Today in Jakarta we're having an exceptionally relaxing Sunday. It's not too hot, not too cold; it was pleasantly cloudy in the morning with some light precipitation, and then pleasantly sunny in midday with the sun shining but the wind blowing just enough to mitigate the heat. Now that the sun is closer to the horizon we're back to mildly cloudy with a comfortable breeze. The kind of days that, with the right surrounding, you can feel happy just by existing. Or maybe feel melancholic. It feels like the kind of day to think about where you've been and where you're going.
It's been a long while since my last playlist post, although there's also that Games of the Year retrospective post. I read them again and it's fascinating how far I've come since then. The things I talked about in them felt like a whole lifetime ago. I'm finished with college, after a final thesis that's more exhausting in the bureaucracy part than actually working on it. I got a full-time job as a web programmer; somehow exactly what I always thought I would be. I majored in International Relations, you know, and I always see myself as a writer first, a translator second, and programmer only third, but out of all those occupations being a programmer is probably the most stable and easiest to find a decent-paying job of, so I fell back to it, as expected.
My job is pretty enjoyable. It's nice to be able to work on something that's useful for someone and be compensated for it (instead of throwing myself at a project that's personally enriching but no one will even look at), and I'm definitely getting better and better at it with each passing day. It's been keeping me busy, though, and exhausted. Not a week goes by without me hoping I have more time for more writing or reading or translations or just some nonsense unrelated projects. Programming is only one part of my brain and I want to nurture all the rest too.
I've still been reading a lot. Books and blogs and articles and Twitter, history and current events and things that depress me and make me go "what the FUCK, why are people like this". But, most days I'd be too exhausted to even think of what I can do about it. I know I'm good at reading, at devouring information and processing them and gaining a better understanding of the world, but what good is knowledge if it's only stuck inside my cranium? I know I can be good at writing, but... but I'm always too exhausted to do it. I sit in front of a blank page and I got intimidated by the sheer energy I have to put into organizing my thoughts, and then I realise I only have half an hour to do it before I'll have to go to bed and tomorrow I'll have to go to work again.
The least I can do is read then. Gain even better understanding so when I do have the energy to do something about it, I have my weapons loaded and ready to fire.
In any case. I still play plenty of games to fill in the part of my mind that always need to buzz with something. Games and other obsessions give them something to latch on, you know. And I think it helps them latch on to the more important things, when I need them to.
Genshin Impact
This is it boys, we've found a game that I will simply not stop playing until the heat death of the universe. It doesn't quite have the same luster as it has when I started playing over a year ago, but that was because the luster was replaced by even more things that I appreciate about it. Life is ephemeral, et cetera, but with this transience come changes, with every ending is a new beginning. Uhh, my metaphors are definitely running away from me.
Okay, here's something concrete I can say about it: it's getting better and better. The writing is better. The environmental design is getting even better. The worldbuilding continues to impress. The localization (English and Indonesian; I play in both) is getting better and I love it for them. I can tell: the people who work on the game understands their creation and their process better, simply through the natural process of working on it, and the whole game benefits from it. And there are still so many new things in the horizon for it, more characters and stories and plotlines. They take their time, know to pace themselves without losing sight of the end. It's fascinating. I look forward to a few more years of this, before it will inevitably end at some point. All things end.
But anyway! The summer island event is currently on so if you're looking for me, I'd be riding my boat through the Golden Apple Archipelago just enjoying the breeze and helping my buddies—Kazuha, Xinyan, and Fischl and Mona too I guess—discover themselves.
Arknights
The first thing that made me interested in Arknights is its stylish UI. Hilariously, it ends up being the thing that annoys me the most, now that I'm playing it. Why are the dialogue text so tiny? Who designed this? What were they thinking? At least they know how to make still images look cool.
The other thing that made me interested is hearing how it has a fashion sense. Fashion specifically, not merely good character design. Here, at least, oh boy it delivers. They have whole fashion magazines worth of outfits and most of them aren't even the silly anime design. It's got outfits that made me go, damn, I'd wear that... if only I'm brave enough to buy and try clothes other than the ones I've been wearing for the last six years.
But it’s the third thing that seals it in for me: it has incredible worldbuilding and underlying plot. The world in Arknights is made up of about a dozen nations and factions all with their own intertwined histories, all inspired in thoughtful ways from real life nations and their histories. An example, and also the only one I have decent knowledge of: The cold mountainous land of Kjerag seems to be based on both Nordic and Native American culture, and its main plot revolve around how, after being isolated from the rest of the world, it now has to modernize or be left behind. Its people however, are highly religious, and its leaders have to find way to balance the old tradition and the new industrialization while simultaneously being at each other's throats.
That’s only one piece out of a dozen, in a world ravaged by constant natural disasters, heavy militarization, and a rampant pandemic that creates class divide. Other factions includes a Polish-based land where chivalric knighthood is being replaced by spectacle-based capitalism, a Russian-based empire that arise after overthrowing a race of ancient rulers, a terrorist organization formed by people vilified for being infected by a deadly disease, a prison that moves itself, para-military medical labs, I am barely keeping track.
There's one more thing that draws me in, and this completely blindsides me: the game also periodically releases songs like a whole dang music label, all of them enriching the worldbuilding in one way or another. Songs created for Arknights come in every genre you can think of, from rock to pop to ominous Latin chanting to hip hop rap, all of them bangers. My favourite, though, is this Russian elegy titled Requiem. I don’t even know which character this song is supposed to be far or what event it’s related with, but it makes me... feel things...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTZ5VSmPU9Q
Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes
I played Fire Emblem: Three Houses back in 2019 and while saying that it's a turning point in my life might be exaggerating, it sure hasn't left my brain for all the three years that came afterwards. I still occasionally think about its characters and the world they inhabit. Three Houses was incredible at igniting my brain, but its storytelling have many critical flaws: its wonky pacing, its insistence at certain plot points that should've been excised before they become so fundamental, its very visible struggle at telling the story it wants to tell.
And then in 2022 this game came along, bearing the Fire Emblem Warriors title. The first Fire Emblem Warriors was a silly cross-over where you can use popular characters from the previous game to whack your way to victory and have zany interaction with each other. Naturally, most of us thought Three Hopes is going to be something like that: play your favourite Three Houses characters in a more action-based gameplay and see more of their fun interaction. You know, like a cash-grab aimed at those fans who'd buy anything with the Three Houses characters in it.
We were wrong. I cannot understate how wrong we were, for underestimating this game.
I'm only halfway through Golden Wildfire, one of the three routes in the game, and the story I've seen so far floored me. This game is tailor-made for existing fans alright, it's tailor-made because it takes all the visible flaws from the story of the first game, the kinds that fans are already aware of, and then threw them into the fire, replacing them with new stories with lessons learned. Instead of a sequel or interquel or a cheap divergence, Three Hopes is set in an alternate universe, excising many of the narrative problems that plagues Three Houses, and then letting new and exciting plotlines blossom in their place. It asks questions the first game didn't dare tread, and explores them with ruthless precision.
One thing that really impresses me is how it manages to write all the characters in such a way that conflict arises, but without painting any one character as good or evil. Instead, everyone has their own values, their own good intentions wrapped in the inevitable selfishness created by how they were brought up and what they can see of the world. Characters did things I didn't like or even expect, but I totally understand how they got there. It's masterful.
It's not all good though. The writing in its opening scenes (those shown in the demo) is laughably bad. Gameplay-wise, it inherits Three Houses's exhausting multi-plates-spinning when it could've been tighter. Hmm. Maybe I should take my own advice and skip some of them. The main story is meaty enough as it is.
Anyway, last word: it's absolutely worth a play if you've played and enjoyed Three Houses, even if you're not into the Warriors genre. If you haven't played Three Houses though, you won't understand a damn thing. The writing relies on the players having some understanding of its setting and characters. Without that, well, I don't think you'll be completely lost, but you will be missing a metric ton of nuance.
Books and shows and such
I'm currently reading The Widow Queen by the Polish writer Elżbieta Cherezińska and translated to English by Maya Zakrzewska-Pim, which is historical fiction about the political landscape of in Eastern Europe in the tenth century, focusing primarily on the daughter of the Polish Duke (and sister to who would be the first crowned king of the Poland) but also other rulers and rulers-to-be of the lands. I love it. The drama! The tensions! The vaguely mythic prose, the grand scope. It's like playing a good round of a grand strategy game, but without the drudgery of actually playing a grand strategy game!
I recently watched an anime called Ya Boy Kongming! which is about famous ancient Chinese tactician Zhuge Liang Kongming who got transported into modern day Tokyo and found new life as a "tactician" for a budding new musician called Eiko. It's very good! Nicely paced, well-written, funny and genuine, self-encapsulated in 13 episodes (with room for sequels). Not terribly groundbreaking—it doesn't take a lot of risks, narratively, its main message is pretty standard anime affair—but very good at what it wants to be. I will protect Kabetaijin's smile with my life.
A while back I finished playing 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, which is so incredibly good I could write a whole thesis on how good it is but am unfortunately too tired to really delve into that at the moment. Basically if you like classic science fiction this is an absolutely must play. If you're interesting in narrative design, it's also an absolute must play.
https://twitter.com/PseudoMonious/status/1531288445087232001?s=20&t=JYsT0T0lwu6eQ7yJpiAYWw
I also recently finished reading The Republic of Thieves, the third novel featuring gentleman thief bastard Locke Lamora. I might be grudgingly in love with Locke Lamora, I cannot resist his type of character, but it also means I can't really be trusted to judge whether or not it's a good book, lmao. I can assure you it's definitely a Locke Lamora book though.
Projects and such
As I've mentioned, I have a full time job now, so my hobbyist projects are limited to the weekends. Sometimes I manage to get an hour or two at night after work, but more often than not I won't have the energy for that. I just... I don't have a lot of energy, definitely not as much as other people. My myriad health problems continue to be myriad.
I'm still learning Japanese. Progress is super slow, but steady enough. I still can't watch anime without subtitles, but I can understand roughly half of what they're saying. My French is, well, I don't think it's getting worse but definitely zero improvement. I haven't had time to practice Chinese at all either.
On the ENG<->IND translation front, I still have the fan-translation of Touhou 13: Ten Desires on my plate and also for Hollow Knight. Apparently the last time I touch either is already over a month ago? Ha.... haha.... I am so out of practice...
I'm still maintaining the Genshin Multilingual Database, keeping it up to the date with the game even though I haven't been able to add more content to it. I still haven't got the time to extract quest dialogues from the game; doing that can take whole days and whole days are what I don't have right now. I also wish I can keep working on Pradewata, my personal project to retranslate bits of Genshin to Indonesian that retains more of the characters' personality. Genshin's Indonesian translation for the recent events and characters is pretty good now, but it'll still be a fun challenge, I think.
Lastly, I'm working on rebuilding Lightning Cards, my flash card app, with Svelte and TypeScript and generally my increased web development ability. It's slow going, but it's probably making more progress than the other projects I've mentioned here.
A Weary Conclusion
Howee, "the sun is closer to the horizon", I wrote in the beginning of this blog post. Well. It's pretty late at night now, and I don't think I'll be able to get this blog post up until tomorrow. Man, writing is exhausting, even when it's just my own random brainfarts about the things that are taking up the low-maintenance part of my brain.
Well, exhausting as it is, writing all these is probably not a bad thing, though. Organizing my thoughts is a skill and this is one of the way I'm learning it (is it? Is it really? Or am I just tiring myself out for nothing?). Would be nice if it doesn't feel like it might kill me, though. Would be nice if there's anything I can do that doesn't feel like it'll kill me in one way or another.
Well. Regardless of how the weather is treating you, I hope you're having a good day, dear reader!
