Cosmia

  • End of the Year Update

    Hello folks, as 2024 comes to a close I’d like to take some time to reflect on this year and give you guys a taste of where this blog’s headed next year. And uhhhhh… that sure was a year alright. Remember Aaron Bushnell, the guy who self-immolated in protest of the war on Gaza? That was 10 months ago, and the killing continues indefinitely. Soon we’ll get a new guy in the White House who will find innovative new ways to make it worse. Exciting stuff all around.

    Okay, 2024 may be pretty bad in that macro global events kinda way, but how about for this blog specifically? Well, I wrote a blog reflecting on Aaron Bushnell’s self-immolation and other people who committed the same act. It was one of four blog posts I published on this site all year, along with another one by my good friend Spartan. I went into this year hoping I’d average at least one blog post a month. Guess not.

    I could offer plenty of excuses and explanations for why that happened. Y’all don’t need to hear them. But let it be known, I have not forgotten about this. I may prioritize certain things over this blog most of the time, but I miss it when I do. There’s a lot of things I want to write about. Because I haven’t published much they stack up and increase in number, and I want to let more of that out next year. Here’s a preview of what I intend to write about next year.

    Let me know if there’s anything you’re particularly interested in reading my thoughts on. It’ll be more likely to happen if you do. But hell, even if I never wrote another blog post again I’m pretty happy with how this site has panned out. It has helped me rediscover my love for writing, and I have people all over the world visiting here. Mostly for my Blue Lock post, hot damn that series gets a lot of love. A genuine worldwide phenomenon. To everyone who took some time out of their life to read my thoughts on the internet, thank you, seriously. I hope you got something worthwhile out of the experience. Either way, I’m going to keep going.

    By the way, if there’s anything I’ve learned this year, it’s that plants are amazing. This is officially a pro plant blog, even though I probably won’t talk about them much on here. My world became noticeably more lively when I brought more plants into it. It could do the same for you as well.

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  • No Shade in the Shadow of the Erdtree

    If you’re a gamer/In the Know you probably heard that FromSoftware recently released a new DLC for Elden Ring. Other companies may have handled the DLC by giving you a few more weapons to play with and the option to put Ranni in a swimsuit. I might’ve been okay with that, but FromSoftware decided to basically give us a whole new game instead. Shadow of the Erdtree’s map isn’t quite as big as the base game, but it’s still quite massive. So much so that it took me three months to complete it. I wouldn’t call my playtime entirely representative, but the point remains that the DLC turned out bigger than most expected. I poured a lot of time into Shadow of the Erdtree. So now I’m going to use this blog post to share my thoughts on it. The short version is that I mostly liked it. The long version? Well…

    Read the long version here
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  • Game trade review: A Night In the Woods

    Hoi folks! Spartan here with yet another review for the time honored Game Trade, where Mr. Cosmia gives me something to play/review and vice versa. Let’s see what we’ve got today, really hoping it isn’t a FromSoft game…….

    Oh, Night in the Woods, perfect! I live to see another day without having to put up with Dark Souls level difficulty of combat. I remember reading about this in a GameInformer magazine once and how it tackles a college dropout returning to a small town where not much goes on. I didn’t drop out of college but I live in a small town so this will be a refreshing perspective to me.

    Read the rest here
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  • Sister

    Do you believe sexy nuns are inherently problematic? If so, you’d find yourself right at home on ex-Twitter. An artist made the following provocative tweet, and the Discourse took it from there.

    @pykle_ writes: "dont care how much religious trauma u got, stop sexualizing nuns (im serious)" Below that is a digital illustration of a nun. Well, it's two nuns but it appears to be the same person in two different poses. She is wearing standard black and white nun attire, with long flowing robes that obscures her form. She is wearing a cross necklace with a golden hue. In the first pose she smiles with her hands together in prayer. In the second pose she holds her arms are down and she holds an arrow with her right hand. Except you can't see the hands under the robe. She has a look of disapproval.
    12 million views. 27 thousand likes. This is truly what the people needed to see.

    I honestly mostly like this artwork. The colors are nice, the poses and expression are drawn well, and it’s got an effective simple art style that conveys a lot without being overly elaborate. I’m not sure what that arrow she’s holding in the second pose is supposed to mean, but whatever. Her expression says enough. That being said, I take issue with the words attached to it. I don’t want to attack the artist here too much. I checked their page, I think they got pretty good art and some cognitive dissonance. I hope they grow into an amazing artist with better takes. In the meantime I want to focus less on the person saying it and more on the idea of sexualizing nuns.

    One song frequently came to my mind when I looked at tweets relating to this art: “Sister” by She Wants Revenge. An all time great song about a man’s sexually charged encounter with a religious woman. I love this song, it’s my favorite one off the album and there’s some tough competition. Yet if I were to fully subscribe to the above take loving it would be wrong. The title “Sister” is meant to allude to nuns in the Catholic tradition. If we want to get technical there is a difference between a sister and a nun, but it’s not an important distinction for our purposes. I am quite confident the OP wouldn’t want you to sexualize sisters either. In this song titled “Sister” the woman offers kinky sex to the man. It’s an entire song about sexualizing nuns, GASP! Does that mean loving this song makes me a bad person???? You can come to your own conclusions, but I don’t think so. I’ll explain what I love about this song and my position on the issue writ large.

    Read the rest here
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  • Those Who Light Themselves Ablaze

    Aaron Bushnell lit himself on fire and then shouted, “Free Palestine!” until he no longer could. At the time of this blog post’s release it has been a month since it happened. He went ablaze and subsequently died on February 25th, 2024. Since then plenty of people have came to their own conclusions about what to make of it. Is he just a crazy dude whose actions should be ignored, lest some other unfortunate soul tries to replicate him? Is he a hero who put his life on the line to protest atrocities?  Is he a secret third thing?

    Regardless of the answer, it’s worth noting that he is far from the first person to die in this manner. He almost certainly won’t be the last. Self-immolation is one of if not the most painful ways to die possible, yet it keeps on happening. How do we make sense of that? This blog post is dedicated to pondering the significance of Aaron Bushnell’s final act and other similar incidents. In my view self-immolation is neither exclusively a political act nor merely a reflection of poor mental health. By the end of this post we’ll come closer to figuring out what concoction of factors that secret third thing contains.

    Click here to continue
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  • 24

    The year is 2024, and I am nearing the end of my time as a 24 year old. Following last year’s tradition that means I got to talk about a song with 24 as its title! I’m not sure if I’ll do this again next year, but since I happen to like a song called 24 we’ll roll with it. What song is that you might ask? 24 by Red House Painters naturally! Everyone’s favorite right? Probably not… I tried googling “24 song” and literally could not find this one in the results. Its popularity is eclipsed by Money Man’s 24 among others. Yet somehow Red House Painters’ version is the one I know best. It’s a great song for people who aren’t where they hoped they’d be in their mid-twenties. As such, it’s a great song for me. It’s also a great song in general, a true slowcore classic.

    In spite of its quality, I don’t have a hard time seeing why 24 isn’t popular these days. Not only is it from the early 90s, not only is it almost 7 minutes long, but it’s also slow and depressing. If you want music to energize you look elsewhere. Want music to make you feel good? Avoid this band’s whole discography. Personally, I don’t need music to make me happy. Sometimes it’s better for a song to make me feel seen. I like knowing there’s other people out there with similar feelings and concerns. Makes me realize I’m not as isolated in my emotions as I thought. I don’t always feel like 24, but I feel it often enough to resonate. Join me if you’d like to hear more about this dreary song and some reflections on the past year.

    Click this to keep reading
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  • A Hat in Time DLC: Seal the Deal and Nyakuza Metro Game Trade Review

    If I were to create a tier list of animals cats and harp seals would go straight to S tier. Incidentally I’d probably put walruses in the A or B tier, they’re cool too. Just my luck that this iteration of the Game Trade gives some of my favorite animals the spotlight. Welcome or welcome back to the Game Trade Reviews, where a certain Spartan and I each play a video game the other likes and then writes a whole ass blog post about it. This time around I’m doing something a bit different. Some time ago before we conducted these reviews in blog form I took on A Hat in Time, an indie platformer full of quirks. I am not here to rehash my thoughts on the full game. It’s a good game, would recommend. There. Instead, I am simply here to comment on the additional chapters provided by DLC: Seal the Deal and Nyakuza Metro.

    Read the rest here
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  • Thinking Too Much About ef: the first tale in 2023

    Do you ever experience something that lives rent free in your head weeks after it happened? Something that you feel will stick with you for life? Months later I can still say ef: a fairy tale of the two fits the bill for me. This visual novel, over a decade old, came into my life at the right time. It will have a special place in my heart as I move forward with my life. I can say all of this unequivocally, but I cannot recommend it to everyone. It is most certainly problematic. If it was remotely popular online this year there’d be some vicious things said about it on social media. In some respects it would deserve that pushback. I still love it, but I can’t say I love every part of it. In this blog I will parse through my thoughts on the first half of the story, the first tale. If that sounds like it would be of any interest to you then feel free to join me.

    Read the rest here
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  • Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors: Game Trade Review

    Hello folks, Spartan here.

    As you’ll no doubt see before this one, Mr. Cosmia has reviewed Pikmin 2 at my request, which means I’ve got to make good on my word and review the game he sent me, I sure hope it isn’t a FromSoft game, because I REALLY hate those. and it is….

    Oh, a Spike Chunsoft game eh? well Mr. Cosmia had me play Danganronpa and A.I Somnium files in the past and those games weren’t that bad (compared to Dark Souls III and Bloodborne at least). Well, time to review this bad boy. Also, spoilers will be mentioned, so read at your own risk. This is your last warning

    Here’s the part where you read at your own risk
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  • Update

    Happy Halloween everyone! I hope you’re having a good day wherever you are, whenever you’re reading this. There are fun times to be had in the spooky season if you look in the right place. Unfortunately, for those living in the wrong place such happiness is harder to find. As I type this from the comfort of this room more children die in Gaza. Earlier today Israel hit a refugee camp with an airstrike because they thought some big shot commander was there. Is his death worth all the others killed in the blast? I don’t think so, and it’s not completely clear if they even got him. Similar atrocities happen elsewhere in places we pay less attention to. By sheer luck of birth I get to watch from the sidelines instead of being directly involved in the vast violence humanity is capable of. Is it even okay to be happy under these circumstances? I guess it kind of has to be. If it is not okay to be happy when so much in the world is not, then when can we?

    We shouldn’t look away from what’s happening. Doing so helps enable its continuation. But we don’t need to add even more suffering to the pool. We don’t need to make their unhappiness our own. The pain we experience watching will never match the pain of actually being there. So if you find something positive in your life, I don’t think it’s wrong to embrace it.

    Such are my idle ruminations. This is not the post I planned to end this month with. Far from it. But since that one needs more time in the oven this is what you’ll get for now. I’m not going to rush a post just to meet some deadline I made up. It’s my fault, but I’m not going to make you readers suffer a worse post because of it. I assure you I haven’t forgotten this blog in the slightest. There’s a lot of stuff stuck in the drafts at the moment. Some of it will stay there. But I like to think the ones that make it out will be of good quality. A lot of it will be niche, but to be fair that’s pretty much my whole blog any way. So I hope you look forward to it. For the record, there’s more than just posts on the horizon from me. But there’s also posts.

    Yuuko Amamiya, a woman with long dark blue hair, clad in a black winter garb. She has a slight smile and is side eyeing the POV character (Hiro in this case). She says, "Oh, so you have decided to sweep things under the carpet. If you do that at your age, you will regret that decision in the future."
    Yes ma’am