This is a reboot of my regular blog starting new for 2026. There's a archival wordpress for 2025 if you look around/ahead.
Turns out you can just delete your enemies. It's fine, there's no repercussions, you don't need to spend billions to placate them and make them behave. Just flatout literally kill 'em. I'm kind of glad I'm above the draft age . . . . untill they burn through the lower age brackets and call me up for service. That'd be the day, right?"
So I actually did write up a new blog entry about on March 2nd or so. I say blog entry, but it was more like an indepth rant about the new Marathon and my experience with the Exfil genre since October 2018 with Escape from Tarkov.
I had a lot of fond and great, and not so great memories of EFT from that 2018–21 era of the game. It was the golden era, a time when I was still on frankly good terms with people in a certain VR community; before everyone started to hold grudges and hate everyone else. I still have webms I captured of those good memories. For me, being a loot goblin who took everything not nailed to the floor, EFT was a fun, relaxing experience. I don't like PvP, and actively avoided it. I used to have "friends" who mocked me so I gave to play a lot more anxiety-inducing after that period. I loved Shoreline, or as the general tarkov community called it Snoreline, because I loved just hitting up the hidden caches at swamp, stroll through village without a care in the world and the only difficulty I had was really just crossing the water stream down the middle. I didn't care for the game's Tasks, and just wanted to make money and sell on the flea my fat loads of loot. That was Tarkov for me.
But by the time they introduced Reserve, and especially around 22–23, I stopped playing. The bad experiences began to outdo the good. I had a particularly terrible session with a friend who got ragebaited too easily and screamed at me. I decided then the game and playing with friends just wasn't for me anymore. I played on and off very rarely in SPT for a while, but the exfil genre really isn't designed as a singleplayer game, sure you can just unlock everything with the click of a button but then its a conundrum of why even play in the first place? The more I played, the more I did these shitty wipes, the more I realized how much of a grindy pointless slog it is.
I sought to try and replay what didn't exist anymore. The more recent attempt I did on the live branch was when they expanded Shoreline so there was that whole section with the base. That proved to be the final straw for me. Suddenly, my comfy cozy map was no longer fun. I literally could not ever step a foot out of spawn without getting killed by the crazy bunched up PMC spawns. And even if I did, I'd get killed by snipers protecting pretty much the entire north section of the map. I once had a raid where I knew if I spawned in the village, I was just dead meat from people spawning all around it, so I couldn't even leave. In that instance, I sat there, and literally stared at the wall... and it troubled me I was playing like this. I waited, and waited, and maybe about 10 real-life minutes I got out of the house, walked across the lawn, and a PMC runs up, slide rolls past the fence and killed me.
I knew then playing on Shoreline just wasn't fun. I used to switch it up with Woods—same thing, I'd hit up abanonded sawmill and then just get the fuck out. Nobody played these two maps ever, but something changed. I also used to just actively try and play the lowest pop servers to avoid interacting with anyone, and that used to work.
So I stopped playing, and actively warned people even interested in Ghosts of Tabor about the exfil genre. It's a dead-end genre and I will always maintain that. It's literally just League of Legends or Warthunder or WoT but a extract shooter. I finally just unistalled it and the older SPT install I had and never looked back.
So, the new Marathon.
I played the Slam the second to last day. It was interesting. I actually only did about ~5 games bar the tutorial session. The first one, we had no idea what we were doing and died. I didn't actually mean to play in a trio but I queued up with two randoms before I could cancel. Boy the enemies sure were bullet sponges, ammo is out before you know it, the whole free kit thing was confusing, the menus about as much as a maze as Classic Marathon. I feel I didn't have time to read the lore but I wish I did.
The next two I played with were friends with eachother—they kept using their real life names but I was considerate and used their online handles still. It was chill, jolly even, and we helped out whenever possible. I gave them my exfil knowledge since neither were familiar and gave them quick brief rundowns on rat and exfil campers. They both had to call it a night, so rather than run another trio (it was getting late and my walls are super thin), I ran solo.
And that's when I began to realize maybe this game isn't going to click with me. HP packs that cost a fortune, scant hp loot in general, and nearly nonexistant ammo. Every engangement with the USEC robutts were going to end one way so I tried to play sneakily. But the most damning thing was even getting hit once oblierated your hp, and the two raids I did just wasn't fun. I called it a night and figured I'd give it another go in the morning.
That never came to be, it ended after I woke up so I never got a second chance.
And then from the 3rd to the evening of the 7th my internet completely shart the bed. So it vastly limited what I was able to do, I couldn't even watch friends stream on discord or even stream myself, let alone even send images most of the time. My network usage was capped to 250 KB/s the whole time. So I tried to make the most of it. I was writing this blog post on its second iteration on the night of the 6th so I had to revise it a little since.
So about the 5th I finally worked up the courage to build another gunpla. I only made 2—a RG Zaku 2 and a HG Juaggu back in 2015 or so. I was so traumitized by making the Zaku 2 I just never touche another one after the Juaggu. I sent both as part of a care package to my bf last year as a birthday present.
I think I will send him as part of a care package to my bf. For the next gunpla I want to do either GM Cold District or Powered Armor since I bought those next after the Zaku I. Then maybe the Gelgoog marine my bf got me as a gift. Hard to say. I'll figure it out later.
It was a good time as any to watch some personal anime for the week, but I generally just wasn't feeling it in the end and never did. I watch these in vr chat with my bf, but since it'd mean the video player would stop playing every couple seconds, we couldn't cuddle and watch stuff at all. This does remind me though, I should eventually start watching Lucky Star for myself one of these days, since it's the one moe anime from that era I never watched—I did watch K-ON, however.
The week prior, we did watch that week's stuff of Frierien and the others. The episode where they visisted the village and came across the two other mages was cool. I never read the manga but we both speculated that the two mages aren't maybe who they seem? Like maybe they're actually demons in diguise. We were kinda getting that impression from some of the eerily shots. I try to stray away from discussions on myanimelist or /a/ to avoid spoilers however. Excited to see what next episode entails in any case. Nothing to really say about the others; I kinda just forgot.
So about the time I played the Marathon Slam, and my internet sharting itself, I decided to play the Classic Marathon. And it was fun. Brutally sadisticially hard, but fun. I ven felt like making a steam review for it; here it is:
It's literally free; compare that to the 40USD pricetag for the 2026 reboot/sequel borrowing this game's namesake, and perhaps you want to know the origins of the 2026 Marathon game's story, and maybe experience Bungie's game design before Halo about a decade when this originally came out in '94.
There's quite a lot of interesting lore if you're a junkie for that kind of thing. The only thing you have to lose is your sanity listening to the same Midi music tracks on loop for each level, because they aren't long and loop infinitely. Luckily you can just lower the volume but still appreciate the game volume without it if it starts to drive you or people watching you stream go completely nuts. And potentially, as the kids say these days, getting ragebaited as you die and must restart from a checkpoint. There is no manual saving in this version of the game. Save points are scarce and if you die in the one level and your last save point was in the one prior to that, well. . . . tough luck!
There's at least 2 things this shares with the 2026 game story-wise; you're on the Marathon colony ship thing (about 100 years after this game), and you will find yourself at one HP if you're a noob. But unlike the new one, there aren't hp packs here you can loot and you have very limited stations you can generate from. It's a product of 90s' game design with its maze-like map designs so it can be a pain backtracking, but its bearable. It's about as brutal as the new one, but more enjoyable in my experience.
Overall, this puts the 'ass' in 90s' fps classic gameplay. It's worth giving it a shot to see early era Bungie before its Halo heyday.
I probably won't play the second one or Infinity. I was mainly only interested to see how it tied into the new one. I actually did pull the trigger and buy it two hours before it released . . . but as you may guess, I never got to play it in time. While my measle 240 kb/s internet struggled to download it, I read reviews on it and lost heart, so I refunded it. Maybe I'll try and play it later, but I'm not sure I want to drag my nuts through the desert on spikes to find out the lore. Been reading stuff over on the Knockout forums relating to the lore and that's probably as close I'll get to experiencing the game.
I shouldn't be getting distracted by games though at the moment. I need to focus on writing and reading. I'll end this blog post with my current physical library since I haven't actually posted it yet.
The ones I haven't read yet:
Till next time! Maybe I will try to get back into Marathon 2026 after all; but I'll just have to see.
Before I knew it, February was already over.
So what have I been up to since the December 4th blog update? A lot of things, and not so much anything at all.
The previous blog entries were getting too bloated and too much hassle to actually update. I made a wordpress blog but I haven't been using it much. It is a lot easier to make entries on there(go figure it was meant for blogs) but . . . I just got lazy.
December was a roller coaster without the security rails. It sucked.
So, usually my M.O is to get the lame duck stuff out of the way first, then focus on the positives. Usually, that meant life musings and periodic updates on anime I may have been watching (airing or yesterdecade), along with games and updates on my reading and writing. Sprinkled in with images and screencaps and such forth . . .
And that kinda just burnt me out, I guess. Turns out it's harder to keep up the momentum. It was therapeutic, sure, but just a pain after the fact. Having to go back to previous entries and update them with newer blog entries was just . . . agh.
I'm hoping with this new iframe method I discovered it may be easier, so who knows. Maybe the pages won't go on for forever; maybe there'll be more gaps between entries and I'll just post whatever comes to mind. It may all just be a form of Cliff's notes.
So, a recap what happened up to November-December 4th 2025. I played through Ghost of Tsushima, finished Odyssey, started on Stranger in a Strange Land Uncut, and was beginning to write more diligently on an early draft for my webnovel, A Game of Cosmic Titans. My boyfriend and I were starting on Gundam ZZ (his first time, my first rewatch) and I promised I'd write the halfway point anime season review, which I never followed up on. And I ended the blog post with a eerily "So, until next time space cowboy... if ther even is a next time. stay safe."
I usually tried to write out each blog post as if it may be my last(lol), and that one hit the lottery. It was solely just lack of motivation since I had multiple blog entries on each page every month for all of 2025, starting with February.
That's about as minimal recap I could make. I won't delete the wordpress yet, but if you're feeling stalkerish you can read up on the 2025 entries, and maybe I'll continue using it. But . . . I dunno. There's too many Thinking Machines on the platform for my liking, it kind of creeps me out a little.
So anyway, what have I been doing since?
Well. Life sucked. A lot. But at the same time it was OK. My boyfriend and I of 4 years (it's LDR) had a rocky month and we nearly broke up, but we mended and I like to think our relationship strengthened.
We finished the rest of ZZ (having stopped at ep25) and it was such a fascinating series to revisit. He hasn't watched anything except the TV 0079 so he thought the series was incredible up until this point; I'm going to show him Unicorn next despite my initial concerns from the get-go—we watched CCA already, just before the Gquack finale dropped—and then I want to show him the Hathaway Flash movies. From there I have no idea, maybe Origin.
I can't be bothered writing up a review of Fall 2025 anime. The season was OK. Nothing memorable as usual. Crazy that 2020s' has no real hidden gem like prior decades. Just forgettable slop . . .
My mental state throughout 2025 was absolutely rubbish. One supplement I've been taking was Ashwagandha and its effectiveness has been so-so. But strangely, one day nearly overnight in late December . . . I just feel more soothed, more relaxed and calm. Like my mental state isn't usually as turbulent—I have extreme anxiety and intrusive thoughts daily for years, and it was like a useful bandage. But now, my mind is like a gentle river flow. I'm no longer as likely to freak out or get ragebaited.
I've since finished Stranger in a Strange Land Uncut and have read and finished Redenveous with Rama since. Stranger was intriguging but I'm merely too plebian to fathom most of it, Heinlein is completly something else. Meanwhile, Clark was easier on my smoothbrain and I admire its use of economic and short-length chapters that I feel helped me with my writing.
Now, it's back to Heinlein with The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. And I must say . . . the first person pov with a slavic dialect threw me off but I'll still give it a try.
Gaming-wise: After Tsuhima, I meandered and played TF2 as my fallback game for the most part. I mostly tried to write more and ultimately fell in on playing MGSV for the first time. I ws taken aback how un-MGS it was in terms of gameplay. No procure on site, no rations, no shaking down enemies, early MGS games had charm because it was a closed sandbox, they were less action and more action puzzle based. . . the warning signs were there with 4. I've long known of the spoilers going in and enjoyed the story for the most part. To me, 3 will always be the highmark of MGS.
After I wrapped up V, I decided to also give the og, functioning out of the box, now-delisted working version of Final Fantasy 7 a try. Like MGSV, I never played it before beside a very, very brief moment at the dawn of the 2000s' when I played it on my uncle's PS1; that remained my only experience with singleplayer FF games. I did play FF11 with a friend group for the last couple years, but interest fell off one after another or some of us were too broke to pay the sub. Sad, but the last of us (my bf and I) enjoyed our last session as we literally rode off into the sunset after a somewhat frustrating session figuring out where to go.
FF7 was fun. Challenging, unforgiving, and I knew of THAT spoiler scene, but I didn't let it stop me from having an unforgettable experience. I won't be touching the modern remake sequels, however.
Since then, I bought New Vegas on a whim since I never got into Fallout. After installing Viva Vegas, I booted it up, ran around aimlessly, and . . . refunded it. It didn't click with me. I think after playing Morrowind, Tsushima, MGSV, and FF7, you get kind to experience hallmarks of open world games . . . and the genre is kind of meh. Morrowind I never played much of either. It was too empty; something that was echoed a decade later with V. GTA remains the titan of the genre and it pains me that its influence was so entrenched for the 2000s-2010s. I thought about eyeing Chrono Trigger, or one of the earlier crusty FFs like FF6, or 5. But I haven't decided on any further game to play right now. Presently, I'm enjoying TF2 Classified, and that brings me to . . .
My writing. Maybe you've been following me the past year but I talked about it frequently. I finally worked up the courage and launched A Game of Cosmic Titans on Royalroad and Spacebattles. So go check it out if you're interested. Swan's Song is completed at approximately 50k words; it just needs a lot of editing. I write slow, and edit slower.
Hmmm . . . let's see . . . I think I covered most bases for the debut blog entry. There's no telling when the next one may be, or if there even will be a next one. But the days are getting shorter and I went outside today and despite the forecast saying it was 86 F, it actually felt more like high 90s . . . ah well. For the non clapping americans out there, that equals to 30 C and what I felt was about 35 C. Yeah. Turns out living in the smack middle of the desert kinda fucking sucks. I always joked to my co-workers in the past I'll fake my death and move to Alaska. At least they have UBI there; my state struck down UBI and declared it illegal; to paraphrase a politican: "I don't know, it's too socialist."
Oh, there is one thing I neglected: Our airing anime. This season my boyfriend and I are watching:
It's an OK season so far. Normally, my M.O would be giving at least a brief summary of each, but I'm feeling lazy.
It's hard to say which show is good or not at this point. MF Ghost resolved the protag's reason for coming to Japan in the first place and it's doing a somewhat sloppy job of juggling the slice of life aspect that made the original Inital D series so endearing; in the og, they were just school kids who liked to race and juggle life on the side. It was balanced, here, not so much. But ms paint gold star for trying.
Golden Kamuy . . . boy! Such crazy pacing, but the ending visuals is real killer.
Trigun Stargaze . . . I've only watched the OG and never read the manga. Apparently the little girl is anime original and just like there. She's like Jar Jar Binks, you can cut her out and nothing would really change (other than her coming along to fetch the protag so he can save his ship thingajing). It's kind of weak. As one friend put it: if a show has very little to no fanart or porn on gelbooru it's dead in the water.
Darwin Jihen is simply diabolical. I'm surprised they got away with showing what they did in the last 2 episodes (6+7). Interesting to say the least.
Frieren . . .something something Himmel. *Himmel flashback*. It's just more of the season.
On the side we're progressing nicely through og Higurashi season 2. Nipaaah~. And starting on one of the later Sailor Moon series. We're suppose to be resuming VOTOMS but I keep neglecting it. My BF has been showing me lots of tamer12345 content recently and it's amusing to say the least.
OK. That wraps it up.
Take care dear visitor; see you space cowboy.
