Gordon!

The texts may contain content related to violence, immoral themes, or elements that resemble manifestations of mental disorders.

It always frightened and frustrated me. In trying to fight these illnesses, I let them take control of my life. I built my life around them, making them the center of everything.

I often wondered how people with disabilities, people whose conditions are far more severe than mine, managed to keep living. Now, when on any given day I could die, lose my home, or find myself in a world I no longer recognize, I think I finally get it.

There are countless biographies of well-known people that mention the illnesses that shaped their lives. There are just as many biographies we'll never read, stories that will never be told. And yet every one of those lives has the same ending. One day, all of us will die, regardless of what we treat, what we achieve, or what we hope for.

It's like looking at a crowd of strangers. You watch them from a distance, each carrying their own invisible story. Then you realize that you're standing in that same crowd. You're just another ordinary person among countless others. You are alive, and one day you won't be.

I don't have the words to describe the depth of this empty indifference. It doesn't feel negative. Somewhere inside me, the difference between a hardworking person driving an expensive car and owning several apartments, and an alcoholic lying under a bridge has simply leveled out. The same goes for death and prosperity. Am I strange, or am I just an ordinary person talking nonsense about things everyone goes through because I no longer feel that boundary inside myself? I can't tell anymore.

My journey with the games actually began with StarCraft II when it had just come out and was the exciting new game at the time. The three campaigns of StarCraft II told an enormous story, but I had no idea that another huge part of it was hidden in the first game. Experiencing the plot in chronological order would have been so much more rewarding. It was amazing to meet the characters from the first game and watch how they developed over time.

The story of these games could easily be adapted into a full-scale TV series with high-quality animation — I genuinely think it would be incredible.

Since the story is already complete, I can't say I necessarily want a StarCraft III. But I'd love to spend more time with these characters and play additional campaigns centered around them.

I usually write much more in-depth analyses. This time, I decided to play through everything while taking notes on every plot point so I could compare them afterward and avoid forgetting anything. The problem is... I simply run out of words when it comes to this game.

I'm sure plenty of people would argue that it isn't nearly as brilliant as I think it is. They'd point out all kinds of repeated story beats and plot holes. I'm not going to argue with them.

The show has a very strong Stephen King's "It" vibe, but I don't think it reaches the same level. You've got children as the main characters, teenage crushes, a mysterious force terrorizing a small town, and, of course, those little bicycles. The thing is, King's horror isn't really about monsters themselves. What makes it frightening are the existential fears we're already familiar with: the inevitability of death, the helplessness of ordinary people against forces far greater than themselves, and incomprehensible entities beyond our control.

What made "It" so compelling was that Pennywise wasn't just a monster — he was an abstract entity that created a personal hell for each victim, something that couldn't simply be defeated. That's why the novel focused so much on the characters' emotions: every one of them had a unique nightmare tailored specifically to them.

In Stranger Things, on the other hand, there's a fairly concrete monster that receives surprisingly little screen time. Instead, we spend most of the season watching the characters deal with personal problems that rarely feel important or particularly engaging.

The female characters especially felt as though they existed mainly as rage bait. Nancy, for example, spends almost the entire season looking miserable, with permanently furrowed eyebrows as if her face has forgotten every other possible expression. It's hard to tell what the writers wanted her to be. She clearly seems intended as a sympathetic character, but she mostly comes across as whiny and not particularly bright. Eleven, meanwhile, seems to exist solely to suffer in every single scene, as if the directors personally had it out for her. Oddly enough, despite everything she goes through, I found it difficult to truly empathize with her.

I'll tell you what.

Children, especially teenagers, do sometimes identify with the LGBT community even when they later turn out to be heterosexual. Do you know why? Because there they are not condemned simply for having feelings. They are not shamed for trying to understand themselves. They are not constantly judged based on whether they fit gender stereotypes.

If "traditional" parents in a "traditional" family actually gave their children love, taught them to understand themselves, didn't shame them over every little thing, and encouraged critical thinking instead of blind conformity, those children might never misinterpret their own attractions in the first place. Maybe they wouldn't feel such a strong urge to escape from a "traditional family" where the father is an unfaithful alcoholic and a sexist, and the mother lost her will to live years ago. Or from a family where one parent is absent entirely because two adults failed to think carefully about who they were choosing to create a new life with.

Anti-LGBT marches are a disgrace to humanity.

What is an entire world to one person may be worth less than the dirt on someone else's shoe. I look into people's eyes and see the certainty they carry within themselves, then watch their surprise grow when the person they're talking to doesn't share what seems to them such an obvious view of the world. As if there should exist some universal bible of existence, accepted by every human being on the planet.

When someone is genuinely bewildered, there's a strange urge to reach out and touch their face, poke them in the eye, or grab their hand. I'd be curious to feel the horror of touching another person's rich inner world with a cold space that contains no points of gravity.

The people who care that their friend might feel hurt, that the company they work for should continue to grow, that parents have expectations for their children, that they should always present the best version of themselves, and so on, and so on. Ask almost anyone, and they will immediately tell you: "Those and this what matters to me." For many people, that concern is the driving force behind their actions. Fear.

What's amusing is that a great many behaviors we consider polite or empathetic don't actually matter very much. What would happen if you didn't do them? Most likely nothing. The rhythm of life would probably remain unchanged even if you broke a promise or didn't show up to work one day.

Have you ever noticed that the feelings motivating many of our routine actions are almost never positive? The only fear that should truly matter to a human being is the fear of death. And yet all those habits and expectations are what keep us moving. If we removed those familiar behavioral patterns, it's difficult to imagine how much a person's average day would change, how many actions would simply disappear. How much of what remains would actually be us?

To be fair, there are reasons for that. The first StarCraft came out in 1998, StarCraft II launched in 2010, and the final expansion was released in 2015. By today's standards, the franchise can certainly be considered old.

I was introduced to StarCraft as a child through Wings of Liberty, and at the time it featured some of the most impressive graphics I had ever seen. And you know what? I still think StarCraft's visuals are absurdly beautiful. You can easily find gameplay footage on YouTube, and I'll leave a few links below. I genuinely take my hat off to everyone who worked on this game. It is absolute cinema.

And it's not just the cinematic cutscenes. In StarCraft II, every structure is animated, every unit feels alive, and an incredible amount of work clearly went into the design of the world, the maps, and the characters. If your PC can handle the game at maximum settings, you absolutely should experience it that way.

Don't get me wrong — good graphics are far from StarCraft's only strength. Unlike many mobile strategy games that barely have a story or larger purpose, StarCraft offers a narrative that at times feels almost Asimov Foundation-level in scale. The story begins in the original game and continues throughout the entire franchise. I definitely wouldn't recommend skipping the first game, especially considering that it received a remaster.

That said, I wouldn't call the story a masterpiece of genius. What it does have is complexity. Characters grow and change, events unfold naturally, and the plot consistently gives you reasons to stay invested. You're not just endlessly grinding through missions for the sake of it.

The worldbuilding is also surprisingly well thought out. There are three races, and they genuinely feel different from one another rather than simply being three versions of human society. The Zerg are closer to an insect hive than a civilization. Most of them lack meaningful individual consciousness and are directed by more advanced Zerg organisms, creating something akin to a collective mind. The Protoss are perhaps easier to understand at first glance: a highly advanced civilization connected through telepathy. Based on some of their unit names and parts of their history, they might initially resemble religious fanatics. However, in their case that belief system is somewhat justified, since they actually interacted directly with their creators. Their social structure is complex enough that I still don't fully understand it myself, but it makes them feel distinctly non-human. My only criticism is that the games don't always make it clear how these races would function during times of peace, outside the wars the player participates in.

What amazes me most is that, despite its age, the game is still alive and accessible. And after watching all those beautiful cinematics, I need you to realize something: THE GAME IS FREE. Well, parts of it are. The entire original StarCraft and the Wings of Liberty campaign are available for free, and you're also free to play against AI or other players without being locked into the campaign experience.

It's hard not to admire a game that greets you with gorgeous visuals and a cinematic movie within minutes of launching it.

Yes, this is StarCraft propaganda. It's one of my favorite games, and perhaps one of its greatest strengths is that it's finished. The story has an ending. The characters won't be endlessly rewritten until they're unrecognizable, and the plot won't be turned into complete nonsense simply to squeeze money out of endless sequels.

As you can probably tell, Viktor is my favorite character in the series. A lot of the main characters suffer throughout the story, but in my opinion Viktor is the one who had the most legitimate reason to do so, and yet he almost never allowed himself the luxury of self-pity. While many of the others ruined their own lives through their own decisions and then suffered the consequences, Viktor did not create the circumstances of his tragedy. He was disabled and terminally ill.

Despite that, he tried to make the most of the time he had. He didn't complain about life, didn't try to take all the credit for the Hextech invention, didn't seek the spotlight, and never intentionally harmed or killed anyone.

He's a complex character with surprisingly simple motivations. Viktor's journey ultimately goes to absurd extremes, but his original goal was crystal clear: he wanted to improve life for the people of the Undercity. He never intended to live forever and understood that losing himself would be worse than dying.

The series ends with his death alongside Jayce's, which is tragic, but also strangely comforting. Their ending finally closes Viktor's arc while preserving the essence of who he is as a character.

The first thing I want to say is that the manga genuinely deserves its 12+ rating, and I mean that in a positive way. It doesn't rely on explicit adult content, nor does it present complex themes in a way that feels inaccessible to younger readers. At the same time, it never feels like the author is talking down to the audience. Regardless of age, readers are treated as intelligent people. The only exception is that if I had seen a giant mass of intertwined leeches or a tree growing directly out of a living person when I was twelve, I probably would have been mildly disturbed for quite a while afterward.

I really appreciate how self-aware all the characters are. In many anime series, protagonists are extremely motivated, but they often seem incapable of self-reflection. Their goals never change regardless of circumstances. They want to become Hokage, a pirate, a dragon, or whatever else, and they pursue that dream without ever seriously asking themselves why. Their objective remains fixed forever. In Witch Hat Atelier, Coco's motivations are very clear and understandable. We see what shaped her ideas about good and bad witches, what drives her decisions, and where her doubts come from. Even the antagonists are not simply evil for the sake of being evil. Their motivations are understandable, and sometimes it's difficult not to agree with them. Things that are considered normal within the magical world are frequently questioned by the characters themselves.

I also personally love that the manga teaches both how to teach and how to learn. I had pretty much every learning problem represented by Qifrey's students, borrowing a little bit from each of them. Unfortunately, there was nobody around to tell me the right words or show that kind of patience when I was younger. To be fair, I probably wouldn't have understood philosophical advice right away anyway.

I also like the concept that each teacher only takes on a small number of students and can spend significant time with each of them. Children are genuinely different from one another, and understanding each student while giving them the attention they need is difficult. At the same time, as Olruggio points out, not everyone is suited to being a teacher.

At first, I was somewhat skeptical about the premise of a young man taking a group of girls as his apprentices. Not because there's anything inherently wrong with it, but because we live in a world where that setup is not exactly viewed as typical. That discomfort disappeared pretty quickly, and afterward I mostly found it funny that Qifrey keeps collecting students wherever he goes and has essentially started his own magical kindergarten.

The manga also does a remarkably good job of portraying people with disabilities or health conditions in a natural way. It never feels as though the story is excessively focused on them, treating them differently, or that the author forcibly inserted representation into the plot. In reality, there are a great many people around us with various conditions, even relatively minor ones, that still affect the way they live their lives. We adapt. We learn to work around them. They simply become part of everyday existence. Media often presents characters as nearly invincible and all-powerful, but the truth is that human beings are incredibly fragile. Losing your baseline quality of life is much easier than most people realize.

There are also a few things I personally didn't enjoy as much. These are purely individual preferences rather than actual criticisms. I tend to like stories that move forward through events and action. Sometimes the manga spends a long time on slower chapters. They are beautifully illustrated and usually exist to communicate philosophical ideas, but when there are too many of them in a row, they can become difficult to get through. I also feel that the worldbuilding occasionally contains some plot holes, though I don't think they're particularly damaging. The overall concept is interesting, and perhaps those details will be explained later.

Overall, my impression is very positive. Olruggio is my soulmate.

The final episode 9 looked outright terrible. Let's be honest, it was bad. The problem wasn't the concept itself, the overall idea behind the story is actually quite interesting. The problem was the execution. It felt as if, at the very end, the creators decided to wipe the floor with the audience and spit in their faces. Just compare how dynamic episode 8 was to the meaningless sentimental mush that concluded the series.

What's especially disappointing is that the show itself was never bad. Every episode had a mystery, momentum, and engaging events. We learned about the characters through what happened to them, through what they said, and through the choices they made. But here there was no momentum, no tension. Every piece of information was simply thrown directly into the viewer's face. It was the most boring, overly sentimental depiction of mutual support that I've seen in a long time. Jax was practically the only thing adding even drops of energy to the plot, and even his storyline was resolved off-screen.

Everything you wanted. Everything you needed. Everything you saw every day. Space. Time. It's not even rejection or detachment — it's as if none of it ever existed in the first place.

All the things that used to occupy your mind: achievements, plans for the day, thoughts about other people, suddenly seem meaningless. You look at your own hand, and even its physical existence feels devoid of meaning.

And for a while, you simply can't pull yourself out of that vacuum and return to life. There's nothing there. Just emptiness.

Every step I take has to be weighed and analyzed: the consequences, other people’s reactions, whether it aligns with my goals, what future outcomes it might lead to. And this is not even about becoming some outstanding member of society. It’s simply about being accepted as at least somewhat functional, about not ending up locked in a psychiatric ward.

And when I become exhausted, I stop seeing the end goal altogether. The people whose approval I work so hard to preserve lose all value to me in those moments. This world has nothing meaningful to offer me in exchange for the endless patience and kindness I force myself to give it.

People invent problems for themselves and then spend their lives solving them. So many of the things that torment you do not even truly exist — society invented them. Did you put on makeup today? Were your words tactful enough? Was your behavior moral enough? Are you allowed to enter this space? Everyone suffers because of these endless fabricated rules and anxieties.But honestly, I do not care about everyone. I care about me me ME.