Well, to explain: I actually had work today. Instantly, that means that the day is automatically more productive from an adulting perspective than a normal Saturday is (since those are normally my day off).

So, that being there is something that I spent productive time on.

​Of course, subjectively, not productive since it's not furthering any of my goals aside from "continued employment" (which, to be fair, is a good goal to have, it's just not really a goal as I think of goals being).

I had a streamer who normally doesn't stream today but who I try to catch every stream of, streaming today which ate up 80% of the day. This is not really productive, but since I watch them every Tuesday Thursday Friday and Sunday, catching (most of) their stream and doing what I normally do there, was worth it overall.

That streamer played Stardew Valley and it was mentioned about "have you 100%ed it yet", and I haven't, but I know the two things I need to do: fishing and mining. (Mostly, monster-slaying.)

I'm still working on Stardew Valley farm stuff. I want to reorganize my things so that every single item I'm stacking multiple of has their own chest (maybe multiple) in a logical location, and that things I'm not stacking but are related, are grouped as well. I also want more farm animals, to max out my barns.

Beyond that, I want to optimize the beach farm, to make it be as space-efficient as possible, matching the efficiency of the greenhouse.

But mostly?

Mostly, I've done everything I want to. Wife and kid maintenance needs to be done daily, but I've completed basically everything else, and achieved everything I set out to do, pretty much. (I might have a golden walnut or two not found, but I'll check that next time I do a save file check.)

So I figured, "yaknow what, why don't we start progressing the two things I haven't?", so...I did exactly that! I caught 2/5 of the base legendary fish. In one day.

It's not complete, obv, but it's progress at least!

So, like.

Productivity-wise, not much done, but it wasn't nothing!

Today was also the 1-year anniversary of my having come out as a girl in real life to my family.

It had some fanfare to the occasion, but was mostly, not noteworthy. That's kinda disappointing, I admit. It was something that to me, is a very big deal, but like...there's no festivities to it.

I was trying to celebrate it with an art piece, but...

...This was meant to be just the background.

It was meant to have a complete drawing of me in it, with text having my name in it, too.

I started at the beginning of the month.

I barely got this much done.

So like.

I didn't get the fanfare done myself, so the lack of fanfare is mostly my own fault.

Ah well, it is what it is.

It's a huge event to me, but there's more to celebrate than just today, there will be future celebrations as long as I live.

I'm literally doing nothing with it.

The stars are aligning for me to have creativity.

So with everything going my way in terms of scheduling, I should be able to make something of it, right?

Right?

...As it turns out, no.

I couldn't figure out what I wanted to stream today, so I didn't stream, in spite of promising that I would stream. I've gathered a lot more attention to myself in the last couple of months, so if I got back into streaming, there's a fairly high chance I'd have people actually show up, which would get me to my goals.

But to get to those goals I'd need to actually stream, and I didn't.

I even opened XSplit to stream.
I didn't stream tho.

I have wanted to write a twitter thread or blog post about why my handle on twitter is, in contrast to where it is everywhere else (rBree2), why my handle there is The_Descended. And how I have had the inspiration to work a lot on that. (Speaking of which, mental reminder to myself to not forget about the rules of ghost procreation and Aria's brother's true middle/last name and Aria's true middle/last name and how I did the math wrong on Aria's age.)

I have the idea to work on the characters page and the art there, and I know I can do it.

I just need to actually do it.

I've wanted to work more on the Civ 3 mod, but never have made the time for it.

I've wanted to beat the Time Devourer in Chrono Trigger, and even told myself I'd do that today. I didn't.

I've wanted to continue the grind in FFVII. I didn't.

I have a bunch of blogs that I want to make, and my notes keep on piling up.

From yesterday, we've got an RPG game that combines from at least nine different sources. (Dungeons & Dragons all, Adventure Quest + Dragon Fable classes/monsters, MARDEK RPG all parts, Epic Battle Fantasy all 5, Majesty 1/2 Heroes/Items/Monsters, Gauntlet Dark Legacy characters/items, SaGa 1/2/3 all, Chrono Trigger all, Final Fantasy all.)

I've got notes for The Descended, and a lot on Davos specifically.

Today I had something to do with plurality that I want to vent about.

I've got a mafia article to finish writing.

I've got a mafia game to finish designing.

I've got a Team Fortress 2esque Wild West game idea to talk about.
I've got a Demonic Possession J-RPG game idea to talk about.

I've got to record/make twitter posts that I have had for months.

I've got an ambitious story idea ideally told in manga form about a Sci-Fi/Fantasy setting where it's basically a Fantasy setting set in the far future where it's effectively Star Wars, but more fantasy, with magic instead of the force and Paladins instead of Jedi and Death Knights instead of Sith and Light Blades instead of Lightsabers.

I've got an ambitious world idea which combines aspects of Marvel, DC, and other comics, and yet puts my own unique spin/twist on them.

I've still got that Power Rangers ramble to make.

I've got stream stuff to do.

I've got a song to finish writing, then perform.

​I have a bunch of art stuff that I want to do, notably, an art piece of me to complete by the 25th, which will be the one-year anniversary of my having come out.

I need to ask someone who made a gift piece of art of me if it's okay to use/share elsewhere.

I have all of that to do, and so, so, so much more.

And yet I did none of that.

I did do a couple things. I checked medical stuff, which I needed to do.
I made progress in Castle 4-0 in minecraft.

But most of my day was spent wasting time on League of Legends.

Granted, I'm progressing Challenges quite nicely, and it's actually fun!

It's just that.

I'm literally at 4:15 am and counting, and have done...nothing.

I'm not living.

I'm not making good use of my time.

I'm not doing tangible work of any time, or progressing any of my goals.

I've done nothing.

And again.

The stars literally aligned to give me the free time to have a chance to accomplish something.

I'm never going to get a better chance than this.

And yet I squandered it.

I haven't even done hygiene!

It's a miracle I've not forgotten my medication, at this rate.

But like.

I have so so so much that I have the potential to accomplish.

I have done none of it.

Not even the very-important-thing of the IRS mail I received that's a big scary thing I need to talk to work HR about.

​And don't get me wrong.
I get it.

I'm depressed.
Badly so.

But the things I did today were largely me running away from my problems.

It's not that I did them to have fun.

I did them to escape from the responsibilities I have.
I knew it was for that purpose when I started them.
And I knew it after I finished them.

That I was in a bad slump, and needed to do something in that time because it's impossible to do truly nothing.
But my reaction to being in the slump was to do the things that are as close as I can get to doing nothing.
I knew that going in, and I know it after.

I knew I would regret it going in, and sure enough I regret it after.

Yes, I am genuinely having fun playing League.

But I know that it is the worst possible usage of my time.

I genuinely can't think of a worse usage of my time. I can't sleep to waste the amount of time that game wasted. I can't listen to streams, just streams, for the amount of time that game wasted. So like.

What could I do which would possibly be even less productive?

Literally nothing.

I chose the least productive thing to do, effectively just to kill my mind and just...well, I've ceased to function already due to the depression, but I gamed the worst waste of time just because I didn't want to do anything to counter the depression and did the activity which most feeds into the depression.

The depression is bad.

And I am doing nothing about it.

I've felt bored out of my mind in the last two days, but the truth of the matter is, I've rejected literally every opportunity I was given to do anything satisfying.

So I am left here to rot.

Because I am wasting my life.

Why can't I just.

Do something?

Anything?

What makes it so hard for me to exist?

I haven't investigated the game I've been playing recently either.

I'm doing nothing.

This blog is the most productive I've been all week, and it's just a rant about how I've not been productive all week.

​So that really says something about how pathetic I am, doesn't it?

I can't even read comics/novels/TVTropes/etc. to satisfy my urges.

Nothing I am doing is working.

I just want to be something resembling anything right now.

But I'm not.
​And I never will be.

Or at least, mostly finished it. First, let's show a couple of the extra work in progress states.

And now, the "final" image:

Now, it's not perfect.

At the top, the hair is too "thick", extending too far out. The hair basically has a straight trajectory from the top in a diagonal line to the bottom--it should be more of a curve, going from where it is at the bottom in an upward curve that ends around the ears or so. So basically, the hair at the head should start at around where the black tentacle shoulder is, falling straight down from there and then curving out to the final location, rather than the much further forward starting spot seen.

I forgot to draw the toes, and also left out drawing fingernails.

I didn't add what's the term? Line width? Line depth? Stroke width? I'm drawing a blank on the term to use, but basically, making the lineart get thicker and thinner at different points rather than being uniformly thick.

This is a more "casual" look at Elemental Ruby, so I didn't have the different eye colors, the red claws or swirling vortex on the tentacle side or the mask on her face. (The idea I wanted to draw was a midway point between her being in battle form and relaxed form. Relaxed form is Future-Ruby in her default state eventually; combat/battle form is the fully combat-oriented Elemental Ruby as originally envisioned.)

The light fibers look more like lightning than they do strings of pure light; the anatomy, proportions, and perspectives are all a little bit off. There are a bunch of things that could be better if I spent time fixing them, and others I don't know how to fix.

The darkness tentacles don't really come through and the hair being alternating strands of black and gold I also didn't quite convey perfectly, aside from the flow of the hair not being perfect.

That, aside from the issues I pointed out in my blog post from yesterday. The pose I'm not 100% happy about.
The proportions, anatomy, and perspective are all not quite right. There's a lot of funky things that are a little "off", that aren't quite right. Its anatomical flaws are definitely present, among them being the thinness and length of her legs as well as the shape of her torso.

I'm not sure I like the lip/lipstick. I wanted it to be visible on her vampire grin, but I'm not sure it comes off properly.

The blade thigh bands are too low, and should be higher up.

The arm covered in light fibers, I actually don't know how to draw, and it shows.

The light fibers look a lot like lightning, and I'm not sure how to convey that they are fibers made of light rather than jolts of lightning shooting out.

The alternating hair between gold/black I didn't get to be my vision perfectly; the capes/wings don't quite work as I want them to; the dark tendrils don't look like dark tendrils; the light fibers don't look like light fibers, both on the arm and on the extensions; everything that was "hard" to do on the image, I ended up not actually matching my vision.

But I took a look back at the spot where I originally envisioned Elemental Ruby and how I did compared to my original vision there. Some things, just changed: the default dress color at some point shifted from red to black. The second hair color to alternate with black at some point shifted from brown to gold. The wing/capes swapped color sides at some point (I think this was for better symmetry?).

And other things were left out as part of this not being part of the vision for what I wanted to make. I didn't want fully full casual Elemental Ruby, the default look for Future-Ruby, but I also didn't want to draw the full combat-ready Elemental Ruby that would include the mask, claws, swirling vortex, etc. so this was my go-to for an in-between, a partial combat form where Ruby has summoned darkness around her right arm, fibers around her left arm, and wings, but hasn't fully powered up, a sort of "display" of power without really putting power in, as it were.

So like. I rate this as being about 80% effective. It's not 100% my vision. It's not what I was hoping to make. But it gets darn close, for an image that I said I couldn't make circa three years ago. Now, granted. I did it entirely digital, when I really wanted to do sketches of it. (And to be fair, I think I can in fact do partial sketches of it and then stitch them together digitally.)

But it's still passable in conveying most of the idea that I was hoping to convey.

So remember this?

This was me attempting to draw Elemental Ruby, as in, Ruby Scarlet Ventrella, protagonist of Red Hood Rider, in her ultimate/final form, so ultimate that it is only unlocked after the story has actually ended.

It was good!

It was really good.

But I thought I could do better.

​So I made the decision to start over with a different approach.

Now, it's not perfect.
The pose I'm not 100% happy about.
The proportions, anatomy, and perspective are all not quite right. There's a lot of funky things that are a little "off", that aren't quite right. Its anatomical flaws are definitely present, among them being the thinness and length of her legs as well as the shape of her torso.

I'm not sure I like the lip/lipstick. I wanted it to be visible on her vampire grin, but I'm not sure it comes off properly.

The blade thigh bands are too low, and should be higher up.

The arm covered in light fibers, I actually don't know how to draw, and it shows.

The light fibers look a lot like lightning, and I'm not sure how to convey that they are fibers made of light rather than jolts of lightning shooting out.

But overall?

Overall, it's going incredibly well.

I'll need more layers for the skin, and everything left for me to draw is insanely hard. The alternating hair, the darkness tentacles, and the wings are all going to be tremendously difficult for me to figure out how to display.

But I was inspired, and overall, I am already insanely proud of what I have done so far. So, I've done a lot today and I am proud of my work.

The good:
-I streamed.
-I made significant progress on new stream background.
-I uploaded a youtube video.
-I also uploaded said video to tiktok too.
-I got the damned Elder Drake. (Still need the force of nature tho.)
-I might've finished hyper-roll placements, too?

The bad:
-I still haven't done the commands I said to do.
-I want to tweak the logo used.
-I need to do more extensive TOS research on YT.
-I haven't done the networking I should.
-I completely and entirely have been absent from the mafia site for effectively half a week now.
-I've not gone through my, very fragile, very numerous, very prone to being lost/scattered/damaged/etc. notes to get their info securely stored.

Well, it's a mixed bag, but I say that while the number of good is matched by the bad, the good is stronger than the bad overall.

​Gotta keep pushing tho.

I still need to continue my TFT grind. I did grind a little in FFVII getting the limit breaks I wanted but I need to get the max materia that I am chasing after.

I still need to write everything down.

I need to stay on top of hygiene better.

I've got a lot to do and no time today as I spent it all already.

Oh and tomorrow I need to stream. I need to remember to do that, too.

Probably will be doing an art stream, actually, but I need to download the art program I want to use. (I know that I should be learning Krita and I know that I replaced GIMP with FireAlpacca for a reason and Krita is allegedly better than both, but I don't know how to do what I want to do in Krita or FireAlpaca but I do know how to do it in GIMP.)

​So much I need to get done in such a short amount of time.

The new TFT set just dropped so I want to play a ton of TFT. (I am already disappointed that I played as little as I did.)
I still want to play more Final Fantasy VII.
I still want to work on my civ 3 mod.
I came up with an idea for my streaming starting screen which I need to draw.

​So much to do, so little time. (Depression not helping either.)

It's actually setting me up fairly well for content creation. I've began my youtube channel, so now I feel like I have all the socials I need to update things. I need intertwining across them all.

Youtube to all;
My blog to all;
Twitch to all;
My fanhouse to all;
My tiktok to all;
My twitter to all.
Maybe facebook.

I've done a fair amount of the work but as of right now for instance only three of the five/six are on my blog for instance and the gaps are similar everywhere. Twitter needs an update, twitch needs a small tweak, youtube might need a tweak, fanhouse needs an update, and so on and so forth.

I also need to, in every place that allows it, update my discord info to have them all.

Progress is progress tho and I'm making a ton.

I feel like I am on the verge of a breakthrough in content creation.

Now, admittedly.

I didn't do what I originally set out to do during my free time today.

I wanted to make emotes for my eventual channel.

And on that note--I've got a lot of art on a lot of sites that needs to be updated with better art. Which requires me to actually make the better art.

What I have everywhere. From my stream itself to my youtube to my blog to my twitch to my fanhouse to my twitter, all of it is temporary. I need to create, and then upload, better art everywhere, and get better at being more consistent in my branding.

​Today basically in a few hours makes up for basically a full week of having slacked off.

Now, granted.

It's not all good.

I spotted either a very large mouse or a fairly small rat in my room. (Could be some other rodent obviously that's similar, but obviously didn't get a good look at it.) It's possible we have an infestation, but I can't sleep in my room, meaning that I need to clean my room, and I didn't do that.

The rat infestation might be just one which also moved to my parents' room, or it could be more. It's not a good situation regardless tho, especially given that we have cats and while cats are quite good at killing rodents, we don't want them to because our cats are inside cats and we don't want them to get sick from killing disease-ridden rodents.

So it's a problem we need to fix sooner rather than later.

​But in other news, I managed to write a song. It was inspired by Yungblud's Fleabag.
(parentheses denote original lyrics which I reworded outside of the parentheses, except for the bridge)

I called it "Passing the Clock".
While I did get a tune for it, I lack the means currently to record it (the above was all me working towards getting that gap closed more), so for now, all you have is the lyrics.

[verse 1]
Every attempt to live my life
Just an act, balance on a knife.
It's a struggle for me, but I must try
The world's crushing (pressure's strong), (so) I barely get by.

From a distance, I'm smiling
But close to the mirror, my heart sinks
(The) Imperfection's glares not helping
Cracks in my disguise, my armor's chink.

[prechorus]
I'm not hook, I'm not bait;
It's not easy, controlling fate.
How you look, what you say
Every move, you ever make

One mistake, is all it takes
For them to see,
The you you hate.

[chorus]
Passing the time
Is always a fight.
I fear the clock;
I wonder why?

One wrong sight
And I'm not fine.
I must block
The urge to cry.

[verse 2]
Every day brings new danger to me
The way I walk, the way I talk, all exposing
I'm not who they thought, a loss of peace
Or so they say, in their hate, all encompassing

Avoiding attention, it's not for clout;
I want to be seen, that's no doubt
But only as me, standing so proud.
A sense of elation, is that allowed?

[prechorus]
I'm not hook, I'm not bait;
It's not easy, controlling fate.
How you look, what you say
Every move, you ever make

One mistake, is all it takes
For them to see,
The you you hate.

[chorus]
Passing the time
Is always a fight.
I fear the clock;
I wonder why?

One wrong sight
And I'm not fine.
I must block
The urge to cry.

[bridge, sung by a backup singer]
(The way you do your hair,)
(The way you sit in a chair,)
(The clothes that you wear,)
(Your life's not fair.)

(The way you do your hair,)
(The way you sit in a chair,)
(The clothes that you wear,)
(Your life's not fair.)

(the bridge then repeats, simultaneous to the prechorus)

[prechorus]
I'm not hook, (The way you do your hair,) I'm not bait;
It's not easy, (The way you sit in a chair,) controlling fate.
How you look, (The clothes that you wear,) what you say
Every move, you ever make
(Your life's not fair.)
One mistake, is all it takes
For them to see,
The you you hate.

[chorus]
Passing the time
Is always a fight.
I fear the clock;
I wonder why?

One wrong sight
And I'm not fine.
I must block
The urge to cry.

Passing the time
Is always a fight.
I fear the clock;
I wonder why?
(song abruptly ends)

​It is, quite obviously, a song about a transgender individual. I kept it reasonably generic, but, yes, it is a bit about me. I've been working a fair amount to try and be more feminine in every aspect of my life. I can't do voice that well yet but I will do what I can there. I'm working on my walk, I'm working on how I sit, I just want to try and be seen as more feminine, and I might be progressing there? But it's a constant struggle.

Still, though. I feel like I'm making progress there.

So good day overall.

It's not that I've done nothing, it's that after having done something I was up at a late enough time and/or so tired that I didn't write a blog (or remember to). It was time well spent tho, as I've been streaming Final Fantasy VII. (I also kinda want to look into putting my streams on Youtube, considered doing that today when I had the free time but I'm selfish so I prioritized other things that I probably shouldn't have put so much focus on.)

I will say this though.

I want to be a good streamer.

I want to be competent.

I want to be better.

I literally put in some time to create a background, starting screen, and break screen (tho I should also get a stream ending screen). I figured out how to put text on the screen of the stream.

I realize the art is terrible (MS Paint 5 minute art), and I need to replace it with better art once inspired. (I talked about this at the end of one of my streams--basically, I have seen plenty of starting/break/ending screens and how they handle overlays. But I need to be inspired in order to make a good one for myself. I can create it myself, but in order to do so, I need to have a vision on what I want to create, and I currently lack one.)

​But I still put in that attempt to improve.

And yet, it's still not good enough.

My streams are terrible.

The content of them can be good! The passion I have for Chrono Trigger is something that bridged how terrible the streams otherwise would be. The passion I have for FFVII similarly so! And my facial reactions, when I can show them on stream, are potentially entertaining. (Also there's occasional kitteh content.)

But the quality of the stream isn't great. I don't carry myself in a way which makes me a good streamer. And the stream lacks good bells and whistles. It's in a bad format. My equipment isn't great. My layout is slopping. My commands, my titles, everything, it's not great. It gets the job done, but getting the job done isn't good enough.

If I want to actually succeed as a streamer.

I need to get to a point where my streams are not terrible.

I have ideas on how to improve.

But right now all of them are just ideas.

They're not realized.

Some of my bigger fans, so to speak, will be supportive and say that I'm not terrible in my streams. After all, the content of them can be good! My passion for games can show, my reactions can be gold! (And bonus kitteh content is always welcome.) They would point that out, maybe add things like 'soothing', 'calm', 'chill', 'good to just vibe in', etc.

But the fact of the matter is, if they didn't know me already and want to support me already, they wouldn't be in my stream. They'd be elsewhere. They wouldn't find my content and stick around and stay--why would they? I don't have the streamer sense to be able to captivate new people coming in. I can't really show them how much I love their presence, how much I appreciate them, how much I want to vibe with them.

I'm autistic. I can't speak well. I don't know what to do, say, how to say it, and that's if I'm able to at all given that my streams frequently have no-mic periods thanks to my family.

​So by every metric, every objective rather than subjective metric, my streams are terrible.

I know that I can make them be better. At least theoretically. I know that they're already adequate, thanks to being hard-carried by the games I'm playing having such staying power that they bring folks in. But while the games I'm playing can keep me afloat.

I won't have made it until I have streams which have people show up and stay not out of obligation to me due to being friends/associates. But stay because they genuinely think my streams are worth watching no matter what. For people who have never interacted with me before, never seen me around. To come, see what I'm doing, and think that it's worth staying around for more because I've got a good thing going.

Nobody who is a current viewer of mine is capable of giving me that, or reassuring me that I have that, because all of my current viewers are said friends and associates, who have interacted with me before. They've seen me around. So they have those preexisting biases towards me. It needs to be from a complete and total stranger. And so far? I don't have it.

And right now, why would I?

I don't actually have a good thing going.

I have the potential to have a good thing going.

I have ideas, oh so many ideas, which if realized would elevate me to a much higher level.

But the ideas are unrealized and because they're unrealized? It means that the potential is just that. Potential, not actual. My streams are terrible.

I literally ended stream today and went "god I'm terrible at this". I actually had much stronger language than that, albeit language I've since forgotten in the process of writing this blog. (I actually started writing this blog specifically because I'd already tweeted so wanted to write down the thought in another medium, thinking that I'd make a one-liner blog. Turned out I had a bit more to say than that...and in the process, forgot what I was going to say originally.)

But whatever the sentence is that I was going to say, the sentiment still carries weight.

I hated myself for ending stream when I did. I wanted to keep going. And I realized just how bad my stream was the moment I stopped. It didn't end satisfactory. It wasn't something I felt good about. It was too short, and not only was it short, the content wasn't good. I wasn't on top of my game. I wasn't being full of commentary, reactions, etc. I was just...going through the motions.

And that makes it one of the worst streams I've done in months.

​I need to do better because that was unacceptably terrible.

In my defense...

...I've been really really busy with work.

Work has been going really well.

It's just that I've been way way way too swamped with the growing pains there for a blog.

I'll be blogging later in the week, doing more, but right now, just trying to work, do all the work, get in to work, and be good there.