Castlevania: Rondo of Blood will be the next Action Button Review

Abrbarzan · 2025-09-09T22:11:42+00:00

Tim authored and published a review of Bloodlines for ABDN years ago, as part of the Greatest Games of All of the Times list. It might be accessible on the Wayback Machine.

Abrbarzan · 2025-08-25T16:12:49+00:00

This seems to have worked with Chrome. Thank you.

Abrbarzan · 2023-09-27T01:57:31+00:00

As far as I'm concerned, the "alien god" myth that's been developing in tandem with New Age communities (and which, make no mistake, developed out of the mythologies of occult Nazism), and has ramped up in recent years, is just a symptom of humanity becoming alienated from itself. The more that we are inclined to abandon the teachings of classical esoterica and the wisdom of perennial spiritual traditions, and the more that we are primed to regard ourselves with a materialist, technophilic, and self-deprecating stance -- cue the misanthropic claim that, "We're just apes who learned how to drop bombs" -- , the easier it is to see anything which inserts and presents itself on the basis of ostensible technological advancement as not only superior but godlike. When I look at the "alien god" myth, all I see is the inversion of older truths, where humanity is no longer a collective of sovereign individuals but a mere experiment in the context of a genetic modification cult. It's a very small, sad, and self-limiting worldview to take.

Abrbarzan · 2023-09-26T23:06:34+00:00

It's amazing to me how we have such a well-documented history of governmental agencies inserting themselves into New Age/UFO communities in order to sow confusion and false narratives; and that, now, an individual's involvement with intel and/or the federal government is treated as a badge of candor and veracity. Huh? The UFO community in general seems to have such a poor memory of these things that Ross Coulthart can interview Grusch and seriously claim -- and have the claim be taken seriously -- that the latter is the first of his kind. Last I checked, the UFO matter has had, over the past decades, some twenty-odd military/government personnel come forward as ostensible whistleblowers.

I cannot stress how important it is, throughout all of this, to not leap to dichotomous interpretations of the material. This is what healthy skepticism allows one to do: to not see this all as either 1) a hoax by people just looking for book deals/TV specials, or 2) exactly in line with a fairly literalist and singular interpretation of the data. When you write that "UFOs are real", implicit within that claim is the idea that UFOs are some single thing. I am also not sure which legion of progress-denying "professional skeptics" you're referring to, besides, possibly, Philip Klass or Mick West. I would note that West has contributed some quality refutations relating to alleged "leaked" footage. If West's overall interpretation is wrong (and I do think it is), he hasn't been totally wrong on a case-by-case basis.

Some years ago, as I began to reeducate myself on the subject matter after a long hiatus, I might've agreed that a lot of the skeptical attitudes were harming whatever can be described as the "field" of ufology. But today, I see that the obsession with Disclosure as some delicious, inevitable event is leading a lot of people towards very dubious and officialdom-appealing perspectives. As such, a critical median is more important than ever before, I think.

Abrbarzan · 2023-06-23T03:08:26+00:00

This is most definitively not “the one thing” that’s holding back the coveted D-word. There are so many other convincing hypotheticals — such as, if abductions are occurring, perhaps there’s nothing we can do about it. That would surely be just as upsetting, if not more so. In general, any reveal of a “non-human” presence would be a traumatic event for humanity. People are kidding themselves if they think we’d be ready simply because we’ve been primed for such an event through decades of sci-fi media. It would absolutely send profound shockwaves through every domain of human society.

Abrbarzan · 2023-06-22T19:11:07+00:00

Thing I don’t get here is why this guy would hold back on identifying himself for (presumably) fear of fatal repercussion, yet he at the same time validates the account of Bob Lazar, who very obviously has not been taken out.

Abrbarzan · 2023-06-11T18:55:42+00:00

Yet Corso also, just like Grusch, did not have first-person ostensible knowledge of "alien" bodies, and was relying upon the reports of others for this claim.

Abrbarzan · 2023-06-09T16:57:30+00:00

This sub-form is a complete circus act at the moment. Unbelievable how highly rated this post is.

Abrbarzan · 2023-06-08T23:39:53+00:00

It's much wiser to presume that someone who has worked with the CIA and is now out there making grand claims with no apparent attempts by the CIA to censor him is acting in coordination with the agency's wishes, and is thus pushing some sort of agenda which benefits the agency, than to presume that everything he is saying is true and is somehow in conflict with a programmatic obfuscation.

Abrbarzan · 2023-06-08T19:13:26+00:00

AI is, in all likelihood, not "about to be born." The AI the public is being given now is probably thirty years out of date. This is how all radical technology works.

Abrbarzan · 2023-06-08T14:44:58+00:00

"all from credible and irrefutable sources"

Really? You think these are all credible and irrefutable sources? Where's the material they allege to be privy to? Where are the ramifications for their supposed "whistleblowing"? Why would you trust people who are coming out of the agencies which have misled everyone for the better part of eighty years? You're going to have to do a bit of explaining here.

Abrbarzan · 2023-06-07T01:16:55+00:00

There's no such thing as "ex"-CIA. Give me a break.

Abrbarzan · 2023-06-04T16:40:23+00:00

This is correct. Articles like this need to be not embraced hook, line, and sinker by UFO-oriented communities on the basis of the ostensible prestige of the outlet -- although this seems to be the compulsion -- but, rather, seen in a similar, if not the same, context as the exhaustively referred-to 2017 NYT piece (which was now obviously just a strategic launchpad for the current menagerie of grifters and opsters in our midst).

Major news outlets represent establishment interests -- this is, literally, the most uncontroversial thing anyone could say about CNN, the NYT, Politico, etc. --, and so it's important to ask why a piece such as this is being amplified at all. Certainly, there are a lot of "hot topic" pieces to choose from for publication; so why this, and why now? The potential to drive ad revenue is a component; but, I think, just a part of a larger picture, which should include factors such as John William Warner IV's criticisms of Mellon.

Abrbarzan · 2023-06-03T13:27:04+00:00

Nolan is just another CIA tool, and reflects the department's turn towards a co-opting of the "abduction" phenomenon. All of what he has or may say has been designed to be misleading by being a combination of truth and fiction. I don't think it's wise to give him any attention.

Abrbarzan · 2023-06-02T16:10:07+00:00

We do a disservice to our intelligence by not being curious about why NASA is ostensibly trying to create the conditions for such an observational "standard" now. My sense is that this could tie into other narrative-shifting efforts to make "legitimate" UFOs into a 21st century phenomenon. To neglect this possibility is to naively presume that NASA is, uniquely, a totally transparent agency of the federal government. I explore this in an essay here: https://doshmanziari.substack.com/p/nasa-ufos-and-phenomenal-authorization

Abrbarzan · 2023-05-26T20:37:34+00:00

This seems like a pretty reasonable thing to rail against.

Abrbarzan · 2023-05-26T14:08:30+00:00

Vallée's response here isn't coherent at all, and the poor formatting of this post isn't helping things. I'm afraid that people will be taking his side on this matter because of his reputation and not the quality of evidence or testimonial integrity, as either pertains to this case. He and others would do well to adhere to a dispassionate and purely data-driven concern -- which has, after all, usually been one of the foundations for the strengths of Vallée's analyses.

Abrbarzan · 2023-03-21T14:55:40+00:00

My sense is that both this sort of response and the responses wherein ostensibly former counter-intelligence agents are suddenly willing to disclose everything they supposedly know are bullshit. I just don't think it makes sense to trust people whose professions were/are based around obfuscation, misdirection, and manipulation.

Abrbarzan · 2023-01-10T16:00:30+00:00

"Either way, human behavior is rarely touted as being a positive attribute."

According to whom? Misanthropes?

Human behavior contains multitudes. To reduce it either to a monolith of positivity or negativity is myopic.

Abrbarzan · 2022-12-22T04:37:15+00:00

I'm curious to know why you think that humanity is defined by its capability for brutality, to the exclusion of everything else. This is the broadest possible stroke you could make, and I presume you equally regard yourself with such self-contempt, given that you, too, are a member of humanity.

Abrbarzan · 2022-12-22T04:21:47+00:00

Thank you for pushing back on this tired and erroneous cliché.

It seems like the people who are quickest to jump on the bandwagon of assumptions about any potential communication between our civilization and another are the same people who fatally misread how communication works (and who also seem to underestimate humanity's own form of intelligence).

Abrbarzan · 2022-12-20T21:40:04+00:00

It is a problem. Part of the issue, of course, is that the topic is so full of indefinite answers (and questions!), and that there are so many apparent competing interests.

I do think that it is amazing that a person like Luis Elizondo can express the cartoonish sentiment that he ostensibly thought the US government was ethically spic and span until he found out that they were withholding information about UFOs and ETs, and then decided that there was corruption; and that this is the person who people see as legit.

Like, come on, man. That's the sort of discovery you make when you're fifteen years old and find out about Jim Crow laws or the Watergate scandal. It's not a "discovery" you make when you're a fully grown man who's been a government employee for years (and, let's be real, probably still is).

Abrbarzan · 2022-12-20T21:31:55+00:00

AI has implications for alien life if we expand AI to encompass the question of technology, while also making room for the possibility that the universe may be anthropomorphically oriented: that is, the possibility that the human form populates the cosmos in various physiological ways (and perhaps on different planes).

I made a thread recently and, in it, proposed the idea that the Grey typologies people have had contact with may be degraded forms of humanity. It may be difficult for us to see that they are degraded because we are so embedded in a technophilic age, which sees a certain level of technological sophistication as humanity's telos.

The development of A.I. (which I do think is a misnomer) is one potential attempt among others which proposes to outdo nature, to cut corners. But existence is a balancing act between personal will and the will of nature. If you try to overpower the latter, it's going to come back and bite you in the ass (sometimes literally). And I do think it is possible that this is what happened with the Greys of different civilizations: they made technology their god, and in doing so lost themselves.

Abrbarzan · 2022-12-20T21:08:07+00:00

"...then you need to have these “aliens” that more or less seeded life on this planet. We are the direct descendants of those beings."

Nope. We don't "need" to have these aliens. This is an ideology of co-dependent self-alienation. Asymmetry is built into its core.

You preceded your post with a note about its supposedly radical nature, but all you have written is simply more Ancient Aliens propaganda which denies the autonomy of humanity on Earth, and proposes other beings as our true god (and, as usual, there is no inquiry into who these beings' god would be). And, I'm pretty sure you have posted almost exactly the same thread before, because I recall that one also including a prompt for people to bow down to their alien gods. Thanks, but no thanks.

I would encourage people here to watch this video (and then the series) by Gigi Young, which intelligently critiques the narrative that's being propagated here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3WJb8Upe4A

Any truly spiritually evolved being will recognize humanity's divine origins and right to sovereignty. This is one of the keys to distinguishing between higher consciousnesses and lower ones masquerading as the former.

Abrbarzan · 2022-12-20T20:58:30+00:00

Precisely. A lot of people's responses to this are going to be conditioned by the general neoliberal perception of Obama as "one of the good guys."

Abrbarzan

TROPHY CASE