At this point, nothing's really happened today. I don't think anything will, either. But...I suppose there's something I am considering.

On each half of my personality, I've taken or announced intention to take a break from playing mafia.

I'm strongly considering making that apply to both at the same time, for the first time in five, six years. (I last had an entire break back in 2010. Ever since then, I've always, always been involved, somewhere.) This would not be a permanent thing. But I think I want it. Not as "moving on in my life, without mafia".

That won't happen.
Ever.

I'd rather die than let go of it.

And I intend to be around the site every day, as both names.
I just...want to have a little bit of time to refocus. Gather up all of my energy, so to speak. Tackle things I've put off doing, and compose myself. Get it together, take time to rest, and when I've finished doing everything, when there's nothing left for me to do...returning, maybe under both names rather than just one at a time.

This is a fairly important decision to make. It'd also largely affect the direction of the blog. Most of my blog posts have recently been on the subject. But if I spend my time elsewhere, then...I have the ability to get somewhere in my life, I feel like, and that when I come back, it will be with precision and focus and be the best of everything that I hoped to be but currently am not.

Helping this, I have marked my availability at work as only on Sundays. This...is quite obviously, a big fat lie. I'm doing nothing, far more often than doing something. But...I feel like in doing less at work, I will actually be allowed to live more of life.

So basically...I'm very largely considering where to focus my energy in life. It's everywhere. For such a small blog post (I feel like I should be writing more on this), it carries a large weight. It affects ComicFury. It affects everything. This is a point in my life, this summer, where I feel like I'm making a decision for where I want to spend my life.

Ironically, I don't think I'd be able to have come to this point without reaching a simultaneous peak in high, and low. Low: no ComicFury for half a year or so. Increasing distance between me and mafia games, the one place I held some level of solitude. Lots of depression weighing me down. High: so many things in my life progressing further, with me doing things I didn't think I could do.

But because I've been through that, even if this blog hasn't shown it...I feel as if I'm really, really growing up right now, and living at the absolute peak turning point in my life. So, even though I'm about to turn a simple 23, I feel like...I'm about to go somewhere that may make me feel significantly older, in a very good way.

So I woke up to my alarm today kind-of surprised. I was having a semi-lucid dream within a dream within a dream. At least two layers were hybrids between real life and video games, in that they were hyper-realistic, while still maintaining stylistic games. One was a fighting game, another featured a "shift to the ghost world" mechanic. (It was...achromatic silver-gray. You know...ghostly color.)

But the interesting fact? All three had the same exact setting. And that? That...was a playground I had forgotten existed, until this morning. See, when we were living in Bellevue (well, Spirit Ridge), there was of course the playground on the school grounds. Which was one block away. (By the way, we walked there on our own. This was fine. Rant rant something about overprotective parents these days, etc.)

...But actually getting in our car? There was a second playground we went to. Akin to the Fryelands playground in Monroe (the one next to Lake Tye), I think we went to it after school and during the summer. Not sure when, exactly, but I know there was a playground, at a park, that we went to. It had a metal slide. It was built on a wooden tower, I think, but I...really don't remember much about it.

Lots of the details there have blended from playgrounds I know from later in my life. But I remember we went to it, and I remember that feature. Don't think I was very adventurous there; I kind-of remember being a scared, timid little child on it.

...And this was a memory I had completely forgot about until my subconscious brought it back up, so I thought I'd share it with you.

The main thing I did at work today was work on my novel, so I shouldn't give you the details there, but I did work on other things. Little things, here and there, most of which I can't quite remember anymore, but what I did do is work a bit more on the Juggler story. I basically worked out that, after a certain point, he stops getting involved in direct fights. In part, this is because of what each fight does to him: he has to (almost quite literally) live through hell every time he uses his power.

In part, it is also because he's gotten so good, nothing can really challenge him, and he wants his band to be the ones doing the fights, so they get to have that experience. Still, all the same, they are no slouches themselves, and thanks to intimate experience, can keep up with him for the most part, just...not quite at the same level he is.

So, a scale was developed for power levels: If you take only Juggler's single attack to defeat, you're a weakling. (Keep in mind, Juggler's single attack was one of the strongest attacks in existence near the beginning.) Take the twin dragons? Congratulations, you're a goon. Take the three prongs? Elite mook. Spin cycle? Graduate into individual fighter. Take 5? A strong fighter. If it takes the sever slash, you're one of the strongest current warriors in the world. Seven sins is reserved for the strongest warriors of all time. 8 elements was used once, and only once, on a literal GOD.

So, the sixth member of Juggler's band, based on a broken rubber band, was one of (if not being THE) the first to experience the sever slash. The seventh member, based on a rusted paper clip, was similar for seven sins. But they later gain an eighth member (a LARGE black hairpin), because he does the impossible: he took an 8 elements attack and kept fighting after taking a direct hit.

As the twin rider is apt to point out, "We don't have a ranking for surviving the 8 elements." The guy still lost the fight, but it came down to a battle of swordsmanship, skill, and sheer willpower, one Juggler only won because of prior exposure to poisons and to the basic methodology of the weapon in play. And it was by 15 or so seconds only.

But that was it.

So a while back, I said that I was going to sacrifice a lot in order to run a game. I'm not sure if I said this on here, or if it was a statement I made to the people to be playing the game. But I made it all the same.

I don't think they fully appreciate the magnitude of the statement I made. I can't go into too many details, since some of those people read this blog. But I can tell them what they already would know if they bothered to think about it.

For a start...keeping up with my blog is hard. I'm having trouble making the time to write entries. That's not, "I don't have anything to say", or "I'm too tired to say", that's, "I literally am spending all my time elsewhere". More than that, I've not read my email in almost a full week, because I've been devoting time to this.

Those are some immediate areas. Most evident to them, though, should be this.
Anyone from there that reads this blog already knows I am actively maintaining two identities on there, separate from one another: mastina, and Ranger. What they don't realize, is that by running this game, by fulfilling my promise to always be there for my players...I am cutting into the time that I would normally be spending playing.

Now, this is not an intentional decision on my part to not play on one name. It's not as if I'm leaving no time at all. It's just I'm constantly involved in a high-stress obligation, which tires me out, and when I'm tired, I'm obviously not lying about my difficulties playing. The result from this?

Purely by accident, I've left myself in a tight spot. The tables have turned. The hard-fought, hard-earned, well-respected reputation I have been slowly working up? I'm BURNING it, in order to run the game successfully. Absolutely everything that I stand for, in the division between the two, is being ripped down, destroyed, because of the game. A person who was successful on EVERY level is picking up all the bad traits I had deliberately dumped into the other half. And this is, very specifically, because of the game. (To be fair, I've picked back up some of the good traits I had transferred out, so it's not a total loss.) Everything I really did not want to do, I am finding I'm slowly doing, to maintain both my duality and my game.

That's not all. I'm giving up on little real-life things here and there, too. Beyond my blog here, and beyond the emails, there's nothing all too serious, but small delays in, say, eating times, in focus on TV, on stuff I would devote myself to do exist, and over time, they're adding up.

And it's all because I want to give them the very best, yet...they'll never know what I did for them. Many of them are in a position where they're actively cursing my name. They also keep on doing things I would rather them not do, and while there are some things I can intervene on, others I cannot.

I'm doing the absolute best that I can to get the game to work, but every time I do anything, I always am afraid I'm overstepping my boundaries, I'm always afraid I'm policing my game with an iron fist, oppressing my players, I always worry that I am offending them, I am constantly in a position where I feel like doing nothing is irresponsible but when I DO do something that it might make things worse in a different way.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. I wish I could say more, but basically...there are things I feel I am doing well. I am keeping my promise of being around. I am keeping my promise of a fairly reasonable, approachable, arbiter, someone in the middle able to help mediate disagreements. I give the players lots of things they want. I'm doing a lot better than the younger me would have. I'm not running the game because of me, I'm running it because of others. And I'm engaged.

But at the same time, there's still lots not going right. I'm sacrificing things I didn't think I would have to sacrifice for it. I am constantly walking a dangerous line. If I screw up at any point, I could utterly ruin the game. And I feel like that, if the game is ever considered a failure, it will no matter what be because of me. There's lots of stuff like that.

So...basically, I just really hope when all is said and done, it was worth it. That I made it count. That it was something worth doing, and that I delivered what I said I would. If the game is a growth of what I used to be, then it is a success to me. That's what I think, anyway.

Tomorrow...we'll have to see what kind of hell I'll face from today's fallout. And Friday will likely be the same, of Thursday's fallout. This is not something which can ever go smoothly, no matter my efforts to guide it that way. We live in an imperfect world, and I can't make it be perfect.

I do hope that my efforts to try, though, do not go unappreciated.

I mean, first and foremost, my goal is to not have anyone be absolutely miserable.
But if I can have people actually be happy?

Then I think...that'd make it a success.

Blah! Emergency blog post, a go!

Ah, man!
Do I really have to make a blog post today?

Well, fiiiiiiiine.

Here I am.
It's 3:14 AM.
Tomorrow's Tae Kwon Do.

But what I can say is that...moderation is hard.

Like, ridiculously hard.
I'm pretty tired and incoherent and even if I wasn't this is something I'd be vague about anyway, but needless to say, that moment when a mother is stressed out, loving her child but still dead-tired exhausted from the need to micro-manage it? Yeah, that's more or less me right now.

And I just can't hide it~

...No, but seriously. Do you know how I have two sides to my personality? The older, mature adult me, a wise woman of sorts, and the younger, hyperactive little girl me? Well, in the project I'm about to run, I get to be both. They've merged together into a single entity, temporarily, for the sake of a game.

I'm really, really eager to get started. I feel like, in spite of all the myriad of things that can (and will) go wrong (the older me has prepared for those), that I can handle it, that I'm ready. I feel like I'm there, with something great, that I will be sharing with others and they'll love it as much as I did.

At the same time, I feel like I'm handling things in a reasonable, fairly mature way. I feel like if I tried to do what I'm doing now two or three years ago, it would 100% fail, guaranteed. Even now, I'm panicked that in spite of all my safeguards and all my planning, I'm not quite prepared enough. Basically, I feel like a mother, raising a child: I have done everything I can, but I don't quite know for sure if I've done right.

It's...a really, really awesome feeling to have, and I'm just kinda waiting for the moment, since when it begins...it's going to quickly grow. This is a feeling I don't think I've ever experienced. I made something that I liked, which is how I've always done things, but this time I think my approach has made it more about them than it is about me.

And I feel like, with that...I can do it.
Everything could go to hell by tomorrow, who knows? (Hard to say, exactly.) Or if not tomorrow, soon after. But I think that this is worth trying, and that I am up to the challenges I am sure to face. This will be difficult! I know it will be. But I think I'm ready.

So I'm writing this early Sunday morning, and...bleck.
I feel sick.
Really, really sick.

Not cough cough sick.
As in, "could maybe vomit" sick.

I don't think I can work a full shift today, so I asked my boss for some help. Still gonna go to work though, since I don't know how quickly I can get a response. (Plus, I have stuff there already.) I just feel like me working today would be a Very Bad Idea, because my body? REALLY doesn't feel like it's up for the task.

This SUCKS.
I can't eat breakfast because if I did, I feel like I'd just hurl.
The cup of coffee I did have feels like it was a serious mistake as-is.

So, uh, yeah...that blog title?
​That very well could happen to me today.

Today was a staff meeting. Can't discuss much from there, for obvious reasons, but I think that it was an okay day. I'm currently mulling over a hard decision I'm gonna have to make tomorrow, though, and am not exactly the most happy about it.

It's a decision I absolutely MUST make tomorrow (I cannot put it off longer than that), and it's something that, no matter what, will leave some people hurt and/or disappointed, and potentially damage things depending on what the fallout of my decision is.

Now, I'm generally indecisive as a person anyway, but that's usually for other reasons. Having an opinion but not wanting to voice it. Equally loving both. Equally hating both. Seeing the pros and cons of both and having them weighed as about equal. Having other people who are more decisive around. Generally not caring one way or another what happens.

The list goes on and on for things like that. But this is a time where I absolutely MUST make a decision. And while I make decisions all the time, regardless of need or want to make them, this one's a HARD one for me to make, since I want to make everyone happy yet that's literally impossible for me to do because there are mutually exclusive paths involved here.

I'm not happy about it, but it is what it is. I can't make people like each other and their wishes, which means if they have those strong opinions conflicting......

A friend of mine, right as I'm typing this, is archive binging my blog a bit, so this entry is written as a <3 to them. They posted on a subject I had blogged about, and got me talking about it, and I think what I said to them was actually good conversational material for a blog post, so thank you, friend-who-I-probably-shouldn't-call-by-name! (Whole, their choice, and all that.)

In this case, they talked about square dancing, and how it doesn't seem like the meetups we have are for that. So I explained to them, and I feel that explanation is good for here, too. Basically, the thing is...the clubs we belong to are teen square dance clubs. They revolve around the Pacific Northwest Teen Square Dance Festival, which is always the first weekend in May.

So, for as long as I can remember, the tradition has always been: 9 months of dancing (first 3 or so for training lesson kids, then about 4-5 months of training for competition), then having it in May. In the weeks after that, and continuing on to about June, the clubs would have celebratory dances.

After that, during the summer, the clubs would not meet at all. No dancing, no nothing.

And then, every year, would resume as normal.

My club worked like that, too. But then, the current bunch of square dancers decided to change things up a bit: instead of not meeting at all, we would continue meeting...and just, not do dancing, but other stuff. To hang out and have fun, on things other than dancing. 

This makes sense, since most of the current club is currently related to one another. My older sister and I are one family going, a secondary caller has a daughter and her mother who come, there's two girls who aren't related to anyone as odd ones out, and then all the remaining kids and adults are all related. This being, something like 6-10 people.

My understanding is that, in spite of them being related, they don't actually meet that much, except maybe on holidays (and perhaps not even then). So, they actually are using Wednesday nights as a bonding time, akin to my family's Friday night: a family getogether. Just...much larger in scale, and open to others.

So, yeah.

That's my extra blog post for the moment.
You might get more, depends on my inspiration.