Last month¹, I finished a video game called Disco Elysium. It really blew my mind. Not because of the ultra-realistic graphics, or the fluid gameplay (it doesn't have either of those), but for the immersive story indeed. A story that can be shaped in a huge number of ways, full of secrets and funny details. Each dialogue option can shape the experience, so every "new game" is a new experience. I really loved it.

One of the details I remember most is a quote, from the final moments of the game. It is from a character that... haunts the Detective Du Bois, but I really can sympathize: I, too, have my personal Dolores Dei, so I could relate much more than I wanted. Once understood her role, her words were a punch in the stomach:

Real darkness has love for a face. The first death is in the heart.

Damn.

And All That Could Have Been

In these months, because of the impossible and infinite renovation of our new home, I really needed to dive in other worlds and think about something else. I have read as much as I could, and video games helped, too. Unluckily, I haven't been in the right mood to write something, even if I'd want to. The last year and half has been a never ceasing rollercoaster; the more I think about it, the more I see myself as perfectly still, stuck in a bubble. Friends get married and have babies, wars are started and billions of people change their daily habits because of the global pandemic... But, in some way, I'm still there, as if nothing changed.

I know it's just a phase, and in a few months all of this will be over, but I can't help but sigh when thinking about the near future.

I See a Darkness

Okay, I'll just stop whining. About Midjourney and the other AIs that went viral in the last few months², I'm glad I was right in the previous blog post:

Should we be truly excited by this?

I'm happy about the "No AI" movement on ArtStation and on other websites, because things were are getting out of control. It's OK to play with AI, to use it to even create whole imaginary worlds. But. In less than a year, people are getting paid to... write prompts? Excuse me, what? That's way too much. Maybe I'm too old-style.

I can't avoid suggesting a website called Web3 Is Going Just Great, and this is a very good example of how quickly new things, in these days, are praised... and then quickly cursed or condemned.

Purple Rain

On a more tech-y point of view, I finally started using Dracula theme on many apps, and I am really enjoying it³. I don't really like purple as main color scheme, but for writing, for both work and hobby, it's awesome.

Also, I changed Crooked Ink's font to Sentient, trying to avoid Google Fonts' beautiful Crimson Text. I like it quite a lot, and I also made the text larger, so it should be easier to read on mobile devices. Comments are welcome!

And finally, about Vampires or similar beings, I just finished reading Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. I read it in English, and I think it may be the hardest book I have read in this language so far. It was tough, but it's been also one of my best experiences with a book. It's a wonderful dark tale, with exquisitely well-written characters and some remarkable locations. I liked it so much that I inserted a small Easter egg in this website, based on that. Who knows if someone will ever find it. 👀

I read that a movie has been made from this novella, and to find it (in Italian) was absolutely the hardest task, much more than thinking about the egg! It's a Disney movie, but I don't understand why it is not included in Disney+ or any other streaming service.

Traveling Solves Everything

Luckily, since October, we made a couple of trips, and we could enjoy both Normandy and Bavaria. Since we can't do much to speed up the renovation, my girlfriend and I will try to enjoy these months by... traveling as much as we can. Or we'll try, at least. It's ok to read, play video games, or hang out with friends⁴, but the only real solution to unplug from reality is good ol' traveling. It helped in the past, and it seems to be the only solution for the next future.

Also, I really hope to write something very soon. I feel like something is unlocking in me, but there are still too many distractions. Furthermore, I still have to review my latest story, which I'm not proud of. I tried to create an account for Godsip Club on Mastodon, but even there, I can't be as constant as I'd like.

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1. Actually, it was almost three months ago. Lately, I don't have much time to write. 🙈↩

2. Latest news from the other day is GPT-4 announcement, we'll see where it'll end.↩

3. Solarized Dark, this is a goodbye, not a farewell! 💔↩

4. They're so bored to hear us laming about our new house... we're sincerely sorry!↩