; if one track is good, a lot of the similar tracks probably are, save one that’s unique in its own way. It’s an album with songs I’ve loved for a while, as with the below, so I’m glad I’ve heard it in full now, but I think a part of me was definitely begging for a stronger showing from something that ultimately couldn’t hear me.

Mr Jukes & Barney Artist ft. Lex Amor - Autumn Leaves (8/10)
- I used to hate the feature in this track. I still think it’s the weakest part of the track, but it’s not at all bad for how everything comes together.
Mr Jukes & Barney Artist - Poems (8/10)
- I’m a little bit surprised by how much I liked this one, but especially for everything else on the album, its sound was unique enough to keep me hooked.

SOPHIE - OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES

An interesting sonic experience, somewhat connected and somewhat jarring. What I’ve heard from this before, I’ve liked a lot, but I definitely struggled to listen to some of it. I love the style at large here, though perhaps there’s bias when it comes to my favorites off this album.

I definitely wish I had more to speak on about this album. It had some surprisingly low lows and wonderful highs. I think I should listen to more, one day.

SOPHIE - Is It Cold in the Water? (9/10)
- I discovered this album from Mic Drop because of this song, which I adored even then. Not too surprised I’m giving out an even higher rating now.
SOPHIE - Infatuation (9/10)
- I pulled this in a mashup that’s probably never gonna get released unless I get my act together. It stands out in the same way as the above.

12/12/25

かめりあ - Chimera Dragons

One thing Camellia didn’t do well in this album is demonstrate how multidisciplinary his production style can be; that said, what he did do well here, he did very well.

Another album with 4 9/10s against a backdrop of good to alright. It definitely had the sound profile of a lot of Camellia’s recent albums, which is very disappointing, but at the very least, that means more good music without much to need to read into.

かめりあ - magical, very magical world (9/10)
- A warm callback to Camellia’s best with some new thrown in. It’s what I love the most about Camellia as a producer in one package, including a lot of references I can recognize and some I can’t.
かめりあ ft. 重音テト - Kikai No Tsubasa (9/10)
- Teto does it. Practically an even heavier version of what we got with Miku on Looking For The Edge Of Ground: A long Vocaloid song with bespoke instrumental breaks.
かめりあ - NĀGALOKAḤ / Prologue: Realm of Dragons (9/10)
- What’s with albums I’ve listened to recently and explicitly stated intros going incredibly hard?
かめりあ - 24-Dimensional Non-Euclidean Deep Blue Starfall Vertigo (9/10)
- A decent application of microtonality on a very fun base reminiscent of Camellia’s best breakcore tracks. Many questions, but none need to be answered if it goes this hard anyways.
かめりあ - BITE ME MORE PLS (6/10)
- I’m sorry, queer couples of the tourney community.

きくお - きくおミク6

Like her or hate her, it’s Miku.

I’m not surprised by what I liked and what I didn’t off of this album. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard most, if not all of it before, but it’s still nice to listen back on some of the tracks I didn’t remember that well. I’m not at all surprised with this album; the best of it shines brightly and there are few misses at best. Kikuo’s ability to capture some strange vibes and take the Miku voicebank for a wild ride in some of these tracks is astonishing; remarkably, this doesn’t register to me as a Vocaloid album at all, even if it is a flagship example of one. This is flagship Kikuo at its finest. Can’t complain.

きくお - 昨日はすべて返される (10/10!)
- Underrated. Very underrated. I love the energy of this track. When I listened to it for the first time, I had it on loop for days, even though it’s a song that shouldn’t feel like it’s so catchy. It’s captivating, is what I think it is.
きくお - 夏の雨の日の思い出 (9/10)
- The more you know about me, the less of a surprise this should be. I’m not elaborating on what I mean by this.
きくお - わたあめ (9/10)
- Maybe I just like Kikuo’s heavy production. They’ve got a specialty in warping sound itself to feel off, and that’s what I love the most about them.

Dorian Concept - The Jitters

I’m so down for this. Holy shit.

Dorian Concept is someone I’m very curious to discover more of now. From loving Eigendynamik off of Brainfeeder X to what I’m hearing here, their essence seems to capture something I’ve wanted for a while, but I’ve never been able to put my finger on. I still suck at describing music, but it’s something that all of these very different tracks share, which is saying a lot considering how different they are. There is that lead synth on half of these songs; you can tell how much fun they’re having with these solos.

Dorian Concept - A Mother’s Lament (Alt Take) (9/10)
- I’m just a sucker for some good piano at this point. That really explains a lot.
Dorian Concept - Booth Thrust (Live) (8/10)
- Groovy.

Weather Report - Heavy Weather

Honestly? Literally no surprises here for me. I liked exactly what I already knew and didn’t get too much out of it. I’m a little sad that the rest was underwhelming to me, but what can I really do?

Weather Report - Havona (9/10)
- I love the energy behind this track. It’s consistent. It’s fast. It does what it needs to and it holds my attention for the entire six minute runtime, even despite me losing steam from the rest of the album.
Weather Report - The Juggler (8/10)
- A lot of the songs I gave this rating to were things I expected to not like as much as I did coming back, but I think Weather Report’s style is bespoke enough to get me wrapped back in.

12/04/25

Machine Girl - MG Ultra

2024 Machine Girl is very good at a few very specific things, what with this and SUPER FREQ EP. That’s fine by me. I adore it.

4 9/10s in an album I otherwise found a mixed bag of alright to good. Ultimately and very obviously, I enjoyed the bulk of this, but I’m a little sad. I wish there was more to like. …I felt that way about the other two Machine Girl albums I reviewed, didn’t I.

Machine Girl - Psychic Attack (9/10)
- I wouldn’t have listened to this album if I didn’t know about this song. Machine Girl was never so back.
Machine Girl - Cicadas (9/10)
- This feels like one of the most …BECAUSE I’M YOUNG ARROGANT AND HATE EVERYTHING YOU STAND FOR tracks in this album that I actually liked. Same sort of reasons I fell in love with FUCK UP YOUR FACE.
Machine Girl - Half Asleep (9/10)
- It’s fun when Machine Girl throws off the vibe of the rest of the album for something a bit more ambient that still has its vibe to it. It fits in very nicely with the rest of the album because of its contrast. I love that.
Machine Girl - Nu Nu Meta Phenomena (9/10)
- A bit of a surprise that I gave this this rating, honestly. I think this, and some of the other 9/10s, sneak their way into this rating in a way I just didn’t expect. It feels right.

12/03/25

Machine Girl - …BECAUSE I’M YOUNG ARROGANT AND HATE EVERYTHING YOU STAND FOR

I have to confess that I listened to this album out of order to quickly skim through the tracks I knew I LOVED and get to the ones I don’t remember too well. I’ve reviewed this album before and was coming from WLFGRL+, which left me a bit worn out, so I didn’t want to take too long here. That doesn’t mean I didn’t feel those songs out again, obviously.

Needless to say… I know I love this album already. What I like about this album, I like a lot, and I got a lot more of that with the tracks here. The energy on this is very different in a good way and I didn’t feel as fatigued listening to it through… somehow. Maybe that’s because of what I said above.

Machine Girl - FUCK UP YOUR FACE (9/10)
- My favorite off the album before I listened to it all, and still my favorite now that I have. There’s a lot going on in this one; it’s a very fun listen. It’s hard to exemplify the energy of this album any better than this…
Machine Girl - UZUMAKI (9/10)
- …Unless, of course, you’re this track. Every single thing about this track is distinct and memorable, unpredictable in the best way.
Machine Girl - ATHOTH A GO!! GO!!! (9/10)
- Another track I listened to before it all; it’s kind of unfortunate that I’ve already heard the best of this, but that’s mostly because I listened to half of the album well before I ever wrote on it. The unique feeling it’s got is a very nice one.

Machine Girl - WLFGRL+

I have no clue how I didn’t do this at least a full year ago. Maybe I came into this with way too high of expectations, but I was a little disappointed that I didn’t come out of this liking this album much more than I thought I would, and it’s extra sad coming from my mouth. There’s a lot of cool on this, absolutely, but I think I just felt the fatigue trying to sit this one through, unfortunately.

As underwhelmed as I am by this, I know I’m gonna love the later Machine Girl albums even more.

Machine Girl - Freewill (Phase β) (9/10)
- Something about this, especially the latter half, just hits in such a unique way for Machine Girl’s style. It’s fun, I think.
Machine Girl - 覆面調査員 (GabberTrap mix) (8/10)
- My favorite track off of the album of the ones I’ve listened to before this listenthrough. Very different from the normal style of what’s going on here. I think that makes it fun.
Machine Girl - WLFGRL ACID (8/10)
- Another one of those less typical tracks for this album I felt the pull to.

12/02/25

Madeon - Adventure

We had a perfect goddamn run, and then The City had to come in and blow it. I’m a little upset. One miss in a sea of genuine excellence. Whatever; I’m beyond glad I can add the rest of this album to my shuffle play.

I turned on this album, hopped into a game, and completely lost myself. Any vitriol I felt towards Grass Cutting Incremental instantly faded the moment Isometric started playing (which, all things considered, is an absurd feat and a testament to this album on its own). I don’t know how Madeon did it, but he did it, all in a single album.

Sure, it’s no masterpiece, but it is certainly a cut above the rest. The transitions in the early songs are incredibly tasteful. It is twelve short and sweet songs of simple, elegant excellence, something so far unique even among Madeon’s discography. I see how this album has stood the test of time for a decade at this point, because by god, it deserves to have.

Madeon - Beings (9/10)
- I knew this song was going to be my favorite off of the album before I even heard the rest of it. It’s got a wonderful feeling to it; I love the bridge and last drop to death.
Madeon - Isometric (Intro) (8/10)
- No mortal may understand what got into Madeon to cook this hard on an intro.

Lupe Fiasco - Tetsuo & Youth

Some of Lupe Fiasco’s bars are so weird that the two songs I liked on this album have to be capped out at 7/10 because they bring the track down that much. The rest of this album, however… Too many of these beats were genuinely unlistenable for me, and the few that weren’t didn’t really have enough going for them to be of any substance. Barely anything on this is worth listening to if you have the taste I do, and even then, it’s probably worth steering clear of the album just so you don’t get tempted to subject yourself to the rest.

Lupe Fiasco - Mural (7/10)
- For all the bad I have to say about this album, I can’t shine over the best bits of this song. Lupe’s wordplay transitions from strange to genius in mere moments in ways best exemplified here. The production is some of the best on the album. It’s hard to ask for more.
Lupe Fiasco ft. Ab-Soul and Troi - They.Resurrect.Over.New. (7/10)
- I thought I wasn’t going to give a rating this good to anything else on the album, and was glad to be disappointed. Something about this song just clicks right for me.
Lupe Fiasco ft. Billy Blue, Buk of Psychodrama, Trouble, Trae tha Truth, Fam-Lay, and Glasses Malone - Chopper (1/10)
- It took you this many features to make a track this ass?

Kamasi Washington - Heaven and Earth (+ The Choice)

When Risk of Rain 2 was a fresher game, I used to play this entire album on loop and throw myself at Monsoon in hopes that it would finally crack under the pressure of my stupidity. It never did, unfortunately. It is, however, how I got into jazz.

Each track approaches the same concept at a different angle and perfects it over the course of its 8+ minute runtime. Kamasi’s solos are bold, but the entire composition is beautifully put together. I love the sound and I love the energy. I wanted more, long ago, and slowly improved my grip on it all. I’m very glad I did; I’ve got this album to thank for so much evolution in my tastes.

Would ripping the record box apart for the E-side have been worth it, though? Considering it has two of my least favorite tracks off the album as a whole on it… Probably not.

Kamasi Washington - One of One (9/10)
- I’m surprised how much I like this one, because I didn’t think of this so distinctly positively back when I first heard it. The energy is very much there. I love it so much.
Kamasi Washington - The Space Travelers Lullaby (9/10)
- Even if it’s not my favorite track off of the album anymore, it’s so unique and beautiful that it’s a disservice to not recognize this for what it is.
Kamasi Washington - Vi Lua Vi Sol (9/10)
- Easily my favorite track off of the album. I feel the soul in this. I love the use of vocals here. The general sound is a wonderful one.

Frums - vignette

A true everything bagel of an album.

Frums is a very hit or miss artist for me, someone who I can both massively enjoy and awkwardly push away depending on the track, generally the former over the latter, which is about what happened here; I loved most of the album, but there were quite a few tracks that I felt didn’t click for me at all. It’s the same thing I’ll say about many albums at this point: When it shined, it really shined.

To my comment at the start: Not only does that speak to how widely my reviews of each individual track would vary, but also just to Frums’ production style. Much of their work is similar in sound, but around the corner, they demonstrate their inexplicable ability to pull off something fresh in a very welcome way.

Frums - memoryfactory.lzh (9/10)
- Easily one of my favorite Frums songs of all time. I love the pacing on this; the feel is very unique for a Frums song.
Frums - My Capacitance (9/10)
- Also definitely very up there in terms of my favorite Frums songs, though it’s a bit more in line with the rest of their work.
Frums - swallow SMOKE (9/10)
- Not much to say about this one… as with the others here. It just hits right.

10/24/25

かめりあ - 灰の羽搏

Five 9/10s in a single album. Either there’s something wrong with me or Camellia’s done it again, and I don’t know which at this point.

Camellia’s proven he can produce what feels like everything time and time again, but what I always flock back to with his work is always his heavier melodic pieces, and this is practically a fifteen-course meal of just that with enough variety to last a long time. I loved almost everything I possibly could’ve on this album, and I figured I would; I already was listening to songs from this on loop before I had even heard the entire thing. I’m glad I finally have.

Somehow, it’s also a pretty easy listen. I just hopped on some slop and let this play in the background and I could get all of it without my attention span faltering that hard. Surprising, honestly.

かめりあ - 辰砂 / HgS (10/10!)
- Easily my favorite off of the album, a track I already dumped so many listens into before even touching most of the rest of the album. It’s a side of Camellia that I’ve only really seen on this album; though I’m sure he’s done a lot more of this, this stands out in its own regard for sure.
かめりあ ft. Ninomae Ina’nis - Drenched in Air (9/10)
- Incredibly fine work from the duo here. Having listened to this instrumental so many times while making a mashup I ultimately ended up scrapping, I think it stands on its own right, though I do think there are some highlights from the vocal performance as well.
かめりあ - LOST TECHNOLOGIE (“Data scraper” Long ver.) (9/10)
- A bit of me is surprised this didn’t get a long version well before this album, considering how long it’s been in beatmania IIDX. Maybe it feels like it’s been in there longer than it actually has thanks to that music video? Either way, I loved this before the long version came out, and I’ve even pulled the IIDX version in a mashup. Of course I was going to like this one.

Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city

I initially reviewed this album for an album swap in the Mashup Week: Megamix Discord and gave it a scathing review, except for a few spots of gold I either recognized as sampled elsewhere or that genuinely caught me off guard with how good they were. The copy that I got did not have the second disc on it, and now that I’ve heard what’s on it, I’m sad about that, because that was the most consistently good part of the album.

There was a swath of this album that was hard to listen to and another that was incredible, even surprisingly so at times given the climate of the rest of the album. Where this album shines, Kendrick’s storytelling and the production surrounding it shine through in a thoroughly beautiful product that feels like it stands on its own.

I need to come into this man’s work with no expectations, because I know I’ll be both disappointed and blown away by two songs in the same album.

Kendrick Lamar - Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst (9/10)
- It was my favorite off the album then and it is now. I’ve always loved the production on this, but there’s so much to listen for as this song goes on.
Kendrick Lamar - Black Boy Fly (8/10)
- I remember people hyping up gnx, an album that I ultimately did not like. The storytelling here combined with captivating production is what I felt like I was missing there, all done here in one neat package. This is a track to remember.

10/13/25

maya - mayakore

A good number of brightly shining gems in a sea of mediocrity and, at points, outright trash.

This is the most hit and miss album (compilation?) I’ve reviewed here in a while, potentially ever (exempting Pink Lotus for understandable reasons), where I tossed two 9/10s into the same batch as a 3/10 and two 4/10s. I was hoping for a bit of “you can see maya improve in real time”, but that wasn’t even the case; there were earlier works that I ended up liking far more than some of the later ones, whether due to weird melodic progression or samples that felt out of place. It’s so much “could’ve been better” that ultimately disappointed in the current timeline.

maya - i could be the one you’re missing (9/10)
- Mic Drop submission that just so happened to easily be the best thing off this compilation. maya did everything she could’ve possibly done right all in a single package. There’s no reason to undersell this any capacity.
maya - orange juice (9/10)
- I knew I was going to love this from the very start, but I didn’t immediately realize how much. This is a rare display of interesting chord progression from maya, and in dariacore in general, that works very well in a future riddim(?) package. This is the dream. I wish I could make something like this myself.

syzy - syzy2 d*riacore collection vol. 1

Maybe I’m just being a little bitch this afternoon, but it feels like I just listened to an entire album of shuffle play fodder.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved it. There’s a reason I came to this album at all, because I needed to make sure no one ever submitted this to me again in Mic Drop. I was just hoping for a masterpiece I never really got from it. I feel like that’s unrealistic, thinking about it, but it felt like something was missing throughout the runtime and I don’t know what it was.

syzy - just bought moon shoes (9/10)
- Long after doing this review, I listened to this track in shuffle play. I grew on it. I grew on it more. It is now one of my favorite dariacore tracks ever. I love the usage of the main sample/motif and the general feel of the track is incredible. Potentially, this is some of the best it’s ever been done.
syzy - Just another song about love (9/10)
- I don’t remember how many seasons ago I was subbed this on Mic Drop, but it was far too good to pass over. An incredible song that just speaks to dariacore as a genre and idea at large.

9/25/25

Freddie Dredd - Pink Lotus

I swore I wrote a review of this one. Apparently I listened to it through, but never did. Whatever; it was shit anyways.

This was a genuinely miserable experience to listen to that is worth no one’s time in any capacity. Its one saving grace is a TikTok song, and even then, I think that’s a subjective statement just because I have a personal attachment to that song. Don’t do what I did.

Freddie Dredd - Opaul (7/10)
- Freddie Dredd denounced this one for being a TikTok song, I’m pretty sure, making it a fitting choice to stand an entire head above the rest of the album, if not multiple.
Freddie Dredd - Waste (0/10)
- Cantata won’t even let me put in a 0/10 rating, so this is a formality at best. The less time I can spend listening to this EP, the better.

6/25/25

Kendrick Lamar - gnx

From the same person who brought you two WISH 10/10s in a single album: Two WISH 1/10s in a single album.

I was a fan of Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, despite what I had to say about it at the time of my listenthrough. The highlights of the album stand out so much and have become earworms in their own right. I knew going in that I would not like this album. I’m very saddened by how off-put I was made by the album, though; the aforementioned two 1/10s and the many mid-or-worse entries in gnx are alienating to someone like me, who expects a very different Kendrick. Even reincarnated, which I went in expecting to like, ended up barely scraping by with a better reception than most of the album, but nothing I would listen to again. A part of me wishes I understood, as much as most of me knows I never really will.

Kendrick Lamar - gloria (7/10)
- I had to give this album something nice. It’s kitsch, but a comfortable listen.
Kendrick Lamar - man at the garden (7/10)
- I genuinely forgot I had a third 7/10 off this album, and listening back to it, I think I get why. This feels a lot more like the Kendrick I love than what the rest of the album offers.

Mili - Key Ingredient

It’s been a few weeks since I actually listened to this, but what I’d have to say about this album are comments that are pretty much evergreen in my mind, so it should be fine. Same goes for the other album I reviewed today.

This album is disappointing, not in that it’s bad, but that it’s pretty good. I consider many of the songs off of this piano and vocal cover album to well outclass their original counterparts, despite being nothing more than solid at best and, in the case of one song, genuinely disappointing. It’s demoralizing to listen to much of Mili’s work when a lot of the experience has been like this, especially because these are some of Mili’s most iconic works. Perhaps I am too harsh a judge on them as a whole, but I keep struggling to get myself to listen to more of thei work when this is my main impression of them.

Mili - String Theocracy (Key Ingredient ver.) (8/10)
- My younger self would’ve easily called this my favorite off the album, and, though it’s more contested nowadays, I would be inclined to agree. This song fits the Key Ingredient style well and is very catchy as it is.
Mili - Lemonade (Key Ingredient ver.) (8/10)
- I used to just straight up sleep on the second half of this album, but honestly, this is arranged very well here, far better than the original was in my opinion. I love the progression change in the second verse, as it sets such a unique twist on the original song.

5/23/25

Brainfeeder - Brainfeeder X

First one back in a while and it’s a long one. I waded through about 36 tracks that honestly weren’t that great. I knew what I was getting into and I did it anyways.

It’s very easy to tell whether a song is made by a good, more competent Brainfeeder artist and when a song isn’t in this compilation; while there were some hits from artists I hadn’t heard of, they were exceptions and not the overwhelming rule. I had to sit through a lot of not so great shit in order to get to the Thundercat tracks, the Iglooghost tracks, etc. and after track 30, it was just all bad music that I just had to sit through while fatigued. I think I regret doing this, but I’m not upset that I found what I did out of it.

Dorian Concept - Eigendynamik (9/10)
- This song is the reason I did this listenthrough in the first place, as I discovered the Elevator Concept version of this from an EToH fangame and just happened to like this one more. I love the energy on display here; when I listened to this first, it caught me entirely off guard in a way that was very fun. The entire track keeps up the pace it sets out to and is just a blast to listen to.
Taylor Graves - Goku (8/10)
- Here’s the only 8/10 in this compilation that actually managed to surprise me. Honestly, there’s not too much special about this one; I just think the instrumental is very fun with a nice progression and very Brainfeeder-esque lyrics. The vibe is fun, and that’s all I really need here.

4/25/25

椎名林檎 × 斎藤ネコ - 平成風俗

If you need proof I’m a harsh judge of music, let this review show how unwilling I am to give out a high rating.

I loved this album. I say this wholeheartedly and I say this straight. It’s so hard to pick out a favorite here because everything here is so, so good. Sheena Ringo is an artist I’ve always liked, but never listened to at length, and I’m glad that I was able to change this tonight. Neko Saito’s work on this album is not to be understated, of course, because I love the production work even more than Sheena Ringo’s vocals at parts, but it’s very clear how much talent in the vocals she has: She’s loud when she needs to be and delicate when she needs to be; beyond that, her tone of voice is so strikingly unique in a way that is almost immediately recognizable.

I think I need to give Japanese art pop another chance.

椎名林檎 × 斎藤ネコ - 花魁 (8/10)
- Since I can’t decide on a favorite from the album, I’m gonna shout this one out for being a “sleeper hit” in my eyes. It’s one of the few songs off of the album I haven’t already listened to in full because I initially didn’t give it much of a chance from the snippets because of how weird the production was. It’s that weirdness that’s holding this back from making it past the rest of the pack, because Sheena Ringo’s vocals and the choruses are something else.
椎名林檎 × 斎藤ネコ - 夢のあと (8/10)
- A Horse Race Tests fancam convinced me to listen to this album. I’ll think about that for a while.

Jane Remover - Revengeseekerz

I was given really high expectations going into this album that I managed to be entirely disappointed on and I think that’s tainting my view of the album heavily. I was told that this was going to be Dariacore 5, but it wasn’t. This album, despite being as good as it is, isn’t on quite that level, and it’s a big letdown that it wasn’t. It’s a great album with too much hype around it that it cannot live up to for me.

Jane Remover feat. Danny Brown - Psychoboost (8/10)
- Danny Brown really just collaborates with anyone at this point, doesn’t he. …That’s a good thing, for the record. The weakest part of the track is his feature verse; besides that, this is some excellence from Jane with incredible vibes that’s hard to come across.
Jane Remover - JRJRJR (8/10)
- This was a huge tone-setter for the rest of the album when it came out that matches it in energy, but exceeds it in quality. The progression of this one is beautiful in a way that works, but still feels like Jane; notably, the outro is very nice.

4/10/25

Machinedrum - A View of U

I remember hearing people not liking this album when it came out, and I really don’t understand where that comes from listening to it now; sure, this isn’t some bespoke experience, but I actually consistently liked this one (at least, mostly consistently), as opposed to the limited gems from Room(s). This was a solid album; maybe not extraordinary, but solid, and I’m definitely coming back to listen to a lot of this again.

Machinedrum feat. Sub Focus - 1000 Miles (8/10)
- This uses that guitar I really love off of a lot of the best of Room(s) and it’s a drum and bass song. Of course I’m gonna adore this one.
Machinedrum - Spin Blocks (1/10)
- I had to skip this one. This one gets a shoutout not for being good, but for being absolutely dogshit. I don’t know how to explain it because I couldn’t give it the dignity of a full listen through.

3/26/25

Machinedrum - Room(s)

A few spots of gold in a sea of things I really didn’t end up vibing with. A few tracks really stuck out, with the bulk of the first half being bad and the bulk of the second half being a bit better. This tends to be how every album I end up reviewing because I liked one song ends up, but that’s not going to stop me from doing this again. I appreciate listening to more of this genre, at least.

Machinedrum - Sacred Frequency (9/10)
- The rest of the album almost made me forget that this gem came from it. It’s the reason I know about this album at all and decided to give it a chance, and it stands so distinct from the rest of the album to where I love it a lot.
Machinedrum - Come1 (9/10)
- This is just a very fun six minute long breaks song with an interesting switch-up that happens gradually throughout the midsection of the song. I’m a sucker for interesting progressions like these, so it was a joy to listen to.

Asian melancholic - at first

It’s a shame Kikuo never really came back to this project, because there were definitely entries from it that I’ve really liked. This entire album is fine work as a whole, but its lowlights are as drastically middling as its highlights are standout, which is unfortunate.

Asian melancholic - jazz in parallel world (9/10)
- It turns out I’m really bad at describing music.

leroy - Dariacore 2: Enter Here, Hell to the Left

I love dariacore to death. This, however, is no simple dariacore album. It is one of the quintissential dariacore albums and defined the genre as a whole. It’s no surprise, then, that I liked almost everything I heard off of this. I’m sad I had never listened to this in full before now, because it’s incredible.

leroy - wants mom to know she looks cool and doesn’t plan on changing (9/10)
- I love the breakdown near the end of this one, and that’s part of the reason I keep coming back to it.
leroy - lil mama vip tickets (9/10)
- This doesn’t just feel very different from the rest of the album, this feels very different from what dariacore presents itself as a whole, at least in tone. There’s no melody for a good portion of it, and the closest thing to that is being chopped up near the end in a way that blends in rather than stands out.

Jazz Emu - Ego Death

This isn’t a visual album as much as an experience, so to go into it expecting a very fine-tuned musical masterpiece is really weird work… so, that’s what I did.

Every song in this album tells a story. The visual album implies they’re all connected, but the visual album spends four to five songs trying to present the same character as what feels like four very different characters. A lot of this doesn’t make sense. That’s the point, but how disconnected some of this feels doesn’t really do any of this justice. A majority of this isn’t anything I’m going back to for casual listening, though it will end up in my shuffle play because I did at least like it a little bit.

Jazz Emu - Easier (8/10)
- This is just a nice, simple song, honestly. It provides a nice juxtaposition to not only Ego Death, but Jazz Emu’s online persona as a whole. If not the musician for me, he is still a true talent.
Jazz Emu - Fun Kitai Furai Dei (7/10)
- It is insane work that the leitmotif featured in this albums trailer, as well as its climactic moment, is a song called “funky tie friday” of all things. Only with Jazz Emu.

Kenny Beats - LOUIE

Kenny Beats drops an album of wack ass… beats… Wait…

Not too much more to say, and not too much more that I can pick out of this to keep listening to, even though I thought they were either alright or pretty good.

Kenny Beats - Still (8/10)
- This is the reason I know about this album at all, and I’d say it stands up. Fun beat. If that’s Kenny on vocals, I think that’s really funny.
Kenny Beats - Last Words (8/10)
- This one got into my earworms playlist. Can’t really say much about it.

Jane Remover - Frailty

This was the weirdest album review I could have possibly done, because it turns out I had a really old version of the album that had a single that shouldn’t have been bundled with it as well? Weird.

I can’t say I don’t get the hype. I’ve heard the first disc of this album already, but never really got the chance to hone in and listen to it until now; unsurprisingly, save my favorite song off the album, I liked it considerably less than the second disc, where I think Jane hones in on what I like a lot more. Needless to say, though I think they’re quite long for what they are, it’ll be nice to hear these songs in my shuffle play again.

Jane Remover - kodak moment (9/10)
- The first half of this song is the best of its sort of song on the album, while the second half is just a ton of ear candy that I love. I’m 100% down.

3/25/25

Tyler, the Creator - IGOR

Yeah. Yeah, that’s Tyler, alright.

I remember people talking about this album when it came out. I liked a few tracks off of it then, but never got the hype over it as a whole. I still don’t. That doesn’t change the fact that this album is a great listen. I think this paragraph is confusing, but I can’t really help it.

I haven’t heard a real Tyler flop yet.

Tyler, the Creator - GONE, GONE / THANK YOU (8/10)
- A very fun beat I appreciated a bit more than I thought I would the first time I thought of it. I love the outro to death.
Tyler, the Creator - NEW MAGIC WAND (8/10)
- This song has stood up since I first heard it. I didn’t give it much of a chance when I was much younger, but I had listened to it before this album review and liked it a lot then.

Oshiribeat - Multi Flavor

I found this compilation because of Ning and unfortunately, at the end of the day, it’s the only song off the entire thing that stands out. The only other things I liked off of this were the two songs that played it safe, and that’s really disappointing. It’s an album from some level of obscurity that, unfortunately, deserves to stay there.

mybear - Ning (7/10)
- This one was buried deep in my SoundCloud likes at a point, which is why I know about the album at all. It’s really fun. It’s a good ol’ time.

Emicida - AmarElo

I listened to the live album before I even knew the actual album existed, somehow. To some extent, that’s the curse of this artist not marketing in English at all, save his Fortnite appearance, which is probably the only reason I actually know about him and has literally none of his modern music in it. At the end of the day, it was alright at best.

Emicida feat. Fabiana Cozza, Henrique Vieira, & Pastoras do Rosário - Principia (8/10)
- Despite the vocals in the chorus sounding a bit weird, I liked this version better than the live version, though I think it’s close. This song just has a very bespoke sound to it, one that got stuck in my head for a while, for the better.

Doechii - Alligator Bites Never Heal

(Reviews prior to this point were made based on an old Topster. The dates shown are not accurate to when I listened to the album initially.)

It’s really unfortunate that the album was so long given how little I’ve ended up remembering of it. What I do know is that it’s a mixed bag of good and really good to the point where it was absolutely worth my time to go out of my way to listen to it.

My music taste has changed considerably since the sheltered Monstercat fan I was in middle school, and for the better; I’ve looped around from disliking popular artists to finding things that blow me away and learning exactly why they’re popular. Not to say that every popular artist is good; there’s a lot I still hate, but when it’s come to hip-hop, I’ve been blown away by some of what I’ve heard, especially some of the albums I reviewed earlier on this page. Doechii hasn’t blown me away here, but has demonstrated a very solid style, one that’s got me looking forward to her next release.

Doechii - DEATH ROLL (9/10)
- Listening to this again, I remember why it’s my favorite off of the album. This is Doechii. This is the culmination of the style I’ve heard off the rest of the album into one package, and a good one at that. Her flow is incredible here.
Doechii - BOOM BAP (8/10)
- This song is so stupid. I love it.

goreshit - semantic compositions on death and its meaning

It’s a classic. Two 9/10s and a 10/10. Enough said.

goreshit - o’er the flood (10/10!)
- I’m definitely rushing this review a bit, but there really isn’t that much to say about it. It’s just beautiful sampling and iconic usage of the amen break, and this track does it the best out of the three by far.

aran - ARTFCT

Save one song, I liked everything off of this album, and I liked it a lot. This is what I liked about Mameyudoufu’s “SHOWCASE” with a very well crafted sound. I don’t know what other praises to sing for this album since it’s been so long since I’ve listened to it front to back, but if there’s any indication that I need to check out more of this guy, it’s this.

aran feat. Kanae Asaba - Skyriser (10/10!)
- I really wish this thing had official lyrics, because I really don’t understand what Kanae Asaba is trying to say here. Production wise, this thing is a miracle upon this earth. I’m already trying to search for more of this genre, but I don’t know if anything quite tops this.
aran - Mazy Metroplex (Extended) (9/10)
- I liked this song a lot when it came out as a single, and I like it a lot now. The rhythm is infectious.

3/14/25

Serph - Psychic Music

I knew something was off with my initial review and I just had to come back and fix it. I knew I gave the wrong song a 9/10. I just knew it.

This album is a journey of sound; though it doesn’t depart that far from the principles it sets, said principles are interesting and invoke the surreal experience matched by its jacket as well as, from the rest of Serph’s discography I’ve listened to, the strengths of their style. It’s a mixed bag starting from decent and ending at great with a style that’s hooked me for months, if not years, at this point. I’m glad to be listening to more of this guy.

Serph - Positive ID (9/10)
- There’s so many interesting things going on in this track. It’s a true wonder to listen to, and hard to describe beyond that. All I know is that I’m a better judge this time around.
Serph - idio-savan (7/10)
- Initially, I gave this track a 9/10, unable to justify my rating. That rating has bothered me for three months, and I’m here to fix it. Though it’s one of my lowest ratings on the album, I still enjoy it quite a bit.

Rav - BENEATH THE TOXIC JUNGLE

I had to listen to this album again a second time because I thought I was incredibly hard on it the first time around, before coming to the rude awakening that I wasn’t, not one bit. Between pretty much every feature besides Kill Bill being hard to listen to and the weird decisions Rav makes with some of these tracks, only a handful of these are even listenable, personally. Because of Solanine, I had high expectations for this album, only for the floor to be shattered below me. Perhaps I’m overselling how much I didn’t like this album, but it certainly wasn’t one I would return to as a whole.

Rav - Solanine (8/10)
- The reason I decided I should listen to this album, and, as far as I’ve heard, one of the best tracks Rav has ever made by a longshot. An incredible beat paired with surprisingly interesting lyrics makes for a very nice experience.
Rav feat. Kill Bill - Lavender (7/10)
- This is basically two entirely different songs blended into one, and surprisingly, both halves are very good. The main issue I have with this track is that the two halves don’t blend at all; however, both Rav and Kill Bill demonstrate their talents on this beat in a way that makes each section work.

in theory - singularity

I was supposed to review this album earlier, but didn’t; perhaps I missed it or the order in which I was going through the Topster was entirely different a month ago, but I’m finally here now to say that there’s good reason I keep revisiting this album over the years, and unfortunately, it’s not for a majority of the tracks in the main list. When in theory’s work shines, it really shines, making the best three tracks on the album (clarity, singularity, and duality) shine brightly; meanwhile, just a track earlier lies probably one of the worst, hardest to listen to samples that I’ve heard in a while, which is saying something considering what I said about Justice’s † not that long ago. All in all, I think wherever in theory is, if they kept doing exactly what they were doing at the peak of this album without looking at their samples folder, they would make gold.

in theory - clarity (9/10)
- I discovered this through SaltyBet and it had such a profound impact on my music taste that I just had to download the entire album. Genuinely incredible composition work for how simple the track is.
in theory - duality (piano arr.) (9/10)
- Maybe I just like the piano work that in theory did more than anything, but hearing this in such a pure form helps it shine that much brighter.
in theory - godspeed (feat. shing02) (2/10)
- What the actual fuck were you thinking?

Madeon - Good Faith

After being a long time casual Porter fan and accidentally skirting around Madeon far too often, I decided to give this album a listen to after Nurture, eventually ending my liveblog of the experience by saying the equivalent of “my life is a lie”. I think I was overexaggerating back there, as I think Nurture’s highlights are far better than what’s going on here, but that’s not to say this isn’t an incredible experience of an album with many solid highlights scattered throughout. It’s a lot less intense of a listen than I thought it would be initially, making it a pretty casual experience, but the tracks off of it that I have liked will stick with me.

Madeon - Mania (9/10)
- If there was a clean version of Hypermania, I know for a fact that would be an incredibly easy 10/10; that version gives me chills every time. I think it’s because of Hypermania that I grew on the album version of Mania so much, as it’s by a good margin my favorite song on the album due to its very fun sound.
Madeon - Borealis (8/10)
- I already liked Mania before I grew on it. I did not like Borealis until very recently. I’m surprised to say that I think the sound of the vocals is what is bringing this track up in my eyes, though.

Jazztronik - Nanairo

I cannot express just how much I love this sound. The style presented on this album is incredibly fun throughout, with pretty much every track doing something really interesting in its own right. I could put any of these songs on for casual listening and still be enraptured by what I’m listening to. I don’t know how to describe what I’m listening to in any substantial capacity. All I can say is to tell you to listen to literally any of these songs; if you’re like me, you’ll understand immediately.

Jazztronik - Arabesque (10/10!)
- The high energy percussion. The lovely refrain. The amount of interesting sounds blending together. If this was the first thing I heard off of this album, I would be disappointed by the rest of it, which is saying a lot considering how much I know I loved everything else on this album.
Jazztronik - Nana (9/10)
- This is maybe about as pure as Japanese jazz can get for this album, and I adore the sound thoroughly as a result. It’s incredibly fun, with pretty much every section of the song catching your attention.

Lamp - 東京ユウトピア通信

I don’t know why, because I thought it was alright, but this album was incredibly forgettable. I put this on in the background more than once in order to listen to it without absolutely ruining my attention span, and when I came back to put in a rating, I just couldn’t, because I was not paying attention to the song in any substantial capacity. I couldn’t bring myself to do much more than casually listen to this, and I really don’t know what the issue is. Actual anomaly of an album.

Lamp - ムード・ロマンティカ (7/10)
- I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s pretty fun.

underscores - Wallsocket (Director’s Cut)

Another case of the trans women in my life begging me to listen to an album and me not really understanding it, though I did think this one was great from a production standpoint to the point where a lot of these songs were just fun to listen to. This album is weird. It knows it’s weird and revels in it. In my opinion, its highlights have slightly less character, but a lot more soul, or at least more interesting production value; not to say that much off the album was properly bad, save two songs early into the album, but that’s less because they were poorly made and more that they were boring.

underscores - Stupid (Can’t run from the urge) (8/10)
- Is anyone surprised?
underscores - Shoot to kill, kill your darlings (8/10)
- Of all of this hypersubglaggle of songs on the album, this one has the most full sound and good enough lyrics to boot. It’s a fun song. Can’t say much.

Mameyudoufu - SHOWCASE

You cannot get more to the point with any other album name. The variety comes at the cost of much of the album feeling weak, with some weird decisions made on some of these songs that I don’t love, but what stands out in this set really stands out and sticks with you. It’s kind of unfortunate that the two songs I love the most off of this album I had heard well in advance.

Mameyudoufu - Point (9/10)
- Of the sort of niche that “rhythm game music” is, this is one of the finest, cleanest slices. It doesn’t stand out to me enough to rate it higher, but if it did, I wouldn’t be opposed to calling it “perfect”.
Mameyudoufu - あわ (9/10)
- This is a track with energy, and a lot of it. Miku is tuned excellently, and the production has a lot of oomph behind it. I don’t tend to like Vocaloid, but this takes it and does it very well.

JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown - SCARING THE HOES

I don’t know how to review this one seriously, sorry.

I thought it was alright. I liked JPEG more than Danny here, but Danny did some great work still.

JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown - Garbage Pale Kids (8/10)
- Thank you, Danny Brown.
JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown - Steppa Pig (7/10)
- Solid beat.

Sungazer - Perihelion

I would ask how Adam Neely does it, but I know how he and his bandmates do it, because they know what they’re doing, and very well at that. The best of these works have a beautiful progression to them with a sound that stands out almost immediately upon listening and is consistent across the entire album, making almost every track on it so interesting to first hear with a style that stands out on repeat listens.

Sungazer - Cytherean (9/10)
- If any track off this album deserves a shoutout, it’s this one. The vocal performance is sublime, meshing incredibly well with the toned back composition.
Sungazer - Threshold (9/10)
- If Cytherean stands on one end of the spectrum, this song stands on the other; it is dramatic and weird in ways I am entirely for.

DOMi & JD BECK - NOT TiGHT

I fell in love with this album from the first listen. I knew I was going to, and then I went off and did it anyways. This album doesn’t have highlights; instead, it just has one long, rarely intrrepted stream of jazz fusion masterclass that I’ve come to expect from this duo. There’s one miss on this album, and it’s literally just because I think the style is a bit weird in contrast to the rest of it; even then, there’s still something going on for the kind of person seeking it. An incredibly clean sound and wonderful features; what’s not to love?

DOMi & JD BECK feat. Mac DeMarco - TWO SHRiMPS (9/10)
- I don’t know how to describe this as any different from the rest of the album because anything I say here is reflective of what I say of the rest of the album almost directly. This, in my opinion, is just the best of it.
DOMi & JD BECK feat. Herbie Hancock - MOON (9/10)
- It’s Herbie Hancock. I don’t think I need to say much else.

Geordie Greep - The New Sound

Do I think the almost entirely clean sweep of 8/10s I gave this album originally holds up? Absolutely not, considering I had to go back and rate half of the album again; that said, it’s not very far off that original mark. I’ll be disappointed if this is truly a new sound, because I’ve been looking for it for god knows how long.

Geordie Greep (feat. Seth Evans) - Motorbike (9/10)
- It’s a wonder I didn’t rate this one higher when I first listened through this album; knowing me, I don’t think I gave it nearly the chance it deserves. I love Seth Evans on this song’s vocals.
Geordie Greep - Blues (8/10)
- I didn’t expect to be blasted with storytelling frame one upon opening this album, but it’s certainly welcome. I love how this one ramps up as it goes along; pretty much everything in this song feels like it’s moving in the same direction at once in a very satisfying (or unsatisfying, considering the narrative) way.

Bon Iver - i,i

Maybe a masterwork as iMi set way too high of expectations for me for the rest of this album; if so, the notion would be disappointing, but not unexpected. Bon Iver’s style is weird in a way I welcome, but I don’t think I quite get it how it’s applied to a lot of this album.

Bon Iver - iMi (9/10)
- This floored me back in 2019 when I heard it first and still carries that energy even now; at least, now I’m using an actually sane rating system.
Bon Iver - We (8/10)
- I was torn between giving this song and another one a shoutout; they’re both very strong entries, but I think I listen to this one less. This song resolves in an incredibly satisfying way while being captivating throughout.

Justice - HYPERDRAMA

In comparison to †, where I at least went in and came out with a song I loved beyond the rest, I didn’t really have one of those for this album; in exchange, I saw a much more refined take on what Justice had to offer prior that was still a decently fun listen.

Justice starring Connan Mockasin - Explorer (7/10)
- It’s hard to pinpoint a real favorite off of this album for me, but if anything were to come close to that, it would be this. A unique sound for an album like this. I like how the entire track builds up to the vocals at the end; it’s something I want to do if I ever get back into music production myself.
Justice - Generator (7/10)
- The nonbinary people in my life love this song, and so do I, by categorical proxy. I really don’t know why they did that music video, though (DO NOT RESEARCH).

Tyler, the Creator - Flower Boy

My raving review of CHROMAKOPIA when that came out eventually led me to look into a sliver of the rest of Tyler’s discography I’d been meaning to return to, a journey I was pleasantly surprised by due to just how consistently I liked what I was hearing. It’ll be interesting to continue down this path; the knowledge that CHROMAKOPIA references the rest of his discography makes the look back all the more eventful, in theory.

Tyler, the Creator - See You Again (9/10)
- If not for this masterwork, I would have never had my eyes on this album in the first place. I think it’s what I like about St. Chroma as well.
Tyler, the Creator - Glitter (9/10)
- Similar to some of the rest of this album, but is very fun overall. I love the first half of this one a lot, especially; the beat is very fun with a lot of oomph to it.

Tyler, the Creator - CHROMAKOPIA

Hope in a bottle. That was the phrase I used to describe St. Chroma the first time I listened to it, which I continue to use to this day, because it still applies. Though there are a few lowlights, the rest of this album is powerful and very interesting from a producer and artist like Tyler in a very captivating way. I was on the verge of crying the first time I listened to this, primarily because I was hyper-sensitive at the time, but I don’t think that diminishes how surprisingly impactful this album was to my life. I will continue to praise this album as long as I remember it.

Tyler, the Creator - St. Chroma (10/10!)
- Hope in a bottle. I said it before, and I’ll say it again.
Tyler, the Creator - Tomorrow (9/10)
- I don’t know why this track stood out to me as much as it did. Perhaps it just felt emotional? I know it was in the instrumental, but I can’t quite put into words what. I just know it was incredible.

Nardis - Call

I didn’t have the ability to listen to this album in full for a while, so I didn’t. I’m very glad that that’s changed. Nardis is incredible, I knew this already, but what I’m seeing now is such a unique spread of talent from them I hadn’t really exposed myself to before. It’s a worthwhile listen.

Nardis - Call (9/10)
- This is how I know about this album and easily still one of my favorite songs off of it. It’s got a powerful impact behind it.
Nardis - Yggdrasil Leaf (9/10)
- I’m a little surprised how much I liked this, especially because I thought this song was generic, but what it does well it does splendidly. It feels like it’s got a pace that never drops off.

2/16/25

Kendrick Lamar - Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers

I need to listen to more Kendrick Lamar.

When he makes something good, I love it. When he makes something I don’t enjoy, I still respect it, but I struggle to listen to it. This is an album that featured both of these in equal amounts, though even the low points were still strong. What shines through in this work, however, are the layers upon layers of storytelling at work in the album as a whole, as well as each individual track; in my case, a few tracks I wouldn’t normally like I paid more attention to because what was going on was so clear and meaningful. Either way, I’m going to remember this experience for the better.

Kendrick Lamar - United In Grief (10/10!)
- I heard this one before I heard the full album and fell in love with the beat immediately. I’m only promoting this to a 10/10 now in context of the rest of the album. It’s enrapturing.
Kendrick Lamar - Mother I Sober (10/10!)
- Kendrick’s storytelling at its finest. It’s such a hard contrast to something like United In Grief or N95 that fits with the theme of the album and presents a profound message.

Cosmograph - WE ALIVE

I was expecting not to like this album nearly as much as I ended up liking it, but I actually ended up liking the second half of the album consistently better than I liked the first half. I’m surprised by, save Fevertime and the remixes, how consistently good my ratings were. As a whole, this is a profound demonstration of how varied Cosmograph’s style is, and I liked pretty much everything I heard, even down to the intermission that bridges both of my favorite songs off the album.

Cosmograph - The Midnight (9/10)
- This hits a weird soft spot for drum and bass for me that I know I will continue to go back to. It’s generally very uncluttered, yet the neuro drums still shine.
Cosmograph - Dreamer (EXTENDED) (9/10)
- The gap between this and The Midnight is the half of the range of songs I would call a 9/10, but they’re still equal by rating. Lots of energy outside of the drops.

femtanyl - CHASER

I’m disappointed that I didn’t love this one as much as all the other weird queer people I know do. I have to wonder if I think it tries to hard, or it takes doesn’t take what I like about the genres and works that inspired it. Not to say I didn’t like it, of course; I think the highlights of this album were still quite good, while the lowlights were singular (MURDER EVERY 1 U KNOW!, just because I hated the vocals). It’s worth a listen.

femtanyl - P3T (9/10)
- This stands head and shoulders over the entire rest of the EP. Profound sound with a weight behind it unique among femtanyl’s discography.

ericdoa - DOA

I liked dancinwithsomebawdy a lot and thought I’d like the rest of his work as well, but by no means did that desire manifest. Most of the album is alright at best, but not incredible enough for me to come back, with a few exceptions that still feel too “pop” to make me fall in love more than a casual glance.

ericdoa - dancinwithsomebawdy (8/10)
- I’m surprised ericdoa didn’t channel more of this with the rest of the album, but I honestly can’t be mad. It’s got weight and it’s got a unique and fun sound; what’s more to love?
ericdoa - imcoolimgoodimstraight (7/10)
- A very fun to listen to track with an inoffensive sound.

Justice - †

I feel really bad for I’m about to say knowing all the Justiceheads I do, but I don’t really need to defend it either because what I didn’t like off of the album I genuinely found grating. From hard to listen to sampling to Newjack making my ears feel like they’re being microwaved, there’s a lot of awkwardness in this early work that I can’t bring myself to like. Sure, there was a highlight, but there was also a lot of the album that just didn’t have any reason to stand out to me. I wish there was more for me to get into here.

Justice - Genesis (8/10)
- A very engaging track that takes a lot of different sounds and implements them in an interesting, fun way.
Justice - DVNO (7/10)
- This would’ve been the easiest 8/10 of my life if the vocals were any better to listen to; instead, the drops sounded incredible and the verses felt so, so different.

Charli xcx - BRAT

The trans women in my life have been begging me to listen to this one, and honestly, I don’t really get it as much as I thought I would. Either I loved a song enough to take it away from the album as its own thing or I just ended up not liking it at all; in two cases, these songs are back to back in the tracklist. It’s inconsistent in many ways, and honestly, it didn’t feel good to listen to at the time; as much as I expected that, I was left disappointed regardless.

Charli xcx - Everything is romantic (9/10)
- Every time I listen to this song, I just fall in love with it again and again. The sampling is tasteful and the production work is some of the finest off the entire album in my opinion, with both of the main sections having such a different sound to them that is incredibly refreshing.
Charli xcx - Club classics (8/10)
- A track that knows exactly what it wants to be and executes incredibly well. I enjoyed it a lot.

Scott James - Un

I’m glad I experienced this.

Compared to Shelter Island Heights, the sound of this album is so distinct and jarring. The emotion of each song can be heard from its production just as much as the vocal work, and every song, enspecially the ones I ended up loving each have such a unique air to them. I’m mad this album wasn’t easier to listen to from an actually finding it perspective; music like this deserves to be preserved.

Scott James - Ballet (10/10!)
- If I never listened to this song five years ago, one of my headmates might never have manifested.
Scott James - 2 Months Ago (9/10)
- I don’t know exactly how to describe this one in a way that sufficiently represents it. I feel it. It’s only as long as it needs to be to communicate what it needs to and does so incredibly.

Scott James - Shelter Island Heights

Compared to the two tracks off of this that I heard well before I heard the rest of the album, one of which became an earworm for me not long after I listened to it again after a long time, the rest of this tracklist as a whole doesn’t compare. That’s not saying that much, all things considered, as half of those tracks still stood out somewhat profoundly to me.

Scott James - Ropes (9/10)
- XXXTENTACION has good taste.
Scott James - Fourth Leg (9/10)
- This song was an earworm for me not that long ago. I used to downplay it often, but it’s got a very profound sound to it with a stable progression.

Original introduction

I’m starting this as a much lower maintenance, and far more topical, replacement to my old daily music thread, with each new album I rate. Besides my favorite tracks off each album, as well as any 10/10s (as I very rarely hand those out), I’m keeping my ratings to myself, writing a brief review for each of the albums instead. If I listen to a single I give an especially good rating to around the same time, I’ll also add it as a bonus.

Because of the lower maintenance nature of this post, I’m not going to link directly to any albums; I apologize for the inconvenience.

Backlog

I’m adding this section because I’ve got one hell of a backlog going and I want to hold myself accountable for it proper.

Always up to date as of my last review and entirely unordered. I am not obligated to attend to this list before anything else, this just serves to aggregate the things I’m interested in.

Inferi - The Path Of Apotheosis
- I started this album, got less than halfway through, and then abandoned it. Even though I’m liking it so far, I don’t think I could do this all in one session.
Machinedrum - Vapor City
かめりあ - Galaxy Burst
かめりあ - U.U.F.O.
Flying Lotus - Flamagra
- Partially rated off of a whim after listening to You’re Dead, but not at much detail.

My thoughts on the 2026 Formula 1 liveries

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 10:08:59 -0500

I just woke up and I’m groggy as hell, but the Ferrari livery is so ass I had to make this.

“2026 will mark a new era for Formula 1”, a phrase I’ve been hearing for the past 3 years. I’m excited about what’s coming and I can’t pretend I’m not, but the constant re-iteration of that point makes for very disappointing discussion about the sport’s future: Practically everything has built to this season, from Lewis’ shock Ferrari transfer to five rookie signings in the same season to Audi AND Cadillac AND a billion other title sponsor partners from HP to Atlassian to whoever is giving Cadillac enough money to field Zhou Guanyu as a reserve driver. If you’re in F1, or even just into F1 at all, 2026 is supposed to be your year; it’s like everyone was bored of the last era of Formula 1 regs not even moments before they started; at least, until McLaren started to actually have a chance.

With 2026 in mind, the moment everyone has seemingly been waiting for, the cars have (begun to, as of the time of writing) roll out, and with them comes a new set of liveries to review. I began talking about the F1 liveries last season in a private Discord server, but with the new season underway and a fresh outlook on things, I think it’s a good idea to review them here. Given the first paragraph of this, I’m not super looking forward to the others, but I’ve got to try.

All images sourced from the F1 website.

1/15 - Red Bull

That’s a pretty nice livery, actually. I honestly think the biggest complaint I have is the team shirts.

Red Bull’s partnership with Ford opens up a door for them to return to a more vivid blue, one that the team is somewhat acquainted with from their older days. I love the front nose of this thing; active aero will probably see the team putting the logos on the front wing in more parseable spots naturally (though honestly, I forget how active aero works, so that’s probably a bit far-fetched). I think my biggest point to this car is that, despite being and feeling very modern, it’s got a very retro feel to it as well at the right angle, though I think that’s just a consequence of the 2026 regs themselves. One thing I didn’t immediately notice was the busy patterning on the blue itself; while it’s busy, it’s clearly a weight saving move that matches the underbody of the car in an unobtrusive way.

Again, my biggest complaint is 100% the team shirts: The blues don’t match in my eyes and pops too much on Red Bull’s standard issue blue. It’s going to be awkward seeing a crew in a lighter blue standing around a darker car; maybe there’s merit to the unpainted sections below the car as contrast, but it still feels awkward.

All in all: Not bad. Besides those weird dots, the livery is a nice throwback in simple colors with generally tasteful changes.

1/15 - Racing Bulls

With Red Bull comes their chud ass little brother. I hate them and what they stand for; basically everything about them, except for how good their car looks.

Racing Bulls didn’t really need to change much this year, but what they did change makes the car that much more beautiful. The Ford blue is tastefully applied, while the car retains much of the white that I love so much and the front nose that the Red Bull cars do very well. I’d argue that any modern Racing Bulls car handles the color scheme better than the Red Bull cars do, even, but maybe it’s just me being biased towards a white car like this.

Impressively, I don’t think I have a single complaint about the Racing Bulls livery; they do some of my favorite liveries on the grid, as well as in general. It’s just a shame that Racing Bulls has to be the brand representing it.

1/19 - Haas

Ah, how the teams I hate have beautiful liveries. This time, it’s a team I’m fine with in modern-day action, at least.

This one’s another beautiful white livery that tastefully weaves in a good red and black that Haas are known for in recent years without the black being obtrusive like it was in past years. Even the Gazoo Racing sponsorship logo feels like it has a great place in this package. This feels like the most visually stunning and confidence-inspiring livery I’ve seen Haas have… ever.

No questions asked. I am just stunned. Every detail is perfectly placed. It’s shocking how much I like this one. I wonder if there’s a Toyota buyout in this team’s future to make me hate it less.

1/20 - Audi

The biggest rebrand on the block sports yet another stunning livery that comes as a huge surprise after their 2023 concept seemed so different. I could say I’m disappointed that they didn’t do something with that level of personality, especially because this feels like it should be a McLaren throwback livery with the glossy paint, but on its own, it stands tall, proud, and beautiful.

What I love most is the use of both the titanium and matte dark gray and the contrast between them being the core of the livery, which gives the red a lot of focus without being overly dominant. It makes the livery a very nice middleground between many of the teams that are present on the team currently and allows the team to inject its identity onto the grid without sacrificing its colors, even down to their red being as unique as it is. It’s a neutral base with incredible usage of accents that’s incredibly clean and doesn’t let its sponsorships bog it down (save the BP sponsorship that has the HP problem, but handles it well).

In short: What a way to make a visual entrance to the F1 grid. So far, it’s my favorite livery this season, an honor I thought would’ve gone to one of the white cars at first. I’m excited to see this one on the track.

1/21 - Mercedes

Mercedes has learned from their past livery mistakes and made something busy that still works well and is drop-dead gorgeous at certain angles.

Mercedes combines many of their best livery decisions in the modern year into a single car. It’s a bit much, I have to admit, but that doesn’t mean it’s not very nice; I love the detailing down the side in the grey and aquamarine and the silver arrows lining the rear body in standard Mercedes fashion. Those blackout sections speak to the identity of the modern Mercedes F1 team in a very nice way.

There’s just one thing about this livery that pisses me off, the same thing that’s pissed me off about the liveries before it since 2024: A silver nose on the black body that’s so out of place against the backdrop of the modern Mercedes. It’s the worst, silliest detail on a car that is otherwise very nice. I’ll give Mercedes that they’ve made the nose a more palatable touch with a bit of grey covering on the sides, but it still has to fade into black somewhere and chooses to do so in a not-so-great spot.

When Mercedes unveiled the first livery with a silver nose on a black base, they touted it as a unity of past and present. This livery looks beautiful from the front. This livery looks beautiful from the sides. It looks ugly on the diagonal. Where is the unity here?

1/23 - Alpine

Alpine’s greatest tragedy is that BWT pays them this much to be a title sponsor, so much that they can’t even invoke their own brand identity.

For one, I love the direct Alpine is trying to take here with their car; it speaks to older Alpine, and the metallic sheen is a nice, rarely-used touch in a color as bold as this. The blue base is, in my opinion, the best touch Alpine could ever ask for, properly evocative of who they are. It’s a shame that BWT had to come in with a can of pink paint and ruin everything.

The pink on blue that the BWT sponsor logo and other car accents paint on manages to be even uglier than the massive pink stripe Alpine has gone for in recent years; by continuing to incorporate their pink into the car, Alpine is forced to deal with a poor color combination over massive swaths and segments of the car. It’s not even like BWT, either; their best and most iconic liveries are the ones where the logo and pink highlight just cover the car entirely, being the main centerpoint rather than fighting with Alpine blue for attention. It’s a bit of a mess, put bluntly.

In short: Pick a side.

1/23 - Ferrari

This? The year I decide I’m going to try being extra chill with Ferrari, this is what they make me look at? I might actually cry.

I know what Ferrari is trying to do with the massive white splotch on top of the seat, with HP seemingly mandating that their logo has to be blue and all and them needing to integrate it into the car somehow. I, for one, have adored Ferrari’s red and white liveries historically; I loved their Las Vegas 2023 livery and thought that their 2025 livery did this exact same thing fine, despite all I have had to say about Mercedes. On the other hand, where is the rhyme or reason here? Why does it feel like the HP white is expanding like mold? Who designed something so horribly placed when cars approaching the grid this same very year, from Audi to Mercedes, manage to do an accent color like this even better than the team with enough history to learn from this mistake ten times over? In fact, how does Audi’s literal second ever livery manage to do what Ferrari wants to do this much better?

I just have to remember that, even if I like to see other teams win, I’m a McLaren fan at heart.

2/3 - Williams

They didn’t mess this one up nearly as much as they could’ve. Doesn’t mean I have to love it at all, though.

This is a team that really shouldn’t have the Alpine problem with BWT, but this livery is giving that impression. Williams barely plays off of the iconic sponsors I imagine fans have been dying to see on the car, instead adding blocks of light blue for Barclays and white for Komatsu that feel awkward on the car; plus, that front wing with the white strip doesn’t really do that angle justice, either. I at least think the Duracell logo placement is fun, but that’s not really much. I don’t normally comment on the wheels, but they’re definitely the worst part here, with whatever gambling site shilled out the hardest to Williams throwing a blotch of paint that matches nothing of the rest of the car. It’s the same principle that I love when it’s implemented on the Audi car, yes, but the shape and size of the blocks of color are awkward.

I’m also going to take the opportunity to dig at the shade of blue they used, at that. It’s a bit too light. It’s awkward. It actually reduces the contrast with the light blue and white that should pop out in a beautiful way. This is maybe the dullest Williams livery I’ve ever seen, and it’s unfortunate that I’d rather Alpine get my vote for best blue livery this year.

It definitely saddens me that this design of all of them fell off this year, because Williams is a team I’ve always liked.

2/8 - Cadillac

And now, Cadillac enters a different motorsport with… something completely different? I thought this was going to be more like their WEC car, but we get peak instead.

Alright, I’m biased here. A pure black and white livery, even down to (most of) the sponsors, is so incredibly cool. The gradients are surprisingly tasteful, lining the entire car for a very unique look, and for all I don’t love the scattered lines near the back, they do wonders for the brand identity and, from the back, almost have the same look as the checkered flag, likely not intentionally. This is a team with an identity that deserves to be represented on the grid, whether in the points or not.

While I don’t have much to say, I do think there’s still a point to be made in the other direction. I love white liveries, but as it stands right now, there are three of them on the field, including three nearly white team color markers on the online boards, one of which is a team that isn’t running a white livery. I imagine this livery will stand out greatly at the races, yes, but it’s going to make actually sorting through records a bit hard.

I think I’ve made my point clear enough. If you wanted Americans like me to look at your car, this is a surprisingly bold move; familiar, but in a novel way.

2/9 - McLaren

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. A simple livery that speaks to the team’s identity indicative of past champions. For all I hate Google’s presence, in particular Gemini’s presence, on this car, being so flagrantly AI colored, I’ll at least enjoy looking at those wheels more than I have in the past in this era.

I’ve always loved everything about the new era of McLaren liveries (except for those rims): They’re simple, striking orange with black patterns I dearly love. It’s in part bias for the team, because obviously, they’ve done nothing interesting here, but that’s not to say I can’t like it at all; I think they’ve settled on their direction quite well and it speaks to a solid brand identity better than a lot of the teams on this grid are currently doing. I like what seems to be a slightly longer chevron on the nose of the car; it’s certainly not like the Marlboro liveries, but having one with the big black stripe on the back got me to pattern recognize it when I saw this at first.

As I mentioned before, there’s one striking detail that I hate about these liveries that stops me from fully appreciating them, being those annoying rims. Google has enough say in this team that they can print their four-colored mess on these wheels every season; now, with the advent of AI sponsorships, including swapping out Chrome for Gemini entirely, the wheels are a lopsided mess that probably won’t even be noticed during the race. With how much more blue they are, I do think they’ll be less annoying to look at, being a solid color that speaks to the previous McLaren era, but it’s muddled together with colors that aren’t quite so pretty on a car like this.

I don’t care as much as I should. I want to see them do well this year, champions or not.

2/9 - Aston Martin

This being an online reveal is very disappointing. I think I’ll be biased against this car a bit thanks to that, as the lighting doesn’t really do it justice, but let’s see what we’ve got here anyways.

A smooth, tasteful black underbody and front wing. Tasteful highlights in the British racing green with the body being that striking darker green that I like. This feels like another example of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, advice that Ferrari really should’ve taken back around Vegas ‘23, so there’s ultimately not much to say about this livery except for the fact that I like it a lot. I even like it down to the wheels, too; having black and white wheels on the body of a car like this will make it very pleasant to watch. Even the colors on the rear wing are relatively unintrusive for the palette, unlike a lot of the logos on liveries this season; however, that might just be because it’s rear wing only and aramco knows its place not to paint over those black sidepods.

Clean and effective, far more than I feel like their journey this season will be. A nice way to end off this list.

The Amazing Digital Circus is my first generally positive media thread review

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:09:56 -0500

I got dragged into watching this in a VC with friends from the Elysium community; we watched the first four episodes together, then waited a few days before watching the last three (as of the time of writing). I had already seen the pilot, but had no experience with the rest of the series besides things heard over the grapevine. It was going to happen eventually, but really, it should’ve started earlier.

I’m gonna try to do something smart for this and seperate this review into a no spoilers and spoilers section, because there are specific things I want to talk about in both.

Spoilerless review

The Amazing Digital Circus as a world at face value has inspired some worldbuilding I’ve done for alt-sonas of mine (that, admittedly, have all become my main names and sonas online, to the point where I expect people to call me O-N or Mono instead of WISH). For all those guys go through, it’s a fun little world, and arguably that’s even explored in-universe in some of the later episodes. It’s no surprise that I found myself watching it properly at some point, besides the distance I (partially unintentionally) keep from watching or reading media of that sort. I think it’s fair and easy to say that The Amazing Digital Circus was definitely worth my time in spite of this; it was interesting, thoroughly entertaining from the front to the back, and filled with love I wouldn’t notice without really understanding.

This show does what it does well very well; the intrigue is there, the episode premises are all consistently interesting, and the worldbuilding is strong. The characters are well designed, with Pomni as probably one of my favorite designs in the show due to how the animators work with her and Jax as by far my least favorite due to how simplistic the design is, though I feel it plays its role in showing off the character. It’s also incredibly easy to tell when this show got its budget, as the episodes jump massively in visual quality; the detatils improve, the designs improve, and everything just fits into place.

What I feel I need to focus on, however, is the character dynamics. How the main cast interacts runs the show from bottom to top; obviously, Pomni leads the cast in terms of screen time, being the source of the episodes’ perspective, but past the first few episodes, I feel like she plays an important role moreso as the eyes through which the story is observed, the Ishmael to the Pequod that is the Circus. Moments are given to the other characters in spades, whereas Pomni is closer to a blank slate that doesn’t have much to gain, and arguably, the best moments in the show are the ones where she isn’t the one leading the dynamic. It’s a unique way of writing the show that I definitely enjoy a lot, opening up a really unique lens on the large sum of character growth that happens throughout the series.

I can’t say much about the show just because I suck at speaking on things like this at length; this is the first time I actually have to praise something in a while, after all. With it out of the way, I want to speak more on the character dynamics I mentioned above in a spoiler-filled way.

SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SERIES BELOW

I mention how I feel about Pomni’s role in the story above already, but I think I need to further state my love for how it’s handled. She’s a beautiful carrier of the narrative based on how she acts; I appreciate how she wisens up and becomes more grounded going into the later episodes, especially episode 7 where she is allowed to take charge, though it does come with the mixed bag of her settling into the Circus overly quickly; as much as she doesn’t really need it, it feels like there should be growth on-screen that never happens. I think how she’s portrayed, especially the contrast between the first few episodes and the rest of the show, makes her great at this blank slate sort of role; every interaction she has tells you less about her and more about the character on the other end of the discussion, from revelations about Kinger to Jax’s crashout to even Ragatha’s struggles to reach out to her, something that ultimately led to that touching moment with Kinger. On the flip side, I will say that I definitely don’t like how little Pomni and Jax suddenly becoming friends is explained; it’s almost portrayed as a heel turn and is outwardly described as “corruption”, even if we get to see Pomni’s emotions in full display at pretty important moments in the show.

Besides Pomni herself, I think Jax is a strong contender for the actual protagonist of the show, at least in the later episodes, but even in the earlier episodes, much of the character interactions involve him in particular; often, he’s angled as a foil or outright antagonist, but much of the show focuses on his mask, the relationship with Kaufmo and Ribbit he no longer has, and how his outlook has shaped how the rest of the cast sees him. I’d like to believe that’s good reason that the scene of him abstracting is deliberately as long as it is, as well as the shift in perspective; we don’t even get solo scenes of Pomni, the main character, but we get one of Jax of all people. The show reinforces the fact that he’s likely here to get fucked, and leaves what truly happens to be incredibly open-ended. With him, however, I think there’s an important dichotomy between loving his role in the story and actually being able to like the character. Compared to the rest of the cast, just because of how he acts, I’d even consider Caine to be more likable. I definitely get it and like it; that arc is what this story needs, and what this story I feel best focuses on, but getting there means dealing with an asshole lead for seven episodes straight. I’m very curious what happens in episode 8, especially considering what we know about it; I think it’s time for him to take center stage.

On the other end of the spectrum of Pomni’s friends, there’s Ragatha, who I feel has a somewhat undercooked dynamic in all of this; however, I appreciate it being acknowledged with some level of dedication. It feels like she never got her chance directly in the spotlight, unfortunately, but it’s not like her dynamic isn’t explored throughout the runtime of the episodes, so I wouldn’t complain too much.

Zooble and Gangle feel to me like the sideplot characters of the show; while the rest of the crew has their dynamic, one that even Zooble and Gangle join in on, so many interactions obviously happen between explicitly the two of them from episode 4 onward, the episode so clearly billed as “Gangle’s episode”. The show quite obviously pit the two characters with more obvious gimmicks together; in the case of Zooble, it’s less immediately present in the writing, but definitely speaks more to how she interacts with the rest of the show at large, which I appreciate even if I think her presence in the show is weaker than Gangle’s. I do, however, appreciate how things pick up when Zooble and Gangle are slated to interact directly, as well as her mentioning her dysmorphia as part of the plot, even if it felt cast over due to the nature of the scene.

Compared to Zooble, I feel I can speak to Gangle more at length, especially in the wake of episode 4 being so clearly made for her (which honestly, I’m sad the mask from that episode never made a comeback, as I liked its design a lot). I’m glad that the direction for how she was written after her moment in episode 4, an incredible moment on its own, didn’t seem to fully be dependent on her gimmick from then on out; at least, not to the extent of her comedy mask immediately breaking. I do appreciate how much her gimmick does apply to her, but she was very hard to find interesting early on until suddenly she got massive amounts of exposition and support from the cast. The interactions she has in episode 6 are a very fun way of using that gimmick productively that I’d rather have seen earlier in the show, wherever it’d be fitting.

Kinger feels like enough of an enigma, even with all of his exposition, to where I find him quite hard to talk about. A part of me thinks he still deserves more, while a part of me acknowledges that they’ve set him up in situations where he can shine more than once and it’s great to see the attention to detail in how they do so; I love a show working around that, but I feel like the interesting side of Kinger isn’t explored as much as I feel it could be. There’s also the mystery of whatever Abel was leading onto in episode 7, which I’m guessing contained more of the truth than was implied by the show; I like Kinger referring to the “first abstraction” in front of people named Caine and Abel of all things, even not long before Caine literally just goes ahead and kills Abel. If there’s anyone I wish was paid more attention, even though he’s already gotten so much, it’s Kinger at the end of the day; perhaps that’s why he’s a character a lot of people liked.

At the end of this long ramble lies Caine. The show, and a lot of the people who watch it, try to make me feel bad for Caine, and it’s hard to do so because at the end of the day, he’s complicit in what’s going on, even given the issues clear with him from episode 3. I’ve always treated him as some evil mastermind when watching the show, and episode 7 was a massive indicator in that direction, even if it tried not to be; he’s got reasons for what he does that go against the wishes of the people he tries to act like he cares about, and he’ll continue doing what he’s doing, C&A or not. Even if I’m not much of a fan of Caine overall, though, I do appreciate his energy and the worldbuilding his presence is able to expose to the audience. Namely, as someone with experience with it, the Chinese Room bit, including its presence as a notable plot coupon, was incredible to see, especially in the context of it being a critique of the machine learning as a brain analogy; unintentionally, Caine makes fun of himself while setting up the entire adventure, and that got me good.

To return to the speculation episode 7 left us with, as I mentioned when I spoke on Kinger: I believe that there was a kernel of the truth in what Abel was saying it, and there’s two very good ways of taking it: If Caine is malicious, he could be trying to throw the crew off by misdirecting them on the weaknesses of the system; however, given the fact that both Abel and Caine mentioned C&A as plot points in an adventure Caine claims he setup himself, this could very well be him trying to cry for help and giving truthful clues as part of an adventure. Caine potentially knows Pomni would recognize the C&A logo, as she’s been in the void, and could be trying to use her as a way to back up his claims about C&A, whether he wants her to be honest to the crew or to go along with a lie propogated by Abel, and I can see both being equally likely in this scenario. Furthermore, a setup like this is a great way to break Jax if he wants him to be abstracted; he’s probably doing a whole lot, as are his friends, if the truth about Caine existing to keep their minds active is true. When I wrote the draft for this, I was wondering whether giving up or death was the closer thing to abstraction; I could see the former because the closest we got to seeing an on-screen abstraction was likely Jax’s dream, and the latter because of Kinger’s “first abstraction” comment, as mentioned above, as well as the funeral, almost as if they were properly dead. I think anyone who’s seen everything they have of this show knows something is going to happen to Jax, or it’s going to get close to happening, and he’s either going to have to redeem himself or abstract, somehow.

With that, I finally get this review out. It’s been a draft since the 29th of January and I felt a need to change that.

Avatar: Fire and Ash was too much all at once

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 17:15:56 -0500

SPOILERS FOR THE AVATAR SERIES, OBVIOUSLY

I went out to watch this movie with my parents on New Year’s Day. This movie was definitely not a great start to the year, even if a massive upgrade from my Christmas Day movie, but it definitely had some things going for it.

When I came out of the theater and wrote my preliminary notes, I described this movie as “The Way of Water but it’s almost 3 and a half hours long”. I came out of the movie theater exhausted and just looking to get home as soon as possible to do whatever I did when I actually got home at the time. It’s easy to say that the movie’s content definitely did not warrant its runtime, even if I did get enjoyment of it all of the way through; at its core, the movie is a ton of subplots that happen to be resolved around the same time because of the same situation, and while that’s a boring way of handling it, it’s at least servicable to each of these subplots. The entire movie is supplemented by even more depth and detail into every aspect of the worldbuilding, something that was captivating on its own; everything about the wind tribe, for how little we actually saw of them, was very interestingly thought out, even if the implication of Jake cutting apart a living creature with his knife to slow his fall is a bit morbid in post (which, to be fair, it was a life or death situation). This series continues to strike again and again with interesting worldbuilding, but disappointingly, it’s probably one of the most captivating things about the series at length and one of the few reasons the movies stand up in my eyes.

As for the subplots themselves, I’d say they were resolved pretty well on their own. It seems the Sullies are in a far better state than when they started, as is the village and the world, but because of this, it feels like there’s nothing to go on for an Avatar 4 that they’re so clearly teasing with how easily that new villain retreated; if the third movie was already basically just the second but again, what else can you do when you’ve got so little to go off of? Again, I also get why many of them were resolved at the same time, but it feels weird in some areas. I also didn’t like that they basically just typecast each individual villain with an individual Sully and tried really, really hard to keep to those; I’d loved to have seen Neytiri more directly fending off Quaritch, for one, or Jake being subject to the immense pain that Varang bonding with a Na’vi seemed to cause, especially as someone who’s both got military training and also wasn’t originally a Na’vi, and it’s painful how hard they skirted some of those plays with their choreography. There’s a lot about this movie that feels unnatural; I feel like that was the point I was trying to get to, where the threads don’t feel connected, or people even just move weirdly to get certain things to happen.

Let me hone in on each of those subplots. I want to start with Lo’ak, who was supposed to be the successor to the main protagonist role from a Jake who obviously still kind of had to play that role due to some of the decisions they made, especially with the fact that he’s the narrator of the entire thing, but that all falls flat. There’s not enough narration from him and definitely not focus on him to give him the spotlight he deserves; seeing him and his plotlines, I often found myself wondering what would happen to Jake, who would just do something of even more prominence in the next scene anyways like I anticipated he would. Where’s the focus on Lo’ak’s growth? Why does it feel like the only way he’s actually grown in is moving on from his brother’s death, save maybe being able to get Payakan to speak properly to their elders? I think the first scene that highlights that is strong, but the rest of it is, unfortunately for him, very confusing. Either he should not have been a narrator of this film and the focus should’ve stayed on Jake or he should’ve been given a proper spotlight that he wasn’t, where he had to take center stage and fight the main fight, but he got none of that.

Onto Jake and Neytiri, the actual primary dynamic of the film. Jake was portrayed just perfectly competently for the character he needed to be; he was about as main character as a main character could be in a way that was easy to care about, but hard to care about deeply enough; again, as I mentioned for Lo’ak, Jake’s presence was just unoffensive enough to make him stand out as a lead, but not enough to make him feel like one, and that makes Lo’ak’s entire arc awkward as a result. Jake’s moment of weakness is very confusing, as he has no real reason to heel turn and try to kill Spider when Neytiri suddenly has the exact opposite reaction to the theme of her arc the entire movie. According to interviews transcribed on Wikipedia, where I had to go to get the proper spelling of the names of each of these characters, Neytiri was very much supposed to be seen as “unrecognizable” and even racist, which she absolutely demonstrates, but in the same way that Jake’s moment of weakness does, her sudden face turn feels very unearned. Even though their dynamic focuses on her hatred towards humans and does address the fact that that’s where Jake started, beyond that one interaction, much of it feels vapid. Why is this happening? Why is Neytiri suddenly racist in the first place, especially as someone who not only married a human, but adopted one in the second movie as well in the form of Spider? Why is she fine with being at the human encampment like she is? What’s going on at all?

Kiri’s plotline was very well-done overall, save the scenes of her trying to interface with the Spirit World, which I think could’ve been framed a bit better. I honestly forgot about the majority of her lore, but the idea of her being just a genetic copy of Grace’s avatar is very interesting and a neat plot thread. I just wish the fact that her presence in the Spirit World focused more on the dynamic between her and her mother, and furthermore, that the power of her bonds was explained in more detail than just being passed off as epilepsy, but to some extent, how can you really do that? It also feels quite dangerous to literally be ripping her nerve endings out of the ground, but honestly, what can one do? I do appreciate the scenes where she demonstrates her power, but a part of me wishes that the religious implications were a bit more focused on, as well as her status playing a more pertinent role in the movie after the forest scenes beyond being a deus ex machina at the very end, because she deserves some of that spotlight. I do like the touch of the face of the Great Mother very clearly being a human one, likely Grace’s, and I think that the ending fucks with that mysticism more than I’d like it to, even if it’s clear that she’s in touch with all of this, because it brings her right back down to earth like everyone else; personally, I would’ve liked that relationship to have stayed a bit more ambiguous, as well as for that ending to more directly showcase her newfound relationship with the Spirit World before it all.

I stand by Spider easily being the highlight of the movie. They nailed everything about him, from his personality to his main plot points to the cliffhangers that result from it; I even liked the fact that it seems like his skin is slowly starting to turn blue in some of these spots. He’s about as perfect of a character to the plot as you get in this world, and I appreciate that he gets to play such a pivotal role in it. I like the plot point of the failing masks, including the interactions that him being able to exist without one of these masks creates. I like that he’s able to take advantage of Quaritch’s emotions like he is, because it leads to really creative scenes and brings out Quaritch’s more interesting points as a character, making for the most interesting dynamic in the movie. I think Spider distinctly suffers from the least of this movie’s problems, even if his unresolved plot thread is still a bit weird and something I’d like to have seen pushed back a bit more in the progression of the plot. I definitely wish the results of Kiri’s ritual were more immediately present, either with him becoming more Na’vi to the point where he begins a transformation into one of them in an interesting way, or with him not getting affected as much by the ritual besides being able to breathe. I think the nature of the mycelial network should definitely have been explored more for the amount of screen time he ended up having. Him connecting to the Spirit World to save Kiri is probably the most powerful interaction in the movie in my eyes as well; I think Tuk also being there is a bit cheap, but the fact that he initiated it makes the scene. Despite everything happening around him, they could not mess him up at all, and I’m grateful for that.

Quaritch, on the other hand, was handled fine at best. I think they did him well, even if I groaned the moment I saw him on-screen as the main villain for the third movie in a row; again, I do like the interactions he has with Spider and Jake, but the moment he goes out to interact with Varang, it seems like things crumble and fall apart. Jake constantly talks about how Quaritch should “open his eyes”, but he ends up dying and that means nothing pays off. I hate how ambiguous that death is to the point where it might not be one. I hate that we’re denied of an implied redemption arc for the guy. I hate that half of his character arc goes out the window the moment he starts talking to Varang; what was all of that talk between him and Jake earlier, then? Speaking of: Where did all of that passion in his eyes go the moment the guy dived down to take care of Jake and co.? That was the perfect chance to end the movie right there, and he didn’t take it. That plays into him being a bold and brash idiot for sure, but it’s just more squandered potential for a character like this.

The other half of that couple, however, is definitely not the character best slated for the main antagonist title in a fourth movie. I appreciate that Pandora, especially the water tribe, is very much depicted as a society rife with internal conflict; Neytiri isn’t trusting of humans, the water tribe wasn’t trusting of the Sullies initially, even the wind tribe doesn’t want to risk having Sully on board, but it’s clear in that dialogue that they don’t hold any greater hostility towards him beyond that, and also who the only real native enemies of the people and creatures of this peaceful planet are, the only people that seem to universally be worth scorn: The ash people, a sadomasochist cult-tribe who goes out of their way just to rip away the best thing the people of Pandora have going for them just because they believe they were scorned themselves, even if they clearly weren’t. It seems to break the promise that Pandora puts down of oneness with nature, something that every movie in the series seems to exemplify: I was going to cite the fact that even a story like Genshin Impact’s puts a lot of attention onto just how kind the gods really are as my example initially, but even the original Avatar literally saw people begging to an Eywa that seemingly couldn’t help and being understanding coming out of that. This is someone who’s probably come from the same story and turns into a villain; Varang is unlikable, uninteresting, and feels almost discriminatory in how she’s presented. I’m certainly not looking forward to a movie all about her in the future.

I think when I began writing this, I wanted to be a bit kinder to this movie, because it ultimately was beautiful, but I think I took too long on that last paragraph. I think that speaks to how I felt about the movie: It had its good moments, but was not worth the length and was nothing stellar. I see what they’ve set up now and it’s clear to me that any future attempt at this series is going to be something I end up hating, and I’m certainly not looking forward to that, but this is a nice farewell to the current saga.

The F1 movie was hard to watch as an F1 fan

Thu, 25 Dec 2025 20:46:05 -0500

SPOILERS FOR F1: THE MOVIE, OBVIOUSLY

I watched this movie with my relatives over Christmas dinner. I’ll start this out with the background and follow up with the positives, since there were some.

I’m an American F1 fan, if my About Me (which I should update eventually) should also mention. I’ve been supporting McLaren since before I got into the sport proper in 2023, a timeframe that’s partially responsible for why I recognize some of the moments in this film clearly. I come into this movie from the perspective of someone who’s an authentic, even if not very knowledgeable or very dedicated, fan of the sport. I understand the direction this movie comes from; it was not meant for me, a choice I feel is disappointing for a franchise like F1 and speaks to the intentions of the brand.

In terms of overarching storylines, this movie knew where to focus on and what to film and what to do to get an F1 fan’s attention. I had lots to say about Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps as tracks given their fame (especially considering they name-dropped Eau Rouge), as well as Monza, since I attended the 2025 race there. The racers being shown directly was a neat touch, even if I found some of the details of why weird, as well as actual incidents from the races being called back to; I remember calling back to the turn 1 double Alpine crash in Hungary before it even happened, and the detail of Lando and Carlos being the first two drivers to look at each other during the helmet shots at Silverstone, even if unintentional, was a fun touch. The fact that Verstappen was as strong of a driver as he was when he was actually a challenger to the APX GP cars feels very realistic. I also liked the depiction of the 24 Hours of Daytona and GT3 racing, though it feels like a leap that Sonny Hayes would go to Formula 1 from there.

That brings me to the source of all of my biggest critiques behind the F1 movie: Sonny Hayes himself. He’s a stereotypical American movie hero who gets away with the most unlikable lack of sportsmanship because he’s able to get results off-screen. Early on, not only did he not get results, but he also put in the effort to disobey team orders and deny his teammate anything. He turns the technical director at APX GP into a prop because of how much of a Mary Sue he is in both the design principle of the car and actual race strategy before he decides to be a womanizer and make it painfully clear that said technical director, who I can’t even remember the name of because of how little that seemed to matter, was written by a man. I’m mad that he succeeded in actually getting in her pants, and further maddened by how Ruben Cervantes walks up to her and treats it like that’s normal; this movie is embarassingly sexist in this regard in ways that I can’t understand, because this technical director can’t make anything better than a “shitbox”, so she needs a man (an American man, at that, someone from a country that’s historically poorly equipped for this sport) to swoop in and save the day by doing her job for her. It’s a regression on representation in the name of furthering it that just serves to upset everyone.

It further goes to show how much Mary Sue they put into Hayes to be the old, middle-aged American miracle when the only things that seem to go right for APX GP are the things he has control over. His behavior on-track should’ve gotten him a season ban from the sport and multiple qualifications in a way that puts what I know about Kevin Magnussen’s early stints to shame, which he conveniently seems to be able to keep relying on to gain an actual fanbase and become a face instead of a heel in the peoples’ eyes. Max Verstappen has done far less to be upset about, but I still feel nothing when I see him doing well, despite how much I respect his legacy; how can a guy like this get this many fans? The rapid and unrealistic ascension of the car’s performance before it all seems to fall apart in Vegas, even if temporarily, is extremely hollow and further serves to break the suspension of disbelief; that one man can suddenly waltz in and turn a nearly bankrupt team into a masterpiece is a mockery of a sport where someone like Alex Albon ran a one-driver operation to get table scraps for Williams in one of the worst cars on the grid. His race win was literally handed to him on a silver platter; that he found his “flow” in the car while holding a multiple second lead over Leclerc to win the race in the final lap is a joke. Strategies that would run him bans and keep his team at 0 points reward someone who ultimately deserves the nothing he’s left with at the end of the movie.

Then there’s the depictions of the other drivers. I think Joshua Pearce is one of the most interesting characters in this story, even if his arc feels unearned (especially being able to front-run against Lewis Hamilton), but it’s not much of a problem. Save this and, as I mentioned above, Verstappen’s entire presence in the movie (which I did enjoy even when he was winning even on the backdrop of his 2023 dominance, which speaks volumes), this movie seemed to have a knack for making every actual F1 driver look incompetent, with random lock-ups from the best cars on the grid to that weird “sacrifice checkmate” at Abu Dhabi that ultimately ended up with Pearce and Hamilton crashing anyways and Hayes getting to not only be a martyr, but win out in the end. Hamilton looking at Pearce during the red flag feels so weird as well, especially since Pearce wasn’t even supposed to be a threat at this point, what with championship rivals Ferrari having a car in P2; I can’t even be mad that Hamilton and Toto Wolff are featured as they are, especially considering they were on the movie, but they look embarassing in the scenes they’re in. It’s sad; nothing makes sense here.

I’ll briefly mention how unrealistic the plot is. No board would be demanding a win out of a midfield team; points should be enough to yield some pay. As much as the twist villain reveal feels flaccid, both in the cinematography of the initial reveal and the weight of his appearance thereafter, I will at least appreciate that it’s one of the few things about this movie, besides the racing logic itself, that actually feels realistic; it harkens vaguely to the move that landed Lawrence Stroll in charge of what was Force India, except with a far more underhanded lead-in.

I couldn’t watch (or play) through any of the Breaking Points from the F1 games, but this movie’s plotline of learning to trust your teammates and your team and becoming a better, kinder person in the process harkens back to what I know of those games, something that stands in stark contrast to a reality emphasized by McLaren this season, as well as often in the team’s past; at the very least, Breaking Point took an arc of seven seasons, including very realistic positions for midfield teams, characters like Casper Ackermann retiring in his state and being respectable about it, and the thorough progression of multiple characters’ growth from rookie to champion (either in the well-deserved victory reminiscent of Lando Norris’ season from Aiden Jackson, or the history-making upset of the century in Callie Mayer’s victory that almost represents what could’ve happened this season with Piastri), to get there. This is a sport, after all; to constantly depict it far more saccharine than it is when rivalries are literally playing out on the stage being depicted is disappointing and a bad mark on motorsport at large.

I can’t pretend I wasn’t looking forward to this movie. I’ve been incredibly excited for F1 since McLaren’s surge in power and have seen it all over F1’s socials. The races and seasons that I’ve followed panned out in front of me on the silver screen (or, in my case, the TV screen), and even though I figured it’d be nasty, I was at least going to take a shot at it and be excited about it. I’m disappointed I ever was. I knew this would happen, and yet I held my hopes up anyways, and that’s on me. I’ll try not to do that in the future.

In short: From the very company responsible for one of the most competitive motorsports leagues in the world comes a mockery of the same league with nothing to make up for it. I wouldn’t recommend anyone watch this ever. This is why I don’t watch movies.

P.S. Knowing I have no intent to finish an entirely unrelated post I considered making, I’d like to shout out this Umamusume dedicated blog I found and greatly enjoy reading through. Thank you for your passion, Fernando Damas, writer and programmer for Va-11 Hall-A (so that’s how it’s spelled…), among other things. Maybe I’ll have your level of unadultered swag one day, but for now, I’ll happily read your posts the moment they pop up in my RSS feed.

My thoughts on Warframe's progression since the Old Peace

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 11:26:57 -0500

I struggle a lot to finish things. I’ve got unfinished drafts galore in my Hugo posts folder that I know I should either get to or scrap (probably the latter, honestly, knowing what’s there). I struggle to see a game through; I’ve got a corru.observer save halfway through the Collapse (I have been massively enjoying it so far; I stopped at the GOD fight for now), a Factorio demo run I promised a friend from the Elysium community I’d finish, I dropped ToonTown: Corporate Clash again after the Halloween update ended before I could get my Bossbot suit on my main because no one would play with me, and I’ve wanted to make a Minecraft kitchen sink modpack for months, if not years now, but I keep dropping that project (though I actually picked it up again yesterday as of the time of writing and I’m making non-neglegible progress on it). The state of my album review thread, though improved as I’ve started to claw through my background, should speak to my attention deficit well. That all said, knowing what I do about Warframe, the dopamine infused space ninja time sink of an MMO, I see now why it’s the exception.

During my all-too-brief existence as a Cohost user, a time joined by the unfortunate lack of my tourney community friends, my page was mostly dedicated to reposts and my media thread, which I’ve since moved here. Understandably, Warframe was the only repeat offender on my Cohost page, starting with my media thread post on The War Within and ending with some musings on The New War and the content after that. This game has sucked me in since I first laid eyes on it in a way that other games have struggled and failed to do, to the point where I was logging in daily during my heyday (for better or worse, honestly). I had dropped the game for a while before Old Peace came out to the point where I missed out on the Vallis Undermind, which I’m starting to catch up on now, but just that update brought me back. This game’s tug on my psyche comes from the fact that it’s many experiences in one, all that add up to some end goal; if I wasn’t having fun engaging with one angle of content, I’ll find something to do elsewhere, so on and so forth. There’s still so much I’ve yet to clear out (see: I only recently built my first amp since the Sirocco), and should I ever be interested, I’ll have much time to do so.

Warframe is often lauded for being a very friendly MMO in many aspects, to which I can definitely somewhat agree on; for a game where nearly every player will drop what they’re doing to play the new story quests and get access to the new content, the story is quite accessible, sporting only level 55 enemies at its maximum with the newest quests. In that vein of being decently accessible, from getting one’s hands on a new frame or weapon is anywhere from an off the cuff craft to a couple of hours’ worth of grinding for the dedicated, or a bunch of platinum for a prime, and I find many of these weapons last a while when I’m not using them for mastery fodder just because they’ve got so much progression in their own right. I do think the negative of what I mentioned above is that, even for a player like myself, a lot of the later content in the game can get repetitive for what feels like far less reward and the grind starts to feel like any other MMO, but that’s the point in which I pick and choose my battles. I’m definitely glad I can say that this feels like “any other MMO” at times, though, because when I’m able to sit back, not fixate too much on progression, and just play what I want to next, the game feels quite seperated from the grind at large, and that feeling is decently common in this game. It’s because of this and the streamlined early game progression that I think Warframe is worth playing in its current state as someone new to the game and, if someone would ever mention it, I’ll happily sing my praises of it.

I think I’ve said my peace on the game as a whole. The main thing I wanted to do with this post was to wrap back around and discuss how Warframe has progressed since I started playing in a way that’s surprisingly fitting for the end of the year that I’m writing this in, to just look back on where I started (from The Second Dream on, since that’s when I was sold proper on the game) and review the big mainline progression that I’ve already seen through.

I do wish I had more of an ability to write on things like this. It’s why I’ve struggled with my music thread for sure. Clearly, however, there’s enough interesting here for me to actually push through writing this entire post, though, if only I speak on that.

SPOILERS FOR WARFRAME’S STORY AHEAD, OBVIOUSLY

The Second Dream

As I said in the prelude to this section, this quest flipped the switch on Warframe as a whole for me. It got me to pay attention to the lore and gave me a breath of fresh air when it came to the gameplay (which will be a regular occurrence with each section of this) with the new mechanics and all, though in that regard, there was still a lot to be asked for. Primarily, it was a stepping stone to the far more interesting story quest in following, but I do remember that getting the Broken War made the game feel much better at this point.

What was far more compelling to me was the story presentation. I knew about the twist with the Second Dream already and the operator. The mere lore detail that Lotus hid the entire moon to protect the Operators definitely helped to get me hooked, and every little detail of the presentation of that twist sold me on the game at large in an instant. The final Lua sequence of that quest is, in my opinion, still the most beautiful usage of the Operator as a power in this game, and the final sequence of the quest as a whole is a testament to the power of the Tenno, one that just gets reinforced over and over as the campaign goes on. It felt like I had stepped out of one game and into another, to an extent, and getting a good number of new weapons just made that feel even better. I really hope that the experience up to this point is streamlined enough now that all the quality of life has been added.

The War Within

Unlocks wise, this quest definitely left a decent bit on my plate for me to look over, and I appreciated that. I thought the quest itself was long and drawn out, with some of the sections just being difficult to control, but I do think the story itself was interesting enough to excuse it. I do miss Transcendence as a power, though; the Tauron strikes are definitely a good substitute, but I find myself rarely using them, partially because I only own one (I chose Thara, for a focus school I haven’t maxed yet with plans to do so) and partially because it’s so hard to get to them in the field. The Broken Scepter is obviously no Broken War and left me confused when I accidentally activated its special power to seemingly no effect, but more mastery is more mastery and I was using the Broken War 24/7 anyways.

I liked the dialogue split in this quest a lot at face value; it opens up a lot of lore and gives you agency, even if not much. I do wish high Sun and high Moon Operators had different dialogue, even if slight, in the missions that followed, especially since this comes back up in the New War, but considering everything, I can imagine it wasn’t feasible (it wouldn’t matter to me, anyways, since I came out of all of my quests as Neutral). The nature of Transferrence set up so many cool story beats in the later story quests (see: The second-to-last scene of Whispers in the Walls), as well as a lot of the complications of something like The Hex, and was incredibly cool in practice. Unfortunately, I think I chose some of the lamest possible lines in the dialogue trees, though I don’t think it killed the experience. It wasn’t the Second Dream as a lore experience, but it sure as hell wasn’t bad either.

Chains of Harrow

This definitely hit a bit harder when I was playing for the Red Veil; I’m not anymore, since they conflict with Suda and the Arbiters. I do think it was a fall-off, both in story and execution. I think it sets up more interesting things, but a lot of it never really hit until the New War and scenes past it, and it fell short compared to the Sacrifice in my eyes. Perhaps I was just out of it at the time; there were some very cool visuals and there was a lot of neat story going on, but the combat sections themselves were just uninteresting, which I think I can say about the Sacrifice as well. Either way, I wasn’t following this quest like I followed the two that came before.

I do have to feel bad for Rell here, though. The fact that Lyon exists now definitely complicates things, but now that Rell’s just straight up dead, the seperation between them is fine at this point.

The Sacrifice

I remember being told by a friend that they didn’t like this quest. Personally, I did; it explores the intricacies in how this world works while properly exploring concepts that will be called back to in the future (especially with The Hex), and the story of Umbra was highly compelling. It sets up the deep-seated hatred for Ballas in the player that will see them through the New War, and is generally very interesting. I definitely do get that it was a bit slow, but for whatever reason, I found myself more engaged by Umbra’s story than I was Rell’s. Komi is a nice touch, probably good to keep me from getting bored during the memory sequences, and was a part of why I liked them at all. Umbra himself is also very nice; though I was playing with better frames at the time, I welcomed him to my arsenal with open arms, even if I didn’t like melee as an archetype at the time (I still like the others more, but I appreciate it; I also didn’t know that Exalted Blade shot projectiles at the time). Obviously, the Umbral mods are very important at this stage in the game, and I remember using them frequently at this stage of the game.

The New War

The big one and a big part of the reason I’m writing this at all. There was so much build-up to this quest, with Prelude to War and the necramech requirement present at the time (and thankfully removed) forcing me to slave away in the Cambion Drift, hitting a million other objectives at the same time. Eventually, I was able to start the quest, staying up late just to see it through in a single session, especially as the game forces you to commit to it and I didn’t realize the time.

There’s so much going on in this quest itself. The scenes as Kahl, Veso, and Teshin were very cool; it’s sad that we haven’t seen anything since with Veso and Teshin, both for obvious reasons, but the Break Narmer missions are interesting enough to where I’ve done a few, if certainly hard to grind. Veso’s section in particular was something I got upset at since I couldn’t just run and gun that joint, but in a game where you’re as powerful as you are 24/7, that’s a fine change of pace. Furthermore, Erra’s presence at the end of Kahl’s scene was incredible.

The Drifter’s sequences were also very interesting. As I had already played the Duviri Paradox at this point, I got somewhat of the feeling of what was going on here and already had a Drifter customization, even if barebones. Drifter’s ingenuity is nice, and I massively appreciate the look we get into how Hunhow is changing at a character, especially prior to Jade Shadows. Seeing the Stalker on his own in a scenario like this was surprisingly satisfying as well, especially after only really recognizing the guy from the Second Dream; those two fit well here; every moment and interaction felt out of place, but made sense and was ultimately satisfying in action. Pretty much my only complaint about the unique gameplay of the New War itself is the Deacon stealth section, which was perhaps the most painful thing gameplay wise, though I do love the heart-wrenching detail during my time at Fortuna of the Ventkids having the veils on. (Furthermore, only recently, I heard the post-New War Eudico special dialogue, which is just as wild in the context and a good reminder that yeah, some shit went down here.)

I think I was already far more familiar than I should’ve been with the concept of Eternalism, but I do definitely like how it’s represented in the mission. The actual visual of the deal the Operator makes with the Man In The Wall and, furthermore, the interactions between the Operator and Drifter about their predicament were incredible. I like the concept of the two switching places and still carrying cohesive conversation, as if they were both having their own conversation in their own world that ended up at the same point. I already knew about the final dialogue split, a surprising occurrence of the Sun and Moon system as if it had any weight behind it, and ended up weighing the choices of who to pick in the end for way longer than I should’ve; ultimately, I went with Margulis, since I could see my Operator, my Drifter, and the Lotus all agreeing to act in spite of Ballas and in honor of someone who deserved far more of a legacy than she got.

After genuine cinema of a quest, I opened my inbox to see what I already knew as one of the best primaries in the game: The Nataruk, a weapon that would change my perception of what weapons in this game could be entirely. It was just like getting the Broken War all over again, but I was already so committed to the rest of my box that I didn’t end up using it much, and still don’t, especially now that I’ve got weapons that are just as good, if not better, and are more fun to use. Getting to use the Nataruk just got me excited for things like the Incarnons and other late-game items, weapons that I’m now all too familar with. Nataruk notwithstanding, the gameplay of Warframe pre- and post-New War is a massive upgrade, far greater than anything any other quest since The War Within has granted: New content in the Archon Hunts and Break Narmer, the archon shard system itself, and so many more reasons to build and ways to build that just left me feeling so much more powerful. As eternally grateful I am that I don’t have to do archon hunts anymore due to how abundant shards now are, that as a detail was quite nice as well.

Angels of the Zariman/Jade Shadows

The newest quest at the time that I started to get into the game again was Jade Shadows, which I played after Angels of the Zariman, but before Whispers in the Walls, as I wasn’t forced into that. I don’t have too many thoughts on Angels of the Zariman, save for the importance of the introduction of Incarnon weapons, namely getting my first in Lex Prime, a weapon I still use due to just how nice of a Secondary Fortifier charger it is while still having incredible damage output, and the Torid, which is, of course, the best weapon in the game, something that makes all too much sense when used in practice, even with little supporting it. Other than that, it’s a quest, and zone, that’s ultimately uninteresting.

Jade Shadows is far less, but captivated me far more. It invoked emotions of indescribable sorrow in me that I don’t think I could revisit. It was sad in a way that stood in stark contrast to the rest of the Warframe universe, and every little detail about it invoked pain that seems so, so hard to do in storytelling. Needless to say, I’m a big fan of Jade’s kit, so I’ve put a good bit of energy into her build and have been using her on and off.

Whispers in the Walls

I already commented on the second-to-last scene of this and how good it was to some extent, but I feel a need to comment on it more now that I can. Much of this quest made for a very good story and an expansion to everything we’ve already learned so far. I just love this section emotionally and aesthetically; the narration of the page, followed by the transferrence and subsequent soothing of the Murmur, speaks to the Operator in a very, very beautiful way. This quest was another example of how much of a glow-up Warframe gets after each mission, with this section of the game being so beautiful and fun to play.

I watched TennoLive 2024 before playing this, so I knew a bit more than I should’ve coming into it and the 1999 segment probably didn’t hit as hard as it was meant to.

The Hex

When it was revealed that there would be dating options for the Protoframes, I thought we’d be playing as Arthur, or something like that. I doubted that the Drifter would be time traveling. This was, of course, before I played Whispers in the Walls and saw Albrecht doing that exact thing, but it’s definitely still wild to me to see in action. The fact that we get all of our gear back in this mission feels a bit weird, but in context, I imagine it was partially because Albrecht had that already in mind when he prepared the backroom. It’s very cool that we get to use it as an orbiter alternative; it’s far cooler than the Drifter camp or default orbiter in my eyes and fits the Drifter’s place in the story at this moment in time incredibly well.

KIM is a genius feature. I remember discussing many of these posts with friends of mine who were just as invested into the game as I was; it was the common thing to talk about, a reason to get lore drip fed to you. It’s a way to get to understand these characters that’s far more regular; furthermore, when you actually land the confession, it’s a very good feeling. Further, I appreciate getting the monthly cutscene in my inbox of Eleanor and my Drifter kissing lesbian style. Furthermore, I think they genuinely nailed the dialogue with the Round Table; it speaks well to Kaya and Flare especially, who both have stories I feel are best read directly, in part because I feel inept in summarizing them here.

I think they also nailed 1999 as a zone in this game. It’s literally got all of Warframe’s most digestible content, and only its most digestible, in one place, as well as an assassination and capture mission that are both quite fun for being the bosses of the two factions. It was very fun to grind this zone during this content cycle, both before and after Techrot Encore, save the fact that the maps were a bit big, though even that isn’t that much of an issue when your movement is this insane before touching the Atomicycle.

The Old Peace

The new kid on the block. I haven’t stuck around with the game as closely as I used to since grinding out the Vinquibus, as that was the main thing I wanted out of grinding at all, but god, is the Vinquibus fun. How they present the Operator’s role in this story, as well as the Drifter’s part in the aftermath of this, is great; I think I didn’t understand the role this quest played in the timeline when I saw it at TennoLive, but now that I’ve played it, it’s a nice addition to the world. I just don’t like the grind that this update introduced in Perita Rebellion. I think this quest mostly served to get me excited for what’s coming next with Tau, which I very much am excited for, and give me a reason to come on again, which I think I’ve got; I’m going to go for the rest of the Tauron strikes gradually regardless of how I feel about the mode.

I wish Adis was still alive. He’s awesome.

Reflecting on recent events

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 10:36:47 -0500

Two and a half months ago, I made a long post in the aftermath of a ton of bullshit that rattled me pretty hard within the tourney community and ultimately convinced me I needed to find happiness elsewhere. Though I’ve had time to reconcile and settle down (and I believe I have done so as best I can), I still hold that many of the points I’ve made in it stand; the community is absolutely healing, as I’ve talked about here, but I have been finding the happiness I was looking for elsewhere and, while I’ve still had struggles, I feel like I’m healing as well. I wanted to make this to talk about my experiences, what I’m still pushing through, and run back some of what I’ve spoken on before.

Beyond my most recent SoundCloud post, a mashup I made as part of a trade with Consy (see the image above for the stellar work he did on a render of me), I still have no interest in making any new mashups unless an exciting enough opportunity presents itself to get me to go back on my word entirely. While I still have no interest in contributing to mashup tournaments in a major capacity, or making my own, I realize I have a ton of old mashup project files full of scrapped content and forgotten files that I’m willing to polish and share, and have been occasionally booting up Ableton to do so. I never intended to leave the community in full; as I have been, I’m open to the spaces in the community that will have me, and if there’s a need for any second opinions with regards to mashup QOC, or any desperation for pulls in a source I know, my DMs are always open to my friends.

I’ve been hopping on Toontown: Corporate Clash more often recently, and, as I tend to, I’ve always been down to play some heavily modded Minecraft if there’s ever a server open (or a widespread enough desire to make one); if you’re interested in either, either in the tourney community or at large (if a friend from Resonite or Roblox is reading this), please let me know.

Besides this, I suppose I wanted to speak at length about how things have been for me, where I’ve been going, and what I’ve been seeing since I made the changes in my online life that I have.

On the tourney community (and being Mono)

I’m sure I spoke about it in my last post already and I’m going to speak on it again here in more detail, but things have been going incredibly in the community the past few months. I never cared greatly for Scary Rosters (and Nice Tracks) (SoundCloud link) myself, but the amount of pop that project got from the side of the community I saw was stellar. SRaNT was seeing itself through to completion while a lot of the bullshit in the greater community was happening, and ultimately, it was a beacon of light that reinforced that things were going to be good. In the past, likely before writing the article, I fallaciously saw moving away from the tourney community as fleeing a sinking ship; while I felt I wouldn’t have a home there, one I’m glad to not feel as cramped in anymore for sure, there’s still a lot of love to be given for sure, love that we’re seeing in action right now.

I’ll speak on the Mashup Tournament Wiki as well; while I was more committed to the community, I put a chunk of effort into the TINTN pages that I cared enough about, and I’m incredibly glad to see that the wiki has become as important of a resource as it seems to be in the modern day. In all honesty, this is something I was dreaming about seeing in some form since I got to the community, but was simply not passionate about to start up; for someone like me who has struggled to follow a lot of projects, having all of this in one place is a godsend. I’d love to see more ways to centralize these feeds when it comes to tourney news; I feel like if I cared more about mashup tourneys as they are, I’d be happy to start an RSS feed (or a Bluesky account, if I didn’t hate the service) and be a news anchor for that sort of content, but I don’t think I could without a team behind me. (If there is an interest in a curated feed for mashup tourney news, or if one is in the works, please let me know; I’ll happily help the cause.)

I’d also like to shout out the recent rounds for The Game (YouTube link) and Mashup Week: Megamix (YouTube link) that have been happening, as I’ve been hearing a lot of pop about the both of those. I’ve been seeing much of the pop behind both projects, especially the former, though the latter is obviously one of the biggest projects still around in the community and always worth mentioning; there’s room no matter your skill or investment, of course, but the ceilings are constantly being shattered here to this day.

Obviously, there’s much to praise about the works, but what’s mattered more to me personally is the people in them. I’m grateful to still be around the place; I couldn’t imagine just disappearing out of the blue, even if I’ve moved on in some capacity already. When I started typing this section up, I imagined that there’d be more to talk about in this department, but I realize there really isn’t much; I just remember feeling horrible about my presence in the community in the past, something I don’t nearly feel as bad about nowadays; there’s a lot of good going around. I have no intent of leaving my friends behind.

On picking up Resonite (and being O-N)

All that said about being glad I’m still around in the tourney community, the best thing that ever happened to me was actually stepping out of it for once.

I discovered Elysium, the Resonite-based virtual casino, not long before things went down in the tourney community. Being there has been incredibly fun and the community has been a refreshing break from my fears of both hopping on a social VR platform in general and also hopping on Resonite in particular; I don’t feel at all like the odd one out who has never built anything in my life, in part because there are a lot of people who were like me and also because everyone felt so much easier to approach in a sort of space like this, as opposed to the many worlds full of people where things just felt scary as someone who had barely dipped their toes into the platform. It’s the community responsible for not only getting me out of my shell on the platform socially, but also eventually leading to me getting the inspiration to create on here, as I was checking in more often just to hop on Elysium and route to other worlds from there (with one such excursion ending up with me running into yosh, who I’ve obviously seen semi-frequently around since), and slowly learning to create by piecing things together. It still remains an almost nightly stop for me these days, as I’ve found friends there and ultimately found a real place on the platform from that.

As a creator, I know the one thing stopping me from making more is my motivation, especially given the state I’m in when I hop on the game. When I have needed help, the people I’ve met on Resonite have been glad to give it; there are few barriers to creation with a community this kind, I just know I have my personal woes and do my best to not struggle so heavily in that. I’m nevertheless glad that I’ve been able to make the little trinkets and avatar features I have, as it’s helped me learn the platform slowly and hopefully make things of more substance. As a user, my main personal struggle has been the physical drive to put on my VR headset, as it’s not been a great platform for me at present, regrettably. Beyond that, it can understandably feel impossible to socialize at times, especially for someone like me who already struggles to converse with people, and I know I’ve been aching for that a bit at times. When things on this platform go well, however, they go incredibly well, leaving me with a night to remember.

I think there are a few things to shout out about this platform here. Chief among them is obviously Elysium; beyond that, I think the number one thing I need to shout out is Resonite’s own Block Party, which they hosted for their second anniversary. Going around and collecting stamps (YouTube link) led me to run-ins with all sorts of people, both those I already knew and those I had just met for the first time, and also granted me another chance to visit one of my favorite things on the platform: the open world of LIMINAL, an immersive live performance hosted within Resonite where you get to explore a beautiful dreamscape and interact with its denizens, both other audience members and the people leading the charge. It’s rarely open these days, but if you’re ever on Resonite, I highly recommend checking it out. Beyond these, there are a ton of worlds to explore and trinkets to play around with; if ever you’re worried that you’ll feel out of place on Resonite because you aren’t technically inclined or can’t/don’t want to program, keep in mind that there are so many veterans who are just happy to show you what they’ve made, and show you some things to explore on your own.

If I know you from another community, I’d be happy to see you on Resonite, as well; I’ve been compiling some worlds to show off to those interested, and would otherwise enjoy the company and peers while I try to make things myself.

I thought I’d have more to say, but I don’t

Save these two spots, I’ve been as active on Roblox as I normally am (even if I acknowledge it’s a horrible place to be overall as it stands); some months ago, I found Cornerstone Arcade on the platform and it was my home on these for a while. I enjoy some of the more niche communities on the platform, so I’ve always found something to keep me entertained; not long ago, I pressed the endgame on The Difficulty Upgrade Tree: Regrown, which took me less time than I thought it would and is ultimately something I’m very proud of. A friend of mine I reconnected with some months ago was my introduction to Gears, which I definitely want to play more of when I get the attention span for it back. I don’t think me continuing to follow Roblox is that surprising, especially since I exist in a community with a lot of dedicated Roblox players (including Enoderen, who’d go on to contribute to multiple huge games on the platform), even if I never end up playing the same games that these groups tend to. It’s alright; I’m happy where I am.

Save Toontown and modded Minecraft as I mentioned earlier, even those phases have only lasted a few days as of the time of me writing this, I’ve otherwise been pretty content where I am. I suppose that’s what I wanted to get through with this; life is better now. I’ve got friends, a place to be, and I’m happier for it. I hope all those who need it can find it, too.

Installing Linux on my own laptops to figure out what distros to recommend to people

Sun, 02 Nov 2025 01:51:00 -0400

If it’s this easy for me to put myself off writing on my blog, I should really rethink my blog. If I were more skilled and/or determined, I’d have cooked up a theme for this Hugo site that actually looks decent, but I’ve said this for months and have had no drive to change that fact, so here we are.

As of me beginning to write this section, today is August 3rd. It’s two hours past my bedtime, as well as approximately two hours since I decided I was done working with one of the two otherwise unused laptops on my desk for the night. I’m taking on the task of getting a working, somewhat Windows convert friendly setup running on all four of the computers still in my possession that I am capable of doing so on, as I imagine friends and acquaintances in the spaces I’m in might be interested in looking into Linux due to Windows 10 end of life and other factors. I’m also a relatively recent Linux convert myself, having only installed it for the first time two years ago, though I’m quite far off the deep end at this point, so I don’t think I can cite my pre-existing experience when recommending a distro; as such, I want to build my opinions up from scratch.

I feel I’m in a good position to take this task upon myself due to the unfortunate predicament that every computer I have ever owned, save one that has aged so poorly I could barely tell it had one, has had an Nvidia GPU. In major part because of this, I feel like the laptops I have at my disposal correspond pretty well to the setups my friends will have that they want to convert, especially thanks to the most powerful of them being one of the lowest spec builds possible that’s compatible with the open-source Nvidia drivers for Linux.

My goals in this pursuit are threefold:

PROTOCOL 1: Make it user-friendly

I’m doing this for Windows converts. I want to find something with a low barrier to entry; as such, save a few things that most of the people I’m making this for would never touch, I plan to install and do everything on these machines using exclusively GUI applications. If I can find something that looks similar enough to Windows (see: If I can make KDE or Cinnamon work), I’ll recommend that first and foremost, but I’ll settle for any DE that feels intuitive at the end of the day.

PROTOCOL 2: Maintain a moral standard

I do not want to endorse a platform that puts genAI right in my face, nor has my beef with Brave Browser worn off, and I’m not going to sell myself short if I don’t have to. That said, if a distro is good for every reason but a few details that can easily be dealt with, I’m willing to conditionally recommend it.

PROTOCOL 3: Get it working

I can’t predict everything. A computer will be stubborn, a distro unusable, a snafu generally impossible to escape. If it comes to it, I’m willing to use Ubuntu if it’s the only way I can get a setup to work, but I don’t think it’ll get to that. At a point like this, this would probably be a setup I’d work closely with someone to get working on its own, which is something I know I’d be willing to do for a friend.

Once I’ve got a setup that feels good on these laptops, I’ll figure out a proper benchmark and/or flow to test out from there. I’d absolutely like to give Minecraft (through Prism Launcher) and Roblox (through Sober) a shot, though I would hope to get my hands on something like 3DMark in order to get a numerical comparison between all the devices, and I’d absolutely want to test out a piece of creative software, especially something through Wine, as I know many of my friends will be coming onto the OS hoping to continue using FL or Ableton, among other similar pieces of software, and I want to be able to account for that.

That said, here are the sections for each of the computers. Until I have a way to run fastfetch or a similar command on each computer, these sections will be sparse, but I will put the specs down as soon as I reasonably can.

ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 3

CPU: Intel i7-10850H @ 5.10 GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Mobile
RAM: 32 GB

Currently running Bazzite with KDE as of 8/4/25

11/2/25

There’s another reason that I don’t plan to make any sweeping changes to this one like I initially promised I would, and that’s because this has become an incredibly practical device for me.

I think a part of me is glad this isn’t my main computer because of the issues I have with Bazzite beyond its practicality in gaming, but I’ve been getting so much use out of the laptop in its current state as a side computer and it runs so well that I’m hesitant to try another distro on it for the time being. My biggest complaint about the setup at this point is honestly that it’s not my cool Niri setup that I love so much. I think I will have to go back to installing things on this computer, so I’m glad I’m not relying on it as a method of data storage, but I’m getting too much out of this for now.

Because of Lutris existing for Windows-only software and Flathub handling swaths of Linux friendly software, I think Bazzite will probably end up working for a lot of people, especially those who aren’t worried about what I am. In that sense, I know I’m a biased customer. I’ll go back to praying someone who’s not in my position plans on switching in order to test this.

8/5/25

Unless this thing decides to throw a hissy fit at me, I’m sticking with Bazzite as long as I can on this computer, since I think I can tell what I need to from this one already and this setup feels too golden to touch. I did try getting Secure Boot working on it, though, which hasn’t worked so far. Admittedly, I’m scared of going through that nightmare of an install process again, especially since I’m going through it right now with the ROG laptop, but I can already feel that computer becoming a staple in my life for the time being and I don’t want to mess with it.

8/4/25 (pt. 2: Bazzite)

After deciding to fail the install three times in different ways, including failing a download for some reason, Bazzite’s open source Nvidia branch installed on the computer in a desperate attempt to save me from the slopventure zone, one which worked quite well. I’m very excited to test out Bazzite in particular, as it seems like it could be a great option for the people I’ll likely be shilling Linux to the hardest.

After a few minutes of using this distro for the first time, I have come to the conclusion that I have installed an angel onto my computer.

This is the smoothest fresh distro install I have ever done on any PC. Things run way better than they did on PikaOS, likely because practically everything is newer. Bazaar is an incredible piece of software that blows KDE Discover out of the water. KDE Wayland seems to run smoothly. Everything opens up fast and works well (so far), even to the point where I can actually install a KDE global theme. I am genuinely blown away by how well this is working; so far, the only drawback I can think of is that Steam and Lutris are uninstallable, which makes sense due to the distro’s design, even if weird.

When I get into qualms with the system, they eventually start to veer heavily into the territory of the power-user. This distro wasn’t made to be my daily drive, and it shows, but that’s mostly because I’m doing Arch Linux shit on CachyOS on the daily, whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. I would think that the cracks in a practically Flatpak-only system would eventually show, but I’m obviously not at the point where those would pop up yet.

There’s a part of me that wants to try out Pop! OS on this computer if I can somehow get that install working, but at the same time, I don’t think I want to mess with perfection any more than I have to, especially if it means the pain I went through to acutally install this thing. I’m just gonna give this a proper test and most likely make this my reference point when I go into benchmarks. I think my old AFK machine has competition, now.

8/4/25 (pt. 1: PikaOS)

Well, I got something working. A working PikaOS install using the graphics drivers fit for this machine is installed on the system. In contrast to my efforts from two days ago, I was able to use the installation version with the open-source Nvidia drivers as well.

So far, I’ve just been playing around with the little bit I can get going in the ecosystem, checking out KDE properly for the first time in a while after the initial install. Gaming wise, I tested Roblox with Sober first, which ran as poorly as I expected, then tested Tetris Effect: Connected, which surprised me with its performance for a machine that I never intended to game on, though I don’t have any hard benchmarks there, nor a Windows comparison. I’ve also downloaded a few extra things, though I’m probably not going to end up reviewing them myself.

My complaints with the distro and DE combination are many to the point where I don’t think it’s the right idea for a beginner; at a point, it seems like more work than it’s worth, though that’s not to say it’s bad at what it does by any means.

I think my biggest issue with PikaOS KDE is that I feel like I would need to tell people what to do, even just to navigate the interface with GUI only. I found that after the first boot, the device manager was frozen; beyond that, I found the default application dashboard theming weird, with no clue how to change it to be something I find more comfortable. I think the massive issues are mostly because the system is still in its “infancy” on my machine and believe that if I were to daily drive this, things would be better, but honestly, I don’t know if this first-time experience would convince me to daily drive as a new Linux user. The installation flow is a little bit weird, mandating two restarts, but I appreciate that the automatic partition system explains things.

It’s clear from what I’m seeing that KDE has problems, still. Discover’s interface being inconsistent is something I’ve had to wrestle with on multiple occasions while updating my Steam Deck, so I know the pain; plus, how KDE organizes Flathub on Discover pushes a lot of the most useful applications on the platform to the wayside to the point where you literally just have to search for everything you want. I do appreciate the meta packages PikaOS provides, which offset this concern a bit for specific use cases, but it’s not going to provide everything I know people will want. I should also note that when trying to install a global theme, KDE simply failed to recognize a dependency download, meaning I couldn’t install any theme I wanted, despite the interface technically allowing me to.

I also don’t like that you can’t uninstall Vim, at least as far as I can tell, though that’s bothering no one but me and my self-imposed restrictions; thankfully, the only thing I’ve needed to do on the terminal so far has been installing fastfetch.

I say all this to say that it’s clear to me that I’m already looking forward to trying out another distro. I did set my Tetris Effect Ultra PB out of nowhere on this distro, though, so that’s something. I will also say that rEFInd is incredibly nice about booting arbitrary USBs, which, as I recall, systemd-boot is not.

Initial notes

This is the “high-end” entry in this list, formerly a computer I used for college that ran EndeavourOS until recently. Trying to install a working Linux system on this laptop is also why I’m aware firsthand of how shit Manjaro is, as well as how I came to love the Arch ecosystem through EndeavourOS. Technically, this setup should work with the open source Nvidia drivers, but this one’s been very un-cooperative with my attempts to install things on it.

Yesterday, I tried installing Bazzite and Pop! OS, both of which failed catastrophically in their own ways. I think I need some time to cool down before I revisit both of those installs, which I hope are possible in some capacity, especially as I do want to see if Bazzite is worth anything.

Currently, this computer has nothing of value to boot into.

ROG Strix GL502VM

CPU: Intel i7-6700HQ @ 3.50 GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile 6GB
RAM: 16 GB

Currently running Fedora KDE Edition as of 8/8/25

8/17/25

The fact that this computer has been sitting in a weird spot and making it hard to clean the area around it prompted me to start to sunset work on this computer and move onto a new one. I think said change is mostly a distraction at this point, as I’m probably going to need to come back to this computer and exhaust all options anyways, but as it stands, it’s something I should do if I want to keep this going.

From a practicality side, I’m gonna probably end up settling on Fedora unless there’s some obscure use case where I’m converting this into a makeshift server like I used to use it. This means I’ll have to install Fedora after going through a few other distros, which will suck, but all of this is to be done in the name of science. I just have to remind myself that I can do things my way when I finally loop back to Fedora on here.

8/9/25

I stayed up late tonight. Rest assured, it wasn’t for this computer.

8/8/25

Earlier today, I had a scare that almost got me working on this computer again, as I thought I needed the 800 GB of storage space it had on its HDD as a backup for my home folder that I wanted to have during a re-install of my main machine’s OS; however, after sorting things out and deleting 800 GB worth of Steam games from my hard drive, I realized I could make it work. While I export my home folder to my hard drive, I’ve decided to work on this computer in the meantime to not slow anything down.

Trying to install Fedora has me trying out GRUB variables just to get the installer to boot, as no GUI applications were booting without me making a few changes in that department and I couldn’t tell you why. At the very least, the actual install went through? I’m in the actual OS right now, but I have no clue how this will go long term. The OS gets points deducted for making me use the terminal to install the Nvidia drivers, though.

As it stands, Fedora is doing some good work on this computer. Despite the initial difficulty, I’m very much appreciating that now that I’ve got everything up to date, it’s, as far as I can tell, working, and it feels alright to use. It’s good to run KDE on a platform like this, though I’m not sure if anyone who has to use this distro will enjoy the default experience. It’s also at least less annoying than Bazzite was to install, probably because you don’t have to put up with rpm-ostree while the OS isn’t entirely installed. Let’s see if Fedora can keep this up.

Tetris Effect started running just fine, then my computer froze up, so I’ll let it cool down and return to it later. It’s burning up in my lap.

8/5/25

Here’s what I know so far:

Bazzite doesn’t install for some reason
Pika OS I already know isn’t worth it
Fedora KDE killed this system the last time I did it
Pop! OS works fine
Linux Mint absolutely works, no issues here
Nobara KDE works fine, but sucks so much ass that I can’t recommend it

If someone can install Bazzite, I’d absolutely recommend that first and foremost as things are on this machine, but Bazzite isn’t working, so it’s time to go back to Pop! OS. I’d love to see if a KDE distro works here, but I don’t think one exists that won’t cause some serious issues, and Fedora KDE is one of those, especially coming from Bazzite’s install. I think I’m gonna go for Fedora one more time, actually, just to make sure.

Initial notes

Old faithful. Beaten and bruised in many different ways, but has survived me nine years at this point of usage in various capacities, despite the gradual compromise of its hardware, namely the fact that its internal battery no longer holds a charge. This was the laptop I installed Linux on for the first time, trying out Rocky Linux on the platform, which I would soon learn is not a great choice for a mere civilian such as myself.

Fittingly, my discovery arc started on this computer, as I was using it a while back to idle in Roblox games using Pop! OS as my distro of choice, which seemed to work fine, as did Linux Mint when I tested it briefly. I’d like to test how an older Nvidia GPU handles KDE and/or Wayland in my pursuit, so I’m going to keep looking once my direction for the ThinkPad is settled.

Currently, this computer has nothing of value to boot into.

ASUS Windows 8 laptop (GTX 7-series?)

This one’s not easily accessible yet. Thanks to what I know from working with the Pavillion and the Strix, this one also registers to me as lowest priority. I’ll get to it eventually.

HP Pavillion (AMD Radeon integrated graphics)

Currently running Fedora KDE as of 11/01/25

11/02/25

I have no clue if there is a way to genuinely save this machine, not for what I wish it were and perhaps not at all. At least, I don’t think this is the solution. This is what I get for daily driving this my entire childhood and probably wearing down the drive.

This can’t be my priority right now. I can’t even boot up Fastfetch on this thing to fill out its specs. I’m gonna go back to working on my other computers, if anything, unless there’s some miracle that can save this.

I’m upset, but not really surprised. I saw those Windows failures and expected some level of carnage. I just didn’t expect it to be this bad from the onset.

11/01/25

I’m back. It’s been months, but I’m back here.

As was my plan initially with this machine, I think I’m going to try to install Fedora on this and then try to install Gentoo on either the ROG laptop or here (probably here, for simplicity; installing Fedora is merely for the sake of finishing what I started). For the time being, I just wanted to pick this up and do what I planned on doing from the start, and it seems like there’s nothing of major concern on those drives that I haven’t already swooped in to rescue, so I should be good. Fedora is on a new update, however, which could add complications, but I’m willing to take the plunge. After burning Fedora onto my flash drive again (I had Bazzite for the Steam Deck on there, because that’s what I did as soon as I got home from vacation), the process begins.

At this point, everything that I should care about looks to have been backed up already, save a few things that are so minor they’re not even worth looking at. The installer looks prettier than it used to, which I appreciate a lot, in part because it also comes with Colemak-DH support by default.

My computer is burning hot while installing. Having it on my lap kinda hurt.

The system seemed to install just fine, but ran incredibly slow on the first boot. It got better after some system updates and a second update, but I’ve yet to really get into the nitty gritty and test it.

Initial notes

This one is the boss stage. Over 10 years old, according to the files on it. This thing has been with me my entire life. As I write this, it’s currently in another room with a Fedora live USB plugged into it regurgitating a time capsule of the first time I ever touched a computer onto my hard drive that should be designed for this, but struggles to handle the 150+ GB load it’s taking on.

This computer is one I’m willing to let things slide on a little bit more than many others, as I have a feeling that no one is toting around a computer quite this old and I really just want to see if I can get anything of substance to work on this at all, much less anything usable. This is a rescue project in the truest sense. I am, however, granted a bit of leniency by the fact that apparently, this is an all AMD system and I never knew this as a child. There’s a timeline where this actually influenced my parents’ purchasing decisions for the better, but I think that would imply a lot more market popularity for AMD outside of the poweruser space that doesn’t quite exist.

For now, let’s hope that backup goes well.

I will no longer make mashups or mashup tourney related work

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 14:11:27 -0400

If you aren’t in the mashup touurney community or its splinter communities, this document probably does not concern you. This is a community that’s actively working on itself and finally taking initiative to push out at least one of its worst figures, even if I fear it’s been done too late. You may find yourself in better hands here than I have.

Everything stated in this document is my opinion alone and should not reflect the opinions of any of my friends, nor the opinions of any of the people mentioned in this document, whether named outright or not. These are all my personal woes alone and are not your thoughts to act upon. Only follow me if you have your own reasons to as well.

Effective immediately, I am ceasing all further activity related to mashup tournaments, as well as mashup work in general, except for emergency quality control through DMs from mashup artists and project managers I place my explicit trust in. I do not plan to leave private and semi-private spaces associated with the community, save backrooms, nor am I outright uninterested in joining private spaces that would be willing to have me, but I do not plan to actively seek out any further obligations involving projects in this community, and I do not currently have any outstanding ones, either. Unless I can get my shit together and make something fully original, I have no intent to open up Ableton in the near future. I have decided it is time to move on from mashup tournaments and I plan to do so with haste.

This post isn’t intended to be anything grandiose, nor do I expect it to be treated as something of any great substance; my portfolio from my time in the community is incredibly slim and I’ve already been gradually retracting the little involvement I have had from the community as a whole, so I don’t want to act like I’m much more than a nobody who is friends with somebodies. This is simply a formalization of feelings I’ve had for a while now, further exacerbated by recent events that have left me feeling as if my continued presence in the community is unsafe and, to a lesser extent, unwelcome. I don’t want to encourage anyone to follow me in leaving, at least without their own proper reasons to do so, nor do I want to demean people who have no plans to; in fact, I encourage the people who want to spend their time there to do their best with it. That said, I feel a need to speak my mind on who I’ve been in my time in the community and what I need to do in the aftermath.

There are things in this community I want to fully seperate from and things that I simply want to try to move on from. I still have friends in this community and they are quite kind to me, and I want to keep them. That said, a series of recent events have left me feeling without a home, one that I would find much easier elsewhere as opposed to going through hoops just to cling onto something that I hadn’t had attachment for for the longest time; I’ve already spent the better part of this year trying to do so, and in doing so, I’ve realized that I’ve vastly overstayed my welcome. Said recent events have also left me rattled, especially given how much has happened at once; I’m grateful that my fears are irrational at best, but when I look at what’s happened, I am silently worried about being next, or watching someone else I care about get caught in the crossfire instead of me.

From the beginning of my time in the community, I was never closely tied with mashup tournaments themselves as much as I was the people who worked on them and followed them, including many of the friends I made in community spaces and backrooms. As I’m sure those who are aware of me know, there are a few projects that have directly sparked my interest, but that interest never spread generally; in that regard, I’ve always known myself as an outcast in the community, at least with regard to the large bulk of activity. I was, and have always been, here for the people. Recent events, however, have made it painfully clear that this outlook is not healthy, and rather than forcing myself to involve myself with projects I ultimately have no will to endure, it’s best if I put proper distance between myself and this community while I have the lucidity to do so.

About nine months ago, I went through what I’ll simply describe as a long, drawn out, and horrible breakup with a partner who, at the time, meant the world to me. Out of respect for my ex and its wishes, I do not wish to air that conflict out in any public capacity; however, the fallout of this has continued to define the trajectory my continued time in the tourney community has taken and I feel it’s important context as such. It was at this point that I first considered leaving the tourney community wholesale, but this never came to fruition at the time; instead, I have Consy, my former partner, to thank for helping me find a place in the community alongside her. I am immensely thankful to her for everything she’s done for me in the past nine months; her simply being there and saying the right thing at the right time gave me a new lease on life and reminded me I was still capable of so much that I thought I would never do again. Both Consy and I are grateful that our relationship ended as positively as it did; we’ll both find our own ways forward.

I can’t say there was nothing to be grateful for in my time here this year, but at the same time, it felt like I was constantly grasping for straws all throughout this year. At present, I’m in one proper community-adjacent space and one server that’s as tied to IRLs as it is the community, as well as maybe one real friend group in any capacity beyond that. After recent events, I felt I had to dissolve a private server that, up until I’ve mentioned it in this very sentence, no one knew existed if they weren’t there. In the few places I’ve had, I’ve struggled to fit in due to some genuine, unresolved issues of mine, which has made it difficult to do much for myself on the social front; on top of this, I’ve had to endure layers of bureaucracy just to be able to talk to entire friend groups of mine who I used to know much closer, even just for a single night. Admittedly, I’m flawed and I’ve done stupid shit, especially when I was at my lowest, but I’ll happily take accountability if given the opportunity to; at this point, however, I have been given more apologies than chances to apologize.

I’ve listed all the personal gripes I’ve gone through and haven’t even reached the worst of it all, the incredible amount of bullshit and suffering my friends and I have had to put up with, the likes of which I was, and still am, unequipped to deal with. I have watched many good things rapidly fall apart in the span of just months, if not weeks. I have lost friends in crushing ways and seen immature verbal abuse aimed straight at the people I care about the most in this community; in fact, I’ve seen my name be used as an insult, entirely unprompted. I’ve seen far too many people pushed to their limits again and again in only a few months’ time. Most notably, I’ve had to watch some of my closest friends be ripped apart in front of me, entirely unsure if I can even be there to actually support them or not without people breathing down my neck, and the process of this all has made my time in the inner circles of the community feel like navigating a minefield.

One such friend was, put bluntly, an idiot. There’s no denying that she gave people plenty of reason to cut her off. What neither party wanted, however, was for things to escalate like they did; what was supposed to be a simple “block and move on” for valid and personal reasons turned into widespread pedophilia accusations against a perpetrator who was bullheaded and didn’t fully grasp what she had gotten into. When we first talked, I was furious at her; I’m grateful to see her take matters into her own hands and recover a presence she was happy with. Especially with the new shit on everyone’s plate, I can only hope for the best for her, because she of all people does not deserve any more than she’s already gotten.

Another friend, partner of the prior and someone I’ve known since before I was in the community, was used. A recent callout document, the cause of her apparently guaranteed downfall, was initially conceptualized out of fear of an attack that was ultimately never going to happen. I spoke to a mutual friend about the prior situation when the document was apparently made, which was supposed to be enough to fan that flame; while I’m absolutely upset it was planned for distribution at all, what actually happened with it went entirely against her wishes. My friend was fed information she didn’t need to know, including information no one should know, coerced into turning a word of caution meant at best for a few private places into a hit piece to be plastered in the public eye. She was forced into the role of one of the figureheads of a smear campaign on yet another friend of mine and prominent community figure that she ultimately had no conviction in, with her partner and friends, including myself, taking many an undeserved stray. I can’t blame anyone for their active grudges; given what I know, they’re entirely valid, and at this point, I’m going to have to accept that I’m never going to see all of my friends in one place again. That certainly doesn’t mean she deserved to be manipulated. No one on either side of this conflict deserved what they got when it happened, save the people who instigated this entire thing; while I’m sure people who care can easily fill in the blanks, the names of two of the people who fucked with the people I care about most are the only names I want to properly bring attention to here.

DFX has been in this community for far longer than I have and, as far as I’m aware, has become a universal target of hatred from anyone in this inner circle of the community I’ve heard anything about from him. At best, I’ve heard one remotely positive take on him from someone who wasn’t his close friend, and that was from someone who didn’t know better in what was essentially a roleplay setting. This is the guy who walled my close friends out of the central spaces of the community at the time over petty grudges, and here he is, digging up year-old beef and using people for petty grudges yet again, but at least this time it’s rightfully backfiring on him. How many lies are buried behind his actions? I couldn’t even fully put into words how pissed I am at cosmobird right now: An active friend of mine at the time, someone I let into my most trusted circle, stamped its name all over old dirt and worked directly with people who put my friends’ names in the crosshairs. I feel betrayed. This is one of the moderators for Forsaken, one of the most actively played games in the world right now, mind you; you’d think it’d know better, but here it is on the attack, and it’s not even the first time this has happened, just the worst. If there’s anything one could do to make me feel unsafe about my presence in the community, this is it. If it could attack someone who trusted it, if less than I did, like that, how low would it be willing to stoop for me, especially when it sees this post?

I believe I am still holding back when I simply say that DFX, cosmobird, and any of the former’s other “lackies” (as he calls many of my friends), assuming any have actually stuck by him, deserve not only what they now have to deal with, but so much more. Every time I hear anything new about this situation and about DFX in particular, I think back to people in TFARP praising the community at large for being able to dispatch threats like these and find the truth to these situations and just feel empty about it all. Did we get better? Sure, but what did it take? Division and misery? Four years of groomers lurking around? The incredibly poor track record I have of being good friends with the actual monsters rightfully ousted from this community (a tally that, despite me actively making up with someone in an important way this year, has still managed to get worse)? My friends being thrown under the bus? I’m sure I’ll see this shit crop up no matter where I go next, all of it, but I’m not going to wait to see proof of how the community acts the next time this comes around unless another shitter decides to fuck with my friends.

To the friends I still have, the spaces I am still in, and especially Consy, who has done so much for me: None of you are to blame, not for any of this. With things in the clear, what remains is now all personal, and I’ve already said my piece in that regard. I still cherish my friendship with each and every one of you with everything I have, even just for my acquaintances, and in earnest, too, as my home here is all that I’ve had to keep me together for so long. It’s because of this that I don’t want to leave completely, but I know that if I stay here and keep silently brooding, I’m not going to find the happiness I’m looking for. I’ve overstayed my welcome, and it’s time to go. I’m not looking to call for a mass exodus from the community like I’m sure someone’s probably expecting of this. I know how much many people care about the community, who will fight hard to continue to make the best they can out of a place that deserves people like them. As much as a part of me wishes I could’ve been, I was never one of those people.

I speak constantly to my mantra of blind hope, that “there is always a way out”, because I have needed it. I still believe in it, because I’ve seen people come back from hell and I’ve done it myself. I don’t want to have to rely on it to get by anymore, but I think it’s still important to remember for the people who are pushing forwards in the community in spite of this; I think you are all incredible people, and I want to see your efforts bear fruit in droves. If there’s anything interesting going on in the community that you think I’d find neat, or if there’s ever a space you think I’d appreciate, please let me know.

Obviously, at least as things stand at present, I’ll still be active where I normally am, which I’d like to open up on here for people who might care and don’t know. I kinda have to be on Discord where I am right now, though I encourage people to use Signal to reach out to me instead, which is listed on the index page for this website. I’m active on Roblox, though I want to curb my presence, and I want to be more active on VRChat and especially Resonite. I might try to be more active on the fediverse, and am considering deleting my Bluesky due to low investment in the platform; if there is interest, though I don’t expect it, I’ll enable Bridgy Fed on fedi so people on Bluesky can follow me.

The place I want to find for myself is somewhere where I can get back in touch with the part of me I lost in college. For all that I want to pick up in the art department, I’ve always loved programming, but I lost the drive to create in that regard during my time here and I need to find it again for fun and career. I have a project in the works aimed at a specific space in this community that I am looking forward to sharing when I have actual momentum going in it, but beyond that, I think that’s where I’m going to need to find myself in the next few months, for my own good. I believe in myself as I believe in everyone I’ve had the pleasure of staying friends with in my time here.

I trust in you all to make the most you can out of the space I used to call home as you still do. Please don’t be afraid to keep in touch.

Fly high, Part The Clouds.

The type of music to catch my attention

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 19:07:45 -0500

As I come across new bangers that I can’t really save anywhere else, I’ll post them at the top of this post. I don’t expect this to be daily, but I will try to keep up here every so often. Feel free to follow along as I update this.

I use YouTube links, as well as links to other nonfree services, directly here, as the other options require a lot of overhead for something I’m only going to do for one post, at least as far as I can see. I’ll put a small warning directly behind any links to clarify that they are what they are.

2025-1-3 | BilliumMoto - Revolution

Listen here (YouTube link)

A surprise from BilliumMoto to actually get me to write for my music thread again, a month after my last post. Thank god.

I found this in my shuffle play thanks to the GroundbreakinG album for BOF:NT. I will admit, I’m a little torn on this one, since I’m not a huge fan of the synth voice, but production wise? This caught me entirely off guard. I’m very surprised by just how quality the instrumental is, and with the vocal processing near the end, I think that somewhat makes up for it.

BilliumMoto, at least from what I’ve heard (see: Sense, in the previous entry’s honorable mentions), is very similar to how I see Camellia: The two of them have enough talent to cook up something so different every song and work in so many different domains that it’s hard to pin a specific sound to them. I’m gonna take a wild guess with this one and say that it is definitely not what BilliumMoto is known for, which is to say it’s very crazy, all things considered.

Production wise? It’s hard to pin down my exact thoughts here. I love the choruses, the break is a very interesting juxtaposition to the rest of the song… Honestly, the sound of it is what I like a lot about hyperpop in an exciting package that aligns very well with what I’d expect in a rhythm game, which is what I end up loving about this. It’s fun, it’s fast, and the lyrics are fitting, given the vibe of the song. I think there’s some awkward things, but I’m still very taken aback by how this came at me from out of nowhere. Incredible pick.

2025-1-3 | Honorable mentions

I feel kinda bad for some of these, especially since I haven’t done a music thread post in a very long time, in part because of how stressful my last semester of university was (should everything have gone well outside of my grades, I have graduated, and I am so, so relieved). I’m… somewhat back in the swing of things, now. We’ll see.

Jane Remover - JRJRJR (YouTube link)
- Jane Remover has always been an artist I’ve looked at and never really been able to get into (at least, her main project; I’m a huge leroy fan), but with tracks like this, I think there’s a real way to break through here. This is what I describe as “making me like everything I used to hate about hyperpop”; it’s definitely not entirely my thing, but I definitely do like it.
PinkPantheress - Mosquito (YouTube link)
- I’ve been looking for this one for a while, because I saw it once, thought the instrumental was insane given the context of the artist (she produces for herself, if I recall correctly; that, and she’s also on Boy’s a Liar pt 2, a viral TikTok song that sounds nothing like her other work), and just forgot about the song after the fact. I’m so glad I found it again.
有形ランペイジ - 世界五分前仮説 (YouTube link)
- I understand none of what I’m listening to, but it sounds good. UKRampage, sasakure.UK’s project, has a very distinct sound to it that I like a lot, and it’s sad I can’t experience it without shitty auto-translation, especially considering how much the west gets a lot of sasakure.UK’s other work.

2024-12-4 | tn-shi - Cyberfantasia

Listen here (YouTube link)

A stroke of divinity from an artist I keep saying is underrated, but never looked into. Who would’ve guessed?

I found this one from a very difficult community chart for a “free-to-play” rhythm game I had never heard of before (Steam Workshop download), which I think is fun, but not great, personally; as I haven’t played it much, I won’t get too into it. The song, however, floored me when I first heard it, as tn-shi tends to do for me, and it’s a wonder I haven’t heard so much more of their work.

I guessed that tn-shi detuned their master on their tracks to give them a very unique sound, and I was very much right, as is admitted in the YouTube description for the song: Indeed, this version of the song is at A = 450 Hz; while 10 Hz off of 440 doesn’t sound like that much if you don’t know what I’m talking about, it is a world of difference when you’re listening to something like this. While I criticize 432 Hz for just often not working, tn-shi’s work is a very beautiful use of the sharp tuning, which, combined with the absolute masterclass of a chord progression on top of a fast, rhythm game-y song, synthesizes something absolutely incredible. This song is absolutely immaculate in every way I can think of.

I want to talk a bit more about the excellent chord theory that I wouldn’t even be able to dream of. I did not expect to see the double sharp symbol in a visualizer for a rhythm game song in my life, much less rapid fire quarter note progressions that I can’t even keep up with to read, and yet here we are. It’s like you’ve taken some alternate universe’s version of Jacob Collier and built him up with five years of rhythm game composition experience from god knows what actual stroke of heaven this production comes from. If you place Snail’s House admitting to not knowing the slightest about music theory at one end of a spectrum, I feel like tn-shi would magically appear on the other and inject a sus4add6 chord into the threads of the universe in the process.

I am watching a master at work, and by god, it is beautiful.

EDIT: SORRY WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS GUY NEVER STUDIED MUSIC THEORY

2024-12-4 | Honorable mentions

I feel kinda bad for these. Nothing can top the main attraction tonight, and honestly, one of these songs got swatted away pretty hard when I remembered this song existed. …I was even meaning to do a full length post on Lacrimosa, and then this hit me like a freight train.

BilliumMoto x Silentroom - Sense (YouTube link)
- This is probably my favorite entry from BOFXVII specifically, and I think it’s in part because it sounds like it shouldn’t be in a rhythm game. This is just a beautiful song, honestly, and I am all here for it; on top of that, it’s apparently part of a greater story from Team [Clue], and it very much feels like it. Unfortunately, I haven’t listened to all of the works from the Team [Clue] based EP this would eventually be put on besides Random, which was the track that actually won the event.
Silentroom - 驟雨の狭間 (Rainshower) (Vimeo link)
- This is probably one of my favorite songs in the entire drum and bass genre of all time, and I’ve only recently been holding its prequel in Nhelv in as high of a regard. When I still did numerical ratings for music before I realized I didn’t like any of the services that offered that, this was probably the easiest 10/10 in the books for me, and I still consider it an incredibly beautiful work by an artist I find to be consistently good.
Silentroom - Milky Way Wishes (YouTube link)
- You know what? I’m talking about Silentroom a lot already, and Sense was the track that got snubbed for main spot, so I feel like it’s only fair to go for the hat trick here. I think I’m in part captivated by the choice of visualizer here and in part in love with the harmonies in the melody throughout, but Silentroom’s chord progressions here are what I’ve come to love from their work as well.

2024-12-3 | HAYAKO - BlueWhite

Listen here (YouTube link)

It’s DJMAX day in the music thread today, because I spent all of last night playing rhythm games and looking through the song list for DJMAX DLC I don’t own.

Here’s a song I’ve loved for a while, from TAPSONIC BOLD, actually, but I’m very glad they put it in DJMAX RESPECT V. The idea behind it progression wise is very simple, but it’s got very fun fluorishes that make for a very interesting chart. Having heard a little bit of HAYAKO, one song of which I know I will be putting in the honorable mentions, this is a very different song from what I’d expect knowing what HAYAKO is known for, but given HAYAKO made both ANALYS and NANAIRO, I don’t think I can really comment on HAYAKO’s versatility.

There’s not too much to say to this one, either, but I do enjoy it. There’s not really much of an idea of a mood with this one, it just feels like a feel good song that’s made to be difficult in the rhythm games, and as I stated in my DJMAX media thread entry, it makes for a very difficulty spike heavy chart. It’s very interesting that it’s in major key, as I don’t often here those kinds of songs, and it very much uses that well with its theme; despite basically being a boss song, it doesn’t sound like one, which is something that I see a lot when it comes to what’s interesting in DJMAX. If you do play the SC charts for this, don’t assume this will be an easy, high rate entry.

2024-12-3 | Honorable mentions

Here’s some DJMAX entries I gushed about in a Discord server because I had only learned about them last night.

Ice - Rhapsody for The VEndetta (YouTube link)
- Ice strikes when I least expect it. It’s pretty obvious that Ice’s influences are here just from how this sounds, but the production is beautiful in a way that makes it clear they’ve grown from… what? Cytus 1? Cytus 2? …Nah, they were this good in Cytus 2, but when you compare this to, say, L, this is an entire world apart.
HAYAKO - KICK IT (YouTube link)
- I was almost about to make tonight’s entry about this song, but I think it’s a lot less memorable than BlueWhite was. This one’s just a fun song in the style that HAYAKO is known for with ANALYS, but with even more energy and a very fun music video to boot.
sakyzuo - Cyberozar (YouTube link)
- My feelings on pretty much everything Sakuzyo has made that is not Altale or Destr0yer are mixed; honestly, it’s a style of production that feels like it doesn’t lean in hard enough where it should and leans in too hard where it ends up feeling stale. That said, when this song hits, it hits hard, and I think that melodic drop near the end is very solid.

2024-11-27 | Kyotsugyon - SUPERNOVA

Listen here (YouTube link)

These are probably going to be added later than the date I wrote these, because I’m out of town and don’t have access to my website files besides my post. It’s all I need to get my thoughts down, at least, but there might not be images here for a while.

I still haven’t played to this part of vivid/stasis (Steam link) yet, but what I’ve played of it is incredible; instead, I discovered this through Quaver in a very difficult mixed rice map that I’ve been trying to get a decent score on for a while despite how absurd some of its sections are to hit. The song is beautiful, especially the main drop with how melodically cohesive it is, and it is incredibly obvious that it is a boss song for something, even if I didn’t realize what and where it was present until I searched it up to find its name for this thread.

I’d write more here, but honestly, there’s not that much to say about this one. It’s just a really good song. It’s got so many cool things going for it and really nothing that makes it uninteresting, save for the fact that the same kick is used throughout the entire thing, but I feel like that’s approaching nitpick territory. What I do know is that I should play vivid/stasis again.

2024-11-27 | Honorable mentions

I’m probably going to slow down on these as well, as I can’t think of as many songs for these, but I’ll try to keep this going if I can.

Madeon - Hypermania (YouTube link)
- Nothing especially new for me, just remembering when I listened to Good Faith for the first time. At the time, I did so in a liveblog on Discord around the time one of the Madeon News moderators was checking the server, so they got to see me think “my life is a lie” to myself after discovering that even though I think “Something Comforting” is a 10/10, I more consistently liked Good Faith than Nurture, as I had liveblogged Nurture prior in the same server and never listened to more Madeon than Pop Culture before that review.
Camellia - 辰砂 / HgS (YouTube link)
- This is one of those songs I looped for a while, and it definitely demonstrates the ideas that got me to fall in love with Ashed Wings as an album in a very unique way; that, and the extensions of some of the beatmania IIDX tracks from Camellia that never got a full release are very welcome. There’s definitely a lot of Camellia that I haven’t listened to that I should, but I think there’s going to be a lot I end up getting disappointed by due to how good some of his more rhythm game directed work is in my eyes.
Scott James - Ballet (YouTube link)
- There are a few songs that are surprisingly spiritual for some reasons I will keep close to my chest, one of which was a TikTok audio at some point for some reason, with this being one of the hardest ones to find in good quality on the internet, as the only legit ways to get your hands on a digital file for this seem to be MP3s from Amazon Music, which I will not do. If anyone finds a real, high quality FLAC for anything by this artist, please let me know where you found it.

2024-11-26 | Tyler, the Creator - St. Chroma

Listen here (YouTube link)

This song is hope in a bottle; it didn’t save me, but it helped when things reached their worst. I feel like I will inevitably need to talk about this album; I’ve written up a review of the album for this blog, but it was too emotionally charged, so I plan to rewrite it when my emotions eventually stabilize; in it, I mention that the album reminds me of one of my sonas, Jackal, and let my emotions take me on a ride throughout the experience. Even then, I admitted the album wouldn’t be especially high on my list, but I’d have to take another listen to figure out exactly where things end up, and I’m not ready to do that yet.

Tyler’s work is very unique and interesting. It’s easy for me to be disappointed by what I hear when it comes to mainstream rap, but I was pleasantly surprised by a lot of what I’ve heard off of this album; I haven’t heard much of Tyler’s work, but I’ve been a fan of most of what I’ve heard, and now that I’ve heard this album, with the context that it’s based off of a lot of Tyler’s previous work, I’m more interested in going back and listening to it now. St. Chroma in particular ended up being my favorite song off of the album; I was already looping the teaser, so when the full song dropped, it became a mainstay on a playlist of mine. It’s a lot of what I love of Tyler’s production with interesting lyrical choices and a very defined theme of hope that plays somewhat into the rest of what you hear on the album. I love the build-up to the main instrumental section; I imagine this is reminiscent of some of his previous work in an interesting way.

Holding on to hope gets you far. I’m going to try to keep staying strong.

2024-11-26 | Honorable mentions

I’m still trying to poke out the most interesting entries that I’ve listened to in recent years. Some of these may be strange picks, as I’ve knocked out most of the essentials already, but I want to push forward some neat songs.

Abel & RiraN - Lacrimosa (YouTube link)
- I remember seeing a post not that long ago on fedi about someone randomly discovering a BOF:TT track when I didn’t realize BOF:TT was happening already; I haven’t been following it, but I should. This is a song from a previous BMS OF FIGHTERS from artists I remember distinctly not liking in future entries, but listening to this, I think it is considerably better than the actual song where they won the event; namely, I love that last drop, in part because it just beams an image of 4K 24th dumpstream into my head. I might do a longer writeup of this one one day if I don’t have anything better to write about, because I think I was meaning to talk about this at some point, but forgot.
DJSUSIEDELTARUNE (saoirse dream) - *you’re (SoundCloud link)
- This one’s funny, I think. It’s very well produced for how short it is; it’s something I want to make a difficulty spread of for a rhythm game at some point, because it’s pretty clear now how good dariacore’s potential is for that. saoirse dream in general tends to be very hit or miss for me, and this one was absolutely a hit.
Jacob Mann Big Band - Pronk (YouTube link)
- I haven’t listened to this one in a while, but everything about it is insane. A jazz big band track featuring Louis Cole (the KNOWER guy) on drums with Simon Fransman editing it is something that sounds so insane to my feeble mind, and it’s… incredible, actually, which, well, I’m not surprised one bit.
Asian melancholic - jazz in parallel world (YouTube link)
- Kikuo tends to consistently make hits. I discovered this alias in particular from their 24/7 livestream while that was up, and thoroughly enjoyed the work; pretty much every song off of this alias has been a strong hit for me. Shoutouts to “stormy day” (YouTube link) as well.
Sungazer - Cytherean (YouTube link)
- I discovered this from a JToH fan tower (Roblox link). I’ve not given Sungazer a consistent chance, despite liking what I’ve heard of them, as well as all of the work Adam Neely has gotten involved with.

2024-11-25 | AZALI - show me the sky. show me how to live

Listen here (YouTube link)

I will be totally honest. I think AZALI is overhyped.

I don’t think AZALI’s work is bad, per se, and I enjoy a lot of it, having listened to a small bit, but it’s incredibly clear exactly who AZALI is when you look at their best work. I think there’s a pretty big difference between their collaboration work, things like “TO DUST THOU SHALT RETURN” (YouTube link), where a lot of the backing that expands off of what would otherwise be a track entirely composed of piano and Amen Break sampling makes for a very full sound, versus something like “MECHANICAL GOD” (YouTube link), which is very stripped back in comparison; in this dichotomy, I tend to like the more involved products, and as such, even though I did enjoy “MECHANICAL GOD”, I was iffy about calling it a song I especially liked.

Obviously, “show me the sky. show me how to live” isn’t that. It’s even more stripped back of a work, and I think that does it so many favors. This is practically a solo piano piece, besides the bits of ear candy and ambience that aren’t on the Spotify version. What we’ve got here is just a chilling, emotional piano refrain on a YouTube Shorts aspect ratio visualizer. I don’t think of this in the same vein that I think of other works by AZALI as much as I think of it as its own thing, and I think that does it so many favors; I imagine AZALI has done more like this than just this, but this very much stands out on its own in my mind.

It is simple. It is expressive. It is beautiful.

2024-11-25 | Honorable mentions

Here are some songs I’ve been looking to talk about for a while, as they’ve been helping me through some tough times, but I didn’t have a space I wanted to talk about them in.

Kendrick Lamar- United In Grief (YouTube link)
- I discovered this one thanks to osu!mania. I’ve been burnt pretty hard by some of Kendrick’s less creative work because I found the beats pretty lame, but on the more melodic beats, Kendrick becomes a storyteller. The Drake beef exemplified this in my mind; “Watch The Party Die” (YouTube link) in particular got me to go back and look at his discography again, and needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised. I’m looking forward to listening to GNX eventually.
Mameyudoufu - あわ (YouTube link)
- I discovered this one thanks to Quaver. It’s a very fun tune from an artist I definitely want to explore more. I don’t think Hatsune Miku’s tuning on this is very sophisticated, but this sound adds a lot; I’m often critical about Vocaloid focused songs, as they tend to have a specific sound to them I don’t like, but this is a very fun track that doesn’t deserve that ire. I may do a longer writeup on this one eventually.
SOPHIE - Infatuation (YouTube link)
- Another artist I haven’t really given much of a chance until recently, despite falling in love with a long time ago. I haven’t heard the album through, but I loved “Is It Cold In The Water?” and this has a very similar energy to it in my mind. It’s wild that this is the same album that “FACESHOPPING” is from. Rest In Peace, SOPHIE.
DOMi & JD BECK, Mac DeMarco - TWO SHRiMPS (YouTube link)
- This entire album is a solid experience. I hadn’t really given DOMi and JD BECK much of a chance before I found this album, but after listening to it through, I see why I fell in love with them originally. This is my favorite off the album.
uyama hiroto - Departure (YouTube link)
- I’ve never listened to this album front to back, as it’s a quite large one, but everything I’ve heard off of it has been incredible. This has been my favorite so far.

A somewhat scathing review of Moana 2

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 12:33:54 -0400

CW: Spoilers for Moana 2, brief spoilers for Evbo’s Parkour Civilization

I’ve lost the text itself, but I remember writing something for a project that included a prediction that Moana 2 gets released in 2025. Given the success of this movie from a revenue standpoint, I’m not surprised I was off the mark by a year, but as someone who was dragged out of the house to watch it, I don’t see why this is even deserved.

Moana 2 is the first time in my memory that I’m going to be outright negative about a piece of media in my “media thread”, but I think it’s warranted, as I feel like this movie failed to live up to what it could’ve been in pretty notable fashion that puts even other Disney sequels to shame. With such a declarative title, this feels like something that should’ve served to break negativity when it came to Disney’s ssequels, while instead having the opposite effect; from what I’ve been told, this was intended to be a TV series initially, and it’s clear the end product suffers from that, as all of the best moments of the movie suffered from poor pacing.

A lot happened in Moana 2 incredibly quickly. Much of the movie built on what the first movie set down, which is good, but it does so to an extreme extent to where I feel like I get blindsided around every corner as someone who had not watched it recently, which I almost feel was deliberate to get people to watch the first movie again. The pacing of the movie was rapid, and I think that left out a lot of context; namely, I think Maui was misrepresented heavily by a lot of the lost context, and many of the crew dynamics felt half-baked. There were too many instances in the movie where I had to piece together context that could’ve been put together, and it’s clear that there were a lot of plot threads that were supposed to be important, but got gutted. A very big example of this in my mind is the use of Kele’s coconut floats, where I feel like he should’ve dived and struggled; for all the complaining he did, he never really went through a trial, and there was no reason he’d be so comfortable in the water without that context. When it came to Maui, as well, his actions seemed very selfish, like he wanted to take the glory that Moana eventually would, with his intentions not clear; similarly, in Matangi’s case, I had no clue how to feel about her the entire time she was on screen until the portal opened, as it was so incredibly unclear whether she was a villain or not, only for Moana to suddenly trust her and everything to work out.

Speaking of the scene where Matangi was present: How does Moana know how to open up the portal, and how is she able to do it in the first place? What’s the purpose of the orb? Why does Maui think Moana isn’t trapped, and if he knew what the orb did, why didn’t he try to go into the orb himself? There’s a lot of unanswered questions about everything that happened that feels like they should’ve been explored. I think it’s also worth mentioning that the only time we meet Nalo is in the after credits scene for about three lines of dialogue when he deserved a lot more screen time, or even a direct confrontation; disappointingly, this does not do anything to set up the threequel I know Disney will be fishing for.

To the points above, much of what happened in the story felt incredibly unearned. Given the amount of help Moana got when things went bad, even though she is a skilled wayfinder in her own right, simply diving down to touch Motofetu was the only thing she did that was wholly earned, as many of her actions didn’t really account to much and, given the presence of Maui, her role as a leader was severely diminished; at the end of the day, it’s very understandable that she did become a demigod, but for one, it felt like Motofetu shouldn’t have been where she earned her stripes as much as saving Te Fiti, as that was a full summation of the fruits of her efforts, and Maui was a much less cooperative figure at the time, and for another… that entire exchange just reminded me of the ending of Parkour Civilation season 2. Sure, Moana did drown deep in the sea, but at the same time, a lot of the effort that got her there wasn’t her own, and the setup was just so weak. On the topic of Maui, him getting his tattoos back as soon as he grabs his hook again is a copout of tremendous proportions; if he was going to have them all burned away for using practically all of his power to no end, I think some of them should’ve burned away for good, showing that he still has room to grow and fill those spots back up with new memories founded in his cooperation with Moana and others instead of the self-centered acts that defined him before. Those tattoos burned away for a reason, and even a divine weapon shouldn’t be enough to cheat his way out of that.

After exiting the theater, my father proclaimed that this is the first Disney movie in a while where “they didn’t have an agenda” or “go woke”, which he proclaimed as a positive; in reality, however, I think it was one of the movie’s major flaws. Even explicit queerness notwithstanding, I think it’s this lack of personality beyond the surface level a lot of these under-baked characters have that directly contributes to why character dialogue is so uninteresting, to the point where I think a little bit of freedom of expression would solve a lot of the movie feeling dry; for the most part, everyone on Moana’s ship, besides Maui and herself, felt like they were just here to serve a purpose, and though Loto and Moni are passably engaging, even they don’t really serve that purpose well. Beyond that, the character designs felt incredibly stale, even though they didn’t have to to be convincing; every male character in the movie, besides Kele, either had no speaking lines or Maui’s body shape, and at the end of the day, that led to key characters like Moni feeling incredibly uninspired. It’s not my place to speak on things I haven’t experienced myself, so take this with as much salt as necessary, but I think of the māhū, a third gender in some Polynesian cultures that would’ve fit very nicely into the setting while serving as the “forced” representation that right-wing Disney adults love to hate. Disney speaks about inclusion, but when it actually counts, they stay silent; this isn’t something that should surprise anyone at this point, but I want to call this out anyways.

The movie was aesthetically incredible, sure, but with all of these plot issues even down to the main theme of this movie practically mirroring the exact themes that the main theme of Frozen 2 touched on, there was really no reason for me to care past that. I feel like people will want me to lay off of a Disney movie here, but it’s because it’s a Disney movie that I’m digging into it so hard, because the biggest entertainment giant in the world has no reason to pump out storyless slop like this when they’ve got this much time and enough market presence to outsell the first movie in the first few days besides profit margin. Disney movies are made with the whole family in mind, and the whole family was not entertained here; even then, children deserve a good story, too, and from what it sounds like, they’re getting it with things like Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, though I haven’t seen that. I wouldn’t know for sure, but I’m guessing it’s things like this that are chipping away at the reputation of animation as a medium for anyone who isn’t a child, because some of the most prominent, highest quality animations in the current year are empty in the sort of way that people have just come to expect now. There is nothing worth your time here.

Returning to DJMAX RESPECT V over a break

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 14:46:24 -0500

(I’m going to refer to DJMAX RESPECT V as DJMAX throughout this post, as, at least in the USA and the current age, there is no other relevant DJMAX title.)

I have to complain about this game’s DLC before I say anything else. Perhaps it’s because I’m used to community driven rhythm games and regular free updates to the soundtrack that just don’t exist for a commercial rhythm game such at this, but I’m also not at all interested in paying twice the price of a triple-A game (ON SALE, MIND YOU. AS THIS IS BEING WRITTEN PRETTY MUCH ALL OF DJMAX’S DLC IS ON A -80% SALE AND I DOUBT I’M GOING TO BUY IT) for most of the songs in the game; sure, the base game is definitely at least somewhat lacking, but I’m definitely not paying half the price of the base game for the most up to date songs, either. I really think that the system they have with Clear Pass+ should have a free tier as well, because there’s a lot of cool content in this game that you can literally only play if you shell out an absurd amount of money for DLC when I think players should be able to get a modern experience with only the base game. I think that is my biggest critique of the game; I know this is a business model for most rhythm games and this creates profit after the game releases, but to do this with no content for base game players in any form, at least by this point in the game’s live service cycle, is incredibly predatory, and I’m tired of pretending it’s not.

With all that complaining said and done, though: DJMAX is pretty fun.

I’m a huge VSRG fan; notably, my rhythm game of choice is Quaver, but I’ve got a relatively stacked profile on osu!mania (though I plan to learn every mode if I get my hands on a new tablet pen) and Etterna as well. I’m nothing incredible at 4K and I’m ass at 7K, but I find them to be simple, fun games of skill. When I play on keyboard, I tend to treat DJMAX as a less difficult game when I play its 4B mode as I’m generally quite good at that, as unless your chart is any harder than DAYLIGHT 4B SC was, which I was able to nail the FC on after a bit of grinding, I’ll probably be able to knock out the FC on it, too.

Though I’ve mostly been grinding 4B since I picked up the game after season 13 ended in order to see how high my DJ Class can go without any DLC purchases (I think it’s probably going to end up staying at Street DJ IV unless I buy some hard DLC, and this is by far my best mode), I consider 5B and 6B to be the highlights of the game for me. 6B is by far the easier mode for me, as it’s just a 6K rhythm game plus the side track that all of DJMAX’s modes have, and I think the key count is manageable in a way where I don’t feel like I’m stepping into uncharted territory like I do when I play 7K(+1) while still being interesting. I’m very proud of my FC on BlythE 6B SC, namely, but I’m sure I’ve hit some other decent plays in the key mode. 5B is basically 6B in a trenchcoat due to the fact that a key on the left hand and a key on the right hand are both assigned to the middle button as a carry-over from the controller based roots of the game; while in most 5K games, I would just use the right hand key to hit the middle button, DJMAX’s charting takes advantage of the fact that two keys occupy the same space, so I’ve definitely struggled to process this mode properly.

8B is definitely an interesting mode I want to learn more, as even though I’m fine-ish when it comes to hitting side tracks every so often, having a button that is a cornerstone of a chart and is not in line with the other buttons throws off my judgement and I struggle quite a bit as a result. It should feel like how Sound Voltex does with its FX lanes, but it doesn’t, and it’s likely because I run a quite high scroll speed for 4B and 6B. I think I want to spend some time with it on keyboard, but that depends on me figuring out a comfortable control scheme that doesn’t place my thumbs somewhere awkward like the default does. (I tried binding the bumper keys to the Alts, but that creates keybind conflicts.)

I like the easier judgements that DJMAX has, as it means the pressure to get a Perfect is a lot lower and there’s a lot of room for easier FCs, which the game heavily prioritizes with its systems. I think the changes that were made to Fever in the recent versions (the removal of manual fever from freeplay to seperate chaos and note shuffle) are very welcome, as manual Fever was already a relic of DJMAX past that is objectively worse than auto Fever while just being that much more difficult, and now that I’m somewhat used to it, I don’t believe it’s quite as distracting of an effect as I used to. The game has a very arcade-y feel while also feeling not quite as hard as a game like beatmania IIDX that I’d find in an arcade, making it something fun and simple for when I don’t want to grind Quaver or another, harder rhythm game.

I think the ranked system is very interesting, but I wish the earlier ranks were either harder or easier to grind through, though things may have changed, as I haven’t played ranked in many seasons and only ever made it to Platinum. It’s very interesting that it’s now possible to play the ranked system in private lobbies with the Versus Match system, which is a change I personally welcome. I think this is partially because it’s possible to play DLC songs through ranked, but the competitive system is very fun. I honestly wish we got hard judgement in free play, though, as it’d make for some very interesting scores; I recall the mobile KALPA doing the same for its competitive leaderboards, and as much as I like how loose the top judgement is in this game, it would make leaderboards far more competitive in a very fun way.

I was going to speak on how controller played earlier into this post, but it seems like I forgot when I went into the easier judgement discussion. I’ve only recently started playing the game on controller on Steam Deck which, though much less impressive than my plays on keyboard, is actually quite fun; from what I’ve played, I’m able to play some MX charts in most key modes, and it very much feels, with the difficulties I have and the playstyle that these difficulties encourage, that this is how the game was meant to be experienced, but I never got that experience on keyboard because I was too good in a lot of places. I feel like it’s hard for me to find DJMAX’s full identity between it being a difficult, high intensity experience for me on controller and a not so difficult, medium intensity experience for me on keyboard, as the game has both very interesting dynamics for combo drops and encourages back-to-back FCs in freestyle mode. All I know is that I’m much worse on controller and my hands hurt after every play, but by god is it worth it.

For all I love this game’s SC charting for, it’s very puzzling, especially coming from other VSRGs where charts are heavily critiqued on quality, because it feels like there’s no difficulty consistency; difficulty spikes are very extreme and come out of nowhere, even though the overall difficulty of the chart is pretty consistent otherwise. In BlueWhite and DAYLIGHT in particular, it feels like the entire chart is relatively quite easy before the chart pulls out its bullshit pattern; this is what makes many DJMAX charts fun, but it also makes it very jarring when these patterns get pulled out. NIGHTMARE is a far less positive example of this for me than the previous two mentioned, where the entire chart is already quite hard as is, then the ending tanks your rate 5% and kills any hopes and dreams still left within your heart unless you are an actual god; I suppose it’s fitting that it’s an SC 15 on some keycounts, then, but it pushes nearly every other SC down a rating simply by existing, and that feels a bit criminal.

There’s not too much to say on an actual review of DJMAX as a whole. I know that I wouldn’t recommend it to someone who didn’t care about the series as a whole, or at least about VSRGs specifically. The game itself requires a lot of investment in order to get the most out of it to the point where most of the things you could get for it aren’t even worth it; it saddens me that this is what the market looks like, but it is what it is. At the very least, it’s a DJMAX game in the modern day, which, at the time that the original DJMAX RESPECT came out, hadn’t been done for years, so it’s definitely something worth preserving at the least.

A short addendum about the music of the game

I spoke with a friend about the original version of this post and the conversation eventually shifted to the game’s OST. I think DJMAX is definitely a mixed bag, which is why I say that the game is definitely mostly for those who care about the series in the first place, as much of the music from past influential titles in the series are present in the soundtrack for the newest entry in both the base game and DLC. I’m mostly going to talk about the base game’s soundtrack here, because that’s all I have access to, but these trends do tend to be continued in the DLC, although the overall quality of the soundtrack is much better.

If you’re coming to DJMAX looking for a soundtrack in line with a more popular arcade rhythm game, I personally suggest you look elsewhere, as many of the songs in the base game especially are very strange in the context of a rhythm game. Entries like “Ask to the wind”, “Ruti’n (GOTH Wild Electro Remix)”, and “quixotic” are a few varied examples of the more strange entries that I personally like a lot; notably, there are a lot of songs that are so unmemorable that I simply do not remember them off of my head for this, but you end up having to sift through a lot of generic music to find songs you like. There are a few entries, namely “BlueWhite” (which I did cover briefly in my music thread) and “DAYLIGHT”, that are boss songs that don’t really sound like it. I’m definitely often surprised by what I ended up liking off the soundtrack, as there are some very comparatively weird entries I just fell in love with, and it’s pretty clear that the producers behind this game’s soundtrack know what they’re doing to push what you can make a good rhythm game chart out of, but it’s definitely worth being cautious, because not everything is a hit.

For as many lows as there are in the soundtrack, however, there are a good amount of highs. If you are a fan of rhythm game music, that’s not to say this game doesn’t have its fair share of highlights; notably, some of M2U’s more notable works, namely “Nightmare”, but also “BlythE”, which just seems universally loved by the people who have heard it, originate from the series and are present here. HAYAKO’s “ANALYS” started here and I’ve definitely heard it quite a bit since; beyond this, a lot of HAYAKO’s work is very strong and fits the vibe of the game. “We’re All Gonna Die” on its own is a selling point for the game, but it’s a very difficult unlock. I’m mostly speaking on specific examples I enjoy, but I think it’s worth taking a listen to some of the highlights and lowlights of the soundtrack to see if it’s worthwhile.

My friend called DJMAX’s soundtrack a “6/10”, but honestly, I’d give it a bit lower of a rating if I wanted to give it one. I argue that the soundtrack as a whole is weighed down heavily by a number of middling entries, but the hits hit hard and, if they were isolated, this game would be a sea of all sorts of bangers. At some point, I think it would be fun to make a playlist of my personal highlights, as I think they’re a very good and very unique take on a rhythm game soundtrack; while my feelings are mixed, I think there’s enough good in this to keep me coming back.

Anecdotes and speculation from my experience following high level rhythm game play

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 10:21:56 -0500

(This post is quite rambly, as it’s been sitting in my drafts for almost a month now, since November 7th. A lot has happened in my life since then, so I just wanted to push it out so I don’t feel pressured into chipping away at it. It’s nothing of real importance, anyways.)

I love rhythm games.

Rhythm games are a special interest of mine that has lasted me for eleven years from the moment I picked up osu! in 2013, and was likely sparked before that when I fiended DDR Extreme 2 in my youth. I’m certainly nothing impressive as a player, as I don’t get a lot of time to play the games and have taken pretty sizeable breaks from them as a whole due to lack of interest in the moment, but beyond that, I have done a lot of research for fun on weird and obscure rhythm games, namely things that aren’t mainstream in the USA for very understandable reasons. This background isn’t very relevant, at least not directly; what is more relevant is how much my friends know of me for this, as I don’t tend to hang around in the rhythm game space and, as such, am the best rhythm game player I know by a longshot. I spend a lot of time when friends pick up the game trying to help them improve by introducing ways to help them get used to my game of choice, Quaver, and follow their progress, as it’s really fun to see my friends improve over time and get over the mental block that going into these rhythm games with high expectations will do to you. Though it’s been a very long time since I was new to rhythm games, I definitely have a bit of that experience, because, like anyone who’s played these games and gotten a decent bit in, I’ve gone through it myself.

Unlike a lot of my less experienced friends, however, I have gone through much of my time playing these games immersed heavily into community happenings; when it comes to osu!standard, I could name many top players, mainly from my time playing, but also many of those who actually set records in the modern day. As such, I’m incredibly well aware of how unique of a competitive landscape community-driven rhythm games like osu! have from the inside, having been a slave to the grind back when I was an active osu!standard player. Part of why I’m writing this is because I’ve relapsed; I started playing osu!mania as an easy way to get involved in an Archipelago run and, around that time, I got into osu!catch, as how it controlled on mobile was interesting to me. (I now play osu!catch on PC because I ended up not processing things as well when I was using said mobile controls, and, whenever I can get my hands on a new drawing tablet, I want to pivot into becoming an all-mode player, as it’s something I wanted to do at a point when I was more active in the game, but never had the energy to learn.) It’s because of this that I’m mostly going to talk about osu!’s gamemodes here, namely osu!standard due to my past experiences, but I feel like similar ideas apply to rhythm games as a whole, albeit with some of them focusing more on direct competition as opposed to indirect competition to weaken some of the points I have here, albeit not fully.

As a player, the “better” player is pretty objectively defined within osu!’s systems: Whoever has a higher rank thanks to higher pp plays wins. This system is definitely farmable, as any good play will get you pp, but prizes consistency across maps, as hitting lots of very good plays around the same level is the best way to make sure all of that pp counts due to the weighting system. A system like this makes the battle for the #1 spot on the leaderboard a competition of real skill as, if you’re able to set many top plays, you’re probably also able to perform at the highest level of difficulty when you’re called upon in a real-time setting, like a liveplay you make to prove you’re legit or, more notably, a tournament; in a game where you’re not directly interfering with the other player, a direct competition is just an indirect competition that you get one shot at. That’s not to say the pp system doesn’t have flaws over a system that pits players directly against each other, as any automated system such as it prioritizes a specific skillset that top players have to identify and exploit, but it has a very interesting consequence, especially in a community driven game where other players determine what the best of the best can hunt, where the game plays like a PvE game, but without a skill cap; players are constantly pushing the limits that mappers are making, and mappers are targeting the exploits players want to see. In essence, I think pp is interesting because it is exploitable, and those exploits seem like impossible feats to the average playerbase.

What got me thinking things through when I thought about this was what I’d see as the “spectator’s journey” when I started to pick up the game and understand what was going on. A story I’ve seen circulated often in these spaces from osu! players who are showing their uninoculated friends the game at their level is that these people often can’t tell difficulty past a certain point, to where an average 5* is worth as much as a challenging feat such as The Big Black, or another similarly difficult “boss song”. I feel like that’s partially the fault of the best way to read the game being something you have to learn as well, thanks to phenomena like common scroll speeds and skins in osu!mania being fast to space out patterns and force users to rely on audio to time, while being inaccessible to spectators; at the same time, the fact that all of osu!’s other modes force their Approach Rate to a set value per map means that, unless you can actually tell what’s going on, everything looks the same. This isn’t something that can really be helped; slowing down scroll speed or Approach Rate just serves to make the field more confusing for everyone, both player and spectator, and is a challenge in itself.

I feel like the results coming out of that phase are twofold, in a way I feel mirrors a fight or flight response in a weird way: When looking at a rhythm game, namely osu!standard, which looks the most accessible of osu!’s four modes at first, spectators either seem to come to fear rhythm games because of this high level play, citing that they will never hit that level (often true, but not because their skill has limits, instead that they don’t have the patience to hone their craft over years, which is obviously understandable), or dive in head first under the assumption that the game is easy, citing that they can pull off those feats in no time at all (pretty much always false, but that doesn’t mean you can’t progress incredibly quickly with time and patience). I was in the latter camp personally, but, as I was young and had high academic expectations on my shoulders, I never got anything remotely close to good at osu!standard; while I do think I’m decent at VSRGs, as I’d say I’m able to play at around the entry level to the patterns at the peak of the game, that came after a decade of grinding in a mode that is nothing like a VSRG, at least in core gameplay. My main point here is that I imagine this is why it seems hard personally to get others into these games, as well as part of why I think players like me have high expectations of their skill that don’t seem to be met for a very long time in these kinds of games, though I think that’s more involved.

Eventually, I think players get to a point where they are comfortable with the norm when it comes to their setup and it becomes possible to actually read what’s going on in these kinds of games. I find this to be the case for most games I don’t play that I end up watching, where I spend a lot of time just trying to figure out the flow of things before I actually feel confident talking on the matter and thinking about strategy. osu! is unique in this regard, where you actually have to immerse yourself in the game in an attempt to understand what you can’t do; I think it’s in part because you don’t fully understand things about the game that make things like high NPS very impressive to lower level players, despite being easier to hit. This is best exemplified by things like jhlee0133’s A Fool Moon Night play, which, while incredibly impressive, does not seem like an incredibly technical play past a certain point of understanding, at least when you compare it to something like Rude Buster (Camellia Remix) in the osu!mania 7K sphere. I’d say it’s around this point where you truly understand what you’re watching at least: The best players are performing feats of magic that the masses can understand, but will likely never be capable of; uniquely, instead of being an opponent you can contest on their turf that will dominate you, you may never step on these hallowed grounds in the first place.

I think it’s because of this that osu! is such an engaging spectator sport, despite there being little to nothing to actually glean from high level play in one’s own gameplay; while there are battles you can fight on your home turf and the comfortable grounds around it, actually breaking out into the top sphere is something that requires you to be fighting in an entirely new arena that the average player is not in. This is similar to direct competition in some ways, but very different in others, as there is no direct comparison to what you’re fighting; instead, either you are able to complete the feat or not. This is true among the top echelon of players, and it’s why I think the #1 player ends up being so dominant on the leaderboards for so long; at a point, they’re just so much more capable than their peers because they are the only player who can do what they do for a really long time, and everyone else has to play catch-up to the bar they keep setting. When more than one combatant is at this comically high level, it’s almost like watching a shonen anime battle, with the two competitors continually pushing their limits with each clash.

I’m sure I’d have more to say on this if I actually knew anything about osu! World Cup and other major tournaments, but I don’t, so I’m just going to push this post out because it’s been sitting in my drafts for way too long.

How I explain Eternal Towers of Hell difficulties to people

Fri, 08 Nov 2024 11:26:10 -0400

The difficulties in Eternal Towers of Hell are interesting because they’re incredibly informative and surprisingly useful, but are engaging enough as their own concept to have an entire fan community of their own on top of the already existing obby fanbase, so I always like to explain them in a fun way to people I’m telling about obbies for the first time. The difficulty system in EToH spans across seven difficulties, each with their own name, but also with a granular numerical system within the tier to determine exactly how hard a given tower is.

Easy, Medium, and Hard are pretty self-explanatory; they’re similar concepts across games like Geometry Dash, rhythm games, and pretty much anything that uses standard difficulty names. I can still fall on these towers due to my cockiness and inconsistency, but for the most part, Easy and Medium are pushovers for me, while Hard is pretty easy as well, though not trivial. These three difficulties are signified by green, yellow, and orange squares.

Difficult is where things start to get interesting; right now, they’re what I tend to hunt when I find them due to my confidence at this level compared to what it is at higher levels. Though you do see some pretty interesting tech in later Hard and even Medium towers, Difficult is where this starts to get put to the test. Challenging is even harder than Difficult, with a lot of the hard jumps you’ll start to see as the difficulty gets higher, and is where two of my best tower completions lie on the difficulty chart. These two difficulties are signified by a bright red and dark red square, respectively.

Intense, the black square difficulty, is what I consider the true “skill barrier” for much of what the game has to offer. Many of EToH’s most ambitious mainline challenges are Intense difficulty, and these towers expect a lot of game knowledge out of anyone skilled enough to brave their challenges, tossing things at the player they might not expect and expecting them to adapt. Remorseless, signified by a pink square, is the hardest difficulty in the game, featuring many challenges that put all of the player’s skills to the test. To beat a Remorseless difficulty tower is a grand achievement for many, even the most experienced obby players who can dispose of most of the rest of the game with little overhead.

…Sorry, did I say seven difficulties? I meant eleven.

Above the already absurd difficulty of the pink square exists four difficulties known as the Soul Crushing difficulties. These towers are so difficult that most players are not expected to complete them, with even completing one being a crowning achievement for many players; on top of this, these towers are incredibly out of the way to the point where even stepping into them requires a special knowledge that most players don’t have. It’s because of all of this that Soul Crushing clears are broadcasted globally instead of per-server due to their extreme rarity. The first of these is Insane, signified by a blue square, which puts players through a gauntlet of stressful jumps; I’ve completed one, but only a low Insane tower in an unofficial game with an infinite amount of checkpoints in what is known as an “All Jumps” run. Extreme is more challenging than even that and is signified by a lighter blue square.

Past this point, you begin to enter the territory of the hardest obbies of all time. Terrifying, a difficulty indicated by a neon blue square, denotes some of the hardest obbies out there, with high level obby players barely clinging onto these at top players; while some can still speed through even these, it takes an almost superhuman amount of will and skill to actually make the feat land. Then, on top of this, is the white square: Catastrophic, the true endgame of EToH. These are the hardest towers anyone is expected to beat and exist practically on the line that denotes what is humanly impossible, with few players even dreaming of completing these.

…Sorry, did I say eleven difficulties? I meant fourteen.

Hidden away in an area adjacent to Zone 3 in JToH with an extremely specific unlock condition is the Pit of Misery, the home of the most difficult towers that are in EToH at present, and likely will ever be; in fact, save for the one Easy tower featured in the sub-area as a joke, all of the towers there offer no progress to the game and exist only as tests of skill, with the easiest tower in the zone already being at Terrifying difficulty. After passing by the Catastrophic portals, you are then greeted by a unique sight: Two sets of difficulties, one signified by a black square with a light purple outline and the other signified by a black square with a vivid purple outline. These are Horrific and Unreal, the two hardest humanly possible difficulties in EToH that exclusively exist in this zone and are considered the active peak of obby skill. Horrific towers are infamous for their absurd difficulty and feature completion accounts barely above the single digits, while Unreal towers have clear counts in the single digits, with some only having a single clear to their credit by a name that permanently etches itself in Roblox history afterwards. Any legit Catastrophic, Horrific, or Unreal clear is an achievement that is celebrated by the community at large.

That brings us to the final difficulty, nil. No tower of this difficulty is officially included in EToH, or any self-respecting tower game, due to towers in this difficulty range being humanly impossible. It is possible to all jump these or TAS them, but it is incredibly unlikely that any single run of these towers will ever be completed due to this. These towers are denoted with a black square surrounded by a grey outline and, save for the towers considered TooHard that are literally impossible, or otherwise much harder than it, make for the hardest towers in all of EToH.

I feel like my tone changed a lot throughout this one. Good.

A two-pronged discussion of Regretevator

Fri, 08 Nov 2024 11:12:50 -0400

I definitely know that elevator games, as well as a lot of casual games in general, aren’t really my thing, but Regretevator does some things very right and some things very wrong that I’m sure I’d share my opinions here on even if I was more predisposed to the genre.

There’s another post I’m withholding for emotional reasons that I was considering posting to start my media thread. I thought I wouldn’t have one of those for a while, but realized there was something I needed to speak on about a game I’ve played a lot of casually, but never really understood the appeal of. As a game, I still struggle with that; however, as a creative universe, I think I understand it a lot better. It’s an interesting mishmash of unrelated concepts that explores the interactions between them in an interesting way, and given how well I can interact with its universe when I’m not interacting with the game itself, it’s something I’m very sad isn’t more accessible with some of its more interesting features.

I’ll start with the negatives, because that will make my experience with the community and with the characters a lot more clear of a contrast. The game itself is quite inaccessible; it’s random about what you can actually access, with a floor roster small enough that it’s very predictable what comes next, but very difficult to get where you actually want to go. Perhaps this is a consequence of me spending as much time as I have playing the game, where I have put enough time into the game in droves to be able to tell where I need to go and what I need to do, but many things about the game are predictable, yet despite that, it is very difficult to get a grasp on floors. While that feels like the point, it feels like everyone else has a better grasp of the game than I do all of the time, which makes it diffiult to follow.

For how little replayability this game has, however, it is incredibly slow to actually farm for things. It feels like you have to be doing one of a few very specific things to get any rewards, while there are a lot of expensive things that you have to go well out of your way in terms of grinding to purchase, namely emotes and floor tickets. It is a grind to get things going in this game, and for a game like this, I think that is incredibly bad; however, I imagine that this game’s economy is less balanced for someone like me with less patience as opposed to one of the players who are practically going daily at this game.

Speaking of the dailies: Why are they so difficult? I have never beaten one in all of my time playing since the feature was added. I’d imagine I’m doing better in this game than a lot of people, and yet I’m not able to get much more of a streak than 15, even though 19 is being called for. I feel like, unless you get lucky, a few of the dailies that are present in this game are genuinely so difficult for a lot of players that it makes it demotivating to attempt them more than once. It feels like an insurmountable challenge to get over as opposed to a reason to check in; while I do get that an easily daily check-in leads to a very unhealthy feedback loop, one that I’ve struggled with in games in the past, I’d much rather feel like I can get a reward out of a menu that takes up so much screen real estate.

This is entirely personal taste, but I’m definitely not a fan of how much horror the game has that is unavoidable unless you know what you’re doing; I’m not a fan of horror media in games, as I get very immersed in them and it makes it impossible to play if I have to put up with my emotions in that regard. It is a lot easier for me to watch a horror game playthrough than engage with the media directly, to the point where I am barely affected by jumpscares unless I’m the one playing the game. There are a number of horror-esque elements in the game, namely things like the Fafa screen effect, that terrify me for no good reason, and while you can turn off jumpscares, you can’t turn off everything.

It’s not to say this game is all bad, of course. There’s a lot to explore, and a lot of interesting feedback. For casual games, which tend to be difficult to get into for me because there’s nothing going on, the game provides a lot of feedback that lets the player make their own challenge; often, when I play with friends, I just try to build a high streak and enjoy the floors as they come with friends. I do get competitive, even sometimes in a game like this, but there’s no pressure here to perform, and that’s fun at times. I’ll also laud the movement and character control this game has; while it feels very foreign due to being a bit different from base Roblox in how it feels, it is quite smooth in comparison to base Roblox movement, despite not using many systems to do that. It is very interesting the changes the engine makes that are more conservative than other first person perspective games, but still make for a unique gamefeel.

Mechanically, I definitely have more issues with than I have draws to the game. Then, on the other side of the coin, there is the actual universe the game takes in itself and the many interesting things going on here.

Regretevator’s characters receiving so much love is something I think the game absolutely deserves. It’s a lot of unique artists and characters that are just set in an interesting place. Putting many different ideas and aesthetics in the same game, one with a very charming aesthetic that speaks to pretty much all of the current audience of Roblox that is at least somewhat interested in the old-school, means that people are bound to get attached to at least something about the universe; not only that, but you actually spend extended, “personal” periods of time with these characters in a way that is unique, and get to hear these characters elaborate briefly on their ideas and relationships. They feel real, comparatively, and unique in a way that is interesting; that, and I think that the character designs Roblox developers are capable of are very consistently quality, and to have so much room to experiment in a game like this means that so many of them are going to be excellent. My best experiences playing the game has just been experiencing it all and digging through it, which is something I don’t often enjoy going out of my way to do, but when I do get the chance, especially when playing with friends, it’s quite enjoyable.

I initially made the first part of this post well before I got to this point, but it was initially inspired by a Bluesky post of a Gnarpy fan-model that gave me a surprising amount of gender envy. On top of that, I already had some level of attachment to Prototype, though not on a kin level, and a friend of mine does kin Scag, which made for fun banter, and I had also played around with Split from a gender angle as well; because of these kinds of phenomena, through exposure to this game outside of actually playing it, I had a real chance to get attached to these characters and talk about them with friends. I think much of the positive experience I’ve gotten with the game has been what I’ve explored of the community, which is a similar angle to how I felt about Five Nights at Freddy’s and Undertale at their peaks, as well as with some consistency throughout their continued relevance; there are a lot of games where I love the chraacters, but think of the games as something that’s difficult for me to approach for their own reasons. Regretevator definitely has a lot to explore that isn’t often talked about outside of the game, which always makes it a fresh experience, but the coolest things are what I’m talking about outside of the game already.

Do I think the game is cool? Incredibly. I don’t recommend against playing it, but I can’t recommend it either unless you’re playing with friends; it’s an incredible game to experience, especially when updates come along and add bucket loads of content, but a slog to grind when you know most of what’s going on and don’t have any saying power on where the elevator ends up. It’s one of the best labors of love on Roblox as it stands, though, and will continue to grow in that way as the game gets more popular; due to the platform, it’s always easy to boot up as well. It’s just a good idea to know what your expectations should be when playing the game.

Recommending Signal (to those closest to me)

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 18:02:45 -0500

(I’m not particularly proud of this post, but I’m keeping it up for the records. I’m still checking Signal more than anywhere else, though, and highly recommend it.)

If you know what I’m talking about, this post probably isn’t for you, though feel free to read it through just in case I said something entirely wrong. This isn’t meant to be long, it’s just something that I expect to post in a number of places under a content warning.

I don’t know the current situation beyond the key political takeaway, or why exactly I need to be afraid, though I have an idea of why in general. All I know is that I have been afraid for a while, for many more reasons. I stay active on platforms like Discord because I have friends there that I don’t want to lose, but it seems now more than ever that it is easy to lose them to circumstances well in our control.

As it stands, I am not a frequent Signal user, as I do not have friends who use it. I’d like to encourage that to change. Signal is about as tight cryptographically as one can get in an instant messenger to the point where it can only report Unix timestamps. It is used by whistleblowers and others that need to maintain privacy and potentially anonymity, but it is also used by those who simply want to stay secure while talking to those who are close to them. Using it more frequently in your day-to-day life will make you harder to track, which means that when private, secure communication becomes important, it will be much harder to discern its purpose.

I have friends on XMPP who speak with me using OMEMO. OMEMO encryption is based on the technology Signal uses, but its implementation is flawed on many of its most popular clients. While it has lasted me and my friends a while and does not require your phone number, it is slow to federate and trading OMEMO keys is an action with really high overhead that has made it difficult to get new people on the network. I don’t know who will move with me, but if people are willing to move, I want to as well.

If you know me and see this, I am happy to help with setting this up if you need it. There’s also a good post by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on how to set it up and use it. Signal is mobile oriented and requires your phone number, but you do not need to distribute it to get the app to work. If there’s any important tips I learn while helping others, I’ll update this post as I go along with what I find.

Hello, world

Sat, 19 Oct 2024 12:40:08 -0400

It’s good to have something for myself again.

As of the time of writing this, this site is using a premade Hugo theme. I’m kind of sad I have to, but it’s a lot better than not having a site like this at all. This theme isn’t perfect, and it’s certainly not what I’d want out of this site, but it looks fine in most places and it’s a lot better than having nothing.

Despite rarely ever checking in on it, I am still mourning the death of Cohost.

Since Cohost shut down, I’ve wanted a blog space for myself. I don’t know how often I’ll use it, but I think it’s nice to have, because I’m not going to post my long-winded posts on fedi for all to see. I know that if I’m going to pick up my media thread again, it’s going to be here, at least; that was the niche I used Cohost for more than interacting with that community, and it served wonderfully.

I think the fact that I hadn’t set something up like this yet is part of the reason I’ve still been mourning. There was a pretty notable chunk of time where I didn’t have something to write shit down for real. Maybe I feel a bit too choked up on fedi, and I definitely have qualms with Bluesky from a systematic level, many of which are shared by the people that chose fedi over it, but I feel like I haven’t had a space like this for way too long, but I haven’t made any initiative to make that for myself until now.

I mean this to be a positive post, but it’s very negative in tone now that I start to type. I think that’s just my tone in general. It is great to have a place like this, though.