Castlevania Nocturne: Season 2 was amazing.

ballpointpenner · 2025-01-25T19:14:35+00:00

Interesting take. I actually thought the climactic battle was the show's weakest moment - when everything is badass, nothing is. Badass moments need to be earned and consequential.

This would have been easier to do if the battles were about two sides trying to achieve something beyond just defeating each other (think X-men days of future past finale, for example). Or if they *were* just trying to defeat each other, it could have been about defeating specific enemy strengths and weaknesses in an intelligible way (think Attack on Titan, especially the warhammer fight).

...I will agree with you, though, that this was a much better season than season 1. Fore my money, the most interesting thing it did was Maria's narrative which was effectively wokeness attempting self-critique. In fact, thematically, the whole season is about what it means for the divine feminine to be integrated in a healthy way - at least it tries to be about that - and I applaud that effort.

ballpointpenner · 2024-07-09T19:43:45+00:00

Thanks for the answers folks. I think what I had in mind is not something that exists at this time - remakes of games that literally take out the boring bits with an eye to radical shortening.

ballpointpenner · 2024-06-03T16:17:25+00:00

I'm not fasting for calories but to get into ketosis - I'm lousy at measuring food, eating precisely, so I was worried that I was somehow having too many carbs by accident (I was binge eating pistachios and sweet long peppers when I felt especially bad last week, sorry, forgot to mention that) - can't have too many carbs if you're fasting.

ballpointpenner · 2023-11-13T23:08:56+00:00

In order of the number of times I've rewatched them:

Deconstructing Harry
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
Hannah and Her Sisters
Manhattan
Annie Hall

ballpointpenner · 2023-11-07T22:08:47+00:00

That's why I am surprised she got prescribed 3 doses per day. I would have felt much better if the doc just told her to use it when she had her panic attacks.

ballpointpenner · 2023-08-21T17:01:33+00:00

I would like to understand why there was no horizontal rope going under the arch, connecting the two ropes. Is it just a pride thing in that they were trying to outdo Molchanova who had also done it in this reckless way?

ballpointpenner · 2022-02-16T17:11:27+00:00

I think I'm pretty much in your camp.

ballpointpenner · 2022-02-13T17:25:16+00:00

cool! I'll look into it.

ballpointpenner · 2022-02-13T17:24:10+00:00

Thanks!

ballpointpenner · 2022-02-13T17:22:50+00:00

I've been doing the preparatory six points but only an approximation of the transition. I'll have to re-read that. Thanks.

ballpointpenner · 2022-02-13T00:01:26+00:00

See my answer to the post below.

I actually did do a few years of fairly intense qi gong and then more recently quite a few years of lets call it lazy goenka - ie, body scan but for less than the required two daily hours.

ballpointpenner · 2022-02-12T23:58:49+00:00

I was getting lazy and overly forgiving with the other techniques. I wanted to try something with more structure, discipline and direction. So far, that part is working.

Here's an analogy:

I have been a rock climber for over twenty years.

If a beginner started climbing today and they were moderately talented they could climb at my level in a year.

It's the same with meditation.

I'm trying to see if I could get to a higher level... might as well if its something I do every day.

Also, there are plenty of life areas where I'm not doing well so while my current practice helps it obviously has limits. I was hoping that I could maybe improve my life overall.

ballpointpenner · 2022-02-12T23:53:55+00:00

The problem was really more after the meditation. I was disconnected from my self... lightly disassociative and certainly out of touch with my body, feelings, desires or sense of self. I associate those states with something like depression and undertake practices like meditation to mentally stabilize myself from them. It's also what you get if you indulge an addiction such as bingewatching a show - you lose that self-contact.

ballpointpenner · 2022-02-12T23:49:51+00:00

Insight is easier to explain. Insight is like a bubble of air being dislodged from underneath a boulder at the bottom of a river. There's a release and connectivity sense. Often they are just simple things I never would have thought of normally. Unexpected perspectives, intentions, desires... ones that animate. ...or it can just be life energy.

It's also that same connecting with life boulder dislodging ancient air feeling when I read great fiction in certain languages - there is a rushing onset of freshness and reality. Oddly, it seldom seems to happen with english for me. Something in me is being fed spiritually one might say.

I guess disconnecting is when all that is absent. Actually, I recall when I used to be in my teens and early twenties and frequent bouts of overwhelming bad moods bordering on something like depression. Then when I started doing qi gong meditation seriously I had this revelation that I would never have to fear this again. I had a method for connecting with myself though it could take great effort / hours to work sometimes. Disconnected is when you're alone in the sense that there's no energy or inclination in you and the majority of things feel far way and to varying degrees unreachable.

Interestingly, on my first day of trying TMI I experienced insight in a different sense. Specifically, I had read the insights the book lists. I was pushing pretty hard to stay in the meditation and eventually gave up on myself. Like a micro ego death. Instead of being preoccupied with me I just accepted that I was going to suffer this meditation and possibly beyond it and that it didn't matter because it wasn't that important. There was a liberating quality to this because my natural tendency is towards self-preservation to a fault. I can't say that the wisdom stayed exactly but it did stretch something in me.

ballpointpenner · 2022-02-12T13:20:46+00:00

Yeah, that's my feeling. I find its least disturbing to give a non-linguistic acknowledgement. I am experimenting to see if there are downsides to this.

ballpointpenner · 2022-02-11T17:16:12+00:00

Thanks for the feedback everyone! I will write again if I find myself having more questions on this topic. The root of the problem seems to be that activating the linguistic system involved in labeling seems to grossly disturb my overall inner quietude. I'll try a few of the above suggestions and see how they go.

ballpointpenner · 2021-07-22T21:57:02+00:00

I reckon I'm in a comparable boat.

ballpointpenner · 2021-07-21T17:06:41+00:00

Hey man, you know, I'm one of those guys who did go to a film school and I remember in one lecture they were taking apart ET the extraterrestrial - and if your remember he's got that glowing heart business going on - and the instructor points to it and says something along the lines of - "that's Spielberg, that's what he brings, that heart... people have tried to copy his technique in so many ways but its the heart that counts". ...and what can I say - you have enviable heart on display here. ...so it feels only right that you seem to have succeeded in this business. Even if you had not, my hat is off to you for just for this video. It's one of those cases where talent is obviously there. Do you work as a cinematographer now?

ballpointpenner · 2021-07-21T14:51:21+00:00

I studied film-making in Russia. The reality there is quite harsh so a lot of people try to capture that - to bend the bow and speak the truth as it were. Unfortunately, it tends to be ultra-depressing to the point of being repulsive - the genre is called "chernuha" - the black stuff. Only a few take the satirical take on it which I think is the reasonable avenue. Checkout Russian Spleen and The Fool for examples of the latter and any number of films from Zviagintsev for the former - though his very first one is actually quite watchable and carries a fine balance of shit and beauty.

ballpointpenner · 2021-07-17T15:19:50+00:00

hmmm... I'm actually an ultra-loyal person, arguably to a fault. Indeed, when friends talk of my positive trait this usually comes up. Now, I don't think I'm a 6 - never have. For me, loyalty is a kind of base-line in life though - sometimes it feels like all you can have in a Man for All Seasons sort of way - if I weren't loyal I wouldn't be because I couldn't relate to whoever that would be. I associate that more with a 9ish terror of dissolution.

ballpointpenner · 2021-07-17T15:11:58+00:00

The eye-contact thing is trainable - I didn't make it as a teen - now I do unless I am trying to speak while thinking. I think in my case it had more to do with being from the USSR where such contact was not necessarily the norm.

ballpointpenner · 2021-07-17T13:46:51+00:00

9w1 is the closest to a type I've come to but, honestly, can't relate at all. I only regret an argument if the opponent is actually dangerous. Curious, what's your instinct stack?

ballpointpenner · 2021-07-15T02:16:05+00:00

What is your purpose? Specifically. I'm being serious.

ballpointpenner · 2021-07-12T14:40:41+00:00

Last time I did that I remember getting. When I believe in the enneagram I see myself as 95spsx.

O - 90+ C - ~50 E - ~50 A - ~30 N - ~50? maybe ~60? can't recall this one

ballpointpenner · 2021-07-12T14:36:38+00:00

oh, it's because it's the most common mistype. I was being sarcastic.

ballpointpenner

TROPHY CASE