I confess to feeling a bit of envy for my friends who seem to be able to focus on a single game and then finish them within a reasonable timeframe. Some of them can plow through a 100 hour RPG in a month and then move on to the next game and finish it just as consistently. When I ask them how they could do that, they just shrug and goes, idk I just play them. Sometimes they even keep a spreadsheet (a spreadsheet!) filled with finished games, with only one or two set as "Now Playing".
A real mystery. Can't be me. It's not that a game can't keep my attention for long. It's just that, I'm discovering, I'm allergic to external validation and also very very moody. I can't dedicate all my free time to a single game just because I want to see it "beaten". Most days I have to listen to what I internally want and pick out a game that suits it. If I fail to do this I just end up not enjoying the time I'm spending on it (and then I get a little too existential about my place in the universe and what I've been doing with the time I have).
As a result, I tend to have a big rotation of games that I pick out from and it'll take ages for any of these games to leave the rotation, whether because I'm finished with it or because it fades out of my thoughts. My thoughts and mood jump between them a lot; a game can sit unplayed for three months but when I pick it back up it might be like the last time I played it was yesterday. It's just been sleeping in a part of my mind.
I sometimes write these "playlist" post to put down my thoughts on those games (or other things) that I've been juggling. I do that on twitter already, yeah (apologies to everyone who follow me for only one fandom because, lmao), but it's been a while since I write whole paragraphs and I kinda miss that... Let's learn to write whole paragraphs again!
Granblue Fantasy
Granblue Fantasy to me—that is, someone who accidentally got enamored by it at Year 12, the same way one might trip and fall into a pit—is like a library filled with many many books. I love books, I love reading, I love how with every book I read, I learn more of this world and the people who inhabit it and learn to love it even more. But boy this sure is a large library! And these sure are a lot of books!!!
If I'm in the right headspace I can read through a whole "book" (that is, an event story that usually runs for two weeks) in, maybe three days (or one, if it's an older event that's usually shorter). If I'm not though... I'll start reading and then continue the next chapter maybe next week, and the next one the week after. Which is probably to the dismay of my friends who want to see my reaction to specific stories.
I'm sorry, man!! I can't control what my mind wants! And if I just force myself to read through something I won't enjoy it as much, and then I'll be sad! I swear I'll read all the way to Home Sweet Moon someday!
Right now my mind is still mulling over the Nalhegrande characters, since I just finished Act 2 of the Main Story a few weeks ago. I like Reinhardtzar a lot, I wish they did more with him. Cain, Leona, and Pholia as well. I somehow got the Grand versions of all of them so I've been slowly going through and mulling over their fate episodes. Hmm. There's a little itch in me to do something about this...
(reading newly-unlocked grand cain fate episode so I can stop being mad at how bad the end of act 2 was) why are you already trying to sacrifice yourself 2 seconds in!!!
— Aliya 🐠🐉 (@pseudomon.bsky.social) March 12, 2026 at 9:00 PM
Farseer Trilogy
I've been really enjoying the Farseer books. I devoured book 1 and 2 like I'm a child with a flashlight and a blanket, staying up way past bedtime. I'm extremely fond of Fitzchivalry (I refuse to capitalize the C, you don't capitalize the G in Fitzgerald either), that's my son.
He's a lot of characters' son! The way the books are about how he grew up, and how everyone else grew old around him, the way he learned to pick up responsibility, and then messing it up, and then picking things up again, the way he went through hell and back and tried his best despite everything... that's my son!! I'm so fond of him.
The books are also about what it means to rule, to put the people ahead of yourself, and to be in a position of power (which is to say, it's about politics). Do you know this is one of my pet topic, and also probably my most indulgent fantasy? To have a a ruler who cares about their people, what would that take?
A lot of fantasy stories involving kingdoms tend have kings who are tyrants, and thus the people suffers. In a refreshing turn, the Farseer king loved his people unconditionally. He was also highly competent; in every way like a model of what good monarch could be. My power fantasy fulfilled.
Okay, book 2 said, but what if he has dementia? And it was such a good exploration of what would happen in that case. Even the best of kings can't stay good forever; how do you take that power away—without offending him, without letting the whole system fall apart—and who will you give it to?
I'm on Book 3 and honestly..... without spoiling anything, it's getting a little dull. I'd blame it on the way we're moving away from court intrigue to more typical adventurer's quest, but the prose has also become a little circular. I'll still read it to the end, but it's slower going now.
Tsukihime: a piece of blue glass moon
I spend half the time reading this cursing Nasu for thinking himself immortal, that he can write thousands of words of fluff such that we haven't gotten anywhere in 10 hours of reading. Does he really think he can live long enough to keep writing like this? Does he think we live long enough to keep reading his bullshit?
The other half of the time I wanted to apologize to Nasu for ever shit-talking him because this shit is hype as hell, and spicy and poignant and imaginative and I even like it when Nasu entered powerscaling mode.
It's actually good, darn.
If nothing else, Tsukihime has been a, I don't know how to put this, a low-energy read? I'm writing a novel at the moment so I like to get some insights from the written works I'm currently engaging in. With most other written works I'm reading, I put some effort into understanding every line. Why did they write it that way, what does it say that it's not saying outright, how does it connect to the next phrase? It's been insightful, yes, but it makes reading more tiring.
With Tsukihime, though, I refuse to waste any more time at it than I already am. The prose isn't that good anyway! It's working out pretty well. I read it pretty quickly and it doesn't tire me out but I also don't feel like I'm missing anything. It's a good light read.
Also, bless the adjustable auto-continue function. When I'm having a meal I just play it on Auto and have a good time without having to press the controller. Mealtime is where a good chunk of the reading time goes.
Unbeatable
I tweeted about it and hopefully I can write a whole blog post about it once I finish it, but Unbeatable feels like it's a swansong of the millennials.
I'm not sure how to describe this je ne sais quoi, but it feels very much like a game made by millennials: those who were kids in the end/beginning of the millennium (that's myself included!). It's a swansong not that it's the last game made by millennials, but it's among the last that can retain this sort of authenticity. At this point in time the millennials are at the tail end of being a "young adult". Any game made by this generation afterwards will be done with them as "full adults", and I feel like there'll be something lost in that, some energy of youth or fearlesness in the face of instability. This is among the last game where that will be visible.
Unbeatable is a strange game that I think will click only to specific people (young millenials, elder gen-z) but I don't think there's any doubts to how much love and care was put into it. It's janky and messy and corny, but that's kinda part of it. I'm the young millenial it clicks with and even I still find difficulty keeping up with what it's going for.
This is as good as a game should be.
The Great Gatsby
This book turned a hundred year old last year. Can you imagine that! A hundred years after it's released and it's still being read and loved. I've read it maybe three times, and while I can't say I gain any deeper insight with every read, it always does hit me.
Jay Gatsby is perhaps one of the best-written character in English literature. Not just in who he is, but how we get to learn about him. The whole book is narrated by Nick Carraway, someone who's pretty content with being just some guy: he's not too concerned with getting himself seen or to make a name of himself. He described himself as "one of the few honest people I know" and he's right about that. Gatsby, by contrast, is rich and well-known and throw ostentatious party. We first learn about him through his reputation and hearsays of his potentially sinister past, and when Nick met Gatsby he didn't even realise who he was.
It's exactly because Nick is who he is that he could see Gatsby for who he actually is, under all the parties he threw: someone who gets embarassed easily, who's sensitive and a romantic and believes in even the slightest bit of hope. Someone with a dogged belief that things could get better, but held down from doing anything about that by the fear that his slightest move could make things come tumbling down. He's a coward and a romantic and Nick is one of the few people who could see that without any judgment.
He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, one that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced—or concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favour. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished
This line—of when Nick met Gatsby for the first time—has been stuck with me for the last ten or so years since I first read the book. It's not just that it's a beautiful prose, or that it manages to describe a beautiful fleeting moment, but also because in that one moment you see so much of who Gatsby really is. More than that—and this I only really understood during my current reread—it tells you who Nick really is, that he could see that far into Gatsby's psyche in only a moment.
Isn't that beautiful, to be so well-understood by someone else by just a fleeting look?
Opus Magnum
I'm thinking of when I introduced the game to my sister, an animator, and she said, "wow this feels like making an animation". That statement was fascinating to me because to me, a programmer, making those alchemical engines feel a lot like programming.
We approach the game slightly differently. She cares a little more about motion, how the whole machine work together. I care a little more about placement, how the small parts can work independently. Both our machines are inefficient at high level (lol), but we both still have a good time with it.
There was a DLC out this month and I haven't gotten far with it but it's been tickling my brain. I really do enjoy making my stupid little machines.
Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising / Guilty Gear Strive / Melty Blood: Type Lumina
Fuck me, I miss playing fighting games so much. It's just that fighting games are the sort that you get better at with practice, and if you don't practice the skill really does just leave you. I didn't play at all during Ramadan (because of scheduling conflict, mostly. My nights are more occupied), so I kinda reverted to a baby now.
That alone won't be that bad; I've learned to forgive myself and treat myself like a beginner again. The bad part is that because I have a so many games on my rotation, I only got the mood for fighting games, maybe once a week. And each week that I didn't play, my muscle memory left me and it's like I'm back to square one again.
I want to dedicate my time again. Why is that so difficult to do. Just play the damn game.
Arknights: Endfield
I already wrote a bit more about Endfield in a playlist post I didn't end up posting. Here
One thing I've been enjoying about Endfield is how it has many different parts that each tickle a different part of my brain, and that I can jump between those different parts without worrying that I'm blocking progress in one from the other. There's the factory building, the exploration, the combat, and when I'm finally in the mood, going through the story.
It's a very relaxing, low-energy game in that way, though at the cost of realising that three or four hours have passed when I'm done with it. But, you know, I don't regret those hours. Usually I can only play a game for, at maximum, two hours before I get exhausted; after that I can't really do anything much for a bit. With Endfield, though, I feel pretty energized even after playing for a long time. Wow, a game that's actually played as a form of rest, for fun, instead of something to expand my understanding of the medium and/or the world.
Wouldn't it be nice if it also expand my understanding of the medium... which it does, a little, but I try not to worry about it or I'll get sad at what it's missing. If I want Good Writing I'll play the original Arknights.
Speaking of.
Arknights
As of writing this, the Kjerag anniversary even is about to be released in a few days. I'm sooooo excited. The first Kjerag event was also my first event in Arknights, and it really did just throw me smack into all its political drama and conflicts around industrialization and religion.
I didn't know it at the time, but I think my two favorite subjects to explore in fiction is the relationship between beings of different degrees of divinity (usually between mortals and gods, occassionally between mortals and objects granted consciousness) and politics surrounding nation states (international conflict, what it means to be the leader of a people, what it means to be a people). This event promises to have both in spades.
I still love you, Arknights. Sorry for spending so much time with Granblue Fantasy lately.
NEO: The World Ends With You
Apparently the last time I played this game was in 2022. Four years ago! It didn't feel that long. I didn't finish it that time and I always felt like I'll come back around to finishing it (I was at Week 3, Day 1). Well, when I tried loading my old save I realise I actually don't remember a single dang thing about the game. Nevermind then, let's start a new game.
The first TWEWY game was a deeply influential game in my life but also I was 12 years old at the time. When I played NEO TWEWY, inevitably, I both compared it to my memory of its predecessor and also from the eye of an experienced adult. My memory from four years ago told me it wasn't a very good game. Its story was uninspired to the level that I remember almost none of it and despite the quirky cast I was attached to none of them. I spent all the time playing waiting for something to happen, only trudging along from one objective to the next.
This time I tried to be fairer while also playing it with a more critical eye. My conclusion so far (so far as in I'm still in Week 1) is that the writing is weird. It both wants to be naturalistic (characters that interrupt each other, meandering chains of thoughts) but also a quirky cast with strong tics (there's the guy who's obsessed with numbers and number puns, the antagonist who's like a rapper boss, etc). It's a strange mishmash that's off-putting and somewhat distract from the story it's telling.
And what is the story it's telling? The first game centers Neku and how he gradually opens up from a guy who just kinda hates everything and everyone to someone who cares about other people. "The world ends with you" in that the world is only as big as your willingness to open yourself up to it. NEO TWEWY though, I'm not so sure.
I'm still having trouble reading the team dynamic between Rindo, Fret, and Nagi. At the moment it almost feels like Fret is willingly trapping himself in an abusive relationship where he does everything for a guy who doesn't care about him (Rindo) just because he knows he's not very smart and he trusts that the other guy is. Rindo is a jerk in an insidious way, in that he's not outwardly malicious but internally he really only thinks for himself.
I dunno. We'll see if anything comes out of this.
this novel I'm writing
Been working on this novel for a few months now. Can I call it a novel? It's a Granblue Fantasy fanfic, but it's mostly about an original character, but this original character is derived from the existing cast. I'm treating it like a novel though, in that I let it takes its time and expands and meanders.
I think this is something special. My biggest fear is that I won't be able to finish it, or to give it the due time and effort that it needs. I want it to be good. I want it to be something that's whole. I have the whole plotline to the ending more or less ready, I let it haunt me with scenes in the future that I haven't gone to. The middle part is still giving me trouble to write though; nothing to do about it other than to work thorugh it, I suppose.
I write it in my physical notebook with my near-illegible handwriting first, and then I type it while also heavily editing it on the PC. And then sometimes I scroll back to what I've written and make more edits. Or sometimes even add and remove whole scenes along the way. I'm a good chunk into Act 3 in the notebook, and a good chunk into Act 2 on the PC, but also there's a big hole in Act 1 that I still can't figure out yet, since I didn't end up liking my first draft of it. According to my plans we'll have 4 acts in the story, though the last one should be pretty short.
Still a long way to go then. It's okay. We'll get there. Just have to keep working on it. Living is worth it if I get to write this to completion.
(Will anyone read it? I can't make that my concern, I'll get sad. I'm sure someone will, I know at least one person will. One person is enough)
