Underneath my yellow skin

Parting is such sweet sorrow (part three)

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I have more to say about FromSoft. I just did the worst boss in FromSoft history (Bed of Chaos), and it reminded me why it’s considered the worst boss in FromSoft history–yes, all of the games combined. The thing is, I can see the cool idea behind the boss, but Miyazaki was pushed to finish the game–and this was the area that really suffered. He has apologized for it, and he redid the area in Dark Souls III to his satisfaction.

Anyway, I did it early, and I had very little health. Plus, with my terrible spatial aptitude, it was frustrating beyond belief. So was the Centipede Demon. Anything that I can’t see for several seconds is going to be a problem to me.

Back to the Bed of Chaos. It really represents the best and worst of FromSoft thinking. It’s a puzzle boss in which there are two glowing orbs on either side of a living tree (the Bed of Chaos). You have to hit both orbs and then the floor in front of the bed crumbles away. You have to jump on a thin branch and run up to kill the actual boss.

I know this sounds easy, but, trust me, it isn’t. Why? Because the tree sweeps its branches at you and makes bits of the floor disappear. The sweeps takes off nearly a full health bar for me, and it’s hard to spot the holes in the ground while sprinting for the orbs. or the hole in the ground you need to jump in.

I have never had as much difficulty with this boss as I did this time–and it was always me getting swept into holes. It happened the same way something like three times in a row–and the runback was more aggravating each time. One of the best things From did in Elden Ring was get rid of the boss runs. I can tell you that there’s little as frustrating as taking five minutes to actually get to a boss and then dying within ten seconds.

I have included a video below of a guy trying to do the boss with a bunch of weird self-imposed limits. (People like to do all kinds of weird runs.) I want to point out that he has roughly three times the health that I do, which made it easier. Not easy, mind, but easier. Even still, he was having a tough time with this boss (in terms of getting hit, not in getting killed).


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Time to say goodbye…maybe (part two)

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In yesterday’s post, I was talking about FromSoft. When Demon’s Souls came out in 2009, it was a last-ditch effort by FromSoft to get something out of a game they deemed to be a failure. They put one of their devs in charge, a cog in the wheel named Hidetaka Miyazaki, and they allowed him to do anything he wanted with it. Because, and I cannot emphasize this enough, he was expected to fail. Or rather, the game was. The company had no faith in it and just wanted it off their hands.

It didn’t sell exceedingly well, but it got a very enthusiastic cult following–and a request (demand) for it to be ported to the PC. It never got that port, but the game did well enough for Miyazaki to be allowed to make another game. It was a sequel called Dark Souls, and that was the beginning of the slow, but steady rise for the little company that could, FromSoft.

Once again, the requests (demands) for a port to the PC was loud. And there was one, but it was terrible. TERRIBLE. Fortunately, a modder came up with the dsfix which made it bearable on the PC. By the time I decided to play the game, it ran decently. I did not have the Blighttown two FPS issue, and I was able to play the game without many technical difficulties. Did I suck at it? Of course I did. Did I hate it by the end of the playthrough? I certainly did! Did I vow I would never play it again? Yup.

Ha! I have to laugh at my previous self because I was so far off track as to what would happen on my FromSoft journey. I did put it away for a bit, but then the sequel came out. And despite myself, I was intrigued.

I cannot overstate how much of a love-hate relationship I had with the original Dark Souls game. I was very proud that I finished it, but it made me feel so tired. So very tired. This is how I feel when I finish every game, by the way. It’s partly my fault because when a new From game comes out, it’s all I want to do. I become obsessed and play hours at a time, and they are not short games.  Plus, the fact that I will take at least twice as long as normal players to play a From game, well, that can veer on grueling.

I waited until the Scholar of the First Sin edition of the second game before playing it. And, yes, Miyazaki was not behind this one. Yes, it’s considered the unloved child in the FromSoft family of games, and yes, it’s both hated and loved (by different people), and there are even some people who consider it the best Souls game. I am not one of them (that would be the third game), but I did end up liking the game very much–as long as I didn’t hold it to rigid Dark Souls standards.

Side note: I have said this so many times that the sequel had no way to win. If it had been just the same as the first game, people would have complained that it wasn’t innovative. In the ways it actually deviated from the original, people hated it. Hated it. I’m not going to say that all the innovations were great, but I’m also not going to say they were terrible, either. In fact, I would say that the things I liked least about the game was when they doubled down on making things HARD BECAUSE THAT’S HOW THE FIRST GAME WAS.


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What is niche vs. what is mainstream

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It’s 82F right now. I had to run to the pharmacy to pick up a med, and it was hot. H-O-T, I say. It seems we’ve skipped spring altogether and went straight to summer. Except, we have a low of 41F for Tuesday, so winter may not be done with us yet. That is the weather in Minnesota right now, but not what I want to talk about.

Oh, and my sleep has been creeping back again. But I did get over eight hours of sleep last night, so that’s good. But I don’t want to go to bed past three in the morning. That’s my goal. Four at the latest (which I did not meet last night). I let myself fuck around too much last night–and I found out.

One thing, though. I don’t want to let one off day completely wreck my schedule. I have the habit of giving up if I mess up once. I know that’s not a good thing, so I’m trying to not spiral.

Also, I want to up my daily writing from one hour to two (for the fiction side of it). That’s very doable as I used to write 2,000 words a day before my medical crisis. One hour is nearly 1,000 words, so I should be able to do 2,000 in two to three hours if I’m diligent.

That’s not what I want to talk about today, though. That would be my love for things that sit somewhere in the shadowy (heh) realm of niche and mainstream. There are two things I want to discuss, both in pop culture. Today, I will focus on FromSoft–I have not talked about them for a while.

Below, I have included a video of someone no hitting my BAE, Messmer, with what I think are the Dryleaf fists. (The martial arts weapons in the DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree. Very cool, but not my style.) I absolutely adore this OST and this boss. Funnily enough, he was the face of the DLC so everyone assumed he would be the last boss. Not even close. FromSoft loves to fuck with fans like that. Not saying he’s not important because he is, but his fight is roughly halfway through the DLC (if you do tihngs properly, which I did not).

I still get chills watching this boss fight and listening to the OST. It’s just so epic and grand. I love how From has major setpiece bosses, and this is definitely one of them. In fact, many of the bosses in tthe DLC for Elden Ring are major spectacles.

I’ve been thinking about how FromSoft went from the little studio that could (back in the 10s) to the powerful juggernaut it is today. Now, every game that is anywhere near the action adventure genre adds Fromlike elements to their games, and games in other genres do so as well. There has been a different focus at different times, and right now, it’s on the deflect/parry. Which, yuck. I hate it so much. Not only is it ableist (which it most definitely is), it’s just so boring.


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This, that, and a whole bunch of whatever

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Back with the weather report. It’s 63F right now, which is pretty common. But, it’s supposed to get up to 89F tomorrow. What? I mean, what in the actual fuck? Yesterday, as I noted, it was 50F around this time of night, which is pretty normal–I guess? Oh, and on Tuesday, there’s a low of 41F.

I cannot. I’m done with the weather right now. We’re taking a break.

I wish it were as easy as that, but it’s not, of course. I don’t get to choose my relationship with the weather–though I will not be going outside tomorrow if it really hits 89F. I have to run errands, so I’ll be outside briefly, though. Going from 89 to 41 in a matter of a few days is just wild to me. We have very different weather at different times in MN, yes, but that’s usually done by seasons–not by a matter of days. Or even in the same day!

I do wonder if we’re going to have a true spring/summer, though. I’m guessing we’ll have some summer even if it’s just a few weeks. We always have a week or two of ninties to a hundred degrees in July/August, so I’m counting on that happening. Spring has been pretty much winter-lite, though.

Usually, we’re used to March/April being up and down, but usually things even out by May. I truly thought that this was going to be the week that spring hit for real, but, no. We have a 41F as a low in a few days.

This is climate change at work, and we’re doomed.

Well, that’s the end of this post. I’m just kidding, of course, but, wow, we’re living in the darkest timeline. I don’t have anything positive to say at the moment. I glance at the news once a day, twice at the most, and it’s just all depressing. Well, not all, but mostly. On so many levels. I am not going to list them all, but it keeps me in a state of anger, depression, and disbelief.

I’m past wondering how people can be so ignorant, hateful, and voting for things that are against their best interests. The answer is not one I can say in polite society without getting a lot of heat in return. My disdain for my fellow American is growing on the daily. Oh, and I really hate the ‘both sides’ bullshit that gets bandied about. “Both sides are so inflexible and need to move towards the middle’. Nope. Not true. My civil rights and my humanity are not up for debate. There is no middle ground between queers are human beings with full civil rights and we’re not. There just isn’t.

Nor is there any middle ground between we should help the most fragile among us and we should not. There are conversations to be had about how we do that, yes, but not about whether it should be done or not–at least not on a humane level.


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Taking a risk–and my daily weather report

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I’m back with the daily weather report. It’s 50F right now, but got up to the sixties earlier. Here is my post from yesterday in which I talked about whatever was on my mind. We’re supposed to get up to 78F tomorrow. I have a private lesson, which we might actually be able to do outside if it doesn’t rain (afternoon showers are predicted). I don’t mind going outside in a drizzle as long as there are no flies/mosquitos/wasps/other bugs. If there are any bugs, I will not go outside.

Bugs love me so much. The last time I went out when there were bugs, I got bit by a wasp–and I couldn’t help but scratch it. Therefore, it got infected, and I had to go to the doctor for antibiotics. Fortunately, a ten-day regiment (started with seven and added three) worked–even though the first seven days didn’t completely do the job. My finger was swollen to approximately four times the regular size (only a slight exaggeration), and I feared that it was going to be worse than it actually was. Fortunately, the last three days of the treatment took care of it, otherwise, who knows what the fuck I would do?

My long-standing joke that isn’t really a joke is that I’m allergic to everything including air. Another is that I like the outdoors as long as there’s a door between it and me. The third is that I like the outdoors, but the outdoors hates me.None of these are really jokes, though. Everything outside affects me negatively, which means I stay inside as much as possible.

When I used to play tennis as a kid with my family and my parents’ friends, the mosquitoes would eat me alive while they left my father strictly alone. As a result, he did not believe that they bit me (anything that did not happen to him did not happen at all), which was doubly frustrating.

Honestly, it’s such a pain. Whenever I’m outside, I feel like I have to be on my guard. The problem is that I can’t really protect myself against things like wasps because they’re too fast for me. If I didn’t have to care about infection, then I wouldn’t worry so much. I don’t mind getting bit (I do) as long as the bites don’t blow up.

To wildly switch subjects, my mom told me about being audited by the regulatory board that governs the field she’s in. She needs to get 40 credits (which is common in many careers) a year, which she easily did because she taught/trained a lot. The problem was that she did not keep any records, so she has no proof that she did any of it.

She complained that the board had gotten so strict with the little laugh she did when she was annoyed/flustered/upset. She also has an issue doing anything online because she has an almost phobic response to it. She knows that it’s irrational, but she can’t do anything about it. Or rather, she won’t get the help she needs to get past it.


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My daily report for shits and giggles

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I’m back with the daily weather report. Why? Because it’s still occupying my mind, and I’m going to keep going on with it until I’m bored with it. Here is my post from yesterday in which I did just that and a whole lot more. It’s 62F now, which seems to be pretty normal for this time of year. I ran to the pharmacy and for the first time this season, I wore shorts. Long shorts, yes, but shorts, nonetheless. It was such a nice day out, and it’s finally spring? I think? I am not an outdoor person at all, but it felt nice to have the sun on my face. And 62F is right at the top of my comfort zone.

This is another thing I know and accept about myself–I hate the heat. I have hated it since I was little. It doesn’t make sense because I’m hypothyroid, which usually means quick to feel the cold. However, I was hyperthyroid before that, which maybe is where my hatred of heat comes from. It should have gone away when my thyroid was destroyed, but it did not.

Now, my tolerance of/enjoyment of the cold is slightly lower than it was before I hit menopause, but I still much prefer it to the heat. And, to me, the heat is anything over 65F. Actually, up to 70F is tolerable. Once we go over 70F, then all bets are off.

Back when I was younger, I was much more into the cold than I am now. I mean, I was dancing in the snow naked at midnight for funsies. I haven’t done it in some time, but it made me feel so alive. I may have to revive it for next winter. Then again, I’m not sure I will be able to handle it, either. I’m not going to do it foolishly if my body can no longer deal with it.

Similarly, I used to play a fun (for me) game of seeing how long it would take me in the winter before I rolled up my window. When I was at my peak, I could tolerate the cold until roughly -10F. Then, I would reluctantly roll the window up. After that, it was another new game of when was I going to turn on the heater? I did it once or twice a winter, which was about how often I used the heater inside the house. Well, that’s a slight exaggeration. I probably used it three to five times a winter in the house–and that was mostly as I slept.

I can tell I’m getting older because I have my heater in my house at 62F all day round instead of 62F during the day and 60F at night. Yes, it’s just a matter of 2 degrees, but it’s still a significant different.

I’m still adjusting my sleeping schedule. I went to bed around 4:30 a.m. last night and got up at noon. Well, a bit before it. So seven hours of sleep, which is decent for me. I got up once to pee, but quickly went back to sleep again.


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More about whatever’s on my mind

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Am I continuing my weather reporting? I sure as hell am. Here is my post from yesterday in which I just meandered over the whole place. Why? Because I can, but also because it’s been so fascinating to me. We got down to 44F last night, which is cold for this time of the year–but not cold enough for me. And right now? It’s 66F–which seems about right for *checks calendar* Mid-May.

I would love one more frost warning before the season is over. I don’t think it’s going to happen. I am calling it again; winter is finally over. On May 11th. With five to six months to go to the next winter. As I’ve said, I’m loving it because I like the cold. I get so grumpy when the heat starts rising and the bugs start coming out to play. I feel like I’m at best half-alive in the summer. The spring is not my favorite, either. Fall makes me happy because it’s so pretty and because it tells me that winter is coming, but it pales in comparison to winter.

Winter is and will forever be queen. Even though I’m getting a bit more sensitive to cold because of perimenopause (which is now, I think, just plain menopause), I still much prefer it to being hot.

Side note: It’s so weird. Perimenopause/menopause, I mean. I’ve always been lucky that I only got my period two to four times a year for three days at a time. One light day, one heavy day (which is probably light/medium for other people), and the third day being light or almost nonexistent). I rarely got cramps, and if I did, they didn’t last very long. My biggest issue with getting my period was that I could never predict when it would come. That meant I had to carry products with me most of the time. Not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, of course, but just slightly irritating.

I did worry about the fact that I got my period so few times a year, but my doctor told me as long as it was twice a year, it was fine. Which was (barely) what I got. Once my doctor clarified that it was fine, I stopped worrying about it and was just glad that it had such a minimal impact on my life.

I will say that the only time that wasn’t true (my period schedule) was when I was having sex on the regular. Then, my period came every thirty-five to forty days, and it was pretty obvious why. From a biological perspective, of course my body wanted to be ready to procreate whenever I had sex. Therefore, my previous ‘schedule’ of getting my period once every three to six months would simply not do. was I pleased about it? Yes and no. I did not want to have my period more often (as I absolutely did not want to get pregnant), but I did appreciate knowing approximately when it was going to occur.


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Back with more bullshit

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I am back with another weather report. It’s going to fascinate me until the threat of a frost has passed. At the rate we’re going, it won’t be until winter comes–and then it won’t be at all. it’s currently 44F, and this is the lowest it’s supposed to get in the next week or ten days. I’m wearing a hoodie, which I had thought I would not need again this season.

I have said several times that I love the cold. If it could be under forty year round, I would be down with that. The problem is when it switches from seventies to forties over the course of a single day. My body is so not happy. Even though I’m mostly inside where the temp is a calming 62 degrees.

I managed to get to bed around three-thirty, which is istll within the range of when I want to get to bed. I’m shooting for three, but I’ll take this as a huge win considering that I’ve gone from eight in the morning to three-thirty within a matter of days.

It’s got me thinking about other problems in my life and how I deal with them in a similar fashion.  What I mean is that I ignore them, try the obvious solutions, ignore them some  more, then try something radical that may or may not work.

Like with my sleep issues, the bad decision I made (staying up for 72 hours) led to the better decision I made (reverting to my previous habit of doing what I neded to do before doing the fun stuff). Today, I backslid a bit, but as long as I get my shit down by three-thirty/four, it’s fine. Or at least keeping me on track. As I said in yesterday’s post (or the one before, maybe), I would ideally like to make three in the morning my consistent go to bed time. I’m close to it and I’m doing a good job, but I’m worried that I’ll let myself slip little by little until I’m back to my old schedule.

I got a good seven hours last night, but it could have been more if  Ihadn’t fucked up my alarm. What I mean is that I didn’t reset my alarm from 11 a.m. (for my Zoom Taiji class yesterday)  to something later than that. That means that I got up at eleven, even though I was aiming for twelve.

I do wonder what is fucking up my memory even more so than it’s normally fucked. It’s been markedly worse in the last few weeks, and I’m sure it’s a vicious cycle with my lack of sleep. or rather, broken sleep. I have accepted I now have a shitty memory since my medical crisis, but it’s gotten even worse in the past few weeks.


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Groove is in my head

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I’m back with the weather report once again. Right now it’s 55F, which is nice for me. It’s supposed to get down to near-freezing tonight, which…look, we all know I love the cold. I think I have been pretty clear on that. However, I am having the roughest time with the wildly fluctuating temps. My body is, I mean. Here is my post from yesterday, and I’ll just keep going with my musings in this post.

At the same time, I’m just exhausted from the lack of sleep. I mean, I don’t sleep well in general, but I’ve been managing to have decent sleep until the last month or so. Maybe a few months? It’s been especially terrible in the last few weeks. Going to bed at eight or nine and still forcing myself up by two-thirty because I was determined to have a regular time to get up. I was hoping that it would force me to go to bed earlier. Did this work? No. Did I really think it would work? No.

I know myself. I know the way my brain (doesn’t) work. I know what I can make myself do and what I can’t. And yet, I still foolishly do things I know won’t work. It’s not even as if I’m fooling myself–it’s me trying to convince me that I can fool myself.

I think this is one of the things that frustrates me the most about my weird-ass brain. I know what I can and can’t do, but I still try to do the thintg that I know won’t work with the futile hope that it’ll end differently this time.

What I’ve learn is that I just have to do something big and completely different. NOT stay up for 72 hours straight, but moving from one computer to another by a certain time after actually doing the first thing I need to do. This is how I used to do it back in the day before I had my medical crisis.

Side note: I’m exhausted. I’m so tired. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. After having so much trouble sleeping and being so sleep-deprived, now that I’ve actually gotten a few nights of decent sleep, I’m more tired than ever. I’m not alarmed because that’s how it’s been in the past. My body can get used to not sleeping much (at least when I was younger), but once I start making up the deficit, my body wants more.

I don’t know if there is ever a point when I’ll be truly caught. I’m guessing that if I do this for, say, like six months, I’ll make up a good portion of that. Even if I don’t, I’ll still get more sleep and more consistent sleep than I have already so it’ll be a net plus. That’s the thing I have to remind myself about any progress I make–it’s progress. Even if it’s not as big or as much as I want, I’m still better than I used to be.


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We’re back in hell again

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I’m back with the weather report. It seems like spring is actually here (at least during the day). It’s currently 69 (nice), and it’s supposed to be in the high sixties to high seventies for the next week,, with it going back to the high forties/low fifties during the night. Dare I say that winter is finally done for the year?

*Hastily checks the weather again*

Yes. I am calling it done on winter this yaer. Three months after it would normally end, but that’s Minnesota, especially in the years of our dastardly climate change. I don’t have much to say about that because that’s a war we’ve lost (among others). We could ‘win’ the climate change war if we wanted, but it would take much more effort than anyone is willing to give.

I’m on day two of going to bed at a reasonable-ish time (three-thirty a.m.), and I got almost eight hours. Well, seven-plus. Which is a big feat for me these days. And I only woke up once. Which is also unusual for me these days.

Big thanks to my friend who suggested that I just set a hard limit for myself in getting off my computer. I modified it by getting off my desktop to go to my laptop (which is by where I sleep) in  order to do the last thing I need to do before going to bed.

I realized that part of my problem was that I was literally propping myself up (at my desk) when I should be going to bed. It was especially bad yesterday because I kept snoozing off, but I stubbornly refused to go to bed. I’m so like a toddler in that way. I will fight off all attempts to make me go to bed. As I’ve said several times, I’ve been doing this since I was seven, and I have the hardest time stopping.

With the same friend I mentioned above, I was talking about how some flaws can just be accepted while others need to be dealt with. This one needs to be dealt with, yes, but I can accept a 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. as my sleep schedule if I can do it regularly. I’m a bit bemused at how easily I made the hard switch because thats’ not something I’m usually able to do. I think it’s a few things.

One, making the physical change to the other room at a much earlier time makes it easy just to naturally fall asleep. Two, my sleep has been so shitty in the last few weeks that just moving to the location of sleep signified to my brain that it was time to sleep. So when I actually wanted to sleep, it was much easier just to let go and let sleep take over. Three, my body was just at that point. It had to sleep whether I wanted it to or not. Four, I do believe that my attempt to stay awake for 72 hours (stopping just shy of 48) jumpstarted the change.


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