When I'm Happy

Introduction

    There's a tendency to journal or write blogs only when I'm feeling particularly shitty. Some tragic event must happen to me for me to go "Oh yeah! I knew writing about my feelings is cathartic!" 

    This time I hope to balance things out more. This has been a great week for my friendships, my self-image, and the dissonance I felt. It's all got me feeling jiggy and warm inside!

    There should be some semblance of a memory of a state I have for me to point to and say "I felt this unfamiliar happiness then. I want to feel like that for the rest of my life." This hopes to be that.

    This previous year and a half have been very different. I learned a smidge about a lot of things: about everything from how people think to analysis of media to politics and rhetoric. I fear I'm not ready to share anything about those yet. So I'm going to talk about the few things that are improvements to my mental schemas I'd like to carry with myself into the future from here.

Affection is Great 

     I saw something a while ago that altered my perception of things like affection and love completely: A French Lesbian Romance film. If you're reading this, you probably already know what I'm talking about — it's Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

    My parents are not expressive of their "love" each other. They never were. Plus being told to be weary of your affection, sexuality, and desires from early childhood (Growing up Male) mix together to form a very damaged relationship with those ideas.

    Love and Affection were things I felt and knew when I felt but showing other people even when I liked them was something I had no experience or understand of. It affected my friendships a great deal. I didn't know how to hug someone. In fact, the idea made me physically uncomfortable and tense up. 

     It was not as if I did not want to hug someone, it was just there was a thick layer of fog between that feeling and that action. It felt like seeing a picturesque scene but all I have is a shitty Android phone camera. It felt like having a great idea for something creative but lacking the skills to execute it.

     The road to fixing all of that began with films of all things. I saw what Love looks like through an empirical dramatized lens of a movie. It made my brain and heart go "This is what turning what's in here into what's out there looks like." 

    Kissing your partner, Hugging your friends, Snuggling up together when you're all tired, and sitting close to the people you appreciate are things I'm very new to.

    Fortunately, with the people I've befriended and attracted, I think I have plenty safe space to experiment.

Friends aren't Far

    This part is somewhat connected to the previous one. I mean, all the things I've faced are all sort of "connected."

    Meeting and speaking to people you think you'd get along with is one of the greatest and underrated experiences there is.

    Since middle school, I've been good at making new friends but keeping and kindling friendships was not among any of my expertise.

 I've never been very close to any of the friends I've had. There were a lot of things about myself I was always too scared to share. For the most part, keeping to myself was a safety thing than a trust thing.

    This year was different. I met people I had never even imagined existing in a place like this. I've been having a great time with them. They are my best friends. They are here to stay. 

    They are my friends. 

    They are my friends.

    They are my friends. 

    They are my friends. 

There's too much I don't Know

     When I started just saying "Hi!" to random people and dropped that malicious sense of judgement that led to my social anxieties and troubles, I met lots of people much smarter than I am.

    I met people whom I couldn't understand even a word of. It was overwhelming.

    I've always seen myself as an "Engineer." I had no interest in media, art, literature, cooking, fashion, music, culture, politics, and what have you! 

    It was not that I had tried all of these things one after the other and come to conclusion that there were only a handful of things I found interesting and others boring. I literally didn't even know "Fashion" was a thing I could do.

    Growing up in a middle class household where infantilization promoted "Ask an Adult" and discouraged and villainized "Figure it out for Yourself" led me to add two ideas into my "decision making" that I regret:

1. What I do must make money or it is useless
2. Mother knows best because I love her

    Gruelingly, I spent the next few years slowly and successfully pulling these out of my brain. It was not overnight like the film thing (This even led to the film thing!).

    After a long time I've come to the conclusion that there's no human with just science. Art in every form is equally if not more important. I enjoy the human experience and want to learn more about it. I want to understand others. I want to create art I am proud of. 

Conclusion

    I want this stupid little blog to serve as a very primitive foundation for the kinds of things that interest me and what I want from my art.

    From a more personal side, I want to look at this blog post twenty years from now and think "Wow...drunk-cuddling with friends for the first time was life changing." 

    I could talk about a lot of things right now — like how watching Superman 2025 (a very "Hopecore" movie in my eyes) and adopting some ecosocialist rhetoric happened literally days before I could properly see the beauty and magnificence behind my fellow human's eyes — but I think some conversations are just for myself.    

Read More

Florence & Interactive Narrative Design

While researching for this blog, I learned about the allegations against the lead developer Ken Wong of abusing his fellow staff members. I, sadly, only found out about this after buying the game. He should be condemned for his actions and face legal consequences. ^[source]

    Florence (2018) is a game published by Annapurna Interactive and released on February 14th, 2018.

 

    The game follows our protagonist, a 25-year-old “Florence Yeoh” and the experience of her first romantic relationship. The game employs internal focalization for its narrative. Events are viewed through the perspective of Florence. The game is designed around a linear narrative, with choices made by the player not affecting the outcome of the main narrative. 

    The story is split into 6 acts, which are further divided into 20 chapters. Diegetic UI is used throughout the course of the story to build a relationship between the player and the characters of the story. This relies on interactive fiction as the medium though which the story is told. This medium allows the player to really feel the mundanity of everyday life from the perspective of a lonesome adult, to the melancholy of a romantic relationship slowly eroding.

    The game features short minigames that are designed to be played using a touchscreen. Some moments playing with a mouse and keyboard are awkward. However, the design and feel of these minigames in relation to the themes the game is trying to convey at points in the plot is immaculate. The game only uses words when Florence must speak to her Asian mother or small notes made on Polaroids.

    The life of Florence at the beginning of the game features a monochromatic color scheme, trying to show the player that Florence's daily routine is monotonous and boring. Each day begins with her alarm clock ringing at 7:00 AM and the player having to turn it off several times, only for Florence to stay in her bed till 7:30 AM. Afterward the player must brush her teeth. By focusing on such mundane elements of everyday life, the player is shown that this is about has exciting as Florence's life gets.

    In the next chapter, Florence is walking back home from work while listening to music on her headphones and looking at posts on social media. The player having to chose what post to like or repost. Suddenly, her phone runs out of battery, and she follows and musical trail coming from a Cello played by a stranger in a public area.

    The event brings color to Florence's life. The next chapter called “Crash” follows Florence as the crashes her bike while riding it in the city while staring at the same stranger who is walking into a store. The stranger helps Florence off the ground and they begin talking. The conversation ending with Krish giving Florence his phone number.

    The “speech” section of the game has easily the best example of great narrative design. Conversations are made through doing puzzles. At the start of their first date, the puzzles are long, difficult, and awkward. However, with each date they go on, the puzzles become easier and faster to do, showing that Florence is able to better convey herself and feels more comfortable with Krish. The hand drawn art and Florence's blushing face in the portraits match your swift puzzle solving below, conveying to the player — without words — that Florence is able to expressive herself more comfortably now.

    The “closeness” of the couple is also beautifully done with a “moving in” section. Krish packs his things and brings them to Florence's home. It is the player's job to decide what things Florence has that need to be put into storage because you are given limited shelf space. The chapter ends by placing Krish's toothbrush next to yours in the bathroom. Themes of selflessness and compassion, which are crucial in any long-term romantic relationship, are laid out elegantly.

    Mechanical familiarity is weaponized for the narrative throughout the game to show changes in the relationship: serious arguments in the relationship are done similarly to the speech. During the date sections, the puzzle peaces have a generic puzzle shape (with knobs and blanks) but when they fight the puzzle pieces are jagged and sharp with a red tint illustrating their hostility and snappy replies. The player must arrange their puzzle faster than Krish to “win” the argument. As a player, you are able to feel the dynamic shift. Arguments end with them embracing as they mend the rift between them.

    After a time skip of one year, the couple begins to drift apart (ouch). The monochromatic theme from the start of the game, emblematic of monotony and apathy, is contrasted to the colorful start of the relationship, telling the player that they have grown apart. Why this happened is never answered.

    The final sections of the game involve rearranging torn photos of the couple embracing as the pieces drift apart from each other. The section ends with arranging a puzzle piece of them lying in bed together:

     The game builds a very strong relationship with puzzle pieces despite its short runtime, and this scene acts as an emotional gut punch that, without a single word, illustrates the disconnect in their relationship. The pieces do not fit and there's nothing they can do. 

    The end of the chapter is with Florence walking through snow with Krish walking next to her. Florence is walking much faster than Krish and the player can click to temporarily stop so that Krish may catch up, but that only delays the inevitable. Florence slowly walks past Krish, and he disappears into the background. Florence closes her eyes in pain, but she can not stop.

    I could not help but feel like Krish in this scene while understanding the pain Florence is going through, and it made me cry. 

        The use of the Cello and Piano in the music as leitmotifs is especially prominent. The cello is the instrument Krish plays and is what draws Florence to him. It plays whenever Florence is with Krish or thinking about him. The piano is used to signify Florence during arguments, and the incredible scores really make it sound like the two instruments are having a heated argument. Near the end of the game, Krish is attempting to play again, but it feels stressful and unpleasant, juxtaposed by the beautiful, somber calm at the beginning of their story. The final time the Cello is heard is much later after the relationship is over and Florence finds a picture of Krish and her together. 

Read More

T

    Pick for a second, an arbitrarily small unit of time like the second. How much can you do in one second? What does your body do in one second if you do not consider involuntary tasks to be your doing? What can two people do in one second? What can eight billion people do in one second? What can more than eight billion people do in two seconds? In a day? In a year? In twenty thousand years? Forget people. What can a near infinite amount of atoms and molecules do in 13 billion years?

    They can do today, right now.

    You stand bare, in front of you is a large jagged structure with medium-large bright-colored spheres dangling off of each branch. Your stomach makes a familiar pain. You are starving. You pick off a sphere, and it is plump and coarse. You, out of necessity, take a bite. It is bitter and hard, but your teeth reach it’s soft and sweet innards. You eat it. You do not know your name. You do not know where the orange tree came from. You do not know the names of the things you see. You do not see anything but the prickly ground you stand on for miles.

    Recently I saw a comment on a YouTube video I saw after playing Dredge. It talked about how Lovecraftian horror is often done very poorly in media. It said that all we really have now is fearing the unknown, and we are never explained it. It used the example of an ant that comes across a microchip and does not fear it because it is new, but for a moment it understands the wires and structures and can never go back because it has realized there is so so so much more to the world than pheromones.

    Regardless of if I agree with this random comment, I thought “Wow! That must be a really difficult kind of media to write! You would have to present a world as absolute and complete, then rip it all away and put you back with a semi-complete knowledge of just how utterly flawed and incomplete your life was. Worst of all, there’s nothing you could do to continue living on that higher level of what-ever.”

    Then it dawned upon me that I had had a very similar and much more personal experience. That this experience this random YouTube comment called “Lovecraftian horror” was something that happens much more often than I thought. Not with technology but with cultures and ideologies and entire lifestyles and worldviews. It is the experience of the apostate, the deserter, and the rebel under tyranny. It is also, I thought, the life of the artist.

    If I were to die in a car crash tomorrow, I do not want the life I live to be one where my last thoughts before nothingness would be “Damn! I really wish I had the time to learn how to make a nice front-end with React and TypeScript; had the time to learn more about H.P. Lovecraft’s terrible mother affected his self-image and writing; had the time to learn about the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire(s); had the time to learn about how Isaac Wood's departure affected the Band’s music; had the time to learn about how John Carmack’s work in ID Software in the 1990s influenced the next decades of games to come; had the time to learn about how the goddamn Krebs cycle works.”

    I wish to do these things because I feel like the ant now. My only wish is for more time worrying less about the grades and the schools and university and the food and the money and the time, oh my god, the time. I turned 18 this year! Happy Birthday, me. Time to invest in the S&P 500 like you always wanted to, but oh wait you need to do a million other different other things first!

Read More

being bad at "making" things

    In the Markiplier episode of Chuckle Sandwich, near the end of the podcast, Mark goes into this monologue about his relationship with making things. I just want to cement a manual transcription of it:

 I was about the same age when I had the same thing. I was about 27. I hit my goal. I wanted to be a big YouTuber. I hit it. Then another year goes by and you're like, "Okay. Now what?" I'm not saying it's the same situation, but before I started doing any other kind of project — cause you gotta remember that for me that was still 8 years ago. There were many years after I hit my goal where I was happy that I hit my goal, and then I got progressively sadder because there was no where left to climb. And it took me a very long time to realize that it wasn't that I wanted to make movies, it wasn't that I wanted to make a choose-your-own-adventure. It's that thought back to why I actually started in the first place. And why I actually started was not to be a big YouTuber. It's because everything in my life was out of control, and every single thing that was going on in my life before I started YouTube was out of my control. I had nothing to hold onto. I got laid off my job, I had a terrible relationship, I had my appendix was removed and during that they found a tumor in my adrenal gland — like all these things were out of my control and I felt miserable that I had nothing to show for all the years I had been alive for up until that point. It was like, “If I don't find something, I will never be happy.” and that's why I started YouTube. Even after I hit my goal on YouTube and I had kind of thought about — this is still like 3 years I'm condensing a lot into a very long period of time — But even that started with baby steps like “If I want to make something and take control of my life and do something that I feel is fulfilling, what is that?” So I just did the same thing when I started YouTube. I didn't start with YouTube! I tried a bunch of things. I tried making a comic, programming a game, I tried learning new different languages, I tried y'know making art — I switched majors from engineering to art school to see if it would make a difference. I tried again and again. I started wanting to do Freddie W. stuff and Corridor — didn't work, didn't know how to do any of that and then but with what I do now it started because my brother said hey some people like to watch people play video games, and I was like alright I'll try that, don't think it'll go anywhere. It wasn't like I had this burning passion for reacting and play games — I love playing games and I like doing that stuff. But it was about hey this is something that I can do and at that point I could do nothing so I might as well start here. And then, the same kind of adventure started again when I realized I had hit that goal. Very long time horizons. Lot of time to self discovery, but it's like yeah that's what led me to here. Just constantly trying to find that thing I could hold on to.

    That was probably incoherent as fuck for a multitude of reasons, most of them being my terrible grammar, but woah. The best part of this episode was that that wasn't even the coolest thing he said. This time, I'm not going to quote it directly so I can jog my noggin a little and make some sense, but he says something along the lines of:

    I have sat in a studio dripping with sweat and crying my eyes out in a studio alone for days, but I would go home after that day and go back to the studio the next day. The fact that I had a bad day has nothing to do with my goal, but obviously I can't always ignore it. I believe that this idea needs every ounce of energy I can produce, or it won't be as good as I want it to be. It deserves every ounce of my energy because I know what it's like to have the ability to make stripped away from your being.

    I, until now, have never even thought of that as an approach. I've had months when I sat in front of a computer for 7 hours from morning to evening working on a game, but once it was done, I didn't like it? Being a “smart kid” since you were young leaves you really miserable until you learn that cool stuff takes time and effort to really learn.

    I've always said that hey I may not be the smartest person in the room, but I have confidence in my ability to digest new concepts thrown at me and then using them. In the past few months, though, I've really had that ability put to the test. All that confidence turned into anguish very quickly when I had to face the inevitable: “Hey, maybe this is too much? I'm not having fun anymore.”

    School has also really taken its toll on me. I am not a good student. I hardly study even right before exams, and it shows on every report card. One could say I don't know how to study because I've never needed to, but that's a lie. I'm just terrible at giving tests: I get anxious, stressed out and end up with a migraine right before the exam, which isn't very helpful. It doesn't help that I resent every element of the modern education system, either. But I don't have much time anymore to complain. So what do you do when you don't know what to do?

    I guess my first advice to myself would be that you have nothing concrete you want to work towards in the next month or 6 months or even year. All your plans span over half decades and aren't even really plans, they're just abstract ideas.

    To that, I would say, well, what's the point of an objective that goes on so long? I've had many projects which I've put my heart and soul into only to ditch it the next chance I've gotten because I found something new. Why should I spend so much time and energy into something when I don't even know if I can do something with what I learn? Why should I waste my time?

    And finally, it's to THAT paragraph that Markiplier talks to: Please love what you do or find something you love to do.

    I think I've only realized it now, but it'll take time to learn to not run in the face of effort when I'm trying something new. Recently, I've been trying to learn Rust, and it has been a new fucking experience. This is easily like the third time I've tried to get into it, but the difference is that before I would come across a topic and go: “Oh I don't know what this is and don't want to read the paragraph carefully explaining it all, so I'll just go back to python.” I am happy to say that I am now on chapter 9.2 of the Rust book.

    This post is much more train of thought than previous ones (I don't know, the other ones I had like planned to write. With this one, I just sat down and thought: "I must write something"), but that's mostly because I just wanted to give myself a real opportunity to talk about stuff I am rarely comfortable talking to people about in a way that doesn't sound like I read too much. Also, I really like Chuckle Sandwich.

Read More

new smaller plans

     Welcome back everyone! Apologies for being gone for sooo long :3

    I was working on a bunch of long ass blogs and then realized it was all for nothing, because I didn’t know enough about the topic to be able to write something worth writing. And so I started reading about all of it. That didn’t help either because the research for “The game development of darksouls” is going to take longer than a day! So I kind of needed a break before going back in again.   

    Now, though, I have an idea for the blog and how I want to do stuff in the future. Currently, I just write and do stuff or make stuff whenever I feel like it, which isn’t very productive or helpful or efficient or anything else other than “quick and easy”.

    Through my ~17 years of existence, I’ve come to learn that I enjoy learning things and using that knowledge (by making something or teaching) than anything else I’ve done. And I want this blog to be a testament to that statement. That was the idea before as well, but it didn’t have enough time in the oven for me to actually structure myself around it.

    So what’s going to change? Well, for you, dear reader-you’ll just get a monthly blog where I talk about what I’ve learned and made. And for me? I’m going to be working on ONE thing every month and write a blog post on it.

    I struggle with studying a lot. It’s not because the material isn’t interesting (although I do have many concerns about its usefulness and why this specifically was chosen) or I don’t understand but that I low-key might have ADD (ADHD without the H) and so I get distracted even when I don’t want to, by myself! When I’m working, I’ll have seemingly random thoughts about different fields and projects and rabbit holes to go down. For a normal person, you can just tune that shit out, but for me, it’s just not that simple.

    I just need to have some tangible creative output, so I don’t get depressed and also be able to meet deadlines and stuff for school. I feel like this to-be-tested solution is the beat shot I have.

    Normally, when I want to make something, I just use AI to get a tangible end product out as soon as possible and then never think about it again. But it feels wrong to me even when I’m doing it. Like I’m cheating knowledge? And it isn’t like I’m going to be tested on this or anything, either. It’s for myself, because I find the subject (for example: shader art coding or emulators) interesting.

    But what ends up happening is that with unfinished school work and tests piling up every second along with a lot of stress accumulated from my pretty shit home life, I end up feeling like I need to just have a final product and that’s all that matters.
But it doesn’t. It leaves me with superficial knowledge that is just enough to kill my joy of the subject.

It is the entire process of invention that distills into me a happiness not even the greatest high could.

    And so, with just one thing to work on, I will have more order in my life and be able to manage studying with being a person. And I lived happily ever after. THE END. See you all at the end of the month with the first blog post that is about what I learned and made!! I’m excited.

Read More

opinions on a level subjects

    Compared to other education systems like the IB system, the A/O levels is much more test based than skill based. For example, comparing A-level physics and IB physics (High Level) shows me the following differences between the two course syllabus: 

    A level physics has no choice for "addition" practical studies in the fields of engineering, astrophysics, etc. and it has no requirement for an internally graded "investigation and write-up of 6 to 12 pages" (whatever that means). The syllabus for IB physics is also a lot broader and in lesser detail than A level physics, which has a few things it goes into rigorous detail in. The amount of information you need to absorb and retain in A level physics is also much higher. Generally, the IB physics stuff is also more interdisciplinary.

    I'm not an IB student or anything, so that's just what I know from looking up stuff and reading PDFs.

Anyways!

    People who are just starting A level are asking me a lot about what subjects to chose and what not to go anywhere near. I'm not a business student or anything, so I can't explain what that's like just yet. I'll try and explain as generally as I can the "why" and "why not" as to what subjects you could pick. But schools have different approaches to subjects, and so do teachers! So take these as guidelines and personal opinion

 

    General Advice

     You have to understand that you're not taking these subjects because you like them or want to study them. You're taking them because you have to give an exam on them that you have to score high in. A lot of these subjects have a lot of weird ass things you have to grasp before you even understand the model of the subject that the syllabus is trying to force down your throat. It's a model that has a mix of "practical", "should know for university", and "can be tested". For this reason, I wouldn't recommend taking the subject because it does unironically ruin the fun of the subject for a lot of people, including myself. Doing past papers makes me want to kill myself, and that's what you'll be doing for a majority of the course. You don't need to understand complex stuff, just do enough past papers so that you look like you're competent, and you'll do fine, in school exams at least.

    The Cambridge syllabus and everything says it doesn't look at it like that, though. You should go "beyond the syllabus" according to them, having 2 years to cover something as detailed and intricate as Chemistry or Physics or Biology totally works out!

1. Chemistry

    Generally, chemistry is one of those "don't pick it unless you wanna kill yourself" type of subjects. I took chemistry for about a week before I decided to drop the subject at the start of my A1. I will explain this choice, I love chemistry. My teacher was really cool too. Same goes for O level chemistry. But like I said before, managing so many difficult subjects while also wanting to pursue things to find interesting in general is much harder than it looks. I dropped chemistry because I wanted to be more social and have hobbies I wanted to work on.

1. Physics

       I love physics as well, generally. A level physics makes me want to kill myself as well, but for something like a mechatronics degree, most universities want you to have taken physics. I've exclusively studied from the book. I don't use notes. I don't like my teacher. Recently, I finally started raw dogging the subject, and I'm kinda(?) enjoying it so far.

2. Biology

       Biology is one of the very few subjects the A level course does justice to a pretty good extent. The course is basically a deeper dive into the topics covered in O level. But the problem is that most schools don't let you take the subject unless you plan on going into medical. PLUS you'll struggle to understand a lot of concepts in the subject without something like chemistry.
   

3. Math

       Math remains math. I would recommend it if you like math as a subject and generally want to do something in the future that needs it. It requires a lot of brain power and thinking during tests and practicing questions relatively frequently, but that's about it.
   
   

   Humanities

       Generally, Psychology, Global Perspectives, Media Studies and Politics are more preferred subjects than Literature, Sociology, Environmental Management, Law, Art and Design, and History by students.

       The teachers of a humanities subject, for me, matters much more than a science related subject.
   

       World History, Literature and Law are really time-consuming subjects that I wouldn't recommend unless it's like "your thing".

       Sociology is not the same as Psychology. Both of them have their ratta and thinking sections but Sociology has way more ratta than the other.

       The exam criteria for Art and Design is really weird. No one in our school's history has ever gotten above a B in Arts!! But if you like the subject, that shouldn't matter to you.
   

   
   

     

Read More

raspberry pi adventures ep 1

     So! The Raspberry Pi 4B. 2GB of memory, ARMv6 CPU, GPIO pins, Ethernet, USB 3 and 2, MicroHDMI port, and so much other stuff I haven't even gotten the chance to look into yet.

    I had a MicroSD Card sitting unused in my Nintendo Switch that no one uses anymore!! So I took it out and imaged the Raspberry Pi 64-bit OS on it immediately, but I couldn't figure out how to set up Wi-Fi and SSH into it, which lead to a lot of anguish and frustration.

    I realized that to actually do anything with this, I would need to use an actual keyboard and mouse and everything on it to see what the fuck the problem was. The Robotics club somehow has a Pi 4B too, which one of the students owns and uses with a camera module for some AI shenanigans (As the Sir said). I couldn't get the MicroHDMI converter from the club because they only had one, and it was in use! So I decided to take my Pi to school and set it up there and then come back home and do stuff on it.

    I first accidentally took the Pi to school on a Saturday (31/Aug/2024), a day when the Robotics club is closed because Sir doesn't come to school! So I kept it home till Monday came around and went there to update and set everything for my SSH-ing.

    The Robotics Sir hooked it up and let me do whatever I wanted on it which is like duh because it's mine, but I was expecting him to just sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade it and turn everything off. So I update the system, and it takes ages to install everything and quickly SSH into it using my laptop and close it because I had physics or math class or something.

 

    Anyways, after setting up everything correctly I tried to remote desktop into it but the VNC stuff is really weird to set up because it's way less straightforward than SSH and Remmina said I need some kind of certificate for it which I don't have. So I'll have to figure out how to send files using something in SSH, or just write code on the Pi.

    I keep telling everyone that I'm making a "Miata" with this doohickey, which is true, but it requires knowledge of robotics, soldering, 3d modeling, electronics, Pi programming, Arduino programming, and a bunch of components that I don't have yet!

    Once I have a sexy little design document ready for the "Miata" I'll blog post about what the hell I'm doing :3

Read More