Ini adalah postingan pertama blog ini dalam Bahasa Indonesia, serta mengenai sepeda yang bukan daerah kemahiran saya, sehingga bila kaku atau aneh, mohon dimaklumi ya. Hehe.
Sepeda jenis citybike. Mungkin lebih umum didengar dengan panggilan ‘sepeda mini’, ‘sepeda perempuan’, atau bahkan ada juga yang memanggilnya sebagai ‘sepeda onthel’ (walaupun dalam presepsi saya sepeda onthel itu sepeda ‘dutch bike’ tua yang biasanya dipakai oleh sesepuh Jawa atau sebagai barang antik sekarang).
Saya sangat bingung, kenapa sepeda yang memiliki fungsi lebih, seperti spakbor depan belakang/fenders, wadah bagasi (keranjang), frame step through (frame tengah rendah), lampu dinamo tanpa baterai, dan posisi duduk yang jauh lebih nyaman dan santai, hampir selalu diasosiasikan dengan “sepeda untuk kaum hawa”?
Padahal, di Belanda dan di Jepang, sepeda jenis ini banyak digunakan oleh pria juga.
Dutch Bike, Sepeda Belanda yang fokus kepada fungsi praktis.Mamachari dari Jepang.Omafiets, atau “sepeda oma-oma”. (Oma: nenek, fiets: pit/sepeda)
Memang, secara umum, sepeda dengan frame/rangka step-through atau rendah itu awalnya didesain untuk membantu wanita yang menggunakan rok agar dapat menggunakan sepeda dengan mudah, aman, dan nyaman. Tapi apakah pria kemudian tidak dapat menggunakan sepeda dengan frame jenis step-through? Tentu saja tidak. Secara fungsional, frame sepeda jenis step-through ini tidak berubah, kecuali kekuatan atau kekokohan frame itu sendiri. Sepeda dengan frame yang cenderung segitiga, umum pada sepeda jenis roadbike, mountain bike, dan sebagainya, itu membuat frame itu menjadi lebih kokoh dan seimbang dibanding frame jenis step-through.
Mungkin karena alasan itu juga, banyak sepeda dengan frame step-through menggunakan frame yang berbahan dari besi berat, berbeda dengan frame sepeda “olahraga” yang dibuat menggunakan alloy (metal campuran) yang lebih ringan dan memaksimalkan kecepatan. Frame dari besi memang jauh lebih berat dibandingkan frame dari alloy, tetapi juga lebih kuat, kokoh, dan tahan lama. Selain itu, sepeda yang memiliki frame step-through ini biasanya tidak didesain untuk melaju secepat mungkin, sehingga bobot tidak selalu menjadi masalah.
Secara desain, sepeda citybike tidak difokuskan pada kecepatan, aerodinamika, ataupun fleksibilitas penggunaan. Tetapi lebih ditekankan pada kepraktisan/fungsi praktikal dalam penggunaan sehari-hari. Contohnya, frame step-through tadi. Naik-turun sepeda jenis citybike sangat mudah dan nyaman, karena framenya rendah. Sepertinya lebih mudah dipahami jika saya jabarkan dalam bentuk poin-poin ya. Oke, akan saya tulis begitu.
Kelebihan Citybike
Frame Step-through: Naik-turun sepeda lebih mudah, tidak mengangkat rok bagi wanita;
Keranjang Depan: Bagasi kecil, sangat berguna untuk membawa barang. Lebih nyaman diletakkan di keranjang daripada membawa backpack berat di punggung, dompet dicelana yang mengganjal, ataupun plastik kresek berat yang digantungkan di sebelah sisi stang–tidak seimbang;
Spakbor/slebor Depan-Belakang: Mencegah air dari tanah/ban sepeda menyiprat ke pengendara sepeda;
Rak Panniere Belakang: Potensi menambah kapasitas bagasi, kardus diikat di atas rak, tas/keranjang/panniere tambahan juga bisa. Rak dapat digunakan untuk boncengan juga.
Dynamo/Lampu Tanpa Baterai: Lampu penerangan depan tanpa menggunakan baterai, selalu siap pakai tanpa membeli baterai, tanpa mengecharge, dll.
Posisi Sadel/Jok dan Stang Handle: Berbeda dengan sepeda olahraga yang pengendaranya lebih bungkuk/maju ke depan dengan posisi tubuh dibebankan pada stang, pada citybike pengendara duduk tegap/tegak, sehingga lebih nyaman bila mengalami masalah punggung.
Penutup Rantai: Melindungi rantai dan gerigi dari kotoran, serta mencegah pakaian/celana terkena oli/minyak rantai atau pakaian/barang bawaan/tali nyangkut di rantai.
Penutup Roda Belakang: TIdak ditemui di semua citybike, tapi lebih umum ditemukan di sepeda asal Belanda. Melindungi pakaian nyangkut ruji-ruji roda belakang, serta melindungi kaki anak-anak yang membonceng di belakang menyangkut/dilukai oleh ruji-ruji.
Dynamo Lampu.Keranjang Bagasi Depan.Rak Pannier untuk Bagasi Belakang atau dudukan boncengan.<<< Posisi tubuh Road Bike // Posisi tubuh Mountain Bike // >>> Posisi tubuh Citybike
Secara praktis, citybike difokuskan pada kenyamanan dan fleksibilitas dalam penggunaan! Sepeda dapat digunakan oleh orang yang menggunakan celana maupun rok, bisa digunakan membawa banyak barang, mau siang atau malam tidak masalah karena ada lampu, terang atau hujan juga tidak peduli karena ada spakbor/slebor! Bandingkan dengan sepeda mountain bike, road bike, atau semacamnya. Hampir semua tidak diberikan spakbor/slebor dari pabrik! Padahal Indonesia kan tropis, hujan itu bukan sesuatu yang jarang terjadi. Kenapa tidak punya spakbor/slebor? Saya tidak habis pikir.
Video yang sangat jelas dan baik tentang “Sepeda Ala Belanda”.
Tidak sedikit orang awam–pria awam yang berpendapat “tapi kan itu sepeda cewek”, atau “malu ah pake sepeda begituan”, seakan bila naik sepeda berjenis citybike otomatis mereka akan kehilangan alat kelamin mereka dan langsung berubah jadi cewek atau langsung jadi omongan ibu-ibu komplek, dan otomatis diolok-olok. Padahal, sepeda jenis ini difokuskan pada fungsi praktis, memang bukan difokuskan untuk olahraga, apalagi gaya! Bayangkan, sepeda ini mengakomodasi pengendaranya baik siang malam, panas hujan, bawa barang atau tidak. Kurang mengakomodasi apa, kok masyarakat hampir selalu mengasosiasikan sepeda citybike dengan wanita.
Jujur, saya mendukung keseteraan gender, saya percaya bahwa selama mendapat kesempatan dan dukungan yang sama, baik laki-laki ataupun perempuan itu tidak ada bedanya! Mungkin ada sedikit perbedaan fisik, tapi selebihnya, saya sangat percaya bahwa gender tidak mempengaruhi kompetensi ataupun kemahiran seseorang, asalkan mereka memiliki kesempatan dan dukungan yang sama dalam belajar dan berlatih.
Saya juga tidak peduli, atau lebih tepatnya, berusaha tidak peduli, mau laki-laki atau perempuan menggunakan pakaian apapun yang mereka suka. Perempuan pakai celana, dulu mungkin tidak biasa, karena mayoritas menggunakan rok. Laki-laki pakai dress atau terusan, mungkin masyarakat sangat tidak bisa menerima, tapi saya berusaha untuk tidak memandang buruk atau mempermasalahkannya. Kenapa harus dipermasalahkan? Kamu kenal orang itu? Orang itu mau pakai baju apa, selama tidak bugil, ya kenapa dipermasalahkan, kan tidak mengganggu siapa-siapa.
Apalagi sepeda citybike, yang memang didesain untuk fungsi praktis dan bukan difokuskan pada olahraga, kecepatan, portabilitas, apalagi “fashion” atau “gaya”. Saya pikir kenapa masyarakat Indonesia masih meng-gender-kan barang mati, barang mekanis. Motor matik yang difokuskan dalam kemudahan berkendara dan bagasi ekstra, juga tidak masalah kan jika dikendarai oleh pria? Kenapa sepeda citybike harus “pointlessly gendered” sebagai ‘sepeda wanita’? Kalau dipikirkan lagi, kok absurd, abritrer, manasuka sekali ya.
Jujur, pada awalnya saya berpikir, “kalau mau beli sepeda, sepertinya sepeda gunung paling baik!”. Kemudian saya membaca dan memupuk pengetahuan saya dengan bahasan, ilmu, artikel, dsb tentang sepeda-sepeda– yang membuktikan bahwa pendapat awal saya kurang tepat! Kalau saya beli sepeda, saya akan jauh lebih sering menggunakannya untuk ke warung, belanja, yang dekat-dekat rumah, kenapa harus pilih yang susah (tidak ada bagasi, tidak ada spakbor/slebor jika hujan, tidak ada lampu bila malam), bila ada yang lebih gampang dan fleksibel seperti citybike?
Saya bilang: saya laki-laki, tapi bodo amat mau naik sepeda jenis apa. Toh, saya juga biasanya naik sepeda motor milik ayah saya: Honda Astrea Grand tahun 1996 – 80cc. Desain melingkar feminin, tenaga kecil, bensin boros. Kondisi juga sudah butut, bagian ini itu banyak yang diselotip lakban, kendor sana sini, lecet sana sini, stiker ini itu mengelupas sana sini. Apakah saya peduli? Tentu saja tidak.
Motor Astrea Grand 1996 ; potret 19 Agustus 2019 dengan Xiaomi Mi Max 2, sebelum ke kampus FIB UGM.
Saya sekarang punya uang cukup untuk membeli motor baru, 5 biji atau lebih sekalipun, tapi kan saya pakai sepeda motor untuk pergi dari titik A ke titik B, dan tidak setiap hari. Selama fungsi mengantarkan saya kemana-mana masih bisa, kenapa harus beli baru? Well, kecuali saya sudah tidak tinggal bersama orang tua saya lagi, mungkin di saat itulah saya harus punya motor sendiri, untuk bepergian jarak jauh. (Soalnya motornya milik orang tua saya).
Dari situ ketahuan ya, bahwa saya mengutamakan fungsi praktis pada barang yang saya pakai, dibanding fungsi/prioritas yang lainnya. Itulah kenapa saya kapan hari beli HP mahal lebih baik tetap beli smartphone Android. Secara fungsional lebih fleksibel dan bebas, walau tidak “gaya” seperti iPhone yang mahal. Saya tak perlu dibatasi ataupun dijejali Apple tentang desain atau cara menggunakan smartphone gaya “Apple”, saya pilih kebebasan dan fleksibilitas penggunaan smartphone pribadi saya, terimakasih. Saya sudah cukup punya iPad yang sistemnya sangat kaku, terbatas, dan tidak fleksibel. Cara pakai produk semua dipaksakan oleh Apple. “The Apple Way”. “Apple know best”. Saya bebas menginstall aplikasi apapun, bisa mengubah smartphone saya untuk memenuhi cara pakai dan kebutuhan saya. Bukan kebalikannya. Masak sih, beli smartphone mahal-mahal tapi malah mengubah cara pakai dan kebutuhan ke smartphone itu sendiri. Padahal yang utama saat beli suatu barang itu kebutuhan, bukan gaya ataupun yang lainnya. Beli barang yang menyesuaikan kebutuhan kita, bukan kitanya yang menyesuaikan atau menambah-nambah kebutuhan karena beli barang yang sebenarnya kita tidak perlu banget. Apalagi beli aksesoris tambahan, misalnya karena Apple colokannya lightning dan tidak support USB-C OTG. Harus beli lightning OTG dan harus yang “Apple Certified” biar bisa dipakai! Sepeda juga sama, ngapain beli yang tidak sesuai kebutuhan, tapi malah nambah-nambah beli slakbor/slebor, lampu, rak pannier dll lagi akhirnya biar bisa tercukupi kebutuhannya.
Sama dengan pandangan saya pada sepeda citybike. Daripada sebagai “sepeda perempuan” saya memandang citybike oleh fleksibilitas dan fitur yang ditawarkannya. Bukankah enak ke warung dekat rumah untuk belanja banyak barang, tidak perlu pusing membawanya karena ada keranjang dan rak pannier? Tidak usah pakai motor, malas isi bensin. Malahan kalau capek sepedaan bisa jadi alasan untuk jajan es krim atau minuman dingin yang segar di jalan pulang. Ya gak sih? π Yum!
I have a self-esteem problem, where I worry much about my messy hair, my bad skin, and other stuff. I really am not confident with them. But a friend told me “you looked fine”. Am I?
Anyway. Even though I think I’m in a bad condition, I think I’ll still post few selfies here and there sometimes. Personally to record myself and have a little bit more confidence.
Anyway, here’s a selfie I took this morning (23 May 2022 ; 7:37 AM @ GMT+7).
I tried my best to hide some of my face today. Did you realise that I have a crooked nose? Hahaha π It was because of an accident I had when I was a kid. And also, this morning I was too lazy to shave.
Work again, starting today with a meeting, then full 10 hour day starting tomorrow. I hope I can also try to do my best and enjoy it, or maybe because that’ll be impossible, at least to numb it/try not to feel it and just do it, quickly finishing it all.
You can do this Pep. This will totally be fine. I will be fine, and I’ll do well, I am sure. I mean, last work week, 46 from around 80-100 was checked by QC and they only found 3 minor errors, which means I have extremely low rate of errors. Considering there can be lots of major errors and minor errors possible on every checked profile, having 1 minor error per profile with the rate around 5% (5 minor errors every 100 profile) is absolutely good in my opinion. I feel a little bit proud about it!
I feel a lot better after thinking about that. Let’s hope that I can feel good for the rest of the week too. Let’s order salad, juices, etc, healthy yet tasty stuff this week too.
Ooh. I still worry and feel a little uncomfortable about work though. I really hope it can go well.
World, please let me feel happy and comfortable this week. ππ»
Edit: This evening I took another picture with less hair hiding my oily, and shiny face π ; But still hides my obscenely wide forehead. I bet you could land an airplane there.
My hair is just so messy, frizzy, and my skin are oily and full of enlarged pores. Now that I think about it, my hand looked to has a much brighter tone, and look smoother! Geez whyyyy. (23 May 2022 ; 18:14 PM @ GMT+7)…. I really do have a crooked nose, I swear! Just the lighting make it not very visible, but you should be able to see the nose bridge that doesn’t seem to meet each other.
At first, I didn’t really hate them, I actually enjoyed them very much. Especially mobile games that have those “gacha” mechanics, where you gather characters based on a chance. I used to play them with friends, comparing our luck. “Hey I got this 5 star character,” ; and then they got jealous “OMG I want him/her!! Should I roll the current banner too?”.
Phantom of Kill JP; Event Limited Farmable Sakura unit
The game is Star Ocean Anamnesis (γΉγΏγΌγͺγΌγ·γ£γ³γ’γγ γγ·γΉ).
You see, I was a huuuuuuge fan of the Star Ocean series. I got introduced by my sister, when she brought me PS1 discs her friend gave her, which she then gave to me (I thought it was only borrowed, she got angry when I tried to return it back to her, saying “So you don’t want these games? Even though my friend gave them away!?” or something like that). The game was Star Ocean 2, a game I played and re-played a lot of times. Like, I played it more than 10 times in my whole life, to notice it shortcomings, or rather, stuff that I wish they could fix. Then I got into Star Ocean 3 too, when PCSX2 got good enough and I got a powerful enough PC/laptop to run it. I never truly finished the game, but I played it the farthest when I got past the 4D dimension. Or did I finish it once? I think I did, I vaguely remembered about the bonus dungeon. Whatever.
I love those two games, two of my favourite games of all time, besides Suikoden II, Final Fantasy IX, Chocobo’s Dungeon 2, and other games I somehow forgot that I love them dearly. I tried Star Ocean 1 but couldn’t get into it, maybe I’ll try again when I got fired, or resign from my current job. I also bought Star Ocean 4 on Steam, when Star Ocean Anamnesis still live. “I want to support Tri-Ace, I hope they make more great games!”, I thought.
I even bought the 1 year anniversary artbook from Comiket! (helped by my dear friend to buy it, I was in Osaka, my friend was in Tokyo at the time)
Star Ocean Anamnesis live service, gacha mobile game started at the end of 2016, if I didn’t remember incorrectly. It was a very high-end, very device specific game at first. It particularly needed a newer iOS device, or much newer Android device that support a certain OpenGL ES version.
My totally broken, dead Evercoss A66A Elevate Y.
My phone was unfortunately not good enough to be able to play. I used an Evercoss a66a “Elevate Y” model, a cheap Indonesian branded, yet still a outsourced Chinese made phone, with low quality 720p IPS screen, low quality 8MP interpolated to 13MP back camera-and 2 MP interpolated to 5MP front camera that looks much worse than the MP count suggests, and with very not powerful, yes, very weak quad-core 28nm ARM Cortex A9 1.3GHz Mediatek MT6582 and just 1GB of LPDDR… I don’t know, they never specified whether it’s LPDDR2, LPDDR3, or LPDDR4. It’s around 2014-2015 when I bought it second hand, so it should be LPDDR3. If I look at the specs of MTK6582, it is either LPDDR2-533 or LPDDR3-533, which is… very slow and old by today’s standards.
My phone was not good enough for it to be played. However, whatever happens, I HAVE to be able to play the game. I then tried my best to look for alternatives. Using android emulators on windows? Nope, none worked (though I heard it later works after a new version of Nox or something in 2018? 2019? 2020? came). I tried to dual-boot (or was it triple-boot with Linux and Windows?) my laptop with Remix OS. It wasn’t easy, but it did get installed. And when I tried to run Star Ocean Anamnesis? IT WORKED! YAY!…I was truly excited and happy.
Recorded in the past with my (now broken) A66A phone. The camera sensor was faulty and has some dead pixel areas.
The experience wasn’t perfect. Star Ocean Anamnesis is a vertically played game, so I need to put my laptop vertically. My laptop (Lenovo M490s, i3-3227u and GT710M) doesn’t have a touchscreen either, so I used a mouse to play it. Of course, it was awkward and uncomfortable, but I didn’t particularly mind. I mean, I can play it yo!
My laptop screen was 768p, and it had stuck pixel too, but the image of Star Ocean Anamnesis with detailed 3D graphics really looks extremely nice. I thought it was at least PS3, almost PS4 level of graphics. Well they did take Star Ocean 5 (PS3, PS4) 3d models to be reused in Anamnesis. So I continued playing like that, for months, maybe until around July-August 2017. I passed the Nikkensei exchange program to Osaka University, fully paid by the Japanese government. So, I asked my parents to fund me that, also to let me buy a new phone, something that’s good enough to last long and be used in Japan too. They gave me 3 million rupiah (at the time maybe equivalent to 200-225 USD), so I bought a Xiaomi Mi Max 2!
My beloved, still working perfectly except volume and power buttons, Mi Max 2.
Xiaomi Mi Max 2 is an Android 7 device with 16:9, 6.4 inch 1080p IPS, and Snapdragon 625 SoC. It was not particularly powerful, but at the time, it had a very good bang-for-the-buck, and a very nice screen. Hell, even compared to the one I’m currently using mainly, Samsung A52s 5G with its 6.5 inch screen, I liked the size of Mi Max 2’s screen MUCH MORE. It’s just much bigger and nicer to use when reading webtoons, comics, mangas, novels, etc. I still use it today even if it has broken pyschial buttons and non-original battery, the screen is just the best (and so sad they discountinued Mi Max series, nowadays phones has bigger inch numbers, but the aspect ration is either 18:9, 20:9, or somewhere around that. I want them not only to get LONGER, but THICKER too PLEASE! They’re very narrow.). Anyway, I’m sure you get how I love the screen. (Anyway, I used Lenovo M490s with Remix OS at first, moved to Mi Max 2, then to iPad 6th Gen I bought in Japan)
Super Limited Edition: Treasure Hunter Celine! It was from the player artwork contest that made it into the game. So cool!
I played a lot, much more of Star Ocean Anamnesis since I got that phone. I rolled so much of my favourite characters, Celine, Leon, Welch, Vulcan/Varka S-19, and I even tried to roll Lezard Valeth from Valkyrie Profile and Zephyr from End of Eternity/Resonance of Fate but failed. I did get Lenneth, both versions of Linbell/Leanne and Vashyron too.) Oh yeah, did I say that the game has online, real-time, multiplayer battle? It works extremely well even if it was labeled a beta (I think it stayed beta for the whole game? or did it phase out of beta? I don’t know, it just works well even since the beginning so I never noticed).
I think I spent 15-25 thousand yen for Anamnesis. And was it… 4 thousand yen? for SO4 on Steam? I totally forgot.
Anyway. I truly enjoyed the game. There were also STAR OCEAN PROGRAM live stream almost every bigger updates, where the producers Kai Takaaki (η²ζθηΎ) and Kobayashi Shuuichi (ε°ζη§δΈ ; which involved in some scandal around the game and never appeard there again), Welch Voice actress Tomoe Hanba (εε ΄εζ΅), and a cosplayer Koyomin (Koyomi Makino, η§ι γγγΏ also stylised as “Coyomi”;; I knew she was/is manager or something of a cafe named APARE γ’γγ«… not sure now though. As of 2021-2022 she works as manager or something in AXiS Management https://axis-mgt.mystrikingly.com/ — She later moved to SiNoAlice cosplayer in their official stream, and went somewhere else again, while the later STAR OCEAN PROGRAM replaced her with), a gravure idol Yuno Mizusawa/yunocy (ζ°΄ζ²’ζδΉ).
I remembered how excited I was being introduced with new characters from the series I love and know. My favourite in the Anamnesis game was Celine, she wasn’t particularly powerful, nor useful, but I still love her with her exclusive skill Starlight, which hits extremely HARD to all enemies, but only that one hit per cast. Still, she was much more powerful compared to Star Ocean 2, as Star Ocean 2 is very badly optimized for spellcasters. I mean, they cap damage to 9999, and later in game, most melee attacker can dish out 5000-9999 damage per hit, and they usually do lots of it every few seconds, so it’s pretty non-sensical to use spellcaster which dish out smaller damage in 3-5 seconds, or 9999 damage with the bigger spells that TOOK way longer at more than 10 seconds (Celine’s Explode and Meteor Swarm everyone? Also was Leon’s Extinction that long too?). The only better spell that hits more than just one 9999 damage is Leon’s unique Gremlin Lair. It somehow hit much more than just one, which all other heraldry/symbology spells do. Though I never manage to make it hit that hard (each hit; probably around 2000? forgot.).
One of my rarely recorded gameplay. Playing using regular Celine, on iPad 6th Gen, when I was around lv140? I stopped playing when I reached more than lv 160 or 180 was it? It took way longer after lv 150.
I truly, truly enjoyed Star Ocean Anamnesis. Well, at least most of the time. Somehow, around 2020? The game started to be a little bit boring because there’s not much to do except the repeatedly recycled, similar, or mostly the same boss battles. I mean, every event in the game is always battles and battles. And I’m sure the players got bored too. But what they did was to add more power-up and customisations to the character. I’ll explain slowly.
The base game only has ιηηͺη ΄ Limit break, which uses copies or LB crystals as materials (you get these when you get copies of the one you maxed out, there are 3 different ones, the one you get from R 3 stars characters, SR 4 stars characters, and SSR 5 stars characters). It was tedious, but very easy to gather.
<<< Limit break materials from SSR get ;;; ||| 9S from Nier Automata’s Limit Break 10 (Max). ;;; >>> Gaining LB materials with maxed out copies
Then because they do this “newer character, stronger, better, you need to roll this to easily beat the boss which has this particular weakness the new characters have skills in!”, power creep is a very serious issue. The 5 star SSRs at the beginning of the game are MUCH MUCH weaker than, say, newly released 5 star SSRs a year later. They are barely usable.
Because of the power creep issue, they introduced this “Awakening” (θ¦ι) mechanism along with space exploration thing, which basically allowing older characters to have their skills and talents improved. Of course, with it there was new materials and items to farm added, which space exploration will get you exactly those. It was abnormally difficult to gather these items, so I hated this part.
<<< the screen when sucessfully awakened ;;; >>> the awakening map, there are 10 steps per character.
Then the equipment improvement came. I never really get into this, because it’s so meticulous and too much work to do. Then you can extract skills from equipment and attach it to other equipment you like, of course, using special items which you can only obtain by doing special missions or to buy them with real money. Then there are these super idol units with much stronger skills, talents, etc. THEN they added a pure cosmetic customization with 99% of it only available using real money to purchase, and after that they allow you to level up characters to Lv120 (which normally since beginning, 5 star SSRs can only go to Lv70). There was also an unlimited dungeon Sphere211 where you compete against people to reach the highest floor.
True power creep and imbalance problem when damage is over the countable 9,999,999. In 2018.
So many unnecessary improvements, yet not something fundamentally good enough to improve the core game and make it fun and not boring. Because all they did are just to make the power creep issue even more prevalent. If they could only add some gameplay, except the regular stories/single player campaign and those neverendingboss battles and item farming… Maybe some private actions like in the main game, or something else that can make the core battle game less repetitive, I don’t know. Actually at one point, I really wanted a PvP or Guild PvP battles, instead of just the regular PvE multiplayer battle. But basically, it became extremely BORING and TIRING to just follow the game anymore.
<<< Status strengthening using berries– farmable but tedious to gather ;;; >>> Space exploration farming, takes long time and I hated it.
So somewhere around 2020 maybe? Or 2021? I think it’s 2020, I stopped playing the game. Maybe just played the single player campagin, because it was truly interesting and quite fun to read. Occassionally I return playing the events when there’s fun stuff, or new character with unique quirks, like a werewolf character, or new classes, or new skills, etc.
But then fast forward to April 2021, they announced service closure gradually until, complete service shut down on 24 June 2021 ;; 14:00 JST. It honestly broke my heart. Even if it got boring later, I still love the game extremely so. But that time I started working full-time so I didn’t have much leeway to play it. So I never had any chance to do it until the end. When I took a break and played the game, as they say available “offline mode” to see, look at the characters you have, and play the story mode. But it… it deleted all my data except my user code. I could not see any characters at all, everything greyed out. I think it was wiped out because I never updated the last update before closure, and when I updated to the offline mode, they stopped the server which my data resides in, and it never got saved in the device. I cried, but decided to move on and promised myself never to pay for online only games. Or invest on it too much, emotionally too.
And then this morning, I somehow dreamed that I played the game using Varka/Vulcan S-19 again. And I felt so much pain and sadness when I woke up, because I totally understand that the game is dead and no longer be playable ever again. I feel like shit!
So I woke up and before doing anything else, decided to write my sadness and some of my memories, nice memories with the game. I’m so sad….
Anyway, I’ll be waiting for RPCS3 to work super well with Star Ocean 5, because I wanted to try it in the future. Also, I hope Star Ocean 6 development goes well and didn’t become another Star Ocean 5 which was a commercial failure, and most people consider a disappointment. I heard a few months after the release, like two or so months? Some places sold the game for just 500 yen (around 4-5 USD maybe;; I remember I saw a box copy labeled with Β₯500 on twitter, I tried to find it but couldn’t, tell me below if you found it, I want to add it to this post), much lower than the release price. I read lots of people on twitter that think “The Star Ocean series is totally dead now…”
BUT NO!!
As I said, there’s a new Star Ocean 6 called Star Ocean: The Divine Force. Though it seemed to head into the “real-time action battle” direction again, just like Star Ocean 5, Infinite Undiscovery, Devil May Cry, or… whatever that is. I still have some hope in Tri-Ace, yes, but….
Star Ocean The Divine Force Trailer (via Playstation YT Channel)
But… Square Enix, day by day seemed to turn worse and worse. Like the failure of Marvel universe games, and the sale of western games including the developers they had, that made games like Tomb Raider reboot games which all sold more than 5 millions copies each, in totall 38 million copies. And news outlets said that Square Enix sold that to invest in NFT and crypto? I don’t know how that is a logical and sound decision. It almost like the upper echelon of the company is mentally broken, or ruined by greed. The NFT and crypto values kept falling lately, so I could only see it as a rash and stupid decision currently. I don’t know if it’ll went right back up and even more, let’s just see.
I just have so little faith in Square Enix nowadays. Their games were great when they were Square and Enix, separate from each other. The good thing with Square Enix maybe was the earlier ones, and for the later one is the decision to remaster Final Fantasy IX (and they didn’t even upscale the background assets, as they’ve lost original assets. Moguri Mod is a GOD SEND!) . That’s it in my opinion.
I think Square Enix will just rush and press the budget as little as possible for Tri-Ace, which I think happened with Star Ocean 5. That was probably why they reused the assets from Star Ocean 5 into Star Ocean Anamnesis, maybe to gain some profit from the loss from Star Ocean 5, rather than just top and waste all the 3d modelling efforts, which I believe is super expensive, maybe hundreds of dollars a pop, or maybe even thousands. Luckily Anamnesis had some success to last from 2016-2021; which is more than 4 years (Dec 2016 – June 2021), (probably) better than the seemingly much more popular Dragalia Lost (September 2018 ~ around July 2022 according to some sources).
I…
I’ll never invest too much emotion, energy, time and (any) money to a mobile game, or game as a service. I don’t want to feel the pain and sadness again. (Though I still play Destiny Child rarely, Destiny Child Defense War quite often). My personality is quite bad just as you can observe. I have trust issues. Extremely so. If someone or something hurts or pains me, I will have trouble to ever trust that someone/thing again. Even if they’ve become nicer again, I’ll still be super wary about them. I don’t know whether this is because of my childhood upbringing, teenager life, or what.
For example, my mother once cooked some vegetables into coconut-milky soup. When I scooped it, I found a huge maggot, cooked inside of it! I was terrified, and didn’t eat for the whole day, and for few months I always ordered delivery foods and refused to eat anything my mother cooked. I only tried to eat it because my mother is so, so, forceful. She abritrarily makes something, and forces everyone to eat, even if whatever she made isn’t suited to my or my father’s taste. Then she would blame me or my father for not eating something she has made.
The problem is that, my mother always OVERSTOCKED raw foods and vegetables, sometimes leaving them to rot. When it’s partially rotten, she would cut the rotten part and cook what she deemed “good enough”, and made the whole thing taste weird and disgusting. Once, she cooked lots of fried egg, using fresh egg INCLUDING one egg that’s going rancid, THAT she deemed “good enough”. When I ate it, it taste weird, disgusting, and I almost threw up. She didn’t even eat eggs, she’s a self-proclaimed vegan that cooks non-vegan food too.
Sometimes when she made some soup or something, she would kept reheating it for days or until A WEEK, sometimes even leaving it to rot past one week, never threw it away or cleaned it until the whole house smells, and the pan full of little maggots. I so terrified and disgusted, but if I tried to throw them away or clean them, I think she would say “Why are you throwing that away, it’s still good” or “I wanted to use it as a compost” or whatever, even though so far SHE NEVER DID IT. She always says “I want to use xxx for yyy” but never does it. This is why I am trying my best to work, to gather money, to buy MY OWN DREAM HOUSE! Some place far from my mother, which has nasty food habits, also toxic and manipulative, narcissistic personality.
Both of my parents and my siblings always said, “You’re the youngest, so you must always be at home and take care of us/father and mother.”…. I just say yes, but in my heart, I thought “How would I learn to be independent then? I’ll get used to being helped by my parents, paying tax, paying services, when something breaks etc, and when they pass away, I’d be a total useless dunce then?”…especially after I got back from a full year of living alone in Japan. I had tasted freedom, and I couldn’t live without it anymore. I couldn’t stand not being free to do whatever I wanted.
I think this went on much longer than needed, and to unrelated topics as well, so I’ll stop here. I’ve now fully awake, and need to do other stuff.
Have a nice day, everyone. I hope you all are always healthy, happy, and blessed with money.
Now even though I got a really nice phone, A52s with a relatively powerful Snapdragon 778G and 8GB of LPDDR4X, I could never play that game again. So sad. It truly is sad. Haah.
Maybe I’m the type to get attached very easily to stuff, and when they’re no longer accessible, the mental pain attacks. If somehow, the most unprobable thing happened and I have a lover, then they decided to break up with me, will I be fine then? Will this kind of thought cause me to even go further from that possibility? No one could tell. Or can you?
I dislike having to hear or think about people having open relationship, or having hook-ups or casual sex.
There.
I know, I’m totally unqualified to say that it’s bad or wrong or whatever, because I have never been in any kind of romantic relationship, so let’s just say that I dislike them. Including stories inside novels, manga, manhwa, manhua, whatever, any stories that I read or watch or listen to. I’m not actually sure what makes me feel so horrible about it, honestly.
I enjoy reading comics, novels, et cetera. And it includes for example, romance stuff, wether it is heterosexual or homosexual romance, I read them all if it was interesting enough in the first chapters. However, when I saw or read, for example, the main character, whether male or female, doesn’t matter, having sex with just anyone then with anyone else, without any strong reason why, it made me feel so uncomfortable and when it went too much, sometimes I couldn’t bear it and forced to stop reading more.
I know that having sex is anyone’s own right. But for me it just makes them (the character in the stories), cheap, slutty, and somehow I can’t take them seriously anymore. Especially in a ROMANCE setting, being cheap and easy like that just put me off so much.
Even sometimes, a character, for example, gets asked out by someone, and accepts it just because they aren’t currently dating anyone, without any reason or connection with the one who asked it to begin with, it just makes me feel so uncomfortable. ‘Why are you comfortable going out with a total stranger?’, I thought. And when they ask for sex with you, are you just going to answer ‘yeah, sure let’s do it’? I don’t know why but it pained my heart. Extremely so.
If it was porn, smut, or something of that nature, which story only or mostly contains sex that used to spark lust, or just to be used as a masturbation material, I was totally fine with something like that, or even worse, an orgy or sex with total strangers, I totally don’t mind it at all for some reason. I don’t know why, but the basic idea felt so different.
Maybe I am just a huge romanticist. Maybe I just want to see the character in the story to be faithful, to not sell their body and emotions for nothing, and gain happiness with their love. Maybe this is also why I totally hate NTR stories (NTR – short from netorare ε―εγγ — cuckold). Maybe because I truly believe that sex is the most intimate thing someone can do in a romantic relationship, and not something to do with strangers.
I totally understand that we, as a human, has a natural force to have sex called lust. Something that our creator, or evolution forced into ourselves. Something some people, that believes in some kind of cults see as a totally wrong and bad thing. No, having lust, desire to have sex is something innocent I believe. It’s just a natural reaction, or something natural happening in our body and mind. It’s something that we aren’t in control of.
No, I am not saying that wanting to have sex with a minor, for eaxmple, is right. But maybe it’s something that pedophiles can’t control. Just like all of us. I’m not a pedophile, just to be clear. What I wanted to say is, people can be totally attracted to something and don’t know why they like it. For me, I think beautiful vaginas and penises are totally sexy and arousing. Wide hips, nice butts are sexy and muscular bodies are sexy and attractive too. Feeling reactive or attracted to them is not something that I can control. I like what I like, even before realising the fact that I like it. And everyone else’s the same, I think!
But… I still think that having sex with just anyone is totally wrong. My conscience doesn’t accept it, and my heart and mind totally reject the idea of casual sex or any kind of sex with strangers or someone unknown. It just… disgust me for some reason. I am sorry if you, who are reading this text wall, involved or enjoying casual sex or hook-ups, felt offended by this. So please, if you can explain the reason why it’s good, or why I should never feel disgusted by it, not only because casual sex ‘feels good’, do explain to me. I mean, maybe sex based on romantic relationship, or at least with someone you know feels good too. Or masturbating should feel good too. I totally don’t understand what’s nice about entrusting and giving all your body and mind to a total stranger that you’re not sure will do what, or pass what to you just for you to ‘feel good’. And after that they leave you as fast as they came. If someone is nymphomaniac or has some problems that requires sex often that their partner can’t fulfil, then I’m sorry, maybe it’s kind of acceptable to a certain extent for those people.
….maybe I just highly value emotional connection between people and couldn’t compromise on it. Or maybe I’m just too serious with everything and can’t accept casual things.
Again, I totally don’t understand why people could be that comfortable with something like that.
“Please go out with me!” ; “Sure, I’m not going out with anyone else anyway.” (even though this is the first time I met you)
“Hey handsome/beautiful, wanna do it?” ; “Sure, let’s do it,” (even though this is the first time I met you)
or “That sex was great, stranger. Bye.” (even though it was enjoyable and you were gentle and beautiful/handsome, making me want to be something more that stranger)…. I mean, UGH. If it was a porn or something pornographic in nature, sure, it would be hot and interesting to have beautiful/handsome strangers enjoying it together. But there’s a reason it’s called pornographic. Because it’s just fiction to stimulate and excite the brain momentarily for a specific reason (e.g. masturbation). It’s not something to be done in real life, in my opinion. The consequences would far be too great. Some risk in physical health (STDs and unwanted pregnancy for example), but far more devastating mentally. I’m sure there are much more regrets about ‘why did I‘ or ‘I wish I hadn’t had casual sex with him/her‘ than ‘why didn’t I have casual sex with him/her when I got the chance‘. I think can crush self confidence as it made us think “My worth is only my genitalia and sex, no one wanted to be with me for truly me. They only wanted me for sex only,”, and when it deep rooted in the mind, how difficult would it be to try change that mindset.
Maybe this thought has wandered for far too long.
But still, am I feeling like this because of my past, being sexually abused as a child by someone I didn’t know? Is it some of the trauma left behind by that painful experience I wished never happened? I don’t know.
One thing is for sure though. I’d rather be alone until I die, than to have casual sex with just anyone. I know I’m not handsome, beautiful, attractive, hot, or whatever. I’m not interesting or smart either. But… I still don’t want make myself a “free living dildo” or “free living anal fleshlight” for strangers to use.I don’t want to value myself as disposable living sex toy. I’m not cheap and worthless disposable sex toy! I’m not just a sex tool! I’m a human who has feelings too.
I hope I can do so. I hope I can win against the natural urges that evolution or god gave to me. This cursed urges. Sometimes I hate it so much I want to die just to get rid of it. It made me kinda understand why some people love using drugs so much, the endorphine rush is just too powerful to ignore, causing the absence of it to be rather uncomfortable, or even painful.
I’m so sleepy and tired when I wrote this. Maybe this post is unreadable and doesn’t make any sense. But at least now I feel a little better, letting all these random thoughts about casual sex out from that tiny bottle in my mind. I should rest for today. I need to work long hours starting tomorrow, and I hate it so much. Why is it so tiring and difficult just to keep the life I never even asked in the first place. Aah, if only dying is not that painful…
Edit 23 May 2022 @ 19:03 PM GMT+7: At that point in time, I haven’t learnt and absorbed properly the meaning of “promiscuity” and/or “promiscuous man/woman”. I could have worded everything better if I knew that word before I wrote all of this. Hahaha πI just learnt words promiscuity, promiscuous probably the day or few days after I wrote this, actually. And I can say this confidently: I still hate promiscuity, and I am having difficulty respecting promiscuous men and women. I hate people that did it often with someone they barely know/strangers (promiscuous, hooking up, open relationship, or anything that changes partners often; I found them disgusting. I read it’s because of natural human evolution: having sex with strangers can lead to potentially dangerous situation: deadly STD, unhygienic person, diseased, etc; which our ancestor probably encountered and possibly passed down to our genetics. Just like when we feel disgusted with rotting food, or insect larva– which hinting food that is absolutely not fine for us to eat.). I don’t think I mind too much about polygamous/polyamorous relationship (whether men or women), friends with benefits, etc, because they’re (hopefully) in a concensual relationship and they don’t change partners indiscriminately (compared to promiscuity). Though it doesn’t mean the people themselves are always respectable. When I heard about an old man who has many wives, from older to younger women, I feel that it’s still not nice and feel kind of sad thinking about the women, because I heard they have not much power/input about her/their husband bringing new women to join his harem/polygamous relationship. So awful, I think. If I ever have a lover, I would definitely be super selfish– that person is mine and mine only, and I definitely am not willing to share that person’s love with another person… I wonder how every person’s opinion living in a polygamous relationship.
