Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: ideal

Taiji is my way of life

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I want to talk more about Taiji and how it went from something I do to something I am. Here’s yesterday’s post about my journey through Taiji. Not all of it, of course, but bits and parts of it. I want to continue on with that musing because it is such an important part of my life.

It’s funny to look back to when I first started T;iji. The second time, I mean. My brain and my body were in such disharmony. My body wanted to do the Taiji, but my brain did not. Or rather, it came up with a million reasons why it did not want to do it at the time.

I was fighting my brain every step of the way. It’s interesting to look back and remember just how much a struggle it was to practice Taiji. For the first few years, I simply could not make myself practice. I have told this story before, but there was something in my brain that refused to do it. I literally could not make myself, so I added another class a week to compensate. Then another. I waS going to classes three times a week (Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday), but not practicing at all during the day.

I had to trick myself into it. How? I told myself that I would do five minutes of stretching a day. That was it. Five minutes of stretching/warm-ups. I managed to do that and after a few months, added five more minutes. Yes, I had to treat myself like a toddler, basically, and break it up into tiny bits.

I did not reward myself for slowly adding to my practice, but I made sure to make it a habit. How? I’m not sure exactly. This is really hard for me to describe, but it’s something like this. There is a switch in my head, which is really difficult to turn on. Once I do, though, it’s on for good. There are exceptions to the rule, but for the most part, once I set a habit, I continue it.

I  really kicked it into the next gear when I started the weapons. I have no idea why I balked so much at practicing the Solo Long Form, but I did. Once I started learning weapons, then I wanted to practice. I have talked about this with my teacher, and she seemed to think it made sense. She said that I liked the weaponns, so it made sense that the weapons were what got me to practice at home.

Now, I’m up to an hour-and-fifteen minutes to an hour-and-a-half, dopending.

I have included a video of Master Liang dooing the Saber Form below. I have not seen this before, and I have to smile because he’s using a saber with tassle. Apparently, he loved doing weapons with the tassle and rarely did a weapon form without te tassle.


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My ideal soulslike, maybe, part two

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This is the second post about my ideal soulslike. Here is the first post from yesterday in which I managed to list 3 things that I would/would not include. The platforming thing is a big one. In fact, if I were the monarch for the day, I would decree that no non-platforming games could have platforming in it. Period. I’ve just had too many non-platforming games cram platforming in them, and none of them have been any good. Again, I know this is partly my own issues, but it’s so fucking frustrating.

Back to what I want in a soulslike.

4. Bring something new to the table. This is a tricky one because there are some unspoken rules that have to be followed for soulsikes devs. Bonfires, souls as XP/monies, etc. The names may be different, but they have to be there. Another is run/dodge on B. This is one of my gripes with Stranger in Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. Run/dodge is on A, and that ain’t ever going to happen. I believe it’s the same with Nioh 2, if I remember correctly. It’s because they want to put one of the three blocks on B (the other two are on LB and…LT in certain circumstances), which is irritating as fuck. As a result, I rarely use dodge or run in Stranger in Paradise. No, you can’t change it–at least there’s no way to change it that I’ve found. And I hate it.

Back when Salt and Sanctuary (Ska Studio) came out, there was one control scheme–this was on the PS whatever it came out on. The run/dodge was on LT. Er, L2. L. Fucking. 2. That was fucking bullshit and so many people pointed it out By the time it came out on PC, you could change the controls. Which is how every game should be. There is no excuse in this day and age not to let people reconfig their buttons.

Sheesh.

Back to bringing something new to the table. This is the reason it’s so tricky. Yes, they have to do something that isn’t just iterative, but stray too far, and it’s no longer a soulslike. You can’t get fans to agree what makes a soulslike a soulslike, exactly, but they sure as hell know when a game isn’t doing it right.

Lies of P (Round8 Studio/NEOWIZ) is held up as a recent soulslike that nailed it. The thing is, though, it’s really iterative. When RKG streamed the demo, they were commenting on how close to a From game it was. “Taking the piss” was muttered more than once by the lads. I learned you can’t sue for infringement in most cases in game development (unless it’s the stealing of assets), which means you can pretty much copy a game beat for beat and not have to worry about it. Which is what Lies of P did.


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My ideal soulslike, maybe

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Talking about Stranger in Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin (Team NINJA) in the last several posts as well as about soulslikes in general has made me muse about what would actually be my ideal soulslike. Here’s the last post I wrote about SiP: FFO. I mention it because I am stil playing Killing Chaos (it’s alternate name. I kid, but it should have been), and I am trying so hard to love it. I just can’t, though, and I’m thinking about why that is.That led me to thinking about how I would build the ideal soulslike if I were a game developer. Here’s a list of what must be included, in no particular order.

1. Intricate and elaborate level design. Look. This is why I play the games. I know that makes me sound like a wanker, but so be it. It also makes me sound like one of those snobby elitist who doesn’t want to admit that I play the games because of the hard bosses. For me, though, this is what kept me going when I first played Dark Souls, despite how much I struggled with the game. It was the oppressive environments with a few brighter ones sprinkled in. It was the subtle but exquisite breadcrumbing that leads the player in the right direction. From is not perfect by any means. I have gotten lost more times than I care to admit in a From game (some of that is my complete lack of a sense of direction), but for the most part, if I’m observant enough, I can find the right way to go.

You can usually guess which of the three paths is the main path and which is a side path. Except in the beginning of the game in which there are three paths and two of them are for the much later game. From apologists will say that Miyazaki hallmarked that the two later-game areas are earmarked by their difficulty, but that’s retconning in my opinion. What is the one thing people know about the games–people who haven’t played them, I mean? That the games are fucking hard. This has also been retconned by longtime fans to say that, no, the games aren’t hard–you just have to learn how to play them properly. I mean…that’s every fucking game! To an extent.


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Wish I may, wish I might

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When I was little, I had no dreams for the future. Mostly because I didn’t think I had one, nor did I really want to live. I just made my way through each day, hanging on until the end. Oh, wait. I had one dream. That was to be an actor. I loved to perform and would jump off the coffee table, yelling, “Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!” as I threw my arms in the air. No idea why. But then I never saw anyone who looked like me on TV except for the extras in M*A*S*H (which I hated, by the way), so I sadly concluded that there was no place in the business for me.

I did do some theater when I was in high school and in my twenties. The latter was with Theater Mu, which was the first regional Asian American theater. It was a great experience, but the company itself had a lot of issues. I did some solo performing after that in which I wrote, directed, practiced, and performed the pieces all by myself. That was great because I like being in control. It’s funny because my most memorable one had me stripping to my undies in front of a hundred or so women, and it was exhilirating. It wasn’t prurient, mind, but a piece about finding out who you really were.

I gave up on it in my thirties. No real reason. Well, if I were to be brutally honest, gaining weight probably had something to do with it. Plus, Taiji. Once I started doing that, I did not really feel compelled to go back to performing. Now, however, I have the urge to do it again.

It was my first love, and only now do I have the confidence to do it. Hm. I was just thinking that if I want to do videos (not want, but have to because blogging is dead), then I can combine the two. Performing and video, I mean. I’ve seen people do what I would call sketch comedy for their content creation, which is interesting.

Many of the people who do it aren’t that good at it, but that doesn’t seem to matter. I’ts personality-driven, and it’s peppy perky that people seem to like–when it comes to women. With men, it’s shouting a lot. Loudly. With many hand gestures. It’s fucking annoying.

Side note: I find it discouraging that in the year of our pleasure, 2023, diversity still is not considered important for many content creators. I watch a lot of British content creators, which I like in general, but they are not exactly up on diversity. There’s a popular cooking channel that I used to be subscribed to called Sorted. But, given their stubborn refusal to have anyone but white dudes on, well, I’m done. Yes, occasionally, there’s a white woman or a man of color, but it’s so rare. One of thein staff chefs is now a man of color, but he acts like one of the lads. They have a series in which they try to cook a burger in less than ten minutes. Each guy made his best burger and they’ve invited guest chefs to do the same. They’ve had half a dozen plus the original four staff members and no women. That’s when I quit watching them completely.

Many minorities don’t like the token minority because that one minority often doesn’t feel real. I agree, but at the same time, if there isn’t even a token minority, then that means the company/people in charge aren’t even thinking about it. That’s how I feel with Sorted. They don’t even think about having diversity. Seriously. Ten dudes (all but one white) making burgers. They couldn’t think of one woman they could ask?


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If I were monarch for a day

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I accidentally bought chips with dairy yesterday. I nocticed immediately because they were wavy instead of thins. Which is good because I didn’t put them in my mouth. Or rather, I did until I felt the ridges and immediately pulled it out. It was loaded baked potato instead of BBQ, damn it. I will admit, I was tempted to eat it for a hot second. I was at home and could deal with the issue (sitting on the toilet for hours, on and off), if need be.

Then I came to my senses. If I was going to suffer from eating dairy, it was not going to be chips. It’s gonna be pizza or lasagna or ice cream or something with real milk. That got me tthinking. If I did actually do a day of eating what I want to eat, no matter the consequences (in other words, resigning myself to sitting on the toilet for days), I would mostly eat all the dumplings I could stuff into my face. I miss shiu mai, steamed dumplings, fried dumplings, and all the other dumplings in the world. I have not had soup dumplings in a long time, but those are so tasty. I would want to eat all the dim sum, too.

I would eat so much pasta. Lasagna, mac-and-cheese, pizza. Yes, I know it’s not pasta, but it’s in the same genre. Fettuccine alfredo. Carbonara. Even just good old spaghetti and meatballs. But also, udon noodles, ramen, and Chinese egg noodles.

Egg rolls, too. I like spring rolls, don’t get me wrong. But egg rolls are so fucking good. I’ve had GF egg rolls, which are fine, but not the same. Moon cake, scallion pancakes, turnip/radish cake, and more. Oh god. Wait. Radish cakes is made with rice flour. I can eat those! With just a tiny bit of soy sauce–unless it’s GF soy sauce. Then I can douse ’em. Radish cake is so fucking delicious.

Anyhooooo, let’s move beyond food for a minute. I will hasten to say in my ideal world, I could eat whatever I wanted without care. Food is delicious, and it’s sad to me at times that I’m so limited. But, in general, I’m fine with it. There are decent substitutes these days–much better than what there was twenty years ago.

In other realms, I would make gender not a thing. What I mean by that is you (general you) can care about gender as much or as little as you want without anyone judging you. If your gender is deeply important to you, that’s fine. If it’s just another part of your identity, like having brown hair. Also fine. If you are unsure what it means to you, I feel you! This is all fine in Minnaland! And, if you’re like me, you just don’t give a shit after thinking about it for a very long time. This is my M.O., by the way. I ponder something endlessly until my brain goes, “I’m done” and I mentally throw up my hands.


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Can’t ignore the family dysfunction

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Last night, I was talking to my mom. My father had been in a minor fender bender while in a taxi, which is bad, yes, but he didn’t even need to go to the hospital. Still, I was properly sympathetic because it’s scary to be in any kind of car accident for most people. Me, I ended up comforting the young woman who ran into the driver side of the front of my car, but I’m a weirdo. Plus, I am really fucking good in a crisis because I’m always prepared for something disastrous.

After she talked about that to her heart’s content with me ‘uh-huh’ing and ‘oh, that’s scary’ing, we turned to the topic of how hard the last three years have been in general. She said that the pandemic had been the worst thing. I immediately said, “I died last year. That was pretty bad for me!” Twice, by the way, as I never tire of saying. I died twice.

My mother immediately glossed it over by saying how grateful they were that I had survived (presuming she meant herself and my father), but that did not redeem the statement to me. When I messaged Ian about it later, he responded by asking if they did not realize that it had been a traumatic experience for me?

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. My parents realizing that something may have affected someone who wasn’t them? Ha! Surely, you jest. Even in that statement, it was about her and not really about me. It’s hard to explain the difference, but trust me, she was talking about how it had affected her and not me.

It’s similar to how the second day I was home, my father and I got into an argument about me having someone live with me. He was pushing it, and I was saying I didn’t want it. He raised his voice and yelled, “You don’t know how hard it was for your mother and me!”

Excuse me? I don’t know how hard me dying twice and having walking non-COVID-related pneumonia that triggered two cardiac arrests and an ischemic stroke was on YOU????? When I said, “How hard it was on YOU?”, he started blustering and attacking me for daring to question him.


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A (chat)room of my own…and Dark Souls III

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I’m too old for video games. Or, to be more precise, I’m too old for video game ‘culture’. To be even less precise, I’m too old for pop culture in general. I support two groups on Patreon, The Try Guys and RKG Studies (nee Prepare To Try)*, and I am in the Discord chat for both these groups. For the latter, I’m in the upper-echelon tier, the producers, which has a chat of its own. The boys dip in from time to time, which is pretty cool.

The problem is, I’m too old for either of these groups. It’s funny in that The Try Guys fan base seems to be predominantly young women in their early twenties, whereas the target demo for RKG is twenty-something dudes. I’m old enough to be their mother, and I often feel as if I’m the older and world-weary woman who has seen it all and done it all when I’m in either of the chats/reading the comments on the posts/videos.

Concerning RKG specifically, I’m fine when I’m commenting on games or supporting other people through their difficulties (I’m a healer, through and through), but any time it veers away from that, I feel alienated. I’m just too fucking old to jump into the banter, and, if I’m to be honest, much of it is uninteresting to me.

That’s one of my issues with the gaming community in general–it’s very lad-focused (and I use the word lad deliberately) with many of them not really knowing how to interact in a social way that isn’t, “me, me, me!”. I noticed this when I was in the chatroom once for a YouTuber I used to watch. They were all nice lads, but I had nothing in common with them. Plus, there’s a casual sexism that runs through most chatrooms (not to mention the more outright malicious sexism that is present in many) that turns me off to them. It’s very much a boys club in that you have to adjust to the atmosphere if you want to be tolerated.

The thing is, I’m not sure there’s a way to change that or if it should be changed. I mean, the casual sexism, yes, that should be changed. But, if it’s mostly guys who are drawn to the chatroom, then is it really upon them to actively recruit women? I have a hard time saying it is, but at the same time, there are ways to make it more inclusive. In the end, I don’t know where I stand on it, but I just know that I will mostly remain where I normally do–on the outside.


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