Bureaucracy Strikes Back

I attended my second-ever convention, this time an anime convention, and naturally, I went alone because the boys once again decided they had better things to do. I talk about planning the trip months in advance, going full lone-wolf mode, questioning whether my 400+ completed anime actually qualifies me as a veteran, almost spending more on a maid café than the convention ticket itself, navigating a convention floor apparently designed by a dyslexic Metroidvania developer, and discovering that the real highlight of an ANIME convention was buying three Marvel and DC comics at stupidly good prices. Add in free airport-style water, ice-filled urinals, a gaming stage I couldn't care less about, and the realization that I desperately need a girlfriend, and you've got my second convention experience.New episodes every Thursday at 6 AM IST.Check out my other work: https://linktr.ee/rylanbanis

This month’s Wildcard Episode is all about hot takes. I’ve collected a bunch of opinions from around the internet, but there’s a catch: I haven’t actually read them beforehand, so you’re getting my genuine first reactions as I try to figure out whether I agree, disagree, or have absolutely no idea what to think. We’ll go from relatively harmless takes about relationships, work, social media and everyday life to some genuinely spicy opinions about money, luck, attraction, freedom and emotional maturity, before I finish with a few of my own hot takes. Expect opinions, overthinking, probably a few contradictions, and hopefully a good amount of bullshit along the way.New episodes every Thursday at 6 AM IST.Check out my other work: https://linktr.ee/rylanbanis

I spent months building up the courage to approach a girl I admired during my college days. When I finally did, we ended up having one of the most engaging three-hour conversations of my life... only for her to start avoiding me the very next day. To this day, I still don't know what changed. In this episode, I tell the full story, from overthinking every opportunity to say hello, to finally taking my shot, to learning that sometimes you'll never get the closure you're looking for. And weirdly enough, I eventually realised I'd rather live with the certainty of "no" than spend years wondering "what if?"New episodes every Thursday at 6 AM IST.Check out my other work: https://linktr.ee/rylanbanis

Ever wondered what it's actually like to write a novel? In this episode, I take you through my entire writing journey, from random plot ideas scribbled into a document, abandoned novels, heartbreak-inspired stories, and brutally honest feedback, to the surprisingly nerdy systems I now use to plan every chapter, character, crime, and plot twist. Along the way, I talk about perfectionism, procrastination, why your first draft is supposed to suck, and the lessons I've learned from trying (and often failing) to finish books. Whether you're a writer, an artist, or simply someone who's struggled to stick with a creative project, I hope this episode reminds you that creating something imperfect is always better than creating nothing at all.New episodes every Thursday at 6 AM IST.Check out my other work: https://linktr.ee/rylanbanis

In this sequel to Episode 198, I revisit my life trackers 100 days later to see what changed, what surprised me, and what the data taught me. From gym consistency and weight gain to journaling, sleep, food, expenses and media consumption, I share updated stats, unexpected observations, mistakes like ego lifting and dirty bulking, and the changes I've made because of them. I also rank all my trackers, from most valuable to most annoying, and reflect on why collecting data isn't about obsessing over numbers, but about understanding yourself a little better.New episodes every Thursday at 6 AM IST.Check out my other work: https://linktr.ee/rylanbanis

In this episode of Inside Rylan’s Mind, I turned my own writing into a game. The Rylan Test is a ten-round game show where listeners have to distinguish between real tweets, fake tweets, and sometimes no truth at all. It starts simple, then slowly breaks into Chaos Tier, where the rules shift, assumptions collapse, and even familiarity becomes unreliable. Each round pulls from my actual thoughts, posts, and invented variations of my voice, testing not just memory but pattern recognition of how I think and write. By the end, the question isn’t really what was real or fake, but whether you actually know the difference between something I said and something I could have said.New episodes every Thursday at 6 AM IST.Check out my other work: https://linktr.ee/rylanbanis

I built a simple Excel habit tracker and slowly turned it into a full RPG system with XP, levels, ranks, milestones, and weighted scoring. What started as a clean way to track habits became an over-engineered game design experiment where I spent more time balancing progression than actually doing the habits. Eventually I realized I liked building the system more than using it, scrapped the whole thing, and switched back to a minimal habit tracker.New episodes every Thursday at 6 AM IST.Check out my other work: https://linktr.ee/rylanbanis

For most of my life, I didn't know how to wash clothes. Then hostel life forced me into a bizarre journey involving possessed washing machines, a laundry company monopoly, missing clothes, broken zips, a two-month search for a lost hanky, and eventually learning how to do laundry myself. In this episode, I share the surprisingly chaotic story of how one of the most basic adult life skills finally caught up to me.Check out my other work: https://linktr.ee/rylanbanis

A few years ago, a stock app created an offshore bank account for me. I forgot it even existed until the bank introduced a minimum balance policy, forcing me to close an account I no longer used. What should have been a simple request turned into a 50-day saga involving a dormant account, re-KYC, cancelled cheques, endless emails, customer service limbo, and far too much mental bandwidth for an account with almost no money in it.Check out my other work: https://linktr.ee/rylanbanis

I stumbled across a tier list containing over a hundred personality traits and started ranking them based on how attractive I find them in a potential partner. What began as a silly internet exercise quickly turned into a deeper question: what do our preferences actually reveal about us? In this episode, I explore the traits that instantly draw me in, the ones that push me away, the contradictions in my own standards, and whether attraction is really about the traits themselves or the stories we attach to them. Inspired by a personality-traits tier list template on TierMaker.Check out my other work: https://linktr.ee/rylanbanis