hello beautiful worldlings! i can't believe it's already almost the end of february, and also i can't believe that i haven't made a blog post yet this year. it's not for lack of beautiful things, i've just been lazy and also busy being consumed by the beautiful things.

some of the things in this blog post will be a little bit more "hindsight" than usual just because i did take so long since the last blog post, but i'll do my best to give as impassioned of a description as usual!!

one not beautiful thing that i will say is that it didn't snow this winter in my area which was very sad. but it's been very pretty out lately so i'm willing to forgive the meteorologists, who i am told are in charge of the decision making process for the weather.

ok last side tangent in the intro i swear. i will stop scrolling up to add one more thing up here after this. i literally cannot wait for pokemon day like my bestie and i are driving each other insane yapping about "2 DAYS LEFT!!!" every day accompanied by some conspiracy theory about what will be in the pokemon presents which we immediately both buy into because we're SICK!!!!! i literally can't wait for it though. gen 10 is basically a given at this point for a reveal, but i am so curious if we'll get a crazy twist reveal from the top rope.

anyway let's get into it!!!

games: hytale

for the uninitiated, hytale is a sandbox adventure rpg game (similar to minecraft) that is created by hypixel studios, who made the hypixel server in minecraft (basically a really big minecraft server). it came out in early access early this year after a really tumultuous development cycle.

i genuinely can't believe this actually ended up releasing. i'm one of the people who was following this game since it was first announced in 2018, which was actually while i was still in high school (which is literally crazy to think about. grandpamode). the studio was bought by riot and then riot wanted to remake the engine (which was in java) in c++. fast forward to 2025, the whole game got cancelled. everyone fell to their knees but after 7 years it didn't necessarily feel surprising, but it still felt sad. but then on literally my birthday, mr hypixel (simon collins-laflamme) announced that he repurchased hytale and that development was continuing on the old engine, and early access would come soon.

and it did!! and genuinely i can't believe how wonderful the game ended up being. it's still very clearly early access and has a long way to go, but already the game is so incredibly charming. it does distinctly have minecraft dna, but feels a lot more like a high fantasy rpg thing. the world is really fun to explore, and building is really, really fun, especially with the furniture and decorative blocks that the game offers. i don't think i'm the best builder in sandbox games, but it feels really easy to make cute little structures and houses in this game. here's my house:

i'll say that i wouldn't necessarily say it's a must-play right now; it's really lovely and charming and if you're really interested then by all means you should pick it up, but it is still early access, so there's really no harm in just waiting for more progress to pick the game up.

games: arknights endfield

i actually wasn't going to pick this game up because i was like. another open world gacha game oh boy. but i'm glad i did because this game is actually really awesome. if gacha games turn you off then you definitely still shouldn't pick it up, but i'm really loving the game.

endfield is definitely much more unique in that there's a big focus on factory stuff. you can create factories to automate production of materials and medicine and stuff, and there's a surprising amount of depth to it. it feels awesome putting together a production line, especially as someone who hasn't done this sort of game before. i see peoples' factories online and they make me feel like i'm playing a different game. you people are insane.

i think the main thing that's kind of weak is the story. it's pretty bland rn. the second area, wuling, definitely has a better story though, like there's a lot more clearly conveyed intrigue and the characters are more interesting. i need to know more about ardashir expeditiously but he def feels like the sort of character who we won't learn substantially more about for a long while. the laevatain questline is easily the highlight of the side stories i've seen so far though. she's a very interesting character, and the confidant/shared-struggle relationship between her and the endministrator (the protagonist) is genuinely fantastic. also the environments in that quest line are so good UGHGHHH....

i also really like the characters. my favourite character is da pan, and he is a panda who is a chef and he wears sunglasses and a leather jacket. he has the same jp voice actor as KLAUS VON REINHERZ (my anime husband) and it literally makes me ill. i don't play in en dub but his en voice actor is also really good, he's just like a friendly chinese unc. i invest everything into da pan. i will be using da pan for ever. no one will stop me.

games: caligula effect 2

i am literally still playing caligula effect 2 because i am really bad at finishing games, but as an update the game continues to drive me completely insane. i mentioned i was playing this game in entry three of the beautiful world, but basically it's a jrpg that is about a world called redo that brings in people with trauma and lets them forget about their pain in a "utopian" bliss, and the main characters (the "go-home club") attempt to end redo and return to the real world.

it's such an incredibly charming game and the characters in both the protagonist and antagonist groups are so deliberate in their place in the story and their relations to each other. i think i especially appreciate this game as someone in their mid 20s (does 24 count as mid 20s i feel like it must) who's still kind of learning how to live if that makes sense? most of the game's characters are adults, and their struggles and feelings will probably ring home for a lot of queer young adults, or even people who aren't queer or young adults.

games: terraria

my bf and i have been playing the new terraria update lately and it's honestly just crazy how good terraria is always. it's sad to think this might be the last update, but it was sad to think that the last several updates could have been the last updates but the sickos at redigit just can't help but keep making the game better. i thank them for it though. i honestly just hope that when they stop touching terraria, they start working on a new game because it would be so sad if i wasn't able to see new awesome things they could make...

anyway that was a bit of a tangent. the new stuff in the update is really awesome, and i love that every class got a little few little additions that really round them out. summoner getting more whips in the progression is especially appreciated.

if you somehow haven't played terraria before and you like sandboxes, rpgs, or action games, you will probably like terraria. it's always a good price and even then goes on sales all the time, the developers are awesome and lovely, and it has 15 years of polish at this point.

anime: fate strange fake

LORD this shit has made me insane week after week. i should not have started watching it while it was still airing because now every saturday i feverishly throw myself at my computer to watch the episode and then 5 minutes later i yell out in agony HOW IS THIS EPISODE OVER ALREADY!!!!! and then i have to wait a week AGAIN. and i'm going to have to do this like 24 times in total.

fate strange fake is one of the many entries in the fate series and this is already becoming one of my favourites in it. i'm baffled every week by its ability to give every character equal love and attention in the "holy shit" factor of their circumstances and abilities. the animation is completely insane, the music is awesome, and the story is SO good at defying your expectations and getting crazier without feeling like bullshit. like it all just sings man...

my bf and i also started rewatching fate zero and man i remember literally nothing about it. the first time i watched it was literally so long ago it's crazy. fate is so good... what if historical mythological figures were strange gay anime people. i honestly don't know if it's legal uploads but you can literally download fate zero and unlimited blade works for free on archive.org.

shows: poketsume (a pocketful of adventures)

poketsume is a jdrama that i don't think a lot of people know about, but it's basically a cute little slice of life that's about a woman named madoka akagi who moves to tokyo to work an ad agency and starts replaying pokemon red for the first time since she was a kid, with the main "gimmick" being the parallels between the game and her life. i don't think that people who don't love pokemon would necessarily like this, but for me it is like basically reconfiguring my brain chemistries. like omg life IS just like pokemon.

the characters are fun and lovable and silly, and their relationships are pretty cute. the directing is surprisingly really great, the shots and sets are all very cute and quaintly lit. it really just has such a fantastic and cozy feel. to anyone who loves pokemon, this show will probably make you a little insane. i'm only a couple episodes in, but i wanted to make sure i saved a good number of episodes for pokemon day so i can go sicko insane mode.

side note. this show was diabolically difficult to find in canada. but i am resourceful. and undefeated.

movie: the menu

my parents came over to visit my bf and i, and we all watched this movie together, and it was really great and interesting in a way that i wasn't expecting. it's pretty clear from the jump that it's a critique of rich people, but it's different from a lot of other media that i've seen of the sort in that it doesn't really try to spin an illusion that rich people are exceptionally smart or anything of the like. the rich people in this movie are shown to be self serving, unremorseful, demanding, and confident, but not actually smart. they yell and complain, but they don't act. it's a great watch and an insane movie and it's also really funny. i don't want to say any more because i don't want to spoil anything but watch if you want!!! you should probably look up the premise and genre at the very least but yeah it's a great watch.

conclusion

i originally had a few more things i was going to mention here but i honestly wasn't sure if i had enough interesting to say about them to give them their own sections. we watched wake up dead man and that was phenomenal and i hope this director keeps making benoit blanc movies because MAN. i played the new hsr patch and regrettably it was really great but also man i have so many problems with hsr lately that i don't want to give it its own section so i won't. oh my god i made a vtuber model. two of them actually. i tried making some videos with them but i didn't really love the type of videos i made honestly? so i stopped for now, but i do want to make more videos with them at some point because they turned out really cute. making a vtuber model is shockingly easy and completely free and i think everyone should do it.

anyway there was a lot of rambling happening this time huh. actually i think this happens every time. i like rambling. i think everyone should have a blog and yap on it. it's past the time where i should be getting ready for bed, so i'm gonna turn my computer off and get to bed now.

thank you for reading my blog! i hope you enjoyed, and i hope you are having a good morning or day or night whatever time it is for you. i also made a 404 page for this site which i completely neglected to do forever and didn't realise. i think i actually haven't done that for my other websites? woof. anyway. bye!!! xoxo