Monday Chat #6 – Ideas for the original Codex of Aegis blog

This post will be a lot shorter, mostly due to the fact that I’m still trying to get used to this whole college thing, but I think it’s pretty important nonetheless.

For awhile now I’ve thought about going through the old stories that I have on the Codex of Aegis blogspot (http://codexofaegis.blogspot.com)  and deleting ones that I don’t think are good anymore. My standards for my writing are way higher than they were when the blog started around 2013, and I feel like it’s time for the content up on there to reflect that.

Of course, I don’t want to outright remove them from existence. I know that there’s probably some people who like ones that I don’t like, and besides that I find it fun to look at old stories even if I don’t think they’re good. In that case, I’ll probably bring back something similar to the Astuka Looks Back series – a series, this time having its own separate blog entirely, that deals with looking at some of my older, less good stories in a more critical lense. This way people will still have access to them, I will be able to learn from them individually, and the whole process will be much sweeter.

I’m not sure exactly when I’m going to start this process, but hopefully it will be sometime soon. I will start by actually removing the stories, then go back and begin on the new critical series. Anyway, I’m short pressed on time now like I mentioned before, but I still wanted to release a Monday Chat, and this is what I’ve come up with.

Currently reading: I’ve decided to drop all my previous reads, mostly because each of them I either didn’t have time for or just wasn’t interested in continuing. I’ve now begun a book I have been meaning to read for quite awhile now, that being The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee. So far I’m only 30 pages in, so I’ll update as time goes along.

Currently playing: Nothing! No really, nothing. The laptop I’ve brought to university is pretty bad, and it can only play the SNES/N64 roms I’ve downloaded onto it (that being literally every single SNES and N64 game in existence). But besides that, I just haven’t really been motivated to play much recently. I was meaning to play Overwatch again when I visited home, but I was too busy doing unrelated stuff that I didn’t really have time to fit in.

Currently watching: Also nothing! Though this one is a bit more concrete – I did catch up on Twin Peaks, a series I had kind of lost track of for a bit due to university stuff and everything, but now I’m back in. I’ve also successfully dropped Game of Thrones seeing that I now fortunately don’t have the time to keep up with it and that has helped me stay away from that burning dumpster fire. Unlike with games, I do have some plans to see some movies – Michael Haneke has been brought up recently, and speaking that I haven’t seen any of his movies and nearly his entire filmography has been on my watchlist for years (the only other director to have that honor is Kurosawa), he’s definitely in my sights now.

Currently listening: Recently discovered Brockhampton, and have been listening to Saturation Parts I and II almost constantly this week.

Well, that’s all for now. Remember to follow Codex of Aegis on Twitter and Facebook for more updates.

Monday Chat #1 -- Introduction to Monday Chat

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve written anything of real substance on either of the blogs, and I’ve an itch to write more as of recent. Yet, as my free time becomes smaller and smaller and yet my interest in writing more increases, I had to form somewhere a compromise. This is where Monday Chats come in.

The format of Monday Chats are similar to my political posts of late 2014 + 2015, but shorter, across a variety of topics, and once a week. While the tone of these are much more conversational (a tone that I’m terrible with) I will be able to save the real good stuff for more short stories while still retaining a lot of my skill by writing regularly about important topics. It will also help in wrapping my mind around certain things.

So here is the structure: I’ll start off with the discussion of the “topic of the week”, going in depth into what I feel and hopefully making it fun enough to read on your end. I’ll also end it (because I know people like knowing this and I know it helps me stay on track) with what I’ve been doing recently, ie what I’ve been listening to, playing, watching, reading, etc. etc. Something you can expect from a person who actually keeps a log of every movie/book/game they’ve ever consumed (which apparently is not popular at all? What? Potential Monday chat topic??).

So, let’s run a practice round. This post’s topic will be the old conversational pieces I used to do on Astuka’s Blog. What do I think of them now? How have my thoughts changed?

Easily what I’ve written about the most (and subsequently what I’ve been known for the most) is my series of blogs on Gamergate (the hilariously stupid named video game scandal) and the later national debate that came out of that which dealt with radical feminism. Well, the Gamergate crew – which I left pretty early on due to both my own changing focuses and also the incredible stupidity among its ranks – ended up taking new people under its wing, including religious conservatives and white supremacists. As it got bigger it left a huge snail trail of outraged media and unfunny memes, eventually being renamed by the media “The Alt-Right” and following under the footsteps of their new political mastermind, Donald Trump. Then, Trump got elected. So I guess in a really roundabout way I was somewhat deeply responsible for getting Trump into office. Whoops! Won’t happen next time – I promise.

Still, have any of my opinions changed in terms of how I defined equality and feminism? Looking back at old posts (though I admit some of the older ones are pretty cringy to read), not much has changed. I still believe there is a clear distinction between radical feminism (which really is a dangerous ideology) and “actual” (???) feminism. And I still believe that there needs to be better attempts to differentiate between the too – I mean, it’s gotten so bad that we accidentally got a retard elected because of it. I don’t really need to explain this part anymore, do I?

Still, I suppose there is definitely still room for political talk on Monday Chat. I think one of the main pros to blogging like this – at least to me – is that you can make an impact on the world however small based on what’s currently happening right now. Instead of being a spectator to current events, you get to be apart of them – and that’s pretty cool.

Anyway, that’s about all for this first post. Hopefully this does become its own regular thing. I’ll try to keep each entry fairly brief so they’re both easy to read and easy to write. Anyway, let’s end this off with what I’ve been doing:

Currently playing: A lot of stuff. My second attempt to limit the amount of games I have playing at once to one has failed again. Just today I reinstalled Rome Total War for the first time in forever, hoping to go through the games in chronological order til Napoleon (the last one I own). I’m also halfway to completing Shadow of Mordor, and given how easy that game is I’ll probably go for beating it. Guild Wars 2 is also back on the menu, surprisingly – though my concerns involving why I stopped playing in the first place are still there, there’s also plenty of new cool stuff (WvW reward tracks!!!) that have lead me to giving it a second chance. Finally, seeing that the game is shutting down only after a year, I decided to pick up The Tomorrow Children… only to drop it. Yeah, I can see why it’s shutting down. It is kind of sad though – the concept of being a worker in a collective commune all trying to build a town together isn’t bad, it just doesn’t hold attention for long. I’m also not even sure how this game made money in the first place.

Currently reading: Also a lot of stuff. I’m up to the weird part of House of Leaves now, and my feelings for it still are pretty mixed. On one had the writing isn’t bad, and the concept is still interesting… but on the other hand, its filled with a whole lot of nothing. Weird, postmodernist, intentional nothing. I’ve also gotten back into being interested with military history (as evident by me playing Total War again) so I’ve been reading up on some old battles as well – though the book is written in such a way that I’m not sure if it’s made for kids or not? But who makes a kids book about famous military battles? I don’t know, it’s probably just me. Finally, I’ve been reading my textbook for English next year since it has a couple of pretty interesting excerpts in it. Except now I feel kind of scammed since the entire book is filled with these excerpts and I’m pretty sure all of them are free. Shit.

Currently watching: I’ve gotten a bit farther into Black Mirror – now onto Season 2 episode 3. While I still don’t really find myself enjoying it, I’ve found the episodes in this season are much easier to watch in one sitting. Their plots are still pretty uninteresting, but as I’ve begun to appreciate the cinematography and actual storytelling methods more and more I’ve used that to deal with the story itself. I’m hoping that by the time I’m finished I’ll at least be able to say I enjoyed at least some of the episodes. As for currently going TV, Twin Peaks is still kino and Game of Thrones is still a snoozefest (and, based on those leaked episode summaries, it appears that Game of Thrones will continue to be a snoozefest). And in the film department, I’m hoping to see Baby Driver in theaters relatively soon, though I’ve been too busy to find a chance and do it.

Currently listening: XXL freshman cyphers. Because I enjoy suffering and do not long to be in this world.

Well, that’s all for now. Remember to follow Codex of Aegis on Twitter and Facebook for more updates.

Codex of Aegis State of the Union 2017

For those of you who don’t know, at the beginning of every year I set up a list of goals for the year in the form of a blog post as a way to plan for the entire year. Apparently I don’t know either, because I went to go check the State of the Union for 2016 to see what goals I passed, but as it turns out I didn’t actually make one. So I guess I’ll just check the State of the Union for 2015 and hope that I completed all of them?

Checking 2015 Goals

Goal #1: Release the Codex of Aegis Compilation Book

I mean, we might as well say this is complete. Though I ended up having some trouble releasing this for-pay on an official store, you can easily just click the shop button right above this post (assuming you’re on the blogspot site) and download it for free. It’s finished, it’s out, and although part of the goal wasn’t finished, the core of it was.

Goal #2: Add more Activity on Astuka’s Blog

I guess this would be a good time to point out the fact that, while all the other State of the Unions have been posted on Astuka’s Blog, this one is on Codex of Aegis. That will be important for later when I get into the goals for this year.

Anyway, it’s kind of hard to judge this since this was a goal for 2015. In 2015, yes – there were quite a few posts on Astuka’s Blog, most political, and enough to which I would say it passed the test. In 2016 not so much, but I feel like if I did make a State of the Union in 2016 (oops) it would say I was going to cut back on Astuka’s Blog posts. Once again, we’ll save the details on Astuka’s Blog future for my 2017 goals.

Goal #3: Astukagaming Season 2

This never actually happened, but I never did give a grandiose promise to this. I have been ranting for the past few years or so that gaming-related content, though it gains a lot of views, is quite tedious to make, especially for something that is supposed to be fun. I really just don’t see the point in making gaming videos anymore, except for games or topics I have a lot to talk about. We’ll be talking about this more in depth later.

Goal #4: Codex of Aegis Branding on Youtube Channels

This I feel like was the easy one I set for myself that I did right after I finished the post. Yes, there are banners on the youtube channels that say “A CODEX OF AEGIS CHANNEL”. That was pretty easy.

Goal #5: Casual Streaming

This was my second failure, and for much of the same reasons as the first one. Not that big of a deal, it’s just not worth it for the investment. You have no idea how many times I’ve ragequit because I can’t play two-thirds of the games on my computer on stream. NOT worth.

New 2017 Goals

Goal #1: Major Dialback

If you thought the past few years barely had any content, you’re in for an unfortunate surprise. As it turns out, I’m going into college later this year (though seeing how convoluted and broken the process has been so far maybe we shouldn’t get our hopes up too much yet) and I’m assuming the workload is gonna be heavy (spoiler alert: it really already is). That being said, I’m going to go on a cautious route and not promise too much this year. After I get the hang of things (if I get the hang of things) things will probably go right back to normal.

Goal #2: Favoring Codex of Aegis instead of Astuka’s Blog

I hinted at this previously, but I don’t really like the Astuka’s Blog blog anymore. First of all, do you see how awkward that sentence is? Why even name something “Astuka’s Blog”? Codex of Aegis is just straight up more elegant, not gonna lie. The website link is also pretty embarrassing – astukagaming? What does this website even have to do with gaming anymore? I did just say previously that I’m barely doing any gaming coverage as of now.

So here’s what’s going to happen. In addition to short stories, Codex of Aegis will now also hold political and philosophical content, which is going to be my main goals for content this year. I mean, they do all fit the same tone, don’t they? Anyway, Astuka’s Blog will probably only be used now for advertising new gaming videos, since the site still gets a fair bit of viewership. I’m also going to extend the use of the Codex of Aegis Tumblr site, since Tumblr is admittedly a much more popular blogsite. Do to this popularity, Tumblr will be used to both rehost CoA articles as well as also advertise gaming vids.

Goal #3: Youtube and Twitch won’t have as much focus

Whoops! Looks like I kind of spoiled this one earlier. Like I said, only going to use the Youtube now to do gaming reviews and such that might be too much work writing-wise to make and would be easier to just talk about casually. As for Twitch, I might do an occasional stream if I’m really feeling it, but I really think this one is gonna be dormant. I made an attempt earlier this year to try streaming every day, and got about two weeks in before I just got sick of it. With so many technical issues popping up constantly, it made me feel like I was spending more time trying to fix these issues than actually playing games. No thanks.

Anyway, this has been a quick little sum of my plans for 2017. They’re mostly for my benefit, but I know some of you like to read this, so I’m posting it again anyway! Hopefully I won’t forget to make this again in 2018.

Writing Prompt Challenge -- Announcement

(This was written in December 2014 in case you're wondering about the inconsistencies lol)

I'll be honest with you – I'm decent at making ideas, but I'm not an idea generator (heh). All of the stories up to this point have all been original, but now I've dried out like The Office did on it's first episode. Thankfully unlike The Office, I have something to fall back on!

You may have noticed that last (2) weeks normal upload schedule didn't come out with anything. I think. Maybe its going to be this week. How should I know, I've written this long before that's happened. The point is, at sometime or was at sometime or maybe no time at all there was a buffer period in which I was getting ready for writing prompt challenge!

What is this challenge? Well, each biweek (or just normal upload schedule... whatever) I'll be releasing a new story with the help of the subreddit /r/WritingPrompts. I'll be going on with this for who knows how long, just until I've figured out what more to write. Also, I'll still be writing Guardians of Enthia, so expect a new episode of this every other every other week (or every... every other... other... week... every schedule... fuck) so if your interested in that, it's still going! Watch out for next weeks prompt, which is...


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Twitter: @CodexofAegis
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The Codex of Aegis Newsletter: Official Launch!

In case you haven't yet noticed that little "subscribe" thing off to the side, it's our brand new newsletter! The newsletter was created in order to get across the most updated news from all connected Codex of Aegis networks (Astukagaming, Codex of Aegis, Astuka's Blog) straight to your email. However, there is one problem -- AOL and Yahoo emails are currently unable to receive the newsletter. This is mostly due to the fact that the emails are currently being sent from my personal email rather than a work email. However, this problem will be fixed once we have a proper Codex of Aegis email (which is hopefully soon!).


If you have a gmail or hotmail email account, then you should be able to sign up and receive the email no problem. The first update should be sent sometime around June 5th, so I hope you enjoy! Also, please tell me if you end up having any problems receiving the email!


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Twitter: @CodexofAegis
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