Book Thoughts: Borges - Collected Fictions
Near the beginning of 2025 I saw the name "Borges" somewhere online, and everyone gushing about his short stories seemed to be very well-read and smart. I want to be well-read and smart, so I picked up the Penguin Classics Collected Fictions version of Borges's entire body of work (both the audiobook and a physical copy).
There's this problem I have where I always want to read these smart books. The ones that people then say "My gosh, did you really get through all of X?" and then I can give a perfunctory review to show that I have, indeed, made it through all of X and get that small dopamine hit from the mental exhibitionism. It started very early in my childhood, and I distinctly recall trying to get through Ulysses at 14 to prove I could (spoiler: I still have not made it through Ulysses.)
Now, don't get me wrong, this desire is not purely for bragging rights and optics -- I also genuinely want to know the content of these books. I want to experience something in the process. I want to grow and have new thoughts and understand the things that make these books so impactful.
Even as an adult this desire conflicts with the reality of my fairly short attention span. I crave engagement to distract from the various difficulties of life, and more often than not I'll flee into fantasy worlds and scifi stories. For every Seneca, ten George R.R. Martins.
When I find myself a book that is both naturally engaging and intellectually interesting -- well that's a no-brainer.
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Game Thoughts: Virtue's Last Reward
After struggling to find something to catch my attention for some time, I got a copy of Virtue's Last Reward for the 3DS. I vaguely remembered the wild storyline from its predecessor, and this title pulled me in almost immediately.
I am admittedly embarrassed and slightly ashamed. Of late I have been so keen to find ways to expand my mind and looking for classic literature that suits my taste to almost no avail -- yet here is a borderline nonsensical, anime-trope-laden game consisting almost entirely of watching avatars talk for hours and I lose myself. I am very certainly not more well-read for having completed this title, but I did have a great time.
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Game Thoughts: Failed Play Fall 2025
As with books, I've had trouble recently igniting my passion for videogames. Expedition 33 was phenomenal, and nothing I've touched since has felt "worthy" of the time investment.
The fact that I'm currently in this game-funk is in itself making me wary of booting up any "big" games I'd really like to finish, as I worry whatever current mindset is limiting my game enjoyment will hobble a potentially great experience.
And so I find myself in videogame limbo of late, seeking "hidden gems" on older consoles that can be cheaply obtained, emulated, or found in my decades long backlog of impulse purchases.
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Book Thoughts: Failed Reads Fall 2025
While this blog is normally littered with my surface-deep analysis of books and games, I've been finding it difficult to sink attention into entertainment of late. I've spent more and more time stuck in my own mind or obsessed with the myriad destination-less side-quests I frequently fall into, and I've had little patience for anything that doesn't grab me or feel worthwhile.
To maintain the sanctity of this little corner of the internet, the very least I can do is report on my failed readings!
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Story: Dead Towers
A short solarpunk story using some elements and ideas I've been chewing on for a while.
The city had been abandoned so long ago that the green had come back. Grasses and trees had slowly, tentatively crawled out of parks and fields to reclaim this hard place of concrete and plastic. Birds now flew through the vine-entangled bones of dead towers; windows, walls, wires and plumbing had long been stripped away to be redigested by humanity.
Tendal sat atop one such forgotten skeleton and looked over the strange hybrid forest. People still lived here, of course, but they numbered maybe in the hundreds where the city must have once been home to hundreds of thousands. He wondered why the people had completely abandoned the old places; they had new capitals now, but none had been built on the bones of the old. Instead, they had killed these old cities, dismantling them and leaving nature to reclaim them.
From his perch he could see forgotten symbols and signs made of plastics nobody wanted, barren plazas of brick or asphalt too wide to rewild, and the vague shapes of long abandoned suburbs. Some of those old houses might be occupied now -- by wanderers like him looking for a temporary shelter or banished folk that couldn't get along in the communities, or by hermits that just wanted to be left alone. He breathed in clean air as the breeze ruffled his loose clothing. A bird cried out somewhere below, but nobody called back.
To his left he had propped up a para-sol to soak up the sun's rays, jamming them through a thin silver thread and into the small sunbox he wore at his hip. He didn't care what anybody said, it was obvious that things charged faster this much closer to the sun. It was a hill he was willing to die on -- and he was confident he'd die at the top of that hill with a fully charged sunbox.
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Thoughts: Death
As my grandfather passed over the last few weeks, I found myself examining my interpretation of Death.
Atheism has always come naturally to me, and while I am unbothered by a lack divine meaning to existence, death is still a hard pill to swallow. No God is necessary for a person to engender love in others, and the sudden irreversible loss of that person hurts. While I grieve and mourn as bitterly as the next person -- more, perhaps, without belief that the soul continues on -- I have stuck, dogmatically, to the literal interpretation that dead is dead.
Meditating upon this, I now question myself.
Why must I, who can cry for fictional characters on a screen, who hold within me unwritten imagined universes, not allow myself to suspend disbelief here? Knowing something is untrue has never prevented me from exploring or enjoying an idea before; why must I be so firm on this? Are the atheist police planning on inspecting my heart and mind and finding me lacking? If I am master of my own mind, what a cruel master I must be.
Perhaps this habit is some remnant from a teenage me, grasping onto my lack of faith as if it were it's own religion at risk of being crusaded against. Or, perhaps my years steeped in scientific rigour made me feel that imagination had no place in the workings of reality. It feels infantile to me now to be such a staunch vocal defender of "Nothing happens, you're just dead." It is a mentality that provides no value.
All lives are comprised of many tragedies, and I have many more awaiting me. Why not allow myself some reprieve? What's the harm in envisioning the souls of lovers reunited? To imagine a rebirth as a cub or sapling? To imagine, occasionally, the soul of a beloved pet nearby? Being not chained by any faith or scripture, I am free to be whimsical here, to temporarily lean into the beliefs of others, to pick in my own heart the ending that I feel they deceased most enjoy to be true, or the one I would most enjoy to be true.
What's the harm in a little fantasy, even if I don't truly believe it? And who's to judge if I do?
Story: A Dream
Koos' bare feet burn against the hot packed earth as he stalks the pale figure across the savannah. The sun at its zenith rages, the open plain like an oven. Then, briefly, it is an oven -- blazing sun gone, in its place rows of searing red zig-zag elements fill the sky.
Back to the savannah. The lion hunts. The lion hunts. You have to be careful here.
In writing, the path to becoming a visser is a simple one: learn to Dream, find an object in the Dream that corresponds to an object in reality, bring together the Dream thing and the real thing. Thing is, what's what in reality isn't always the same in the Dream.
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Game Thoughts: Clair Obscur, Expedition 33
Note: Trying on a new writing style, things may be awkward for a bit.
My heart will always hold a very special place for Final Fantasy 7 through 10. Not only were they fantastic games for their era, but I experienced them at an impressionable age where they left an everlasting mark. I can't honestly say I've enjoyed attempts to replay them as an adult, but that golden age of 3D JRPGs established a unique formula -- a combination of music, visuals, melodrama, and gameplay mechanics that not even Square Enix itself has managed to replicate since.
These titles founded my appreciation for games as more than a pastime, elevating them to an artform. Yes, in hindsight the stories were messy, the combat monotonous, and the characters varying degrees of one-dimensional; but there was some magic there that simply isn't present in the later titles of the series, regardless of how well they were received.
That magic electrified me. It began a lifelong passion and pushed me into learning the technical skills which now furnish my life with material wealth (though I never did become a full-fledged game developer). It also and kicked off interests in the myriad artistic and technical skills required to build such games.
I have spent many years hoping for a game to rediscover that formula -- to find a way to make it shine again -- only to be disappointed. Other RPGs have evolved and innovated on different aspects of the quintessential RPG, but for me none have ever reached the same heights. Until now, that is!
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has rediscovered the magic formula, updated it for modern tastes, and delivered a nearly perfect experience which captures the magic of that golden era of RPGs. The game pulled me in and consumed me for the duration I spent with it.
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Game Thoughts: Baldur's Gate 3
I recently spent a few weeks completely enthralled by Baulder's Gate 3 before my annoyances with the game's mechanics finally outweighed my fun and I put it down for good (Around the middle of Act 2.)
The game is unquestionably a masterpiece. We are served a world lush with rich characters, filled with interesting stories, and peppered with discoverable lore. Astounding care was poured into giving players a simulacra of the creative freedoms offered by traditional table-top RPGs through the many available paths, dialogue options, and unexpected interactions. It really feels at times that the developers thought of everything.
However, the adherence to D&D mechanics was a major turn-off for me. A table-top RPG is a structure crafted of many rules that, by design, can be bent or ignored. A living, conscious Game Master is responsible for deciding when the laws that govern the very fabric of their tiny universe need to be re-shaped to ensure that the players in their world are having fun. One could argue that every rule in a tabletop RPG is fundamentally designed to optimize for player enjoyment, and so this flexibility to change any rule to the tastes and personalities of the people around the table is key to the overall enjoyment of these games.
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Project: 0dd.company
A little bit ago, after realizing I needed to do more things with more people, I decided to start a little artist collective, because sometimes that's just what you need to do.
It's one of those things I feel like should have rules or regulations, but it turns out it's just something you can do. You get a couple people you know online into a group chat, pick a name, and declare yourselves an art collective and nobody's really gonna stop you. I recommend it!
For the initial members I reached out to creative people I knew who had been struggling to produce art. Maybe they've been too busy with their career, or life had just become too complicated lately, or perhaps they'd simply been having trouble finishing personal projects.
The last was my own pain point! I would look at things like gamejams and artistic dailies and feel so unworthy as a creator. How could these people in 24 hours build entire games when I can barely publish a blogpost in that time?
And so with these creatives in mind, the concept was to provide inspiration. Every few months, a new inspiration file would be published, and members would be free to take the next couple months, when they could find the time, and make anything they wanted. A poem, a song, a doodle, whatever, just keep the inspiration in mind.
The first piece of inspiration I found for the group was 13 minutes of whale song dedicated to the public domain, and while the group's pretty small I feel like we still got a pretty good variety in the handful of submissions!
Without a bar (low or high) or any real restrictions and a generous timeline, almost everyone got a little something finished. Not all of the original members had time to finish their piece, but there's no stress or judgement. There's always the next piece, and members still get to celebrate the works everyone else produced.
Anyways, I'm happy to announce that the 0dd.company's first gallery: Deepsong is now open for viewing, and I'm really happy with my first piece: Whalefall. I finally found an project to use Orca with, and I learned a lot over the course of the project!
I also broke down my process for making the song on my music page -- though the 0dd Gallery has the way better video version!
