My brain is feeling rather random right now, so I’m going to go with it rather than fight it. First of all, I tried the left side of the Sword Form today with a fair amount of trepidation in my heart. I haven’t done it in six months, and I was sure it would take me some time to relearn it. I’m having some difficulties with the left side of the Solo Form, though not nearly as much as when I first learned it. I love the Sword Form the most, so it would really discourage me if I had to relearn the whole left side again. I started it with my heart in my mouth, telling myself I’d just do it until I fucked up badly enough to have to start over. That’s another thing about the left side for me. If I mess up, I can’t just go back a posture or two and start over. I have to go back to the beginning or at least several postures back. It’s frustrating, to say the least. I made it all the way through the first half making only one major mistake (which I fixed, sort of), and decided to keep going. I got stuck on one posture early in the second half, struggled through it, then breezed through the rest of it.
When I finished, I felt exhilarated. I made it through the whole left side of the Sword Form with only two noticeable mistakes! That was way better than I thought I’d do, and it was a relief to me that I wouldn’t have to teach it to myself again. It also reminded me how much I love doing the Sword Form, and I should do it every day as I used to. Next up will be something my teacher mentioned in class recently–moving through the form smoothly, using momentum to go from posture to posture. I love the Sword. It is my absolute favorite part of taiji, and I don’t feel like I’m really doing taiji if I’m not practicing it.
Second random thought: I’m perturbed by the idea of food as a moral issue and the fact that it seems to be catching on more and more. It’s been a staple of the diet industry for as long as I can remember, separating foods into good and bad based on health, but now there’s a whiff of ‘I’m better than you are’ behind it that I find really off-putting. It’s part of my problem with the healthy living crowd in general–their lack of ability to see that much of what they believe is wrapped in classist thinking. Organic food is more expensive than non-organic food and not as readily available. There have been countless articles on food deserts, which makes it harder for urban people to have access to better produce and other products. I once observed that gas in the inner city was ten cents more expensive than gas in my suburb.
It’s one thing to say, “I eat healthily because it makes me feel better”; it’s another to say, “I take the pains to cook healthily because I care about myself and my family”. I was watching a cooking video by this young woman, and she was burbling on and on about how you have to make cooking healthily for yourself a number one priority, and I couldn’t help thinking how privileged she sounded. I had watched a few of her cooking videos, and she’s using ingredients that are not available at your local grocery store. And, they’re more expensive, too. Another video was about how to cook an easy gluten-free, dairy-free meal, and she said the prep time took two hours. Excuse me? That’s not easy or convenient. Let’s say you work until five or six. There’s no way you’re going to wait two hours to serve your kids dinner.
It’s galling to me to see people look down their noses at fast food or bemoan the obesity problem of today’s youth* without acknowledging the factors that have led us to this place. Schools are cutting down on PE, and fast food is cheap, easy, and quick. Even something innocuous as, “Just take a thirty-minute walk after dinner” is ignorant at the core. Many people live in areas where they would not feel comfortable walking around at night, and many people work more than forty hours weeks.
In addition, food is more than just fuel for the body. I’ve heard that comparison several times, especially when I used to diet. “Think of your body as a car and food as fuel.” What? No! Food is so much more than that. It’s nurturing and comforting, and it’s the glue that holds us together socially. Again, I’m not against eating for your health, but it makes me sad to hear people talk about food solely for its nutritional value. It sounds so empty and soulless to me. Years ago, I made a dedicated effort to eat kale on a regular basis because I knew it was good for me. I hated it. LOATHED it. Thought it was so gross. Still, I kept eating it, hating it every time. I finally gave up after several months because I got no joy out of it. Spinach, on the other hand, I like. I’ll eat the hell out of that, and it’s equally good for me.
What I’m trying to say is that food is more than fuel, and if eating a food makes me feel good in some way, I’ll eat it. Obviously, I’ve given up gluten and dairy because of sensitivity issues, but if I can eat something and I enjoy it, I will eat it. I learned from my many decades of eating disorders that if I say I CAN’T eat something, it’s all I can think about. Once I allow it back in my diet, it loses its potency. It’s the power of the taboo, and it’s pretty easy to comprehend. If you make something forbidden, it’s immediately more tempting.
Now, on to summer. It’s 84 ‘real feel’ 93. I was outside for a bit, and I was sweating like a pig. I sweat profusely to begin with, and it just pours down my body in heat like this. It’s so gross. I can only take off so much clothing until I reach skin. All I can do is be hyper-aware of how hot and sweaty I am, and gulp down the Coke Zero like it’s going out of style.
In addition, I’m covered in skeeter bites (or some other nasty buzzing thing), so I’m hot, sweaty, and scratching myself incessantly. I got a bite at the top of my ass crack, and you can imagine how attractive I look when I need to scratch it. I’ve had them in my pussy before, which is even worse. Mosquitoes love me, but the feeling is not mutual. I’ve been trying not to kill insects in the house, but if I see a flying insect, I’ll swat frantically at it until I connect or it flies away.
I’ve bought several games during the Steam Summer Sale, and I’m currently trying out Salt and Sanctuary (S&S), a Souls-inspired, 2D, platforming, Metroidvania-like, action adventure RPG, etc., game by ska studios–a husband and wife team. The art style is very divisive because it’s so cartoonish, but I love it. My characters are adorable (I’m trying out two classes, Mage and Cleric), and the settings are appropriately Gothic. The developers are unapologetic in their Souls appropriation appreciation, and the game wears its influence on its sleeve. A sanctuary is a bonfire, salt is souls, and the rest of the comparisons are equally one-to-one.
On the positive side, the game is very Souls-like, and it has that ‘let me try that level one more time’ feel to it. It’s esoteric with the lore being difficult to come by, although the NPCs are a tad chattier than the ones in Souls games. There are messages in a bottle left by other players (or the devs. Like the notes on the ground in Souls games, and get used to me comparing this game to Souls games. There’s no way to talk about it otherwise), and they can help you or troll you, just like in you-know-what. I quite like the graphics, though I can understand why other people find it too cutesy. It’s difficult, but not as hard as Souls so far. I’ve only seen four or five areas and killed the first boss twice, so I can’t properly assess the difficulty level. There are plenty of times when you’re asked questions, and you don’t know how you should answer. I like that, though I find myself less willing to take chances than I would have been three Souls games ago.
Now, to the negatives. One, the puzzling controller choices. For a game that is so blatantly a Souls-like game, the buttons should be the same. They’re not, and I feel it’s a misstep. I’m guessing the devs wanted to differentiate between their game and Souls games, but this isn’t the place to do it. In Souls, B is roll, X is item use, Y is two-handed your weapon, and jump is, well that changes, but in DS III it’s push LS forward while pressing B, then you push in the LS to actually jump. In S&S, it’s A to jump. RB is light attack in Souls, whereas X is light attack in S&S. RB is item use, but the absolute worst is RT for roll. I’m not used to it yet, and I think it’s so awkward.
The other major gripe I have so far is with the skill tree and the leveling up system. It’s not great in Souls, but I’ve gotten used to it despite FromSoft’s insistence on changing the stats every damn game. This skill tree is vast and insane, and I feel as if I’m just randomly putting points wherever. I also hate it because you can’t get certain skills until you get other ones. Some of it makes sense, but some of it doesn’t, and I have little patience with skill trees that are obtuse. I know, I know, you could say the same with the Souls leveling system, but it seems less opaque to me. You could argue that it’s only because I’ve played the shit out of the three Souls game and have forgotten how archaic it was when I first played, and you’d probably be right. I still prefer leveling up any stats I want rather than having tiers. Also, the leveling in S&S is just an overall increase to all your stats, which means you can’t choose to go heavy on, say, vigor or endurance and go skimpy on other stats. It doesn’t bother me too much, but I know people who like to do no health-increase runs are not happy about it.
Finally, the first boss wasn’t anything to write home to Mom about. It’s a huge lumbering knight, and once I learned his move set, he wasn’t any big thing. I’m irritated though because I almost killed him on my first time with my Mage, but he pulled out a three-attack combo I had never seen the entire fight and wiped me out. I thought it was cheesy, and I do think there are more deaths in this game that aren’t my fault than there are in Souls games. I also don’t like that your souls, er, salt is in the enemy that kills you like Bloodborne (unless you get killed by environment. Then, a shadowy creature appears, and you have to fight it to get your salt back. This is like Hollow Knight, and I’m not a big fan), but in this game, the boss will have your salt if you die to it. You have to take off a certain amount of its health to get your salt back. I already know I’ll lose more salt than I would in a Souls game, and I’m not happy about that.
All in all, it’s a solid, engrossing game. I’ll have more to report as I get further into it, though I might try Hyper Light Drifter today. Yes, it’s another difficult game that has some Souls influences. Souls has ruined me for life.
*Another post in itself–our obsession with weight.
[…] on its sleeve. It’s a 2D, side-scrolling, platform, Metroidvania-like Souls game, and I wrote about my first impressions in another post. Now that I’m roughly twenty-seven hours into the game and ten bosses down, I […]