Death Parade review

I watched Death Parade a while back so this review is a bit late in coming, but what compelled me to write it now is that I've been listening to the outro song a lot. It's absolutely beautiful. Despite this though, I didn't vibe with the actual show that much? The parts that were good were REALLY good and the rest hovered right on the line of mediocre. Death Parade is a bit corny for my tastes, but it's not bad and I think the overall message is that you can't sort people into the categories of "deserving hapiness" and "not", specifically in a spriritual sense, which is something I always enjoy no matter how times I've seen it.

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Usually this theme is done through a christian heaven/hell lens though, so it's refreshing to see reincarnation/destruction used instead.

One of the main things that I didn't like were the instances where the plot "threatened" to be dramatic, but wheezed out on an underwhelming note, like when the dude in Rolling Ballade had this freaky psycho look while holding the heart bowling ball. I always find these kinds of "haha, you THOUGHT we were upping the stakes, didn't you?" plot twists to be annoying. What I remember most strongly were the last two or three episodes, I think. While I liked Decim and Chiyuki's dynamic most previously, and didn't care for the way it was ended, but while I didn't care much for Ginti/Mayu/Harada's side plot initially, their ending made me the saddest (translate: I enjoyed it). What was most corny to me was the whole "emotionless character learns emotions" thing or whatever. I do like this trope sometimes but the way they ended his arc was just kinda goofy. (Clutches heart "what is this... is this feeling...is it, CRINGE?" sinks to my knees)

Overall, I did enjoy Death Parade, just felt it fell flat in some areas.

4/3/25

Touching Grass - Sponsored by discord

For April Fools day, Discord released a clicker game constructed of crude doodles called "the Last Meadow", available via user settings. You "touch grass" in order to earn points, build your garden, and get perks. The sound effects are loud for a game that's supposed to be about chilling out in a garden, and as time goes on the perks seem more and more random or useless, such a bouncing discord logo or a nag bar. It becomes obvious this game is not just a pun on the phrase "touch grass", and is instead an "internet overstimulation" simulation, representing the rise in hyperconsumerism on the internet; One of the perks you buy is litterally to make the ad video full screen. And if you're crazy like me, you'll appreciate my observation that the title "The Last Meadow" is very dystopian, suggesting you're living in a world where a loud ad riddled game is literally your last means of touching grass. There's something sad about a company like discord making self aware meta like this, and then prompting me to watch an ad to get a day of nitro the day (I gave in). The game has probably made me think way harder than it was designed to, anyhow.

Being intentionally designed to be bad and annoying, I'm not gonna complain about mechanics or anything, but there is one thing particularly bugging me. The weeds that pop up kill your grass, but in real life what we consider weeds often grow alongside grass naturally. It's just kinda weird to me and I thought it'd be common sense to anyone that's ever seen a dandelion but I guess not.

4/2/25

Email alternative

After reading about lots of gmail alternatives I have come to the conclusion that the best one out there is Gofuck.Yourself. It's not adequate, but Gofuck.Yourself is completely ad free, donation funded, provides absolutely 0 services, and takes 0 seconds to sign up for. Mouth to rectum encryption. Privacy policies. No data. Gofuck.Yourself. Sign up for Gofuck.Yourself now. Do it. Do it. Do it.

2/14/2025

New Years Resolution

I decided to try two things this year I've dunked on before: New Year's Resolutions, and mindfullness. Increased mindfullness and better hygeine are my resolutions for this year. The reason for mindfullness specifically is not to better my mental wellbeing, but rather just to see if measures up to the hype. It's a little expirement on myself, haha. I have made some low effort to implement mindfullness into my life, but since I wrote a post on (redacted) about how I think it's way over-rated, I figured I should give it another swing before dunking on mindfulness again. Chances are I will still believe it's over-rated, but it's not as I think there's anything wrong with mindfulness itself. I believe it can be benificial. I keep thinking of "better" resolutions I could have gone with; it's hard to stick to one thing. I don't understand how people make YEARS long commitments to anything ever.

This isn't exactly a resolution but I'm also trying to shift my mindset to where I don't mind taking my time on things. I know I will never finish that project, get that job, or reach that art goal in the time I want or even need to; I've always been an incredibly slow person; so I want to take my time on other stuff I would normally put on the back burner, like cleaning, reading, or, y'know...hygiene. The time will pass anyway and it's better to procrastinate doing something that will make me happy rather than rotting in place and banging my head against a wall as I can't figure my shit out.

1/3/2025

The Good Old Times

If you're chronically online enough in the right spaces like I am you probably know there's been a resurgance of aesthetics from the early 2000's, aka, "y2k" (and also webcore to some extent). There's nothing wrong with these styles but the extent to which this romantisciztion has gone is getting a bit out of hand. I understand that everything is terrible right now. I don't fault you for seeking escapism. But pretending you live in another era won't fix it.

There was something this guy said, "I can't stand people who are stuck in the past and can't make something of themselves in the present" and it pissed me off at first because he was kind of dunking on 2000s fashion but I think I get where he's coming from now. The 2000s were not a good time for queer people or at least not from my perspective, and lgbt people romanticizing y2k as a whole always makes me kind of uneasy. Again, I'm not just talking about using mp3s and cutting your bangs ~like that~, I mean fully believing earlier times were superior to this one. Though I don't know much about what it would be like to live in the late 1900s it also applies there. Imagine being in that year for a little while if you must, but be honest about the fact that every era came with its downsides, and simply being in another year wouldn't necessarily save you. We should be trying to fix the present, not regress to the past.

1/2/2025