I'm writing this at work, so knowing me, I'll inevitably end up not posting any of it, but who knows, maybe I do air this out anyway.
When I say I'm depressed, it's usually not too bad--a little down, demotivated, the like. Something which is discouraging and a little detrimental, but not outright crippling. So there's this expectation of people; when I say I'm depressed, it's usually not a big deal, because being bipolar, I'm almost always at least a little depressed.

...But it is a big deal, because this? This isn't that. Thiiiis is a downward spiral where I'm an emotional wreck. Here in the real world, I'm having trouble smiling--and when I do, it's often because I feel I "should". The only times I really smile are when I retreat from reality into my fantasy realm.

The fantasy that I'm a genuinely good person. In that world, I have breasts, a vagina, a warm smile and demeanor, am highly empathetic, soft-spoken in a pleasant way, and yet a bit of a deadpan snarker. Lighthearted, yet caring about others and showing them the compassion they need and deserve, understanding them.

...But that world doesn't exist. Elements of it could, EVENTUALLY, exist; I can eventually fully transition, for instance, and do fully plan to. I certainly want to. But here in the now, even if they could...they DON'T. I don't have any of those traits; the closest I come is being able to have a phantom projection of breasts and such, of the appropriate anatomy feeling like it's already there. But aside from that, they're nonexistent.

...Yet dysphoria isn't my issue right now. It adds fuel to the existing flame. I've been having it bad, sure, yeah, but it's only worsening the already-existing problem; the illusion that I'm in any way shape or form an okay person is shattering into a million pieces no thanks to the depression.

I am not a good person.
I am a toxic leech. I suck people dry, until they just accept that this is the way I am. I beat them into submission, to following my will, just so that I can live my self-centered self-destructive lifestyle with a semblance of being carefree. I sap from people and give them nothing in return.

At every stage, I manipulate people. Every turn, I control them. I get them to do what I want, and get them to not cause me to do anything I don't want to do. I'm hostile, volatile, uncaring, unsympathetic, and unapologetic about all these traits to boot. And more. I'm not a liar, not deliberately anyway (I fully admit that I lie to myself all the time, of which I only realize about half are lies, and pretend I didn't because it's easier to think I told the truth), but there's often the feeling of being intellectually dishonest, misleading people deliberately.

I objectively know that it's not all bad. That I have genuinely done some good on occasion. That I have, legitimately, helped to enrich some peoples' lives--but it's incredibly difficult in my depression to not see it through the self-inflicted lens of absolute selfishness. All those times that I helped others, all those times that I did good?

They weren't from altruism, they weren't out of the goodness of my heart, because it was the right thing to do. I wanted to get something out of it, and almost always did. I've improved some peoples' lives, sure, but even when doing so...
...Usually the method I used was highly, highly manipulative.

Maybe not consciously, which is arguably even worse. I manipulated people into having better lives by manipulation, and the thought that it was so easy and so subconscious is worse, because it speaks to my character that I was able to pull off the manipulation flawlessly without even thinking about manipulating them.

So all in all.

Right now I feel like I'm just...a toxic person.

I've always known that I'm a toxic person.
But I'm feeling it now.

I'm just.
Just...full of that self-loathing, and the thought of me disappearing making no negative difference in the world right now.

Don't get worried about me being suicidal, this is a distinctly different thought process than that.

But given how much I take.
And how little I give back.
​It's hard not to venture down that road.

It's been getting worse rather than better over the last few days.
It doesn't help that I'm having trouble staying asleep.
It's not that I go to sleep, then wake up, like, half an hour later--but I quite often will wake up every few hours or so, in spite of knowing that I need more sleep.

Worsening the barrier: after I've gotten six hours of sleep, I hit a wall when trying to get more sleep. I'll wake up, do the mental math, realize, "...Six hours?!? That's enough normally, but I'm sick! I need more sleep!", try...try...keep trying...but...
...NOPE!
...I'm awake, awake for good.

When I say that I only need six hours of sleep, this is why I know it to be true--because even when I try to get more, I can't. It's not tied to a circadian rhythm, either--that'd imply that the time I wake up is automatic. Except it doesn't matter. I go to bed at 2, I wake up at 8-9. I go to bed at 4, I wake up at 10-11. I go to bed at 5, I wake up at like noon.

If I'm lucky, I can get an extra hour or two of sleep in, to maybe push it up to eight--after having woken up, and instead of failing, succeeding...for a while.

Mind you, this is also one of the reasons why I don't go to sleep before midnight, quite often--yes it's true that I can't really get to sleep before midnight, but even if I did, that'd cause me to wake up way too early, because...say I need to wake up at 10 and went to bed at midnight; I'd wake up at 8, and that'd be torturous for me. (I'm a night owl, not a morning bird; I don't know how to handle spare time in the morning, whereas I know how to occupy myself when having spare time at night.)

Soyeah.
I need more sleep.
My body's refusing to give me more sleep. 

On the bright side, since I'm feeling too sick to attend to obligations for the most part (also not helping there, physical sickness + mental sickness = self-feeding loop, and when I'm sick with something, it therefore mixes with my bipolar disorder, draining away at my mental health, sapping my spare batteries), that's left me spare time to work on pet projects of mine.

Which, yes, means Across the Ages - Mediterranean is something I've worked on.
I finished the Rise of Rome map overlay, and briefly took a look at the maps I'd need later--I even got the art program downloaded.

Except no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the dimensions to fit.
Even if I got Pelusium and Byzantium to both match up, and even if they were at the right angles, the rest of the map's scaling was entirely off, and there was no fix.

I tried partial copy-pastes, to limited success. What it ended up looking like was more or less, me pasting usable pieces of Mesopotamia into the Rise of Rome map, replacing/expanding/augmenting what was there, with me removing parts from Mesopotamia not needed and me copying pieces of Rise I wanted to keep over Mesopotamia in the spots where Mesopotamia otherwise overrode Rise.

Which, mind you, could work--except it rather self-evidently wasn't going to be what I was after.

So I decided to give up on that.

Normally, that level of giving up would condemn the project to death--I can't figure out a way to smoothly recreate a map that uses Mesopotamia's scale, but includes Rise of Rome's rest of the Mediterranean which is expanded in the Middle Ages and through Napoleon with features of Age of Discovery.
My entire goal.

I wanted to do that--and I can't.

Like I said, that's the kind of thing which is usually a deathblow, spelling an end to the idea altogether.

But there's one tried and true method I've yet to employ.

A little thing called "trial and error".
More error than trial, but I am going to, bit by bit, manually, try to recreate the map, as I envision it. I went for 200 x 200 as a starting point, so we'll have to see if this ends up being the right scale. Mind you, I will need to, constantly, be revising these. Not a little, a lot. Every new map, I'll need to make adjustments to terrain--and so much as a single tile's difference could force me to radically alter the entire rest of the map.

Painstakingly, excruciatingly, slow, meticulous, methodical work.

But it is the only way, and I think I can do it.
With difficulty, but it's doable.

Just...not easily.

Initial estimates, by the way: either 200 x 200 isn't big enough, or I am making my Mesopotamia-scaled map too big and misjudged the scaling. Probably both.

This'll take me a while to fine-tune.

They revolve around the fact that I am sick today.
I should have obligations to attend to today--thaaaaat's not happening; I'm REALLY not up for any of them today.
Which I know will cost me big time in the long-run, but when I say I'm not up for them.
I'm just.
Not up for them.

Anything I'd do out of a sense of obligation, even if said obligation was purely to my own selfishness, I'm not up for today; the only things I'm up for today are things that I'd WANT to do.

So sure, if an obligation becomes something I want to do, I'll do it, but chances are that won't happen and instead I'll be doing other things. Like spend time with my girlfriend, or work on my civ 3 mod. (More on that in a sec.)

I did want to mention that I revisited an old idea for a game I had; a tower defense game taking a few mechanics from my favorite tower defense games (notably, Defender's Quest and Gemcraft)...but giving my own very specific spin on things that make my game innately unique and original--while it is a tower defense game, what it is also is a Time Management game (and resource management); the whole idea behind the game is that it is literally impossible to win a level unless you are using your time to min-max your defenses.

I developed a whole bunch of really neat, mostly-original mechanics, albeit ones which rather a number have obvious inspirations, and some of them are brand new to today while others have been with the idea for as long as I've had it. (And this idea is like...five, eight, years old. Somewhere in that range; it is not at all a new one. Quite often, I'll come back and revisit/revise/revitalize old ideas I've not thought about in years, and this was one such occasion.)

The main thing I did today, however, was create the plot for the game. I had an idea for the first level of the game before--and that was it. Originally, I think I had the idea that after the first level, things would continue a specific way. I decided that there'd be a better route to take, one which is entirely all the more genius with the levels and intricacy of what I build.

The mechanics mesh beautifully with the lore I established, and the plot is coherent featuring quite the cast of characters. I love the game idea, it's probably my second-favorite tower defense game I've ever designed (the favorite being a game which was blatantly self-plagiarizing from Disease, one of my pet novels...which I liked so much that Disease stole a central mechanic idea from the game, plagiarizing from the plagiarizing to be reintegrated with the original source material, but I digress).

Would be fully doable, too, if I could program in, oh, say, Flash, and could create the art assets I'd need and whatnot. Since I can't, it'll remain a fantasy in my head, though. I could technically share details on it...but this is an idea so good, I don't want to.

Yes I know, that means that I'll probably forget the genius ideas I came up with, both today and originally. (Heck I'm pretty sure I only remember about 80% of the originally planned game mechanics.) But this is one idea where I can play it out in my mind and I quite like doing so. The only incentive I'd have to bring it outside of my head is if I could actually make it reality--without a programmer volunteering and without a pixel artist volunteering (they'd also need to make faces for portraits that aren't pixels even though the art aside from portraits is pixels), it's not happening.

And since nobody reads my blog pretty much, and the few who do are so busy/swamped with real life they'd never have the commitment/free time to help me make it even if they had the appropriate skills...there's no way it's going to happen.

Alas.

What might happen, however, is my Across the Ages scenario.

I have documented (I rediscovered my actual workaround--a pray to whatever relevant gods are involved, where I copy everything, close ALL word files, keep the clipboard, reopen word, and paste it) every building and unit that, as of this moment, I can think of that'd be included. (At least, I think. I'll at some point need to double-check, but I think I'm good.)

Not the details for them.
Heck I don't have all the possible details that need to be documented for them listed at the top of them.
But I've more or less indexed them alphabetically.

What I need to do still is more or less, then, the following:
-I need to see which scenarios feature what governments. Some I know are Vanilla-only; some I know are one-scenario-only (e.g. Protestant Monarchy); the others, I need to form comparisons and see if I can potentially find compromises.

(I want each and every government to provide a distinct advantage, and for there to be no clear superior government. However, I do want slight favoritism to Imperialism as a cross-ages government, with its main rival in ancient times as the Tribal Council, Feudalism providing some viable alternative, Democracy providing a second alternative, and Fascism plus Communism being lategame rivals to it.)

-I need to group technologies together by type. What technologies make sense as working together in a progression.
-I need to also calculate how many techs I can fit in the science tree.

-I need to do the thing I just mentioned I haven't done--get all the possible details that needed to be documented, at the top of them.
-Eventually, but not right now because that'd take insanely long, I need to get said details from each and every scenario, including a vanilla civ 3 conquests game.

-I need to finish my terrain-tile-by-terrain-tile documentation of Mesopotamia, then do it for Rise, Middle Ages, Napoleon, and some of Discovery. (Top northeast corner of map.)

-I need to find the map of the world and document where the modern resources are on it, in the relevant areas.
-Not an immediate task since I need to do some of the other things below first, but: I need to document where there's resource shortages, beit luxury or strategic, and when they're present, see if I can fix it.

-I need to create a map overlay of Rise of Rome, The Middle Ages, Napoleon, and the northeast section of Age of Discovery. (This is something incredibly useful, but it is also quite challenging and rather meticulous to make. Mesopotamia was a 5800 x 2800 pixel file. Which, yes, was as huge as you'd expect, at 21 MB.)
-I need to download an art program with layers.
-I need to use said art program to manipulate the overlays such that key points common on them overlap, hitting as many key points as is possible.

I'll only be able to use two overlays at a time--but that's all I'll need, in order to get the job done. Because what these overlays are meant to accomplish is to establish exact parameters for my map (which for now I'm having as 200 x 200, hoping that's about right--but I'll be making said overlays before I'll be trying to make the map for real).

-I'll also need to document the location of cities in Age of Discovery, Napoleonic Era, The Middle Ages, Fall of Rome, and Rise of Rome, to try and get as many non-mutually-exclusive ones set up.

-Then comes the other stuff I mentioned last time.
Figuring out how to get created scenarios to track scores.
Wonder interaction fixes.
Resource display in cities.
Music from all scenarios, separated into appropriate ages.
Civ contacts being what I want.
Also stuff on the map that I know how to do more or less (cities, fog of war), just need to do them.

I'm making progress, though--quite a bit, in fact!

I just need to put the work in, bit by slow bit.

​It's coming together quite nicely, if I do say so myself.

Working title is "Hey there You". It goes like this: 
Hey there you, I can see your look;
Hey there you, I know you're shook.
I might not read you like I would a book,
But I'll help you through, until you're good.

Hey there you, it's okay to be bad;
Hey there you, I can tell you're sad.
It may surprise you, but I've got your back;
I know too, what it's like to lack.


I'm not that good, I'm no angel.
But I'll act like one, to save you from hell.
I'm not skilled, I don't know what to say.
But I'll try, hope I can make your day.

I'm not that strong, I can't carry much.
But when you're down, I'll lift you up.
I'm always here, to help you smile.
Might not be what you need, but you're worthwhile.

I'm not that good, I'm no angel.
But I'll act like one, to save you from hell.
I'm not skilled, I don't know what to say.
But I'll try, hope I can make your day.

I'm not that strong, I can't carry much.
But when you're down, I'll lift you up.
I'm always here, to help you smile.
Might not be what you need, but you're worthwhile.


Hey there you, your pain is real;
Hey there you, it's something I feel.
I may not be you, but I'll help you heal;
If I choose, it's to help you deal.

Hey there you, harsh life can be.
Hey there you, you can stand by me.
If I help you, it is not a cheat;
I'm here to do, whatever you need.


I'm not that good, I'm no angel.
But I'll act like one, to save you from hell.
I'm not skilled, I don't know what to say.
But I'll try, hope I can make your day.

I'm not that strong, I can't carry much.
But when you're down, I'll lift you up.
I'm always here, to help you smile.
Might not be what you need, but you're worthwhile.

I'm not that good, I'm no angel.
But I'll act like one, to save you from hell.
I'm not skilled, I don't know what to say.
But I'll try, hope I can make your day.

I'm not that strong, I can't carry much.
But when you're down, I'll lift you up.
I'm always here, to help you smile.
Might not be what you need, but you're worthwhile.

I'm not that good, I'm no angel.
But I'll act like one, to save you from hell.
I'm not skilled, I don't know what to say.
But I'll try, hope I can make your day.

I'm not that strong, I can't carry much.
But when you're down, I'll lift you up.
I'm always here, to help you smile.
Might not be what you need, but you're worthwhile.

I'm not that good, I'm no angel.
But I'll act like one, to save you from hell.
I'm not skilled, I don't know what to say.
But I'll try, hope I can make your day.

I'm not that strong, I can't carry much.
But when you're down, I'll lift you up.
I'm always here, to help you smile.
Might not be what you need, but you're worthwhile.



...I was a little inspired by some disco song I heard on the way home when writing this, if it helps you place it.
​I'd sing it, but...I'm sick. Again.

If for no other reason than going to work will actually serve to kickstart me into gear. Right now I know my internal engine is dead. I've had all the free time in the world--could blog about anything I want to. Everything. No distractions, no excuses, nothing.

And yet.

I am coming up...empty.

Something about work versus home, different head spaces. When I'm home, I just have this insatiable urge to do a combination of read, play games, and watch videos. And even though I know the moment it ends I'll be kicking myself at the time wasted. "Why the heck didn't I do that while I had the chance?!?" I do want it to end, so that I'll at least be able to have the realization of what I was wasting. A break from the bored monotony.

Sure, yeah, days were beginning to blend together from the monotony of work before.

But then I got my break.

And now things are beginning to blend together from the monotony of not working. It's a balance between being able to shut my brain down and being able to keep it working. Too much work, can't keep it working; too little work, can't shut it down. Or something to that effect anyway.

​Point being, I need to keep working in order to stay sane, because I really don't have anything right now otherwise.

​Kinda pathetic, innit?

How much? Six and a half inches, snow. Enough where we have maybe one car capable of getting out? Most of us were certainly staying home today, including me. Fortunately, I didn't need to tell my boss that I couldn't come due to inclement weather, because my boss told me that our facility was closed for today. (Did need to cancel my counseling appointment tho.)

It is cold and it is not gonna melt and even if it did melt it's gonna refreeze which is even worse than before the melt. (Funny thing, ice is ten times more dangerous than snow. Snow's not much worse than water; ice is...well, ice. And melted snow refrozen makes solid sheets of it.) Meaning I probably won't be going to tae kwon do tomorrow, either. (Which kinda sucks, as I said I would and it's the first day of a new session for the lil' kids class. But, safety first.)

Being trapped at home on a day I didn't intend to be left me realizing...it is immensely, tremendously, overwhelmingly, boring because I am still in that recovering position of not really knowing what to do because I still don't feel like :efforting:. Mostly, I messed around for a few hours in Majesty (someone figured out a quest turning Majesty into a tower defense game of sorts, and then released a mod based on that quest for guardhouses which upgrades them further than the mods existing, allowing for lots of fun).

I also have made significant progress on the story of Worms. I'm ending the night having just finished Interlude 14--by my understanding, not even remotely close to finished with the story and it certainly doesn't feel that way. There are events which I know happen (TVTropes spoilers, the very thing that got me into reading Worms in the first place). One or two, I can kinda sorta see as maybe being close, but the others are events that in order to transpire (which I know they do), require significant setup (which hasn't happened yet), setup that doesn't just magically appear out of thin air.

So, slow and steady progress to go. Reading a comment at circa 12 posted in like 2018, I seem to recall them stating, "not even a third of the way through", and that wouldn't surprise me in the least. It is a thoroughly entertaining read, and I'm actually a little miffed at one little thing; Shatterbird's control over glass (which extends to Silicone) is pretty much exactly the power one of my heroes (canonical to the Rubyverse) has; he even goes by the codename of Silicone.

Ah well. The OP nature of that power (in a bad future, said character is one of less than ten superheroes/supervillains left alive in the dieing Earth and could continue to exist even after literally every single other person died; through time travel where he basically inserts himself into the pass, said future is averted and thus his present-self is significantly weaker than that and rather deliberately keeps himself rather weak since he hates his future self's guts and both share the sentiment of him not wanting to walk that path a second time, but I digress) is bound to be something others would be aware of.

Anyway, at least I'm not sick like I thought, and didn't have stress of work to make it worse. Also, we haven't lost power. Obviously, saying that is tempting fate, but realistically speaking, if we were going to lose power, we probably would have already. The snow stopped falling; the melting and refreezing could knock out power, but is incredibly unlikely to, and even if it did. It remains true that so far, it hasn't, which remains a blessing in my books.

I think that's all I can think of to say, so probably gonna go to bed now.

Coldest it's been all season, cold. Cold enough to snow fairly decently, cold. Not helping is that I have a twinge in the back of my throat suggesting I may have a cold. Did I mention it's cold?

I kinda just want to curl up in a blanket and just stay there for a very long time. Mental state may also contribute--or rather, emotional state; right now, I mostly feel like doing things that are neither physically nor mentally exerting, where I can do stuff like watch anime, read stuff, mindlessly play video games, the like. No real thinking, no real acting.

And yet.

Inevitably.

I know I'm going to have a hard time tomorrow due to the all-day work day.

It kinda feels like I am. Hard to describe, but right now it's kinda a, "I want to throw away all obligations and responsibilities to just do what I want to, not what I ought to.", if that makes sense.

But there's no better way for me to say it.
I've just had a really shitty day and I just.
I don't want to talk about it.
And feel like curling up into a ball to die.

This might surprise you.

The thing which I hate most about work.

Is not anything to do with work.

It's all me.

What happened to me today, is not at all an uncommon occurrence to happen--in fact, it's quite typical, and that's why it's so frustrating when it happens.

I will develop a thought which I want to ramble on when I get home from work.
I intend to ramble on it when I get home from work.
But then.
Once I actually get home.
I just...don't feel like writing it anymore.

I was passionate about this. I took measures to ensure I'd write it. I not only wrote down all the notes on what I was to ramble about (as to make sure I didn't forget), I wrote as much as I could in the space I had available and in the time constraints I had. (Okay so that was mostly during my lunch break and after my shift ended, as to avoid slacking on the job, butstill.)

I knew that if I didn't pre-write the blog, I would probably convince myself not to make it.
So I pre-wrote it.

Except.

It's a worse effect than I anticipated.
In spite of me having known at the time I wrote it that this could happen.
In spite of me having known at the time I wrote it that I really wanted to make it then and that I wouldn't have that passion when home.
I underestimated my "ugh" factor.

Because I just don't feel like it. In spite of knowing how I felt before.

This ramble was going to be hands-down the longest ramble of the year, making it most likely my longest blog entry of the year as well.

And I have the time for it.
I have all the time in the world.
I don't have anything better to do.
I'm not doing anything productive tonight.
So I really have no excuse, no distraction, nothing to keep me from doing it. There is nothing that should keep me from talking about this. I was even counting on that. That between the sheer boredom I'd have and the overabundance of time and lack of tasks to do (I did everything I needed to yesterday, leaving me with nothing to do today), would be enough where I'd just do it by default.

...Except I'm not.

The feeling's not there right now.
In spite of being there all day at work.
And you know the worst part of this?
It will be there again at work tomorrow.
And it will be gone when home from work tomorrow.

And every. single. day. This is what happens to me.
You know the number of ideas which I don't so much as mention on my blog, due to this? Quite a few. The lucky ones have writing to record the surface of their existence, even if the depths of them are known only to me. The really lucky ones actually get a mention. But mostly? Mostly they just...stay in my head, and disappear.

And that is the absolute worst thing, for most of these things.
Because many of them I instantly know are good, are insightful, are meaningful, and should be said.

But I don't say them.
And I have no reason not to say them.
I just don't.

​I suck.