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You & I

Against all the evil that AMD has conjured.

All the wickedness that drm/amd can produce...

We'll send unto them only you.

You... and...

I... I've lost the plot again, but there will be no AMD or Linux slander this time, you can rest assured.

I cannot get ONE SONG out of my head after hearing it played in my queue for some reason. I believe this is probably a reasonably acceptable opportunity to say goodbye to youtube music, even though it has been a good experience as an unlogged user.

"What's that song??," I hear you asking. In due time, reader, in due time; please hold for now.

Around two years after I switched to the dreaded software ecosystem, I was notified of the existence of a video game-like product belonging to the free-to-play kind. My only goal at the time was trying to get it working inside of the aforementioned software ecosystem. Once I was successful in doing so after using a certain software repository, I decided to indulge in the product, if only for a brief while.

What I did end up liking about it was its OST. That side was executed well. It was composed by a really talented Chinese composer, Yu-Peng Chen, and performed on actual instruments, which was the mind-blowing part. I remember listening to this piece while doing my chores or shitty schoolwork. I liked the tension and reharmonization a lot. Also, the transition around 1:27 and, shortly after, the main motif's return were just great to hear. And then the switch to a more 'dramatic' tone... I dunno, the track left its impression on me, I can't help it. At a point, I shared the OST with a bunch of people, some of whom liked it, some of whom called it boring, you know how it is.

The product was not enjoyable, however. After hitting a brick wall, also known as a level cap, which forces you to spend your precious time on doing repetitive BS instead of playing the 'interesting' bits of the game, I decided to give up and never return to the product again. One person even attempted to play the product but thought the same of the level cap and quit afterwards. Ultimately, this shit was so ass I chose to steer clear of it.

Until...

2023

May 21st. I get a link to a song. Then, I find the instrumental version, which jibes better with me (right now), as well as more great sounding tracks from that album. All's good. More time passes.

But then, something breaks inside of me. I suddenly decide to install product 2 on my main Linux box. I find a project that allows me to do exactly that. I play and... I enjoy?

I can't lie, at the time I was mesmerized by the game for some reason. It could have been the overall tone, it could have been the change of environment from the space station to Belobog, it could have been the Persona 5 vibes I was getting from the game (at the time I had just beaten P5R so that was still fresh in my mind).

It didn't last long, however:

That is my only screenshot from that time, sorry for having to look at android

Bummer. I didn't really want to wait or appeal or anything. I had made my mind up; I decided to dual-boot Windows 10 just for product 2 and make a new account. Sigh...

The game still felt good to play. Eventually I reached the point where that song I linked to above plays and let's just say that I got its appeal. It was very refreshing to see that kind of 'cool' in a gacha game. It really was.

One thing, which was very wrong, was slowly becoming apparent though: I found myself doing dailies on my phone while eating breakfast. Every single day. In hindsight, yikes. At the time, yay. Eventually, I ran out of content to play, and the next location was boring as fuck to put it simply; I needed something else.

The downfall

My natural way of satisfying that little curiosity was simple. I proceeded to install product 1. That was the worst thing I have ever done, and it's likely that if it had not been for that undertaking, my life would literally look different today. Not in a good or bad way, in a 'different' different way. Why? Well, because I had unfortunately managed to suck that one person I mentioned earlier into the game. I will not elaborate further, however. Nobody cares, not even I at this point.

I did have a kind of love-hate relationship with it, as I really did appreciate the OST sometimes, to the point where I even forgave the game for being what it is. Examples include:

where the vast majority is battle music.

Fontaine was, in my mind, probably the best region the game had to offer. Its story actually made me go back to the game after I'd promised myself I wouldn't do that again (again). I stayed up until 6 in the morning to play through it, and then I went back to the game after just 5 hours of sleep. I really couldn't tell you what got me at the time. What's worse, that chapter's conclusion actually made me cry. No joke, I was literally sitting through all that was happening and crying as it was happening. I felt devastated and I didn't really understand why; how in the world would a gacha game of all things my brain could have chosen make me do something even the most emotional moments in other media can't make me do? Would it happen again if I were to replay it? Maybe, maybe not. That much was scary enough though.

I eventually quit product 1 for good. It appears I was right to do that, since the devs reportedly made the game worse in 5.0 onwards. Whatever. Shit's in the past. Back to product 2.

Up until 2.0, everything felt more and more like I was no longer interested in anything related to the game. I kept coming back out of habit (and daily rewards, of course, how amazing). Then, 2.0 was released. Woohoo, cool music video, cool new things, everything cool. For some reason, I thought it was the best thing ever, because it introduced a new location together with some 'creepy' stuff, like the red dialogue text coming from Acheron for instance. (And, of course, new music...)

Acheron is still the best character in my head canon, go ahead, change my mind

It wasn't, though. I gradually started to understand that I would not really get what I want from that game, as my expectations slowly began to surpass its actual execution (i.e. what happened with the whole 'sleep paralysis monster teleporation system™' thing was very anticlimactic and wasn't particularly well done in my opinion). The only moments I could consider interesting were those explaining bits of Acheron's backstory and, later on, when she had to go, I was sort of sad (but not as sad as in the case of Fontaine), because that meant the only character with fascinating depth was now fucking gone. Jesus christ. The other parts of Penacony were not very thrilling to say the least.

Or were they? Some parts were cool, I guess, like the region's various picture worlds with puzzles, but I started to get bored. For real this time. I 'officially' quit product 2 around the second Sunday fight and I have not returned since. 'I do not plan to,' I promised myself. From that moment on, I decided to either play 'real' video games or nothing at all. No more gachas for hours on end, with the exception of testing them out on my OS of choice to let other people know whether they work or not, and nothing beyond that.

2025

I have learned from my mistakes. I won't return to this space until all DEV commit to some KYC procedures.

Then, all of a sudden, that god-forsaken youtube music queue brings me to that song... that song... The worst part is that it actually sounds really good. Shocked, I even looked up where exactly it plays and, while it's in line with my average expectations for product 2 at this point, they seem to have improved their game a lot (no pun intended). So much so that the boss fight this song is from has a shit ton of phases and dynamic stage changes. I won't lie, I was impressed.

Here's the song if you're interested. I was happy to find out that the song was remixed in a more rock-ish style and, because of that, I prefer this version to the original.

This brings me to the issue at hand: I am way too attached to music. I cannot really reliably count the number of times I got into something because its music enchanted me. Or how many times I reassessed a work of art (usually more positively) just because it had a great OST. This has to end at once. It's only going downhill from here if I don't do something about it.

I must not go back to Honkai: Star Rail. Even if I did enjoy some parts of the game (especially the first two maps), even if I would enjoy the new content, overall, getting to any of the 'good' stuff would now take me way too much time for it to be worth it in the grand scheme of things. I'd rather miss 'product 2' and imagine it fondly than actually have to use scary Windows again (though reportedly I wouldn't have to do it this time around, but still, no, thanks).

This is what happens when Linux isn't broken and when there is no Maomao show to watch anymore. The void opens, various supporting structures of my inner world start to get sucked in and I get fucking philosophical.

2025-09-16