Saturday, March 9, 2024

Let's take stock, I guess...

It's been a week since the eventful night of VBall.  I didn't do a full recap, but I somehow didn't really feel the need to, either.  The vague words that I wrote already will have to suffice.

Anyways, I'll be out for a week; we will see how that goes!  As usual, I'm going in with tapered expectations and a hope to "take it easy" and have some time to myself to just enjoy a nice change of pace.  I mean, I guess VBall was an example of life taking my "tapered expectations" and smashing everything around, so I guess anything is possible...

It's been a mix of like, bad habits together with getting stuff done, but at least that doesn't really feel like a battle or anything like that.  I keep on alternating between not getting enough sleep and then sleeping in a lot, but I guess that's not really anything new.  We'll have to see if jetlag does anything about it or not.

I finally finished putting together my 70-minute diatribe about Ice Palace routing, and came out of it with an extremely good understanding of what should be done when going through the dungeon, so I'm happy that that has finally happened.  I still have to go and edit the captions on the video and publish it and all, but it's mostly done, yay!

I felt guilty again about having neglected my chickies, but today I spent some good time with and around them, making sure their bedding was replaced and their food and water topped off.  I'm not really too worried about them, but going up to see them daily is another one of these good habits that I'm going to have to make a more concerted effort to maintain, along with my morning skincare and just being on top of stuff in general.

At least, cooking has been going well, as usual.  I mean, of course, I have a few misses here and there, but mostly successes.  I've been making more purees and soups as of late -- earlier today I did a chicken soup out of the leftover trimmings and bones from a whole chicken that I roasted the other night.  I hardly ever make homemade chicken stock other than when I do poached chicken for hainan chicken; it was actually really refreshing to have.  I tried a corn chowder as well, which wasn't too bad.  I have been finding that the immersion blender I'm using isn't really quite cutting it for getting these soups and curries to really be smooth enough.  I have another one that I'll have to try next time, but failing that the only options might be to just get a more powerful countertop blender, or just a more powerful immersion blender.  Of course the latter is way more convenient, so that's ideal, but we'll have to see, really.

Cubing has just become a thing that I do idly now, I guess.  It's...still really weird to be doing it again.  What's going to be really really interesting is when I actually have the new LL algs in my head and muscle memory, and then start actually being able to compare times to how I used to do.  That will probably be a really fascinating experience.  At least I've been getting lots of F2L practice, trying to develop newer and better habits.

Well, on the plane ride I'll have my fair mix of things to pick from to do.  There will be some rando, of course, probably learning a few algs if I can, and I've got some anime to watch if I so feel inclined.  There's a bit of Rhythm Quest work to do, even, and if I'm feeling extra motivated I can even write some letters.  I downloaded FF6: Brave New World as well, though it remains to be seen whether I actually decide to get pulled into playing that or not.

Sunday, March 3, 2024

I guess tonight was life's way of seeing my plans, and giving them a giant middle finger, telling me that it can do better, and that everything I thought I knew so surely can also be totally wrong.  And that maybe I don't have to be so goddamn cynical all the time, if I can only just put aside my standards and aversion to failure and open my life to a little bit of uncertainty.

Why do I keep on deciding that I have such a heavy burden to bear?  Who asked me to bear it?  Surely, not anyone else?  I said in my last post that I felt that I was at peace.  Perhaps that was true, but peace can come both from conquering your fears and also from hiding from them.  That is not to say that one of the two is necessarily better, contrary to popular belief.

It worries me, a little, that the energy of hiding from my fears, of sitting back, of being quiet, calm, collected, and not needing to speak my mind, seems like it's becoming more and more lost within myself.  I know it's still there, but somehow, in so many moments, a different side of me decides to emerge instead.  That side is fine, too, but when will the quiet me ever shine strongly?  Even if only for myself?

Well, that is a question for another day.  For today, I consider myself a bit humbled.  Maybe it's a bit fitting that life told me, in a similar way, almost a year ago, that I should be open to new experiences, and things that I might have otherwise written off.  Of course, a bit after life gave me that reminder, it had also given me a different middle finger, and I retreated to the hole that I've been hiding in for quite some time.  Oh, life.


Friday, March 1, 2024

Today felt good!

I woke up a bit late after sleeping in.  I might have caught a slight cold (?), maybe something going around our household, but it felt pretty mild, mainly just a little bit of fatigue (could explain why I felt more tired than usual lately, or maybe...just vice-versa).  I didn't get any exercise done today, but I've been generally doing good with that elsewhere -- did a booty workout yesterday and played a good session of DDR earlier in the week.  Checked up on the chickies yesterday and restocked them...

Anyways, I managed to start figuring out some travel logistics this afternoon, for an upcoming trip, including ordering a power adapter.  Still need to do a few more things for that, most importantly making some sort of allergy card for myself so I can hopefully NOT have to use my epipen while abroad... and then making sure that I've got my laptop all prepared with a bunch of entertainment that I might want to have on hand.  I'll have my fair share of things to occupy myself, not only on the plane but hopefully during downtime as I'm sure I'll want some introvert time to myself where I'm just not doing anything and am just chilling.  I think there have been one too many times where I've gone traveling without really making a conscious effort to get some of that time in... anyways, I can do anything from working on Rhythm Quest, learning cubing algs, playing rando (of course), or perhaps I might even start a playthrough of FF6 T edition???

I also started working on a new Rhythm Quest level for the first time in quite some time (wooo).  Not a new campaign level, but just a bonus level, as that felt more low-stress, and a good way to experiment with the newest mechanic.  There's not really such thing as too many bonus levels for me to make, so this is a good way to feel like I'm making progress while also getting other people excited about the game (all they want is to have the game in their hands and see more levels.......) and make sure that I don't completely forget how to make levels.  Plus it's just good to bounce around between different aspects of the project from time to time, anyways.

Made some good progress on that...didn't finish, but I had to transition over to doing OHC, which actually went quite well today.  I had released my single yesterday and today I took care of the release work for my monthlies album, so really feels like I'm sort of firing on all cylinders as far as music work goes.

Made dinner as quickly as I reasonably could and spent some time with my housemates before doing a rando run.  I still make mistakes here and there of course, but overall it went well, I felt like it was an interesting seed and for the most part I was happy with how I played it!

Tomorrow's another day; I'll probably hope to do laundry as well as maybe hopefully finish the brunt of the work on my new Rhythm Quest level.  I still haven't started sitting down and re-recording that Ice Palace Routing video, sigh...someday, though.

Viennese Ball is coming up soon!  Fortunately, it's in the usual familiar location (more convenient and better for sure than the other one where we were last year).  Unfortunately I have to make a pretty huge detour for carpooling purposes, so I'm planning to just pack myself a sandwich to eat while wading through traffic or something I guess, and I'll just change later when I'm at the venue or whatever.  Honestly, changing at the venue is something that felt quite nice before; kinda just takes a bunch of hassle off when you can just show up in comfy warm clothes and not worry about anything.

Speaking of not worrying about anything, despite the minor hassle I already mentioned, I'm feeling...overall quite, erm...easygoing?  About VBall this year.  I donno, I mean I guess it's not like I was super stressed out about it last year (besides it being in the weird location...and a weird snafu where I wasn't sure if I could get my car out of the lot), but you know, in past years it was this big thing that I wanted to make sure I was all prepared and equipped for.

I won't be bringing my Journey outfit out for the ball this year; perhaps it's fitting then, that my attitude toward the event seems to have changed somehow as well.  What are my hopes for the ball?  Really, to just relax and enjoy myself, whatever that means.  Honestly, that probably just means "trying to see if I can have fun being with people, or even by myself".  That's rather nebulous, I guess, but I think it's because I've not felt that much of a need to invest in dancing as much as before.

I guess last year was a little interesting because I was in the middle of "figuring out" my dancing.  I had been unhappy with the way that I was dancing for some time and was struggling to really land on how I should be or ought to be dancing.  Of course, looking back on it, everything is pretty obvious in hindsight...

Perhaps something else that's different this year is, oh, actually, the event itself has some odd curveballs (rotary waltz contest at 1:00AM...?), but more than that, well...thinking about those "contests" themselves, I realize that I feel a sort of liberation knowing that I...don't feel any sort of responsibility to the dance scene any longer.  I danced in many of those events (okay, maybe a little presumptuously), out of a sort of funny sense of obligation because, ....okay, I really don't want to get into it here.

I felt a sense of commitment when putting together JaSmix, too.  Like I had this need to give back to the dance community that I had ostensibly been a part of so long (albeit a bit on the outskirts at times).  But I...don't really feel that way anymore.  I guess the passage of time sorta does that, maybe.  Maybe it's because I feel like I already "paid my dues".  Sure, I know that JaSmix was consistently a night with the best dance energy and music among comparison events that I've been to, but I no longer feel like I "need to" keep that going.  If I want to show up in force, then sure, so be it.  But what if I don't want to?

Like...what's really in it for me?

The shifting of the crowd I think is also part of what did it for me.  Like, sure I can be respected or appreciated or whatever, but like, if I stop running JaSmix is it really going to be something that's bemoaned?  Or are people just going to move on with their lives and nobody is going to bat an eye?  People are interested in their own things.  It'd be rude of me to presume what they may or may not want.  If everyone really cared about the same things that I did, maybe I'd feel more of a burden of responsibility for making those things happen.  But I think I'm starting to bring in learnings from other parts of my life -- learnings that frankly, people just don't really give a shit about the exact same things that you do.  I don't really have to ask them about it; it already showed clear through all of their actions.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I feel sort of at peace with that part of things, when it comes to dance, and Viennese Ball, at least.  The problem, perhaps, is that I feel a little less okay with it when it comes to life.  But you know, perhaps I'm still learning to see things in different ways.  How to accept that not everyone is the same as me, or each other.  We are all different.  It makes us so very alone, until we can find the ways to navigate and construct the bridges between us.


Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Today was a little bit better than yesterday.

Things seem to be working out well with my new therapist!  I find that I'm able to access my intuition well, which is great.

Unfortunately, my ALTTPR run today was a little disappointing; I didn't play terrible but made some mistakes, and got quite unlucky, so that never feels good.  Eh, better luck next time.

However, I did work on a new art piece; that's always a good way to make sure I feel good about myself for the day.  I'll probably give it another rough pass, but I think it's mostly done.

I had to take a nap in the afternoon...I didn't catch enough sleep on Sunday night and since then I've been playing catch-up.  Tomorrow morning is my last wake-up-early day of the week, hopefully that will help.

How do I make sure that I'm getting into the right mode of living?  How do I make sure that I'm working, comfortably, but also learning how to grow?


Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Interesting...

I've never really written too much about attachment theory/styles here, it's something I've never explored at depth within myself, even though of course I already know what points I resonate with from attachment theory.  I think perhaps more interesting is how that has changed over the past 5 or so years, especially after certain key junctures of my life where things changed, or I suffered pain in a way that caused me to critically reject certain parts of being.

When I said that I'm fundamentally different than everyone else and like that I used to think the world sucks and all that, it's like...I wasn't =wrong=, per se, I think that the world isn't all that it could be cracked up to be, but at the same time my visions of what things "ought to" (?) be like are of course unattainable in some regards too.  I think there is some merit in my disdain of why things aren't "better" than they are, but at the same time the path toward "better" is probably not the one that I'm hoping for.  There are many paths, some just less appealing than others, but some are still open.

I still have some projects to take care of.  I'm not really sure honestly whether today was a good day or not a good day.  I didn't really do that much, but I cooked my two meals for the house and I got a new PB in Super Metroid, so it's hard to call it a failure of a day, really.  I did spend a lot of time doing not really that much though, and my sleep is all whack again...

Oh, that's right, my Cycle7 PCB replacement came in, so that keyboard is working now, but at this point I feel like I'm so sold on just using the Neo80 that the cycle7 has so little chance of becoming my main board.  I just learned that the upcoming Cycle8 doesn't necessarily have to have the god-awful ugly slot on the right-hand side, so if anything THAT's the more interesting board for me, but.....I think I've really gotta cool it on the purchases for now; there is =nothing= wrong with the Neo80 for me, so I'm happy to just work with what I have.  Not really sure how I'm going to be setting up the Cycle7 in general though, maybe I take the Cinnamoroll keycaps off of the WK870 and put them on there?  I dunno...

To the surprise of....um, pretty much everyone actually, I ordered a new speedcube.  Really surprised me, but spurred on by some good speedcubing content (really fascinating how much more knowledge is out there these days compared to 10 years ago) I've been messing around a lot, mostly with F2L, learning a much more modern and efficient approach to it, and that has been fun.  Of course almost all of my PLL and OLL algs are basically out the window for me after years and years, but that doesn't really matter too much because all of the newfangled algs are probably better anyways.

Anyhow I decided it might be fun to try out one of these modern cubes and see how it can feel to drive one of them on a regular basis.  I ordered one that was known for being a bit lower-pitched and quiet, it should be very interesting to get accustomed to it and pick things up again.  I really never thought I'd be doing it again, I really intentionally hung up that hobby after I felt like I got to a skill level that I was satisfied with and was very uninterested in engaging with anyone from that community, and didn't appreciate being known for being into it either.  It's really so unexpected.

But I have 13-hr flights coming up in a few weeks and you know, relearning a bunch of cubing stuff in between rando sessions and such really doesn't sound like a bad way to while away those hours at all!  So that might work out as good timing, anyways.


Tuesday, February 20, 2024

When I was in high school I used to think that I was just fundamentally different.  I guess, most of the time, I thought I was better than everyone else.  But there were plenty of times when I thought that something must be wrong with me, too.  Maybe it's not an uncommon feeling.  People have myriad different experiences and ways of living life and all of our parenting, schooling, and social structures were trying to stubbornly reinforce narrow-minded views on success.

I guess I don't really think that way anymore.  Well...no.  Maybe that's a lie.  Sometimes...it does still feel that I am just different than everyone else.  Everyone...just ships sailing by in the night sea.  I can't tell which is more sad.  If you all are the broken ones, or if it's just me.

But even as I lay "broken", I find that I cannot deny what I believe in.  Even when the world tries to tell me again and again that what I am searching for does not exist, it doesn't matter.  Even when I have lost "faith", it still doesn't mean that I gave up.  Because it's too sad otherwise.

I wonder if someday you might understand, too.  How sad your world is.  Maybe it's just normal to you, because it's the only way you've seen things be.  But it shouldn't be this way.  It just shouldn't.


Monday, February 19, 2024

You always win some and lose some!  I've had some periods where I feel like I'm just succumbing to being really lazy and binging on videos or whatever, but then on the flipside I had an hour to kill while waiting for a call and I cleaned up some stuff in my room and vacuumed the floor and felt great.

I didn't really do a ton today but on the other hand I was out so I wasn't really supposed to?  And then I also got my monthly pixel art done, so maybe it's fine?

Something really silly and random that I'm going to try and do is close to keep my closet door closed.  It's a really silly and small thing but I =know= that if I do it it's actually going to like tangibly improve my daily well-being.  We'll see how that works out.  On the plus side, I realized that I actually had a free USB port open on my hub, so I swapped out the cable connector for my Neo80 keyboard with the wireless 2.4ghz dongle, so there's one less cable on my desk now!  My mouse still has a cable, I could look into getting a wireless one, but I'm quite fond of the feel of my pink razer basilisk and there's no wireless version of that =/  I'd have to switch to a different model; wouldn't be the end of the world and would certainly help on the odd days when I need to carry my mouse elsewhere (like today) but eh.

The bigger problem is my SNES controller which has a really long cable (at least I have it tied up).  I don't really want that to be wireless though, so I don't really have a choice there unless I want to do like I tried to before and run cabling under my desk, but that has its own set of issues.  Hmm...now that I think of it, I can just disconnect it at the adapter portion, so what I can do is have the longer usb mini cable connected directly to my tower and then running somewhere under my desk, and then plug into that, and then when I need to travel with it I can just get a shorter usb mini cable to use for it.  Okay, that might be the way to go...

I wanted to try and work on my Ice Palace routing video but I looked through what I had recorded so far and I felt like I was talking at too much length about it.  I'm going to just try and start over, rearrange some sections, and try to get through the content faster, hopefully it'll lead to a better video (and hopefully I can finish it...).

Bon Bon Ball actually went quite well, it was also pretty crowded!  I didn't really feel that sense of unease that I did at Jammix except for the one dance, but for that it was actually normal. I really don't know what was going on last week.  I guess I'm up to an above average amount of interfacing with the social dance kids lately because of all these events, but it's an okay cadence for me I guess.  I have to make a silly little detour on the way to Viennese Ball in 2 weeks that will make things a lot more hassle for me, but hopefully traffic won't be too bad and I can just listen to something nice on the way.  Probably just change when I'm over there.  I have a couple of things I need to do for my outfit actually, need to handwash a piece and then I realized that I'm.........too skinny for one of my base petticoat layers to use it while dancing......so I'll need to fix that up, sigh.  I better get on both of those before time flies by.

I mailed out a letter last Friday, so that was a small victory I guess.  Only one. though...

Well, tomorrow is another day.  Let's see how I can manage to get through it.  If nothing else, I have a short work week ahead of me, so that's good.  Sigh, thinking about Rhythm Quest work and all of these other responsibilities makes me feel weary, so let's not right now.


Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Things are actually cruising along alright!

Dance - Somehow we had Jammix last Friday but also Bon Bon Ball on Saturday, wut?  Jammix went pretty well despite being a little bit late to it, but on the other hand, I felt a weird sort of unease while dancing.  Like I felt some sort of internal pressure to perform, a weird nervousness that I couldn't understand because, why?  Very mysterious.  Well, we'll see what happens on Saturday.

Life stuff - It's been not a bad couple of days, to be honest.  I've been doing my best to get a bunch of different things done.  I'm doing well with cooking -- mapo tofu, sichuan eggplant, hot pot, dry fried green beans, etc -- but I'm also doing good work in the "adulting" category.  Closed some accounts that I had been meaning to, and I've finished my primary election ballot ahead of schedule.  I even moved onto filling out my taxes, which somehow I feel like I have a handle on despite all the complications that I have this year (famous last words...?).  I have a new therapist too which seems to so far be working out for me.  The weather at least seems to approve, it was really beautiful outside today.  Something for myself to remember is to recall the feeling of cozy peaceful working -- in my room, with some water or tea, with nice warm lighting, bouncing between playing some games and working on rhythm quest or writing letters...honestly, I didn't do half bad with that tonight.

Letters, though, that's something I've really been neglecting.  The ghost of that activity is starting to actively haunt me; I know it's something I haven't been motivated to do very much at all.  Granted, I always take a bit of a break in January or so, but it's no good right now.  Now that I've done a good job taking care of some of this other stuff, letters is probably next on the docket.  Well, there are a few other things hanging around in that space too, but letters is the most pressing one.

Keyboard stuff - I spent some work meetings idly working on my Neo80 keyboard, which now has the PCB standoffs so I can do the o-ring mount method.  I also ended up putting all of the foams in right now, so it's the most "deep" sounding that it can be at the moment (with these switches and keycaps anyways), which has been pretty pleasing.  Of course, having the clacky sound isn't necessarily bad either.  But right now I'm liking this at the moment.  I retuned the stabilizers (getting better at balancing the wires...) but honestly the main thing to fix the ticking there was just to continue adding more and more lube haha.  Anyways, I've been really enjoying typing on this board!  I actually gave away my old one, just because I felt like I was accumulating way too many.  The other cheaper aluminum build came in (very late...) and it's not too shabby; the one thing is that the RGB isn't actually up to snuff with my old board, and there's an issue where the shine-through keycaps I got for it don't really work super-well because it has south-facing LED slots, not north-facing (oops).  No matter; I ended up putting my Cinnamoroll keycaps on there instead, which works just fine because the keyboard that those were on before has a nonfunctional key (maybe that socket is just broken, meh).

Rhythm Quest - One thing led to another and I've been spending a couple of days wrestling with every gamedev's favorite thing to do - fight game engines and plugins just to get things working.  (sigh)  So, I discovered that in later versions of Sonoma on Mac, Unity games become unresponsive to input due to some weird interaction with the way that window sizes are queried, which changed in the OS update.  There's a fix, but of course, I had to update my Unity version to fix that.  Sooo, queue a bunch of huge Unity editor downloads (don't forget the iOS/Android/WebGL build support!), plus an updated version of the Nintendo Switch SDK, etc.  Then test the project to make sure it still worked okay and it didn't introduce a million different bugs, except...what's this?  Issues with the native/managed plugins, including the one I was using for file dialogs, the steam integration, and the discord one as well...sigh.  Anyways, I'm finally at the point where I think I have at least all of the demo platforms working again (still need to test iOS + Android + Switch...).

Risk of Rain Returns - For a while I had just been getting Judgement clears with all of the different survivors.  I was stuck for quite a while on both Enforcer and Miner (both are pretty hard) but finally managed clears on those two as well.  Thinking on it more, I had completely forgotten that you can store an equipment in the main game and then use it in the Judgment trials, that would have probably helped out a bit.  Ah, no matter.  Anyways, now I'm finally back to playing the main game and unlocking random artifacts and skills, but here and there I also want to try to get more golds on the providence trials since there's an unlock for getting 15 of those I think.

Oh I guess tomorrow is Valentine's Day?  Am I supposed to write something about love or something?  I dunno.  I already talked to a bunch of people about my general feelings about that sort of stuff, maybe it's not really worth writing here.  Right now I don't really have someone to place up on a pedestal.  I mean, maybe that's sort of fine, like realistically any sort of down-to-earth two-way human connection shouldn't be founded on something like that, where one person tries to think of the other as being perfect.  But I guess, like, without anything like that in your life, what is there to illuminate your world and inspire you toward something like love?

I got a little scared when I couldn't remember the title of a piece by Leigh Alexander that really stuck with me, but I was able to dig it up without too much of a fuss.  It's called "The Future We Wanted".  Something I hope to read through again sometime in the next few days.


Tuesday, February 13, 2024

"Pure Heart"

straight on this long, continuing road
there is surely something to believe in

like a traveler in the midst of the wind
I have my eyes on the northern sky

the passionate feelings that were beginning to vanish
once again sway in radiance in my chest

I don't want the tears to spill
as so not to lose to my weaker self

in eyes holding only an unadorned spirit
there are great, unseen wings

I open my arms while singing
to embrace the perpetuity of time
to be tied to life

straight on this long, continuing road
there is surely something to believe in


Wednesday, February 7, 2024

I'm not feeling the best, so I guess I should try to write a little more, right?

I had a nice trip, but am feeling a bit "empty" since coming back.  I think that just means it's time for me to find the excitement in life -- the things to look forward to -- as well as just making sure I have a good mix of the things that are good for me in the day to day -- healthy food, getting small things accomplished, plus treating myself.

I have a dentist appointment tomorrow to look at that tooth that I managed to hurt, so that's fun =/  Why can't my dentist appointments just be relegated to regular cleanings...?

Anyways, I put on the PE sheet for my Neo80 and took out the plate foam and it's pretty nice!  Maybe I should have done just one and not the other, but eh, whatever.  I'm going to have to take all of the switches off (again...) not just to try out the plate foam again, but because I forgot to install the standoffs on the PCB in order to try the o-ring mount.  And then I =thought= I had the stabilizers tuned well, but there's still a little bit of a tick on the spacebar (better than before, for sure), and then I realized the other stab bars might need balancing too.

The stabilizers on the Cycle7 seem better, but unfortunately, the PCB itself seems to be....nonfunctional.  Apparently this has not been a rare occurrence for the Cycle7, maybe they cut costs on the PCB in order to get the low price point.  Anyways, the good news is that it was pretty easy to get in touch with support and have them ship me a replacement; now I'll just have to see if that ends up working or not...

What else?  Um, I dunno.  I'm still a little behind on some of the things I should be doing, I guess, but I mean, that is all to be expected.  Right now the things that I can look forward to most is maybe like...keyboards and rando?

Oh, right.  I was going to write a little bit about Momodora: Moonlit Farewell.  It's been too long since I played Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight so I'm unfortunately not sure I can give a good comparison, but Moonlit Farewell was............okay, I guess.  I guess I can't judge it too harshly because I see that a lot of effort was put into it, it just feels like...it sort of misses the mark for me, and maybe others too.  The plot is rather unmemorable, there are some minor pacing issues in general, but probably the part that felt the most unsatisfying was the combat, which is a real shame because that's really a lot of what you end up doing in the game.  I feel like it is really trying to be something where you can use the dodge roll effectively to dodge (well-telegraphed) attacks, and your player attack combo is enough of a commitment that you shouldn't mindlessly spam it.  But there is just so much hitfreeze on the attacks, especially on the multi-hit part of the combo, it really messes up the whole flow of it for me.  That combined with all of the visual FX make it really hard for me to decipher exactly what is going on and get a good feel for the timing.  I was watching some video footage of Reverie Under the Moonlight and that seemed better / not as bad in this regard.  So in the end I feel like you just end up spamming attack a lot of the time and then guessing at when you need to dodge here and there.  This was exacerbated on the last boss(es) when you have your "awakened" form available and it really just did become a matter of spamming the attack combo for the highest DPS possible.  Which is really like the opposite of what the good final boss battles ought to be like, right?  I dunno, overall that was a really not-so-well-designed part of the game for me, which is a problem since there was so much of it.  The rest of the game was just fine, obviously the visuals are very pretty, but at the same time I also found some of them less readable than I'd like in terms of actual combat gameplay.  Sigh.

Well, that's it for now I guess.