My father said that he would not offer to make me breakfast anymore and today had a general mood of grumpiness about him--if this is the extent of his reaction to what I said, then it's Poke the Poodle levels of harmless. I mentioned yesterday that if my father continued to be more bark than bite, that I owe him more or less an apology as he would not nearly be as bad as I thought.

However, the waters get a lot muddier when you realize that he also said, "last year, your mother was considering kicking you out of the house because you have no job. I was against the idea. Consider that and what you said." (or something to that effect, at least).

Now, that could still be harmless--it could be just a statement of, "I am better than you think I am.". If this is what he meant, then he would in fact be right! He would in fact be better than I thought he was if all his rhetoric comes down to lots of bark, no real bite. I would be all too happy to admit that I was too harsh to him.

However, I'm still concerned. Because while that's one possible interpretation of what he said, the other possible interpretation is that it is a threat; of 'I did not kick you out but I am reconsidering that now'. If that is what he meant, then my viewpoint is going to be a lot less inaccurate.

For the longest of times, I've thought: my father loves who he thinks I am, but would not love me as I actually am. If my father's all bark and no bite, that'd be proven mostly wrong. He'd never be truly accepting of me, but he'd still treat me as family.

But if my father's bark is backed up with bite and the statement was in fact a threat, then it would turn out I was right. If he was against kicking me out before he knew I am a girl but me being a girl is enough to make him reconsider, then it would seem I was not in fact wrong in my assessment.

​Unfortunately, only time will tell.

So I'll start with a note about my blog; it would appear that my fears of messing up past entries are, sadly, not unjustified and that entries can in fact lose stuff from my updating them with tags. It has, as far as I know, only happened to one entry, and it was only a loss of bold in emphasis that already had italics, so the original entry was still preserved as far as I know, but it still means I need to be very very cautious.

I am not going to stop the effort to update the blog, but I AM going to let you know that it happened.

As for the scary part, this has been the scariest day since coming out, for much the same reason--family.

My brother read my coming out post on linkedin and came over here absolutely furious. I didn't hear everything he said, I was wearing headphones both to protect me from my father's eating and also to protect me from my family:
Silence was what I thought was the best course of action, with silence being safety. I didn't want to be perceived. I didn't want to be seen. I didn't want to stir the hornet's nest. I didn't want to make tempers flare up.

So I did my best to make myself as small as possible. Invisible as possible. Scarce as possible. I did my best to draw my aura inward and make it be small. (I don't know if any of my viewers for this blog believe in auras that we exude, but I always feel like I radiate an energy. I usually am overflowing with it, and I can expand it, which makes me more noticeable when I do, and I reversed that process, shrinking it to be as small as possible.)

I turned out my light (so that my brother wouldn't come over to do that himself), I avoided eye contact, I wrapped myself in a blanket, I tried my best to basically be as nonexistent, non-present, as possible. Tuning them out and hoping that my lack of listening intently would register in them not perceiving me, a la "if I can't see them, they can't see me" in a not quite literal but more metaphorical sense.

All in the name of making sure I wouldn't face something even worse.

Some of the things that my brother said I had answers to, but I couldn't say them at the time for the above reason: I was so scared that I was afraid engaging the enraged individual was the worst possible course of action, and giving him answers was precisely that.

He asked me if I forgot that we were connected on LinkedIn. As a matter of fact: no, I did not in fact forget. It was, as far as I was concerned, a win-win. If he never viewed my coming out post on LinkedIn, then nothing would come of it. And if he did​ view the coming out post I made there, he would have me explaining things far, far better than I did on the night I came out, because I am more able to speak online than I am in-person especially when scared, stressed, etc.

I was counting on him having the ability to read it, because I knew that if he read it, he would have a better idea of where I stand, why I did what I did, what I was aiming for, what I intend to do, have better information on my perspectives, etc.

He was furious that I called my father a bigot, but that is objectively true, as is my callout of my fathers homophobia and transphobia. These are not things that are inaccurate. After all, the definition of bigot is: "a person who is obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, especially one who is prejudiced against or antagonistic toward a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group."

My brother tonight literally showed precisely why that definition applies for the male members of my family. And the definition of homophobia/transphobia also is apt. "having or showing a dislike of or prejudice against gay people." and "having or showing a dislike of or prejudice against transsexual or transgender people." are precisely what has been displayed.

I could have said much much worse than I did and kept it mostly relative to the situation at hand. I could have said much much worse about my father and explained much much worse aspects of him in regards to others.

I did not, because I kept it mostly to only what was the relevant issue.

My brother wondered if I wanted to share what I said with the whole world--explicitly so, yes. I'm not an idiot. I know my family isn't going to spread the word to others that I have come out as a girl and that my name is Bree. I needed to take initiative in that regard and make sure nobody wouldn't know. I reached out to as many people as is humanly possible in as many ways as is humanly possible to ensure they had ways of knowing, because letting everyone know is the only way that it will get around.

​My brother basically called me a liar when I said that my father had, repeatedly, when I was a child threatened to throw me out if I "chose" (his words) to be gay. My father didn't remember telling me that, either. But I most definitely remember him telling that to me. Repeatedly. It stuck with me, burned into me, in ways that neither of them would know. I didn't misremember that. I didn't lie about that. I didn't misconstrue that. It happened, repeatedly, this threat.

My brother was also furious that what I said in such a public place could potentially jeopardize work potential for my father were that needed, or something to that effect. I admit that this is not something I have a good response to, as my response to it mostly boils down to: it wouldn't be a threat to him if he didn't actually hold those problematic viewpoints. If the entirety of the professional world refuses to hire (or fires) you because of things you have said/done and viewpoints you hold, there is probably a good reason for it.

So the way I see it: either there wouldn't be a consequence if the professional world saw it and didn't deem it unemployable (in which case no harm no foul) or if the professional world saw it and deemed it unemployable it could be fixed by just...reevaluating and reexamining your stances and wondering if holding that belief is truly worth losing a job.

Another thing I didn't get a good chance to say is that my viewpoint of my father has actually softened. He has been more bark than bite, not actually following through on threats. I'm concerned that my brother's outburst tonight might change that, with him taking action now that he is aware of what I said about him, but time will tell there:

If he takes actions, the words I said were justified and need no taking back.
If he doesn't take action, then I will admit the words I said were overly harsh. A verbal statement of a bigoted belief may be unpleasant but if left at nothing but being a verbal statement, it is MOSTLY harmless. (Not entirely harmless, but in the grand scheme of things, still mostly does little to no harm at least in comparison to having acted on those words.)

Until today, my father has entirely been the taking no action approach, just words with nothing beyond the words. If that continues, then my softened stance on him will continue to soften. I can amend what I've said on him before, to note that while there is still a lot of bad, there is a lot less bad than I thought, and a fair amount of good as well.

I can maybe forgive him, even, and more or less manage to overlook the flaws in favor of, maybe, eventually, with a great deal of time to mend emotional scars, find flawed-familial-love for him. If it remains true that his bark is worse than his bite, that he says words but won't act on any of them. 

I can apologize for a fair amount of what I have said. It may or may not still be true, depending on the nature of what I apologize for having said, but I feel like if there is genuinely not as much malice as I assumed, I owe at least that much for words spoken while under the assumption of malice being present.

That might not make much sense, people might think I am being overly forgiving for behavior that shouldn't be overly forgiven, but I promise you it's not, it makes sense in my head, I just don't have the words to quite explain the concept. It's basically:
If he's less bad than I thought, then he deserves acknowledgement for being less bad than I thought. Being less bad doesn't mean there's no bad but it still means the characterization of him being that bad is incorrect and would be worthy of remedy.

But this is only an if he is less bad than I thought.

With my father's vague statement of him changing his approach/mindset, I'm not sure what will happen. If he displays malice towards me which was absent before, I apparently was dead on the money in having been rather justified in my characterization. Him not having shown the malice before doesn't make the characterization wrong if after a little provocation of me expressing myself and being honest is enough to cause malice.

But if he doesn't change for the worse, if he remains the same, then I am fully ready, willing, and actually kinda desperate in wanting to change my characterization of him. If there is no malice to be had, then my assumption there would be malice was wrong, and I want to make that adjustment.

​Unfortunately, I don't know, yet. It's really up to him I suppose. We'll have to see, moving forward. What he does in the near future makes a difference so all I can do is wait on him to see what his attitude is.

Another thing my brother was upset about was that I have said things across multiple social media platforms, the scope and scale of which he doesn't know and callouts of familial matters there are things he feels I should not have shared.

​To be blunt though. It's about my life and I can share any aspect of my life with anyone in any medium I choose--including my interactions with family, my experiences with them, my expectations of them, what I am afraid of from them, what I have seen from them, etc. Anything they do or say in my presence is just as much owned by me as it is owned by them, because it was done or said in my presence.

If they have things they wish to do or say that they do not wish to leave the family, then they should either ask for it not to be shared and/or have less family involved in it. Basically if they don't want me to say I have heard them say bad things, then they should not say those bad things in my presence, is what I mean.

If they do say those bad things in my presence, then I have the right to share them in the manner I see fit. I do not share everything about my family to everyone. I only share what I feel I need to share, what is pertinent to share, what is relevant to share, what is necessary to share. I often leave out details deliberately so as to retain some modicum of privacy and decency and respect to my family.

But ultimately, my life is MY life, and interactions with my family are still part of MY life. They are also part of THEIR lives, sure, so not sharing every aspect of those interactions is fair enough. But when the interaction is important enough, I am not going to keep it secret just because they had a part in it.

I realize I did not hear all of my brother's ranting. I did not hear all of his complaints. I did not hear everything he was mad at. I could have misheard some of what he said, misinterpreted some of what he said. And even IF I addressed everything he was mad at and did so without having misheard or misinterpreted him, there's no guarantee that if he heard my defense of my actions that he'd be satisfied.

In fact he'd probably only get even angrier than he already was. Any point I didn't hear, extra anger. Any point I misheard, extra anger. Any point I misinterpreted, extra anger. And every addressing, extra anger. Heck, he'd probably get angry that I am in my public blog stating that I am anticipating he'd be angry.

But I still felt like I should write it down all the same.

He can call me a traitor all he wants; he can call me an ingrate all he wants. But I am staying true to myself. I am staying true to the path I have chosen for my future, at least to the best of my ability. I was already prepared for him to say I am not family anymore. I have been ready for that for years. I knew it would happen when I came out and I knew I was not going to live my whole life without having come out so I knew it was going to happen.

Ultimately however. I stand by what I am saying. I am staying true to myself. If he cannot accept me as I am, then the burden of that is never on me. He can believe I am making a mistake. He can believe that I have betrayed the family. But ultimately, those are his beliefs, and no matter how much he believes them, they have zero impact on the truth and they have zero impact on me or my path.

After all, if being true to myself, and being honest about being true to myself, and pursuing being true to myself, is enough to make me a traitor to my family...then that's not exactly a family worth calling family, now, is it? I know I am a girl. I know my name is Bree. I am determined to pursue transitioning. I am determined to be known to the entire world as Bree.

​This will happen no matter what. My family cannot stop me. They have a choice in whether to accept my path or to reject me, but that is their choice. Not mine.

I can't go into full details, but as it is public that it was me I can at least mention this much; today made at least one consequence of a screwup I did yesterday official. (It is possible there may be further repercussions down the line. Given it was an accident and it was unintentional, I am obviously hoping there won't be, but given the nature of the offense and how I was already on thin ice before, it's definitely possible that I could face further punishment down the line for the messup. It'd suck, but I cannot say it'd be unwarranted, because I did genuinely screw up, so the punishment I received is the absolute minimum. I do mean it when I say I will count myself lucky if it is the only punishment I get because I mean it when I say it was worthy of being punished, accident/unintended or not.)

Basically, while I still cannot share the full story, I can go into the basics. On the site I play mafia on, I was in a mafia game. I believed myself to be within the rules with my posting--a first clarification in the rules, there was extenuating circumstances which led me to believe that I was still within them thanks to a case of unfortunate events. (In short, a private communication was similar, but much shorter, to the public communication. I believed, erroneously, that the private communication was just a shorter summary of the public communication. It was not.)

This led to the rule needing to be clarified a second time, and I received a minor punishment for the first with it being expected that future violations of the rule would give no such leniency because after both rule clarifications, the policy was as unambiguous as possible.

So how did I screw up?

Well, I was typing a post made that I believed to be within the rules between the first clarification and the second. I was unable to post it before the second clarification, and the initial draft of said post, while it'd have been fine if posted prior to the second rule clarification, was not okay to post after the second rule clarification.

I knew this.

So I revised the post, to make it fit within the clarified rule.

I double-checked it; I triple-checked it; I was absolutely sure that I had fixed it, fixed the post typed before the rule clarification to fit within the guidelines set after--and to be fair, true to the Spiderman Homecoming 90% meme, the post did in fact mostly fix the original issues! I caught most of them!

...Most, but not all;

I missed...one.

I missed one spot, that violated the rule that was clarified a second time.

It was, obviously, accidental! It was, obviously, unintentional! I did revise the original post and tried to remove the rule violating aspects of it...but missing one spot? Completely and totally my fault. And I had already been warned and punished for the rule violation.

Again, to reiterate--this is completely and entirely my fault. It wasn't deliberate, but not being deliberate does not mean it didn't happen. It did. Accidental or not, it still transpired; unintentional or intentional, it still occurred. And once it did, once I failed to spot it, once I had broken the rule that I was immediately told not to break again, I needed to face the consequences, face the punishment for it.

It sucks, but when you screw up, it does carry consequences. I literally have nobody to blame but myself. The punishment I have received is the least amount of punishment I could possibly receive. (So if I receive more, while that'll suck, it'll still be warranted. I cannot argue against punishment. I can explain the circumstances behind it and I can explain my viewpoint but my viewpoint is that whatever punishment I get will be justified, not be too harsh, and be absolutely what I deserve because of my mistake because again, mistakes carry consequences and I made one. Knowing I made a mistake and regretting that I made it cannot undo it so all I can do is live with the consequences of my error.)

I obviously can't explain more than that (this much should be acceptable), but that was one thing which happened today; action punishing me for the mistake I made yesterday night. I knew it was coming, obviously; there was no way to possibly justify not punishing the action because it's a cut and dry clear unambiguous situation with no other possible resolution, with no other possible punishment to give.

Knowing it was coming, knowing it was justified, didn't mean it doesn't sting tho. It absolutely does. And it was one of the first things I woke up to see today. Not the way I really wanted to start my day, but I had to face the music sooner or later because again. I messed up, so there were going to be consequences to having screwed up. Unfortunate as the accident may have been, regrettable as the unintentional breach was, punishment was unavoidable because there was no possible leniency to be given and it was warranted and justified and if the punishment I got is all I get then I am in fact to be considered lucky.

Still sucks tho and again. Starting my day that way? Not exactly pleasant.

There was some good to counterbalance that, tho.
Today for the 4th of July I got to wear another dress! I took a shower, which I desperately needed, and changed into the dress. My family, who were all there, were by and large (being who they were)...less than impressed. Nobody said anything but when all of them realized I wasn't wearing my favorite (because it's long enough to basically act like a dress) T-shirt and was in fact wearing a dress that gave me notable curves, I managed to catch them having some rather...unfortunate expressions on their face.

Suffice to say, most of them did not approve of my apparel of choice.

And, yes. There was in fact tension to be had, there. Conversations were mostly natural but there were still occasional pauses--this is normal enough, but in this case the pauses seemed "different" to me somehow, in a way that felt directly resultant from me.

​Then there's again the fact that the entirety of my family aside from my younger sister deadnames me and misgenders me actively...and also the self-loathing every time I respond to the deadname rather than telling them "that's not my name".

Again, nothing really specific to the date in question, but something that there's a disconnect between what I tell myself and what goes on in reality. I tell myself, "every time they deadname me, I will tell them 'that's not my name'". Every time they actually deadname me (well, almost; I do occasionally have the smarts to not respond at all), I respond out of habit.

After all, I've used my deadname for 27 years in real life. It's literally instinct to me, especially from voices I know, in tones I know, asking questions that are normal from them. As someone with autism, inertia is unfortunately, working against me here; I've built up 27 years of inertia ingrained within me to instinctively respond to them on demand when they use my deadname.

So far, good to bad is two to two if you count 'good dress' and 'shower' as two separate goods.

​More in the bad; I had only one meal tonight and it was two hot dogs. Admittedly, hot dogs with chili and bacon, but my normal hot dogs in a night? Four. I didn't have breakfast; I didn't have S'mores (I couldn't stomach them), I didn't have hamburgers, and I had half my normal amount of hot dogs. (I also didn't have corn on the cob but I never have corn on the cob unless there's melted butter with the butter-spread-stick and the hold-corn-without-mess-prongs, which we had neither of.)

I did have a plate full of barbeque chips, which by my estimate is somewhere in the .75 give or take .25 range for meals (as in, could be as small as half a meal's worth, could be as much as a meal's worth; it was a lot of chips but individual chips aren't that filling), but given 2 hot dogs is half of my normal meal, that meant tonight the maximum amount you could say I had was 1.25 meals' worth of food.

You're meant to have three.

And while I admit, I was more thirsty than hungry.

So a lot of the time, I wasn't hungry at all.

A fair amount of the issue was digestion. I wasn't feeling 'full', I was feeling like I couldn't stomach more food.

Normally, this is easily solved by, ahhhh...so to speak, emptying the system. Using the bathroom productively and flushing from the system something more than fluids. But I couldn't do that all of tonight, which meant, to my body, I had too much within me in spite of often wanting more.

I suspect the issue was circadian rhythm based.

My circadian rhythm is all out of whack, due to my rather not-the-best sleep schedule, but as of late, I've had a sleep schedule that is at least somewhat consistent if unorthodox; going to bed in the 5-7 am range, and then waking up in the 1-4 pm range. Today I was woken up a full 40 minutes earlier than I was planning, which I suspect may have contributed.

Unusual sleep schedule that's maybe not the best for digestion anyway + disruption to that sleep schedule via being woken up early + me not having food immediately (it took 1-3 hours or so for me to get the food) = suspected culprit for me having had less room. Also, maybe being thirsty all day may have contributed, with my only fluids being coffee (which isn't zero-calorie so does have some fill value even being liquid in nature).

Basically, lots of things could've caused it, hard to say the exact culprit, maybe multiple adding up, but it happened so that means I had less than optimal.

​Later in the night though, I decided to stream...
...And I got my first-ever raid! It was amazing! It was mostly lurkers aside from the broadcaster, but the broadcaster who raided me remained active for the vast majority of the stream and they and I had a fair number of similarities so I really enjoyed chatting with them and bonding with them.

Which means my night has ended on a bit of a high note. So, so​ glad I decided to stream on what amounts to a whim!

Anyway, bed now.

We'll have to see what tomorrow brings.

I have a lot to say on the subject.
It did not go well with my family, to say the least.
​It went really poorly.

I am scared of the half hour my brother and father were talking outside and what it may mean.

I am scared that even my older sister and mother may not support me because they are trying to preserve the family and are not happy at me for instantly forming a rift in the family.

I am scared now that I have lost my safety net, cast it aside, and that my family is no longer safe.

But it is the first step towards truly taking control of my life and living my life as me.

It is not done and dusted.

I have taken the first step, but it is only the first step.

I need some downtime to rest/recover, but I also need to springboard into actually taking moving forward. The next step; a wave of lifeguard applications, and then looking further into an area I was given a tip to potentially being good for me.

...But I knew it'd be that way between family night, community night in the community I'm in, and such.
That said.

I spent around 5-6 hours compiling a massive reddit post about Ashe which is, essentially, the sort of post I made about Ashe on my blog last year, only done in a place where people actually will see it.

I should type such thoughts here as well, but given that it's 7 am, at least TODAY, that's not happening; we'll see in the future. (I've like 5-7 times in the last 2 or so months been wanting to blog about League, but never made the blog for whatever reason. I should fix that.)

I'm expecting to get flamed big time for it, called delusional, have people point out I don't understand things, and so on and so forth. It's a League subreddit, of course they're going to do that. That happens to me all of the time in the game; I expect it even out of the game, in a spot dedicated to the champion that I know and love, for people to point out every mistake I make and use it to discredit me, to point out how trash I am, etc. Or even for people to just go 'tl;dr' but in a more vulgar way.

Basically, I'm expecting it to go poorly.

I'll be pleasantly surprised if it's anything else tho!

I'd love to see people genuinely engaging me on that, asking questions about the builds, runes, items, what I think about other combos, etc., from that thread, and I'd be happy to explain in a civilized fashion my thoughts! It could lead to actual breakthroughs with me discovering things I didn't think of before with people shedding light on other angles I hadn't thought of.

​But call me a pessimist; I'm expecting a bunch of hate for it. Still, tho. It felt good to make, so it wasn't a waste of time in my opinion. Just. Wasn't productive, obviously.

By which I mean.
Watching a ton of anime and when not watching anime, watching professional League games.
Yesterday was an anime night where we finished the first saga of Vinland Saga.
It was also the day where I finished Beastars.
But mostly it's been watching pro players play League of Legends.

I loved watching the Immortals win against TL, though in the 100 Thieves versus Dignitas, it's kinda heartbreaking when they face each other--both teams are two of the teams I root for, I want them to win it all, both are insanely good, and both really needed the win to stay at the top, with them having identical scores...but obviously, only one of them could actually win. I did think that, overall, Dignitas needed the win more to break their losing streak and put them into the mindset of, "Okay, we need to not get overconfident, but yes, we can win it all if we're smart", which I feel they are in.

I can only hope that 100 Thieves takes a similar mindset in spite of their loss.

That did spoil that G2 lost to Origen earlier in the day (I stayed up until past six last night, so decided to sleep and catch the rebroadcast of the LEC rather than watching it live), but that didn't do the game justice. I feel like G2 isn't really broken, and I feel like Shalke did really really well to earn their win and that game was a blast to watch, insanely close, and the casters said it best; you'd never know that it was a match between a team at the bottom of the standings and a team at the top of the standings--it looked like a game in the lines of the G2 versus Fnatic, a match between the teams playing at their best.

I don't think G2 actually inted, don't think they made uncharacteristic errors, don't think that they really played badly. They almost won, multiple times. I just think that it showed everything S04 are capable of, showing what they are when they are at their best.

Sure, yeah, with the number of losses they have already--they're not going to win, butstill. This game showed what they want to do and are capable of doing so it's more like, "they're going to get stronger, can't win now, but will be able to win in the future", is my prediction more or less.

Vitality was their lesser cousin in that regard--you can see them improving, you can see them doing better, playing better, making better plays and such, even though they are obviously not there yet.

I maintain that the LEC teams are all really really good, even the losers.

"...Wait, didn't you say that yesterday?"
Yeah funny how that works out.
Turns out shortly after my blog entry, we lost it again! For almost a full 24 hours. Fun times.
Now I did try to sleep sleep sleep the troubles away and now that my power is back, hopefully for good, I have a ton of catchup work to do, but there were plenty of eventful things I think are worth talking about.

Yesterday, my family made the decision to drive to Denny's for dinner--we had no food prepared and no way of preparing food with the power out, no generator, nothing. On the drive there, my mother and my sister were both rather alarmed by my father's haphazard driving; his carelessness made them rather...on edge.

And while I have utterly desensitized myself to thoughts of various different catastrophes by playing the scenarios out in my head (I have talked about this before on my blog, about a month ago, a little bit more if I recall correctly, so you can find me talking about it there--normally, I would be all too happy to talk about it again but this blog is going to cover a ton of things which leave me with a need to rush the rest of the subjects).

I found myself sharing similar sentiments.
Which is rather surprising.

Because you know that headspace I've been in? The rather negative one where I haven't had a reason to live? I'm still in it and even now to some extent am still feeling it.

And yet.
My mind was filled with thoughts of.

"I don't want to die."
I had an overwhelmingly strong urge to live. My will to live is still there. I don't know what's driving this strong power, I don't know what the basis of it is, I don't know where it comes from. But it was most definitively, positively, overwhelmingly there.

I was sharing my sister and mother's concern, because I didn't want to die.
I don't know why I didn't want to die.
I still haven't figured it out.
But I don't want to die.
And in fact, to the quite opposite: I am afraid to die. It's terrifying me.
I haven't a clue why.
I still don't know why I am alive.
I still don't have a reason to live for.

You'd think that in order for me to have this strong, overwhelming urge to live, I would have some sort of motivating reason, underlying justification for not wanting to die.

But if it's there, I haven't found it yet.
In spite of me not having a reason to live.
In spite of me being in that negative headspace.
Of thinking.
"The world might just be better off if I were not in it", more or less.
That terrible headspace I blogged about less than a week ago, that I never left and am still in it even in this very second.

​That doesn't change that the feeling was there, that fear of death and very strong desire to never let it pass, as long as I have any ability whatsoever to fight against it. (Mind you, realistically speaking, this is a bit morbid and grim, but I don't expect to live to an old age. The two most likely causes of death would be either in a car accident or more likely, due to something like cancer from not taking good care of myself, not checking in with doctors regularly, and the doctors probably not searching for the signs of the diseases that would kill me until it's too late. If I did get, sayyy, skin cancer, and the doctors didn't notice it until it was stage four and had metastasized to multiple organs in my body...I'd be pretty much a goner in no time flat. If that happens, not much I can do about it, but you bet that I'd still try to do something.)

And knowing that deep down.
I very much am fighting to stay alive.
Even if I don't know why I am fighting to stay alive.
The fact that the fight is there is, in of itself, empowering.

It's a little disappointing, not knowing why I want to live.
But I do know that I want to live.
I haven't discovered the reason why I want to stay alive, so I need to keep searching for a reason to keep living, but knowing that I want to live is, in of itself, just that tidbit, enough to keep me afloat for as long as I remember it. (Which is one reason I'm writing this blog, mind you! It'll make it easier for me to remember the feeling that was there, even if I don't know what the feeling is for or about, so that I don't forget.)

That was one thing which happened during the outage.
There were a couple of extra things as well, though.
One thing was working on a webcomic project which has many, many, of the same themes as The Descended does, with a similar core cast size (four protagonists), following a 'villain' in his rise to power, that has a notable beginning and end, in a Fantasy setting (albeit an Urban Fantasy setting of sorts; religious notes about it but not a lot of actual nonhumans otherwise), which I wanted to blog about ages ago yet never got around to it.

In fact.

If you check my December blog entries, at or after December 13th of last year (that is to say, December 13th, 2019 or so), you'll keep seeing me refer to "I really need to blog about this!", and then I never did because I am a moron about that sort of thing.

Well, blog entry made! Or, started, anyway. Still need to finish it.

Basically, I don't know if any blog readers will remember it, but around December 13th, I had mentioned that there was an idea for a webcomic that I really really liked and which was really really fun, but which I didn't have the skills to pull off. The webcomic, Freakshow High, remains something that I cannot make for a vast majority of reasons; I would need a co-writer who would take my basic ideas for the setting to come up with characters and plots which I would collaborate with them on.

Traditionally, I have never been involved in a collaboration which went well. Admittedly, though, that was me working on other peoples' brainchilds, rather than someone who shares my ambition and can see what I am going for, fleshing out my concepts to make something of their own that I just so happen to also have credit for. Butstill, I imagine that's a bit of a tough ask.

How do you get someone to be a co-writer for a webcomic by telling them, "take this basic idea and then make it so that I can make it"? I mean, I think that some collaborative efforts actually have worked out from similar, but the question is could I do that? I'm...not so convinced. Even if I could, the point remains, by myself, I wouldn't be able to make it in any world no matter what; I'd need help, help of a specific kind.

However.

Freakshow High did revive the artist within me.
And more than that--the worldbuilding narrative-writer within me. (Which I think is reflected in my dreams. The last two nights, my dreams have been amazing, cinematic, masterpieces, beautiful, fluent, works of art with fleshed out characters and deep, intricate plotlines and amazing worlds with simply stunning visuals, that I was really bummed out to wake up from because I knew that my awake mind couldn't continue their plots and that I wouldn't get the stories back if I went to sleep so they were killed mid-project, essentially.)

I did a 5-minute drawing of the protagonist from that series, Hey You.
It was done in actually closer to three. In ink. With no reference images. And it was better than most drawings I've made in pencil, with no time limit, using reference images. Was it perfect, no, there were obvious flaws born of me improvising on the spot. But for what it was, it was the best drawing I've ever done...

...Until I drew the Dean of Freakshow High, Dean Master Satan Hercure, in a similar timeframe. I called it a 5-minute doodle concept sketch, but it was done in three, and it would be passable as being in an actual webcomic page.

I did better than that, too.

For the first time in years.

I designed a webcomic logo to apply to the webcomic. Not the most inventive of logos (Freakshow High, underlined by bull horns that surround the text, with flames on top of it), but still an actual well and true proper logo for a webcomic, even knowing that it's for a webcomic that I'll never actually be able to make on my own.

And it goes further.
That worldbuilding I said I hadn't done and was feeling uninspired to do?
That didn't last!
I created a list, incomplete, of attendees to Freakshow High, with details about them.

Demons are among the 'infernal' attendees, who more or less feed off of energies radiating from their source of specialty, particularly emotions. Each demon has a unique specialty (though these are usually genetic, with a clan of demons sharing their specialty), but can still sustain themselves off of other methods. Think a lot like Cubii as portrayed in Dan and Mab--they are usually attached to an emotion (mostly negative ones), and feed from the energy radiating from it.

They may occasionally gain abilities pertaining to their primary source of sustenance, which can include things such as minor shapeshifting or invisibility among others.

Devils who the Dean is among, are among the 'infernal' attendees, and are not to be confused with Demons. They more or less get their energy from contracts, sustaining themselves from bargains, both written and spoken. This is neither inherently nefarious nor inherently benign. They are obligated to fulfill the terms of these deals for their duration, but have the power to terminate any deal they want to at any time. They also have very loose definitions, open to interpretation, on what a deal is. (They can call things deals which weren't intended as deals, with some creativity, and with specific interpretation of wording, get away with breaking the spirit of a deal in favor of rules lawyering the wording.)

They have reasonably decent shapeshifting abilities.

Succubii who should not be confused with Incubii and should not be confused with Devils or Demons, are among the 'infernal' attendees. They are, technically speaking, all hermaphrodites, who in spite of being hermaphrodites do true to what you'd expect, usually appear female. They do indeed feed off of the type of energy you'd expect, love energy, most potently from sex, but they can recharge themselves simply by hanging around people who have a bond of any form of love--familial, romantic, platonic.

They get the most energy from having sex with someone and more or less 'draining' them, but they can sustain themselves just passively by being around strong bonds. Due to having the same resource pool as Incubii, they are bitter rivals with Incubii by and large, absolutely loathe being compared to them, will probably murder you if you make the mistake or even if not give you a rather lengthy lecture on the differences between them.

To a lesser extent, this also applies to Demons. Most demons can partially sustain themselves off of the Succubii territory resources, and some demons specifically require it as their unique specialty, but Succubii are a different species altogether.

Incubii who should not be confused with Succubii and should not be confused with Devils or Demons, are also among the 'infernal' attendees, and much to the chagrin of Incubii and Succubii everywhere, you could take the paragraphs above about the Succubii and apply them to the Incubii--they are, technically, hermaphrodites, who in spite of being hermaphrodites usually appear male. They feed off of love energy, are bitter rivals with Incubii as a result, loathe being compared to them, would probably murder you for doing so or at least give a rather lengthy lecture on the differences between the two, and these differences to a lesser extent apply to them and Demons.

Imps are among the 'infernal' attendees, who're anywhere from 25-75% the height of an average human. At their tallest, they just look like a shorter human; at their shortest, they are like the size of a dog or big cat. They make up for this by having limited illusions and shapeshifting capabilities, which allow them to, should they so choose to, appear normal size, something aided by their wings naturally supporting flight.

Fairies are basically more insectoid Imps. About the same height, with the same illusionary and shapeshifting powers, who have wings that allow them to fly.

The Fairfolk are much as you'd expect the Fae to be: basically alien in thought process, but incredibly attuned to the world otherwise. They have unparalleled hearing and sight, which non-Fairfolk suspect is the reason they appear to be crazy (because they see and hear things others do not, and can't turn this off), and like the vast majority of attendees to Freakshow High, have no limited lifespan, accumulating knowledge and also quirks as time passes and they get bored, usually choosing to obsess with something. 

Gorgons can paralyze people with eye contact--note that this is an activated power, not something that always applies at all times. Their hair is indeed snakes, but these snakes can take on the appearance of dreadlocks and can be cut to any length the gorgon wants their hair to be. These snakes are prehensile so long as they are in snake (not human) form, allowing gorgons to manipulate objects using their hair.

Lamia are basically the land-equivalent of the merfolk: they are basically anthropomorphic snakes. Think like a centaur but instead of the bottom half being a horse, it's instead a snake. However. At puberty, lamia's tails will split in two, allowing them the option of either slithering, or walking on two 'legs'. (Yes this is blatantly ripped from One Piece, I thought that was incredibly neat, deal with it.)

Lizardfolk are pretty much what you'd expect; anthropomorphic lizards of various kind.

Dragons are, well...exactly what you'd picture a western dragon to be. Gigantic creatures, winged, scaled, four legs, tail, claws, teeth, with a big breath weapon. They are inherently master level shapeshifters, though, and almost always take far, far, more reasonably-sized shapes, usually humanoid. They are some of the strongest creatures in existence and do indeed have a taste for greed, but they are not invincible and do lay eggs unless they maintain their shapeshifted form 100% of the time, so they almost never appear in their natural forms.

Merfolk are also pretty self-explanatory, with the add-on I mentioned ripped from One Piece: they are amphibious, able to breath both air and in water, are the best swimmers bar none in the water, and at puberty their tail splits in two allowing for them to walk on land rather comfortably while still maintaining their ability to swim.

Fishfolk are not Merfolk; they are basically anthropomorphic fishes. Whereas Merfolk can vaguely be thought of as terms of literally half-man, half-fish a la Centaurs being half-man, half-horse, Merfolk are instead just hybridizing human and fish features throughout their whole body. It's a little cheap to do especially given what I already stole, but again, you can more or less just look at One Piece's depiction of Fishmen to see what I am getting at here.

Insectoids are to insects what Fishfolk are to fish, humanoid versions of various different insects.

Werebeasts are pretty self-explanatory: humans who have the ability to transform into a different, usually mammalian, creature, in various different forms: full transformation (fully become the creature), hybrid form, and partial transformation (where they're mostly human but have a few features accentuating them that come from the creature they are a werebeast of).

The most common of these by far is the werewolf, but there are plenty of others like werecats as well. You can indeed be either born as one or gain it as an infection; the infection can only be transmitted on a full moon, and there is a slight difference between those born werebeasts and those who're infected; those born have full control over their transformation from birth and are not obligated to transform during the full moon, whereas those infected need to learn how to control their transformations yet no matter how much control they gain they are always going to be in either their hybrid or full-beast forms on the full moon.

Vampires are pretty self-explanatory as well. No, they don't fry in sunlight, but the sun does weaken them. They're pale in complexion. They drink blood; this doesn't need to kill the target. They can be transformed or exist from birth; transforming requires draining someone then giving them blood when they are on the brink of death. They don't explode when impaled by a stake, but leaving a stake in their heart will paralyze them and put to halt their regenerative capacities; long enough will kill them.

I'm not sure on what abilities they have for sure. Do they have hypnosis, shapeshifting, turning into a mist, etc. powers or not, more or less, haven't decided that yet, but they are more or less your standard fare for vampires who aren't ridiculously weak and yet also aren't ridiculously brokenly strong, either. Average run of the mill vampires pretty much, who don't have stupid quirks (they're not compelled to count, repelled by holy water, do not require invitations, can cross running water, are unaffected by crosses, you get the idea), but don't have dominance either.

Witches are a separate species from humans, technically, but for all intents and purposes, are basically just "humans who can use magic". This magic is genetically passed on from parent to child no matter what (general rule of thumb: almost every single attendee of Freakshow High is fertile and capable of having children with almost any other attendee of Freakshow High, which means that yes, you can have someone who has anywhere from 2-20 species in their lineage although it should be noted that you're not going to have best-of-all from this, you'll basically inherit one or two and then the rest basically don't exist aside from having a small chance your descendants manifest them, think dominant versus recessive in that you'll have a few dominant with most recessive), and on every rare once and a while, can appear in someone who previously lacked it.

They are disproportionately female, but not inherently so. (Usually any witch who randomly gains powers in spite of lacking a lineage of it will indeed be female though.) There's plenty of male witches, but they still call themselves witches in spite of that term usually having a female connotation to it.

Their magic is currently not well-defined, though what I have in mind is more or less, "very very versatile and capable of a lot, but still having set rules to follow which make it not capable of anything, with limitations to what is possible", I just didn't put in the actual work yet to set said limits and such.

Ghouls are creatures that are 'cursed', more or less a generic term that applies to many types of things. A wendigo would be a type of ghoul, for instance, due to the curse of consuming flesh until passing it on. These curses can be of numerous different natures. Common curses that create ghouls originate from Witches, but they can be from plenty of other sources. As long as they retain enough autonomy to function in the supernatural society, however, they are more than free to attend Freakshow High and work towards whatever goals they have. (Some curses can be ended, others are eternal.)

Zombies are not the infectious type--they are, specifically, people who were raised by the voodoo magic of a witch. This applies to all zombies, but normally, most zombies are automatons that have no free will, give no thought, are basically raised creatures that are slaves to the one who created them to do their bidding and nothing but their bidding. However, it is a not-too-uncommon happenstance where zombies gain sentience and with it, a sense of free will. They think, they are no longer mindless, they no longer are slaves, though they may remain servants, they just aren't nothing but a body. They have a mind and thus are entitled to everything which comes with it.

In this sense, zombies are technically speaking a very specific form of construct, but they are classified differently because constructs weren't actual people before gaining sentience whereas zombies were. The personalities zombies gain may or may not reflect who they were before. They may or may not have memories of who they were before.

Constructs are magically-created golems that have somehow gained sentience. Whereas golems are mindless automatons that have, of sorts, 'programming' that they follow, constructs can think, have free will, and are thus entitled to everything that comes with it.

The quintessential example of a construct would be Frankenstein's Monster (though depending on how much of Frankenstein's monster is nuts and bolts and how much is flesh he probably qualifies more as a zombie); that is in a nutshell what a construct would be. Something artificially constructed that has gained a will of its own.

Ectoplasmic creatures, which I am calling 'ethereal', are also numerous in attendance.

Ghosts are the most famous of the 'ethereal' species, due to more or less being the ones who overall have the best abilities. Like all ethereal species, most ghosts are not born, but while they have incredibly reduced fertility, they are not actually sterile, so it is possible for an ethereal creature to be born as an ethereal creature rather than simply randomly existing by happenstance.

They have optional invisibility which they can trigger at will. Like all ethereal creatures, they can fly--and of the ethereal creatures, by shifting their legs into a ghostly tail, they can achieve the fastest flight speed of any ethereal creature, and are basically to flight what merfolk are to water.

Wraiths are ethereal creatures who have the ability to teleport. In this sense, they can rival ghosts in speed in flight, by repeatedly teleporting over and over again, but while they can shift from one location to another instantly, this is not something they can spam indefinitely. (They can do it in rapidfire short-term, and there's no hard-limit to what they can do, but they do get winded the more they use it.)

Banshees are ethereal creatures who more or less have the ability to shout really really loudly and painfully. But it's a little more complicated than that; they basically have mastery of sound of all sorts. They can mute sounds that would normally be made, or crank up sounds that would normally be inaudible. They can't travel at the speed of sound, but they can otherwise fully manipulate sound in ways that make them basically unparalleled masters of sound.

People know them as shouting really loudly and painfully though because while Banshees are capable of really complex, nuanced uses of their power...inherent in being a Banshee is basically an innate sense of drama queen (note that there's a dead even split between male and female banshees), an inherent hamminess, laziness, desire to play things up, and the like, and also an utter lack of awareness to how they are perceived by others, who think that their loud screeches are 'true art' and that the people who cover their ears are haters that don't understand, more or less.

​Phantoms are ethereal creatures who have the ability to phase through matter. This is an optional ability. Other ethereal creatures are still very much physical, which is something you might not expect. And all ethereal creatures thus have the ability to interact with objects (which is why I didn't add poltergeists to the list of ethereal creatures originally, though I have since reconsidered), and be interacted with.

Phantoms can optionally disable this interaction and optionally pass through walls and such.

Specters are unique among ethereal creatures as having the ability to shapeshift. They can choose what form they appear as, which makes them one of the stronger ectoplasmal creatures since they can fly and more or less choose what mass and shape they have, which can have a number of rather useful effects, even allowing them to somewhat mimic the powers of other ethereal creatures. (Take on a form small enough to pass through a wall if the wall has a crack in it, for instance, or accelerate themselves by physics, and so on and so forth.)

Poltergeists were originally not in the list because all ethereal creatures can interact with objects, but I decided to add them in with them being unique among ethereal creatures as being able to do this from a range with them having telekinetic powers whereas other ectoplasmal creatures require touch.

Bigfolk are basically your Yetis, Bigfoots, Sasquatches, and such.

Sirens are similar to Banshees in being masters of musical noise, but with more of a pleasant take on it and also being more seductive, with their sounds inherently containing hypnosis to them.

Among the attendees would also be a word that I imagine exists and I could find but was too lazy to for this blog because this is a massive tangent from my true blog entry, involving a catch-all term for Satyrs, Centaurs, and Minotaurs.

I also included from Greek Mythology Harpies, Chimeras, and Sphinxes (who would also take on the Egyptian mythology there as well as the Greek one), with the intention of adding more similar with research.

I also added in Ratmen, anthropomorphic rats, and Avians, anthropomorphic birds (aka birdfolk).

One classification I also added was something I wanted to be distinctly separate from Witches, Necromancers, who more or less are masters of the dead, having a high attunement to ethereal creatures, can raise the dead, and perform some low-level magics separate from Witch magic that revolve around various aspects of humans specifically.

And that's a list I expected to be incomplete.
It's all I have.
But it's something I made on December 11th with a little added on December 13th (though for this blog I did a little bit of on-the-spot decision making, namely, including Poltergeists).

I did far more than make the attendees though.

I did an estimation of the size of the school, somewhere in the range of 200-500 students.
Given that number, I estimated that there'd be around 15-30 teachers and probably 20-60 total faculty (since not all faculty would be teachers though there would of course be people with multiple jobs).

I named the town the school of Freakshow High is in, and modeled it as being a fairly isolated town-city: not small enough to be a town, but small enough that when most people think of a 'city', they're going to think more populous than what this is. (To put this into perspective, probably about the size of Snohomish or Monroe here in the state of Washington. Not entirely rural, but also not exactly a metropolis. No skyscrapers, but a fair amount of industrialization yet enough undeveloped land that there's plenty of trees and the like around.)

The school is in Edenville, and I even gave Freakshow High its sports teams' names: the Edenville Devilsnakes.
I think that the size of a small city-town is somewhere in the range of 2000-10,000 though I admit I would need to research this a bit. (Not exactly sure where but it's not a big enough deal for me to focus on.)

I have character bios on Hey You and the Dean, a fair idea of Hey You's background and where they came from, the like. A ton of work I put in.

And yet in spite of all that, it is a project I will never make because I would need help to make it.

...So what was all of that build-up for?

...Because on December 13th, sharing a sheet of work scrapbook paper that the first half contained the additions for Freakshow High.

...Was a webcomic project that I could​ do on my own.

This is a long, long blog post, so, uhh...lemme pull it back and remind you of exactly what I was on about since I realize we went on the longest tangent ever. Go way back to the, "One thing was working on a webcomic project which has many, many, of the same themes as The Descended does, with a similar core cast size (four protagonists), following a 'villain' in his rise to power, that has a notable beginning and end, in a Fantasy setting (albeit an Urban Fantasy setting of sorts; religious notes about it but not a lot of actual nonhumans otherwise), which I wanted to blog about ages ago yet never got around to it.", section of this blog entry.

That project is what I actually set out to talk about.
I can't make Freakshow High on my own.
But if I so chose to. (I probably won't, but I have the choice that I could.)
I could make this new project.

​This new project has the first chapter more or less mapped out. It has a set beginning, end, and various middle parts set out. I know what I want to do with it if I were to do it and I know how I would do it, more or less.
I have the main characters modeled out as well as the three other demons in the setting. (The minions of the three other demons, the later lesser followers of the titular demon, the lesser followers of the three other demons, the followers of more holy divine powers, the lesser followers of more divine holy powers, and random people who aren't followers of anyone? Yeah I have absolutely none of them modeled out.)

Which is to say, the most important characters, I know what they look like more or less and know their personalities in a nutshell.

I have done rather extensive worldbuilding and can talk about every aspect of the world; it's a fairly simple world to pull off easily enough. It's neat, it's beautiful, but also fairly simple to grasp once you get into it, just get a few of the basic bases down and you can follow along rather freely. 

And like Freakshow High, I did more work than that.
I made a really really cool logo for it that I can draw repeatedly and easily because while simple, it is easily replicable. (It is probably not a very original logo concept, but it is still something I took time to design which I feel like I put my own spin on that makes it a signature of my webcomic.)

I even made the webcomic's slogan too.

During the outage, I went one step further and drew the cat in the series, too. Mind you--I did so in about three to four minutes, with zero reference images (this was at Denny's so no kitties to use) and zero erasing. I drew a cat in five minutes with zero references and in spite of that, it actually looks passable as being a cat. 

The only reason I didn't draw more was due to lacking time, usually being busy with other things.

But all of the pieces to make the webcomic are there if I were to so choose.

That project is one which I'm not sure I want to mention by name, but ehhhh...sure, I'll risk listing its name; it's Bazu's Fourthsworne.

To keep a long long story short:
There are four rulers of Hell, the Foursworne, and Bazu the Broken (full name, Bazu Fourthsworne, the Fourth Foursworn) is the weakest of them. (He is associated with snakes and the color yellow.) He was UnPersoned by the first foursworn, trapped to rule the smallest section of Hell and with no presence on earth and no followers and no means of manifesting.

The story follows his rise to power after he is, through a sheer stroke of luck, manifested by pure happenstance in a ritual that had every reason to not go right but somehow actually did go right. (It was deliberately written wrong as to sabotage any efforts to make it successful, but by a one in trillion chance occurrence, managed to fulfill the conditions that had been left out.)

The main characters aside from him (this contains first-episode spoilers by the way):
Creed, his summoned Avatar. Creed has four forms: possessing the cat, possessing the cat but transformed into a humanoid form (that of a little boy), using the cat as a way of manifesting an incomplete form (very loosely modeled off of Ryoma Hoshi from Danganronpa V3), and a fully manifested complete form where he is the will of Bazu incarnate.

Adam Caine, the person who did the summoning, becomes his head follower, basically what you'd get if you combined the Pope with a King in that he has almost absolute authority over Bazu's domain (which, as noted, at the beginning of the story...is nothing, but Bazu makes it clear that as he gains power, so too will Adam), second only to Bazu himself.

Lilith Edenson, one of the people present at the summoning, becomes a servant of Bazu by making a contract with him. During the summoning process, Adam killed his sister--Lilith, in love with her, was very much Not Okay with this. Contracts with a demon can be broken down into more or less trivial (the demon does something and in exchange the servant does a single task for the demon and is then free), difficult (the demon does something hard to accomplish and in exchange the servant has lifelong servitude, but is free once they die), or impossible (the demon, via the contract, accomplishes something that shouldn't be possible for the demon, in exchange for the person making the contract becoming an eternal servant, damned to forever be the slave of the demon), to more or less keep the long story short.
Reviving Adam's sister, whose death was integral to the success of the ritual, was an impossible feat, which via the contract, was achieved, but as a consequence, Lilith has become an eternal servant of Bazu.

And the actual protagonist of the story (because Bazu is more of the deutagonist), the one whose perspective the majority of the story is told through:
Evelyn Caine, preferring Eevee (not Eve), is the sister of Adam Caine and more or less FWB with Lilith. (Lilith is a lesbian, Eevee is pan, Lilith's love for Eevee is stronger than Eevee's love for Lilith but they have communicated their feelings. Eevee does love Lilith, just...not as much as Lilith loves Eevee, and Lilith has accepted this and is okay with the status of their relationship since both Eevee and Lilith are happy with it.)

Since Adam, her brother, becomes basically a lord of the damned helping Bazu accomplish his will in exchange for becoming more powerful, and Lilith her sort-of-lover is eternally indebted to Bazu to always serve his will, she more or less tags along with the group of them.

She is heavily a deadpan snarker, will heavily riff on Bazu, has a low opinion of him, will insult him, and so on and so forth. For his part, Bazu considers her expendable and will often trick her into doing things that are far more dangerous than they may seem, to further his own ends, and has no qualms of letting her die again and no intention of reviving her a second time should she die again. He demonstrates, both with his actions and his words, that she is essentially cannon fodder for him, a useful tool, but not an actual asset.

She doesn't really have a reason to help Bazu but more or less nonchalantly tags along and inevitably ends up helping him anyway. Sometimes by choice, sometimes to help Adam (she is his sister so she does care for him), sometimes to help Lilith (she does care about Lilith more than she cares about a friend), but often just because Bazu manipulated things that way.

Because Bazu is, specifically, the Demon of Charisma and is the most charismatic bastard around. Not the smartest, not the strongest, but his charm is why he was basically removed from the mortal realm; he was too much of a threat if allowed to roam free...

...And yet, the story follows precisely what happens after he does exactly that.
​From Eevee's viewpoint, by and large.

I love the project and I like it a lot.
I can make it, too.
Will I?
Ehhh...not sure.
But it's primed and ready for me if I ever decided to.

So what else?
I kinda have a growing urge to mod Civilization III again.
I don't want to work on the Across the Ages project--that was a bit too cumbersome. I do like what I was doing with it, but it just was something that had too many issues that I don't think someone of my skill level could work out.

Instead, I wanted to work on a more toned-down attempt at a modified version of the Rise of Rome scenario.
My first modified Rise of Rome scenario was my first, and grandest, venture into modding Civ 3 stuff.
It had a ton of stuff done but was atrocious overall and I basically made it ridiculously easy mode regardless of who I was playing on, adding everything and the kitchen sink to it.

This toned-down version would have a few modifications that would risk pushing me into that territory, but which with luck I'd be fine with.
The basic idea, 7/8 playable, Egypt still on the decline, but with each civilization having specific traits of theirs emphasized and played up. 
I'd remove pollution as much as is possible (this is just a quality of life improvement), add in Wool in locations as close to the Medieval scenario as is possible and no other locations (which would actually make it difficult to achieve for half the civs, which is a good thing!), turn silver/gold into resources, add in the wonders from Mesopotamia that aren't included, two outposts for Rome to allow for contacting the Celts and Goths (one in England, one in approximately Germany near the rivers there) with one unit on them, an extra Carthago Novo unit for Carthage as compensation, an outpost for Persia to allow first-turn contact with Scythia and similarly an extra Macedon unit as compensation, and then the draw to the scenario:

The units.
Goths would have a focus on raw offense, forgoing defense but having offense rivaling or even exceeding even Roman units.

Celts would have movement speed, traveling extra distance. Their units would have bog-standard attack/defense.

Carthage would have units that take less shields to produce, but require more resources to make, emphasizing their cheap mercenary nature. These units would be loosely equal to normal units, but some stronger and others weaker.

The Scythians would have units that treat all terrain as roads, but no extra movement speed, to differentiate their units from the Celtic units. Their units would have bog-standard attack/defense.

Rome would have their units be able to use all worker actions, have the strongest overall units in offense/defense (including a defensive horseman that'd be able to match their citizens), but pay for it in having those units be more expensive overall in terms of shields.

Egypt would have unique units, but have all of them be weaker than units from other civs, to represent their 'on the decline' nature.

The Greeks would have amphibious warriors/swordsmen (who would have stats equal to other swordsmen otherwise) and be self-balanced against the Persians for their spearmen to be loosely equivalent to the Persian swordsmen with Persian units having higher offense and lower defense and Macedonian units being equal in both.
Their units would be stronger than Carthage, but weaker than Rome.

I wouldn't touch things otherwise for risk of turning things too complex and ruining the simple idea as it is now.
Now, admittedly--there would still be about 75 units in the scenario, but that wouldn't be "75 units plus the ones already in there", it would be "75 units including the ones already in there".
Maybe bump it up to 80 when you add in leaders, armies, gallies, and workers.

But I am pretty sure a total of 80 units in the game or thereabouts, is not more than most scenarios.
I'd have to double-check to be sure, but I feel like if it's not actually much more than is in most scenarios, no real harm in striving for it.

It feels incredibly doable, I'd just need to do it.
Hmm, what else...I think that beyond that, it's just 'catching up' stuff.
I need to play a few TFT games to get the quest there.
I have eight days to play two RANKED (yes, RANKED) games of League, and to also play one of Garen, Jax, Draven, or Leona. (Sadly, I only own Garen of them. The one I'd least one to play.)
ARURF is life and I want to test if my build with a mana champion works on ARUF, where cooldowns are at 80% and every item is thus over the CDR limit. But also mostly to see if a manamune can transform into the muramana in ARURF.

I have obligations that I am days late to attending to, and these once I finally finish this blog entry (I think I've been writing this blog for an upwards of six hours?), those are going to be what I probably focus on.

I have a vod to watch and multiple videos to watch to catch up on. Probably about 12-24 in total. Most of them ~10 minutes but at least four of them are longer.

​Busy, busy times.

Yesterday I got caught up on almost everything. In Minecraft I knocked out most tasks I had set out for myself; I got caught up in videos; I did a bunch of stuff, not that I remember it now (it was a full 24 hours ago and I am already immensely tired), but I remember yesterday being an incredibly productive day.

Today I've done nothing.

I played one game of TFT, but I didn't feel like playing even that one and certainly not playing more than the one--I still have a quest to complete. Heck, I accidentally cheated myself out of 25 beta pass points by not realizing I hadn't played 5 games and had only played 4 and I need to not do that again.

I don't remember doing anything productive in minecraft.

And I've done literally nothing else.
No videos.
None of my duties (aside from a quick check-in and answering a question, but I was supposed to attend to something today but it'll have to be done tomorrow).
No progress on my secret santa gift.

A big.
fat.
pile.
of nothing.

Nothing to show for it, and no clue what I was really doing. There wasn't any stream I was watching to distract me/make me think I was more busy than I actually was. (Okay so there was earlier in the day, a charity stream, but that ended like six hours ago and after that there wasn't any streamers I was following online at all.)
There wasn't some game I was playing.
There was just...nothing.

I know I did have a slightly busy day. Work and then family night. But while work was my morning and afternoon (a 5.5 hour shift), family nights I basically automatically tune out and ignore, so family night is not an excuse for me having gotten nothing done today.

Yesterday I was doing so well.
And today I slacked off and ended up getting nothing done.
​And any day that I end up getting nothing done, is a day that I end up falling behind during.

Well today was also work, so I didn't have much of a window to actually make a blog entry today. I did have a small one after work and before my bedtime (which will be after I eat my dinner), but I spent it on doing some work in Minecraft on my mine. I'm working on expanding the top stairs to be 7 blocks wide from their original five, and the bottom stairs to be 5 wide from their original three. All in stone.

Something I eventually want to do is to maybe line my mine with one strip of redstone blocks because of how much redstone I have, to use them aesthetically. I'm thinking like...maybe keep it almost all stone brick blocks, but keep at eye level a continuous line of red on both sides? Maybe with the occasional lapis lazuli to break it up artistically.

​I've got the idea, just need to figure out how to execute it more precisely.

Whole family here for a birthday celebration tonight, and us four kids going shopping tomorrow, so I'm not going to blog tonight. I'm already up much much later than I should be.

I will try to blog tomorrow, but I also have a staff meeting tomorrow so I'm somewhat doubtful as to my chances of getting one done--which is a shame as I have a very very very good blog to make which I probably, knowing me, will never actually make.