Re:CoM postgame grind complete. Last time I did the Riku grind I used the strong initiative method used by speedrunners, but this time I used the Lexaeus card method and cleared rooms instead of running away, and it was not bad. The grind is so much less tedious when you're allowed to actually play the game, I even had fun. Sora's grind was actually the more painful one, even though I slashed the length of the mega flare spam by going for enemy cards organically rather than RNG manips. 500 deck edits is still a silly achievement.

My backlog includes not just games, but audio books, and I like to occupy myself with something mindless while I listen. Usually that's a replay of a game I've played many times before, but this time I opted for something even more mindless. I noticed that the subset existed, laughed it off, looked again, considered it, and for whatever reason, started it. I'm not sure why. Maybe I want to prove to myself that I'm not so brain rotted that I can't do something uninteresting for long stretches of time. Maybe I want to climb the mountain simply because it is there. I'm already past the point that most people quit, and I can see why. Getting from level 1 to 40 in one day was easy. Getting to 55 took another four days, and it will take another five to get to 65. While the finish line is still far off, the exp curve is about as steep as it ever gets, which means most people quit just as progress starts to come slow. There are lots of comments on the page about revising the subset to include achievements at every 5 levels instead of every 10, for more regular dopamine hits, because apparently, the level up notification ingame just isn't enough anymore. Maybe I'll make 2026 the year of the grind, and do more things most people don't finish.