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Recommendations

everything marked with a ⭐ is absolute peak; and I do not give this lightly. These pieces of media have left an indelible mark on my psyche, or, to borrow a term from Andrew Cunningham, they are "cited authors of my limbic system, and they do not need validation from a tier list." They are pieces of media which you might not like at all... which is fine! I understand if you don't want to play a 10 year old pixel art game about the importance of friendship, but I do think you should at least give them a try.

Games

⭐ UNDERTALE: 10/10

DELTARUNE

Perfects everything about Undertale. A better battle system, more varied levels and music, epic boss fights, and DARKER, YET DARKER lore. Somehow managed to make a route worse than the genocide route in Undertale. I have very high expectations for the full game.

⭐ DISCO ELYSIUM: 10/10

The furies are at home
in the mirror; it is their address.
Even the clearest water,
if deep enough can drown.
Never think to surprise them.
Your face approaching ever
so friendly is the white flag
they ignore. There is no truce
with the furies. A mirror’s temperature
is always at zero. It is ice
in the veins. Its camera
is an X-ray. It is a chalice
held out to you in
silent communion, where gaspingly
you partake of a shifting
identity never your own.

⭐ In Stars and Time: 10/10

Live with the ever-present burden of being trapped in a time loop only you can know about in this turn-based RPG. Create a better future for you and your friends. Find hope where there is none left. Pray to the stars and free yourself from time.

this game has:

...wait I think I just described Undertale.

I thought in stars and time was supposed to be like omori but with undertale's story this is literally just There Is No Antimemetics Division fanfiction with the most emotional game of rock paper scissors I have ever played. Also I think the author just broke into my house and stole my diary because Siffrin's thought processes is worringly close to mine. Except I don't have any friends in real life and the only "looping" I do is go through the same, exact day, everyday. So probably not.

They're leaving. They're all happy, and they're all leaving. You're smiling, everyone is smiling... and you'll never see them again.

Everyone's saying "Please visit sometimes," and all you can think is "Sometimes? Is that all you want from me?", but you can't tell them that. Not when they're so happy, not when they're smiling like that. This journey was only meaningful to you, after all. They'll all go back to their lives, far, far away from you.

Maybe that's why they're happy. They don't have to be here for a single second more. They're free now. You can see it on their face — relief, your weight lifting from their shoulders.

Now that their weight is gone from yours, you're left with nothing. What's keeping you on the ground, now? You're floating, floating, floating. No roots, no anchor, no connection to the world around you.

...

They smile at you.

You smile back.

Omori: 8/10

Everything about this game is either bad or mid. Oh my god. I know that literally the top 5 games I have ever played are RPGs (and yes, the list includes this one), but I have to admit, generic RPGs have to have the most boring and frustrating gameplay loops. I did not enjoy most of HEADSPACE and unfortunately the game spends the majority of the time in there only.

Of course, no one really talks about the overworld HEADSPACE when talking about the game. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

personally I was just wondering how Sunny falsified the autopsy report. Shout out to Sunny's divorced, emotionally distant dad.

Portal 2: 8/10

Possibly a perfect game. It's not the best game, or a game that Literally Changed My Life. It's just one of the few perfect games; they had a concept, and executed it flawlessly and perfectly. Not every idea or concept has the capacity to change my life or appeal to my niches.

ESC: 8/10

Dreams. Identity. Consciousness. Drugs. Escapism. AI. Poetry. (Philosophical) Zombies. Roleplaying.

a free 5 hour plot-twisty mind-bendy stream-of-consciousness-thingy visual novel with Lena Raine's music.

Other things which I can't be bothered writing about even though I may have liked them:

Anything above 5 is good. For 5s you should consider whether your interest in the genre bumps up the rating or not.

Books, blogs, webstories

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Extremely controversial, I know. But I liked it. Come at me.

It's just nice to have a protagonist who's more fully aware of the absurdity of the situation they're in. But I do agree that the writing style is terrible and all the characters are terrible. Some of my favourite moments from the book were when protagonist was humiliated somehow. But despite that I still rooted for the character.

The Martian (book): 9/10

The Martian (book): painstakingly engineers a ramp out of martial materials to get the camera on his truck movie: just uses a crane.

The movie is good as well, but not as good as the book for its fewer deadly challenges and the fact that they removed the Aquaman joke.

Project: Hail Mary (book): 8/10

I have no idea how one guy can think of so many science and engineering puzzles with just a few concepts.

Another interesting thing about the book is cooperation-porn against the backdrop of anti-cooperation-porn, which is a theme that should have been explored in more depth. But then again, Andy Weir's writing is banal and commonplace and no one would read his books if he wasn't cooking crazy stories like this one. It's also a good example of Coward Fiction even if that plot twist came out of the left-field, especially in a Hard sci-fi novel.

Speaking of which, apparently this book is even more unrealistic than I thought from the discrepancies I myself was able to notice. But I am willing to forgive most of them because none of them because they aren't deus ex machinas and only drive the story/create more problems down the line.

There is No Antimemetics Division: 9/10

I could have sworn I read this book, but I don't remember anything about it. Strange.

House of Leaves

Will Navidson: oh my! I guess I won't be leaves-ing this house any time soon!
20 page Johnny Trunat sex footnote:

like I get it, Johnny has sex, please stop.

I looked up online and apparently people were spooked out by the ending of the "echo" chapter. I personally just broke into laughter because Zampano really just spent five hours researching Greek mythology and contriving a strained metaphor just so he could make a pun at the end. And this literally never comes up again. Lmao.

Movies, shows

Oppenheimer: 10/10

nolan: so yeah in this scene you have sex with Florence Pugh naked sitting uncomfortably-still on a chair in the middle of a suited board meeting

bravo nolan

House MD

Honestly probably the best comedy show I have seen. I mean it's more like a drama show, because there is lots of seriousness as well, but it is more like a sitcom, where each episode can be watched without having watched every previous episode.

Unlike shows like Brooklyn 99 or The Office which derive their comedy from autism or stupidity, House MD derives its comedy from pure competence porn; everyone is smarter than average, everyone has an opinion, and everyone wants to psycho-analyse every single other person to frustrating lengths and contrivance. Even the patients are smart and eccentric, having the most well-written and convincing arguments or justifications for why they are who they are.

Other

Contact Me

If you'd like to go fanboy/fangirl/fan-they nuts in my DMs; I promise I will reciprocate. Or if you'd like to give me any suggestions; including suggestions I have already received. Or if you hate me now and would like to kill me. In any case, ways I can be contacted can be found on my frontpage, just feeling a little lazy to get them here. I would just love to read your rants and/or messy thoughts in any form or another.