Well, another day, another week, another month.

Gonna clear the slate. I finished my review of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, I’m up to date on my race recaps, partly because of the triple-header but also because I tend to have things to say fast. I purposely didn’t set goals when the month started because I kept failing them, and this time, because of that, I don’t really feel bad about anything.

The month was interesting. There’s been a lot of work going on and finding time to do the things I like comes at the cost of my health, in the sense that I mean sleep. I stay up, doomscroll, watch a show or a movie, play F1 or GTA Online. I function on little sleep and somehow manage, and I want to manage things better, but at the same time I don’t really care if it works because everything just flies by before you even realise it.

Let's talk about a couple of things that did happen. The major one was actually a couple of days ago. I was trying to play F1 2020 in the morning but the power kept cutting out, and while I do have a UPS, the battery had died and I was too busy to change it. You can change busy to lazy or “can’t be bothered” because it is true. Anyway, I gave up in the morning and came back in the evening only to find the save was corrupted.

I wasn’t hurt in the beginning, but I was hurt nonetheless. I was about to win my third championship. Ever since I last talked about playing, I’ve increased the difficulty and the length of the races, with the length now being 50%. I do use some assists, but that’s because I wanna have fun. Still, I was really gutted despite telling myself that it’s a game and it’s fine. I tried repairing the save, but it was as corrupted as it could possibly be. The physical cost of it is nothing. I got the UPS battery fixed, I even started a new career. The emotional and mental cost, though, was something that was difficult to pay.

I’ve struggled over the past few months with routines and habits and getting things done. When I discovered I could play F1, it filled me with a sense of excitement I hadn’t felt since I started playing Fortnite back in around 2020. The feeling is indescribable, but I’ll try. Sometimes all I could think about was just playing this game all day. With Fortnite it was my escape. I was on the edge waiting till I had free time just to play it, and even if I got killed when landing or came second, I felt fucking amazing. If I was studying or had some work to do, I’d try to play it because it was just so much fucking fun.

For a brief moment when I started Valorant three years back, I had it occasionally, but it went away. Haven’t played it in almost two years. But with Fortnite and F1, if I found the opportunity to play them, I would jump at it. To wrap Fortnite up, that feeling helped me sustain those two years during the pandemic. It honestly and I’m being serious, helped me through some real dark times in my life where I couldn’t see an end to things. It gave me a reason to continue pushing through life. Superman & Lois helped too but that’s a conversation for another time.

Eventually I started college and had other things going on, and Fortnite became difficult to play because of my equipment. So when it came time to delete it, I just couldn’t. I had it installed on my PC for about two months until I needed the space and finally deleted it and It hurt alot because I was letting a part of myself go. Fortnite undoubtedly will always have a special place in my heart. I will defend it for as long as there is breath in my lungs. The game was ass and sometimes dogshit, but in the times it was wonderful, those were probably some of the best times of my life.

I actually haven’t thought about Fortnite in almost two or three years, but with F1 2020 I have similar feelings. I don’t care if my back hurts playing it, I just wanna play. But one must move forward, learn from failures and move on. I could sit and cry about the stuff I lost, but I lost memories, I didn’t lose the opportunity to make them again. I will make new memories, and in a more cynical nature, one can only truly know how much a thing is loved after it is lost.

I think why these games matter so much to me sometimes is because they’ve come during lonely periods of my life. I sometimes make up scenarios in my head about my life, how things might affect me and how I might react, and overall I think it helps me cope with the fact that I genuinely feel like I have very, very few close friends. But then I ask myself, is that actually a bad thing?

What I think actually hurts sometimes are friend groups. I have never really been in one that has sustained for long, or one where I genuinely felt like I was a part of things. I have always been an outsider. I was watching Lanterns the other day and Poorna Jagannathan’s character Zoe was talking about being an outsider, and something about the way she described it really stuck with me. Being an outsider can be a disadvantage, but it can also give you a strange perspective. You can hide in plain sight, get close enough to be impactful, and sometimes appreciate things for what they are because you aren’t completely caught up in them. I’m paraphrasing, but the point is, I don’t hate the fact that I never truly penetrate these groups.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t fucking hurt sometimes. It hurts being left out, sitting on the sidelines and watching people have fun without you. I am human, unlike SPOILER ALERT Zoe, who is an alien. But I think that’s also why situations like these, where I’m left out or told at the last minute that I’m not invited, don’t stick with me for very long or see me dwell on them. I’ve mentally prepared myself for the possibility that shit happens.

My graduation is tomorrow, finally. After almost four months after my farewell, it has finally come. I will be posting a blog about my college life definitely and stuff. Let’s see how it all goes. Glad to be done, gonna save the good bits for the blog.

Apart from these things, I have a piece about AI and how I use it and perceive it coming soon. I was going to merge it, but it needs to be all on its own. It deserves that moment.

I started rewatching Billions, and I even started helping with putting the summaries on Wikipedia because why not. And I don’t know if I’m gaslighting myself or not, but some of the decisions the characters make, and how I instinctively think they’re bad decisions, have made me realise that the writing might actually be quite genius. If it was intentional, well done. If not, I genuinely don’t know what to say.

The decisions are sometimes so completely against what the viewer might expect, but that is also because that is who the character is. They aren’t making the perfect decision because the plot needs them to. They’re making the decision that makes sense for them, even when it is obviously the wrong one from the outside. Everything isn’t perfect, and somehow that is what unknowingly makes it perfect. The last season is still shit, I reviewed it when it ended, but the rest of the show is a really solid look into human psychology and the way people think and make decisions. This time around, it doesn’t feel that far-fetched. People really can do these things, and that little bit of realism makes the characters and their choices feel much more believable.

This rewatch has really made me think about messaging, character arcs and what actually makes a decision or storyline feel “bad”. Sometimes it isn’t bad writing, it’s just a character doing something you don’t agree with and maybe that is the point. I do have a new series in the works called The Retrospective, basically about shows and movies I watched before I started properly reviewing and rewatching things, and I think I’ll do Billions once I finish this rewatch.

Projects and tech didn’t have time to work on stuff. My backend migration has been on hiatus and stuff.

Let’s see where the month takes us. It is gonna be a long one, a short one and one that will be a test of me in this world.

Take care and see you soon.