#If I didn't have rimworld telling me the actual story

[pushing500]

What kind of interactions do you think the twins would have that Rimworld gameplay wouldn't depict? (Hygiene stuff, etc etc)

Also obligatory 'your art is absolutely amazing, please keep blessing our eyes with this stuff!'

I love this ask, I could have spent ages and ages drawing these two doing random stuff together that I'd never get the chance to draw due to the game just not having it. I did try to restrain myself, though, so here are three quick doodles of the twins!

They share a bathroom and probably have matching toothbrushes because I think they have matching everything, so I'm sure there are lots of mix-ups happening.

I have long-ish hair and my shower drain is ALWAYS clogged, so I bet these two have the least effective drainage system ever with all their hair. They probably get into fights over whose turn it is to unclog the mess this time.

Speaking of long hair, I bet Kwahu sometimes needs help re-plaiting his on days when he's especially tired or just doesn't feel like it. Fortunately, Mechi used to help Yamka with her hair and is willing to assist when his twin asks.

A question, because I'm curious and haven't actually decided where I stand on the matter yet:

[loganthrives]

RimWorld: Anomaly

I want to tell y'all a story.

So. RimWorld's fourth DLC Anomaly released this week, and for the past two days I've been playing it almost non-stop. I'll put it below the cut because its obviously a crapton of spoilers, but I'm just kind of blown away at how much story this DLC adds to the infamous story generator game.

Like, I have over 4,000 hours in this game and this is the first time that its felt like its telling me an actual story.

Spoilers ahead! TW: child death in the context of this cruel cruel video game:

I had this colonist join named Bristle who was described as a "leathery stranger" with a unique ability - he can blow up animals (and people, presumably) with his mind into hunks of twisted flesh. I said, sure, why not! Join my colony, what's the worst that could happen?!

Well, the worst that could happen is he went and studied a monolith on the beach outside of my base and it teleported him into a strange grey labyrinth. Pretty much just as soon as he got here, he's now trapped in some kinda void maze. Great!

It took me a couple of rooms before I noticed the markings on the floor, so once I realized I could read them I examined every single one I could find.

The messages are... Evocative, but they start giving me names. I'm wondering this whole time, who is Raisa? And who is Tom? I checked all of my colonists - I don't have anyone by either name. Are they people I should know? Or... People I haven't met yet?

Fortunately, because Bristle had literally just joined my colony, he came with his own rifle and 12x fine meals, so he could actually bum around and hang out in the labyrinth for a pretty long time. I ended up mapping out the entire thing before his last 6 meals disappeared from his inventory.

I found a couple rooms with fleshspikes - those are these pink little flesh monsters with a giant protruding spike coming out of their heads? - but thanks to Bristle's ability to explode creatures with his mind, I just... Exploded it.

I also found a couple groves of trees underground, a couple of horses randomly, and some bottomless pits. I was tempted to walk over one just to see what would happen (and savescum out of it ofc), but I didn't end up doing it.

I'm really concerned about Tom and Raisa though. Are they okay? Did they make it out?

I'm especially concerned about Tom. That... Doesn't sound okay.

And then I push through yet another door.

This is Raisa... And Tom.

I gasped out loud in real life. Nora came over to check on me because holy shit, that's so sad. Suddenly their notes makes sense. The obelisk abducted a woman and her child, and they got stuck in here for who knows how long. The wounds they had indicated that a fleshspike had done this to them.

I went to the exit - I had found it earlier, I just wanted to keep exploring. Thankfully, everything that had been left behind was kicked out of the labyrinth with Bristle when it collapsed on itself and the obelisk itself vanished from sight.

Including Raisa and Tom. I had to give them a proper burial. Wish I could've done more.

The messages were all from Raisa after she lost her son Tom.

I had done the two researchers one ghoul story start because I wanted to dive right into the DLC, and one of those researchers, Rose, arrived pregnant. Baby Thorn is almost three years old and still doesn't have a name.

Its kind of funny, because when I first landed she idly wandered near the monument, and I had one of those gamer coincidences where she walked by it right at the same time I got the notification that she was pregnant.

So I wound up continuing this colony even though it was a crap start, thinking I'd get some kind of void baby out of the deal? Nope, normal baby, normal birth. He's just chilling in his crib being looked after by the whole community as happy as can be. She must've been pregnant on the screen where I selected her for my colony and I just missed that detail.

Another funny thing about this kid, is that his father is Unknown, and apparently Rose's ex was the ghoul Kaito that I also started with. So, presumably, it was her ghoul (ex) husband's son, but the game's code doesn't seem to be able to link him as the other parent, either because he's a ghoul or because it happened as part of the game's starting conditions. Also she's actually gay on her character sheet, so I dunno how that worked for them? Ehh, I'm not gunna judge.

Anyways, I'm thinking about naming him Tom.

Here's hoping he has a long and full life.

[dzpenumbra]

7/1/23

I'm happy to be able to visually see myself getting in better shape. I really didn't realize how sedentary I had been. Every summer I have had trails to walk and rivers to comb for stones, and this summer I don't. I rarely leave my apartment at all. I think it's one of the first years I've been like this since I started getting really into hiking.

Now? If I want to go to the National Park near me, it's gonna be a $50 car rental, plus an entry fee to the park. Unless I can find a different place. My #1 top priority "will rent a car for this no matter what" trip is finding a stone beach somewhere. I will legit pull an all nighter (like every night) and just stay up, drive there at... well... around now, around 6 or something, and just spend all day barefoot combing the beach for cool rocks. That is a fucking dream come true.

I wish I had more uses for stones and stuff, like artistic uses. There's always jewelry but tumbling takes so fucking long, and wrapping them is a skill I just haven't really fully grasped. Well... that all comes with practice, doesn't it?

So yeah, not going out has done much more damage to me than just social deprivation, it's actually affecting my physical health. My blood pressure, my cholesterol, my weight. But doing yoga and exercise every day has really been getting me back in shape and I'm really happy for that.

I didn't do a ton today. The usual, really. Yoga, workout, games. Then I did a stream for a few hours. Started with watching skate videos while eating dinner, I like it. It feels less lonely than watching videos alone, even if no one is watching with me.

Some guy came back who... last time I saw him was super fucking rude in my chat. I barely know this guy. He raided my stream right when I was setting up a new Rimworld colony (with like 4 viewers) and I was explaining the whole story so far... like... setting up the plot for the stream. So he raided at the perfect time to get a summary of the plot so far, leading to the beginning of the playthrough. And this motherfucker, as I'm telling the backstory, is spamming @ me in the fucking chat, like 4 or 5 times. And I'm like... "yes, what's up, I'm trying to set up the story." And he goes... "how you been?" I had like 4 or 5 people there from past streams and shit who were there for the Ideology setup and all that, so... there were people invested in the story already... and this dude is spamming chat to ask me how I've been when he doesn't actually care. I was a hair away from banning him, and honestly... I probably should have. I can't remember the last time he was in my chat and actually gave a fuck about what was going on in the stream. He just fucking talks about himself and his stream and the games he plays.

Good lord, I know too many fucking people like that. Is that why they seek out small streamers? So they can just talk about themselves on someone else's stream and just make the entire thing about themselves? Like calling a radio station and just rambling on the phone about yourself until they cut you off? Is that what this is? Ugh.

Well, today, he decided to tell me that he is going hiking tomorrow. And he lost 20 pounds. And he still plays Rocket League. And he snowboards, but doesn't like skateboarding for no reason at all. As my entire stream at that point was watching skate videos and eating. Kinda fuckin weird, in hindsight. It really sucks when it's just you and one or two other people, if they start to dominate and you... you know... lead the stream... because you're the streamer and they're tuning in to watch you... supposedly... then they get pissy. It's fucking weird. It's like... I don't know, I feel like it's kind of a residual habit of people being on social media too much, and seeing a chatroom on Twitch and thinking it's Twitter and they're the star or something. I don't know.

Anyway, he left after like 10 minutes. Right when I transitioned into working on the visualizer. I did that for a few hours, made another cool kaleidoscope-themed one. Total of about 3.5 hour stream. And then I ended stream and played Hades for the rest of the night. And Hades is pretty kick ass, I like it a lot so far.

And that's about all for today, honestly. I want to get outside more, so maybe I can get out for a walk tomorrow if the weather is nice? And I got an email this morning from my landlord saying they're doing an annual event at my building where they do like a parking lot party, and there are games and shit, like axe throwing and shit. That's gonna be pretty sweet. I'm thinking of going. I mean... if it gets weird and awkward or uncomfortable, I can just go back to my apartment, it's right there. It's just been so fucking long since I've done any stuff like this. Like going to a fair, or a farmers market or something. It's been... close to 4 years? I think I went to one social event about a year into the pandemic, my therapist at the time went with me and I brought my dog. It was an art thing, I don't really know how to describe it, like demonstrations and workshops and shit. But that was like... the only thing I've been to since... since rock climbing on my birthday in October of 2019. That's a long fucking time. That's like... a full college degree worth of time.

I don't know why it spooks me. Maybe because I'm in my late 30's and I think the only people my age that might even be there are like... guaranteed to have kids. Maybe it's just because I'm alone. The more I think about it, I don't think it's this "out of practice" excuse my reflexes keep coming up with. I think it's just going to be a naturally awkward situation for me, considering I'm an introvert. I will be a lone person in their late 30's, and I do not typically like approaching people. It's always been awkward for me, no one in my family is remotely like that, and no one in the social circles I grew up in, and my family talked a lot of shit about people like that... extroverts... so... It's not really formed into my natural behavioral patterns at all, and I get a lot of reflexes saying "bad things will happen if you just approach people". Like... okay, maybe an example. If I, as a single childless man in his late 30's, went up and complimented a woman on how well behaved their child was being... my reflexes tell me that's weird and something bad will happen. My logical brain says... "if you said that to your older brother, he'd be really happy someone acknowledged it." My reflex mind goes, "you're going to weird people out". And that inner conflict is very stressful.

But again, as weird as it sounds? If I had cigarettes? I'd be fine. Not even kidding. If I had cigarettes, I'd have a box of 20 tickets out of social situations with no questions asked. Because 90% of people do not want you smoking near them. So... you can just say "I'm going to walk away from you right now without having to explain myself, because I will be smoking this plant, and you don't want me doing that around you. In fact, we have a designated area to do that." Then I can take my overwhelm or whatever and bring it over to a bench and just sit there and stare off at a plant or a wall or something, and take deep breaths and chill a bit. Dude, I am tempted to get a non-nicotine vape just for this purpose. I don't know if there are any actual... healthy vapes. I would just vape weed, but good lord would that make the problem 10,000 times worse. Hmm... I'm going to have to look into this. I was just picturing myself going to a smoking bench and like... chewing in a stick or something. But actually smoking something, even if it isn't nicotine, or even technically smoking... that would not just replace the ritual but make me blend in better.

Fucking crazy how... you just learn really specific ways of living. And then people give you shit and tell you you're unhealthy because of the way you learned how to live, and you want to be smart and live healthier, so you just start stripping "bad habits" completely unaware that it's absolutely a game of Jenga. Sometimes those habits are really important ones, that do much more than just fill a chemical need. Like my old thing with eating ice cream every night. It wasn't so much about the sugar, or the dairy, it was about emotional comfort in a time of grief. It's much easier (for me, at least) to just sweat out physical withdrawals as my body adjusts, than it is to form an entirely new way of grieving. So when you get it in your head that what you're doing is just quitting a chemical dependency, but you are unaware that you are also removing a social anxiety coping tool, a stress regulation tool, a weight management tool, a time/attention regulation tool... it gets fucking messy.

Anyway, point being... I need to get out in the world more. I'm definitely feeling it. First is a walk, I really need to get some sticks to use as stakes for my tomato and beans (my beans are both already over a foot tall). Then trips to the skatepark. Maybe a farmer's market visit on sunday? It's only about 2 blocks away. All working up to the parking lot party thing on the 12th. I can do it. I have been streaming effortlessly, and talking to people completely naturally. I just need to show myself that I can do it, and gradual increments help a lot. Also, AirPods. AirPods help a lot.

Tarot time, it's getting super late again.

Past - Eight of Swords, inverted (Feeling trapped and powerless. Being conditioned and complacent, not being able to see objectively.  But if you can, this is an opportunity to remove yourself from that trap.) Present - Page of Swords (Childlike awe and wonder, epiphany. Encountering wisdom but unable to process it.  Keen intellect, strong will, but lacks context and experience.) Future - Three of Cups, inverted (Celebration, calling in good fortune, joy.  Social gathering, a heartfelt belonging in a community.)

This one starts with inverted Eight of Swords. Eight of Swords represents self-imposed limitations. Meh, maybe that's not the best way of putting it, because The Devil is also about self-imposed traps (though it's much more about indulgence and impulse gratification traps, imo). Eight of Swords feels like the world imposing a trap, but a shift in perspective from the sufferer reveals that it's really just an illusion.

This is connected to Page of Swords in the Present position. Page of Swords is the embodiment of epiphany. The excitement of discovering and revealing the truth.

And this is connected to inverted Three of Cups in the Future position. Three of Cups is about social gatherings with friends.

What does this mean? Hmm... I would see the inverted Eight of Swords being the residual effects of peer pressure and just... shitty social treatment. How it keeps me bound and frozen, feeling like there is danger all around, but I am bound with ribbons and the danger only appears that way. When really, I'm the same person I was before all that, and I can just go and be like I was before. That sorta... trap that was built by others, but I keep myself in it... kinda thing. The inversion I would see as how deep I have fallen into it, how much its interfering with my life. The Page of Swords is the epiphany, the big realization, but also... not really knowing what to do with it. Like Mickey Mouse in Fantasia is kinda where I would see it inverted, this luckily is upright. So... there are still some blemishes with the Page, but the awe and wonder and excitement makes it worth it. Now... what I'm struggling to connect here is... how the Page of Swords connects to inverted Three of Cups. Inverted Three of Cups... I mean, if I take it super literally would be... something preventing me from going to a party. Which is like... I mean, I literally just wrote about that. So... okay. I mean... is this a warning? Like... hmm... gears are turning. So the Eight of Swords says the cause... the Page of Swords shows what I'm doing about it... which is a great realization but not really knowing what to do with it... and the Three of Cups shows the result... that not knowing means I don't go. The doubt, the feeling incapable and "not ready" means I don't go, and I miss out on making connections. Meeting people. I guess I was reading a bit too deep, it seems to make pretty clear sense.

Placeholder card? Five of Cups. Fucking again. I swear, I literally got this last night. And I shuffled the fuck out of the deck, I always do. If anyone wants to do the math on pulling the same card in the same position in a 4 card draw in a 78 card deck... feel free. Five of Cups is grief and suffering. It's not a fun card. It definitely shows the dominant force behind this whole narrative. Loss/grief/suffering caused the Eight of Swords, discovery and analysis of the loss/grief/suffering narrative was the Page, and the continued echoes of the loss/grief/suffering cause the disruption in social gatherings.

So again, the lesson is... take care of the grieving self. Self-care. Be kind and loving to myself. And these traps will start to fall apart on their own - like in yoga when you struggle to get into a pose because you're involuntarily tensing up muscles that are preventing you from getting into it, and then you learn to relax them and it just... happens - and I will start to reintegrate with more ease.

[pushing500]

hello!! i love your rimworld stories so much! this might be a dumb question, but i was wondering if you had any tips for storytelling while playing rimworld? i love the idea of getting more into the narrative/roleplay aspects, but i sort of feel lost when i try. another possible dumb question: do you take notes as you play and/or do you rely on screenshots to translate into the comics? i’m probably overthinking this haha…im just fascinated with the idea of using a game like rimworld to tell a story

Hello!! I'm so glad to hear you like the stories! I have a lot of fun playing/drawing them, but it's especially nice when others appreciate them, too ❤️

Storytelling tips, hey? Hmm... I always think that as long as you're having fun, the story will sort of reveal itself. For me personally, it helps if I have characters I really like. When I first asked my brother to teach me how to play RimWorld, I actually didn't really like it. It felt like too much at once, and I couldn't get invested in the characters while also trying to figure out how to survive and make the game work.

It was only after my brother installed the EdB Prepare Carefully mod that I actually started to get into the story part of the game. I made a colony of characters based on a kids' TV show my baby sister and I watched (PJ Masks, for anyone curious). Now that I had characters I already knew, I could enjoy seeing the way they interacted with each other and the tasks they did, and I got more invested in keeping them safe during raids and researching things to make their lives easier. Only then did I start to write/draw what was happening, mostly for my own amusement but also because I enjoyed sharing it with my veteran player brother so he could roll his eyes at all the mistakes I was making (love you, bro).

Now, I use the Character Editor mod because it works better, but I still like to start out with at least one custom character in each new game of RimWorld. It helps me get settled in and ready to see what kind of story Randy Random decides to tell with them.

I don't know if that's helpful at all, but that's my tip for getting into the swing of things.

As for your other question, I don't really take notes. I do give the screenshots silly names that sometimes help me decide where I want to go with the drawing for that part of the story, but I mostly just wing it and hope it turns out in an interesting and (mostly) comprehensible way.

For example, screenshots from The Children of Ecthuctu:

Screenshots from A Mechanitor's Message:

I'm very organised and systematic, as you can see lmao

[loganthrives]

RimWorld: Anomaly Part 4

I think I may be getting bored of this colony and want to start over, but I wanted to tell one more story about it first.

Under cut as usual to protect from spoilers:

So at the end of the last one I shared a message that said the ground was cracking apart. If you know anything about this DLC while reading that, you might be thinking of this:

Or of its smaller cousin, which just poops out a handful of flesh beasts before you plug it.

The message I posted last part wasn't for that, though. It was for this.

Randy was gracious enough to place it a good distance away from my base, but it spreads quickly. By this point I've already raided two overrun villages that have had this happen to them and seen the aftermath when one of these pops off. So I knew I had to act quickly.

We grabbed half of our best fighters and approached the fleshmass. Unfortunately we had some visitors to the region passing through at the same time, and they encountered the fleshbeasts first.

Most of them survived, I think. I don't remember exactly, its legitimately been a while since this happened/since I've played.

Cleaning up the fleshmass is a chore and a half, because as I said, it spreads QUICKLY. I learned quickly that if I could take out connecting tissue between chunks of it, it would stop spreading out from those chunks. Anything connected to the centre mass will still spread, though.

And there are consequences for being so diligent.

My colonists had been at this for a day and a half with no sleep or food. A couple had mental breaks. I had to let them go rest, eat, and recover their wounds.

I didn't leave it alone for too long, though, and started harvesting samples so I could learn how to kill it.

In this taller screenshot you can see the fleshmass on its day off from being shot at, how far it spread and the areas it had spread to previously by the fleshy ground left behind.

At this point not only did my colonists need a break but it hadn't actually spawned any blisters for me to destroy for more samples. I had to let it grow.

Eventually we got our breakthrough.

Several colonists stood guard while he delivered the fatal shock required to end it.

Cool guys don't look at explosions.

And it left behind a little present.

Naturally, I took it back to my base to contain and study it, and it has been providing the twisted flesh for my animals' kibble ever since. I worry for the day when it might try and reform itself in the middle of my base, but in the mean time, dear gods I really need to get those transport pods researched.

As for this hole in the ground?

Sure, it spawns enemies every so often that throw themselves impotently at my turrets, bears, and clawer dryads...

... But it also serves as a convenient year-round mushroom farm for some extra nutrition. So I haven't closed it up yet.

In the meantime, we sent the angry ball out to fight a Diabolus-level threat so we could try and increase our mechtech, but I think it accidentally destroyed the signal chip we needed for our research in its onslaught, because I can't find it anywhere.

Oh well.

Next time, I dunno. I might try and tell some colonist stories, but I've actually gotten a little bored of this colony. There have been a couple patches to the DLC since to allow people to advance to the end of the Anomaly storyline without discovering absolutely every anomaly, so I actually have the option to end it available to me now. There's also the opportunity to play a pure horror experience as of last patch, where anomaly events can happen but you don't advance the monolith storyline.

Personally, I'd prefer a middle option - where a monument exists, but on another tile on the map instead of your main base, and anomaly events can happen regardless. But you have to travel to and set up a colony at the monolith to open up that ending option. But maybe that's just me?

Anyways, I'm hesitant to pull the trigger on the ending because I still haven't resolved the giant pit in the ground/our mushroom farm, and I haven't discovered this vaunted golden cube yet, either. There's also at least one anomaly critter I haven't seen yet that isn't the thing that waits for me in the hole. I see it in screenshots on containment platforms all the time, but I don't know what it is. No spoilers, please.

If you liked this there are three other parts preceeding this that you can check out (if you want):

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Thanks for reading 💗

[dzpenumbra]

6/10/23

Today hasn't been too bad. It was a very rough start though.

I woke up after 4 hours of sleep and started having an anxiety attack immediately. An intense one, with physical symptoms... which is new in the grand scheme of things. Ever since that doctor's visit, my anxiety chest tightness and chest pain, racing heart, adrenaline feelings... that kinda stuff started coming back. Probably a result of feeling my mortality. It's a very different kind of fear than like... shame.

I've written about that here before - how interesting it is that different types of fear can actually feel different, physically, experientially. Like... the experience of fearing being embarrassed is a very different sensation than fearing being physically injured, to me.

But yeah, it was pretty rough. I guarantee it was a super vivid dream that caused it, though I didn't journal to capture it. I guarantee it was based on the RP streams I've been completely immersed in (read: addicted to). It definitely felt that way. And on days like... the past few days... I seriously spend all my waking hours with a stream in front of me. And I really think it's unhealthy.

I just... don't have an alternate form of social interaction currently. So... given the choice between working while watching a stream (where I can interact in chat) vs... listening to music for 6 hours? Or watching YouTube videos in the background? I mean... If I had people to do that with, I would drop the streams in a heartbeat. I mean that. And that's what frustrates me.

I returned to Twitch as a streamer at the beginning of the pandemic (actually a little before it...) as an attempt to share things I'm passionate about with others. The way I tell stories, the way I narrate video games, shit like that. I felt like I had a gift for it. It was made so blatantly obvious to me by others that what I saw when I played games like Rimworld was so much different from what others saw. My experience was so much more immersive and emotional, romantic and narrative. Very few people that I've ever come across have shared that ability... to connect story points from a randomly generated story game and stitch a narrative together on-the-fly. One that actually makes sense, and has compelling and relatable characters that you actually give a fuck about. Nearly everyone that I watched playing Rimworld was literally calling their colonists "Pawns" and trying to "win". And since my ability to see, experience and share the story I was experiencing was so... natural for me... and so rare... I decided to stream. To share that gift with others, so they could see what I saw.

I remember vividly that I inspired a viewer (two, actually) to buy the game. They were chasing the experience that I presented, and unfortunately were a little disappointed when they realized that... what they were seeking was the drama and everything that I was presenting. It's really hard to explain that to people without offending them. But I think at a subconscious level, they could tell, because both of them would be watching my streams and playing their own colonies at the same time (towards the end).

I guess what I'm saying is... I would feel better about streaming... instead of watching streams... if I could have a little more assurance that people were going to show up. What I'm actively avoiding right now is sitting in front of a computer and just absorbing stuff in the background while working all day. I want something at least with the option of social interaction. And with me streaming, the numbers just haven't been there. So few people, it was usually just me and this teenage kid who keeps coming by for some reason.

I guess it's kinda obvious that my desire to stream is coming back up. The downside every time is... having to "explain" where I've been. Like I fucking abandoned all these people who don't even come by my streams half the time, and who have never subbed in 4 years... XD

Here are my current reservations with streaming: 1). Making noise past midnight. The walls are thin, to the point that I actually feel a bit anxious about the volume of my mechanical keyboard at this hour. I don't want to piss off my neighbors. 2). Background stuff. I would like to either have videos or music playing while I do art streams; I need something when I work, even if I have people to talk to. I feel like that would make the most sense for where I'm at right now. And then I can do gaming streams to just... take breaks. The problem? Again... DMCA. And how to handle that fucking bullshit. Which... honestly? There are two routes... a). learn how to route my audio so that the music plays on my live streams but not on my VoDs... then my VoDs will be awkward as fuck because it'll just be silence for hours at a time with me drawing and occasionally talking or singing along to nothing or b). scrap the VoDs entirely. And honestly? Who the fuck is watching my VoDs, you know?

Those are the big ones. But honestly? It would help me a lot to start being social again. But I fear no one will show up, and I'll just sit here doing my art shit in silence for hours at a time... when I could be watching really funny RP while I work. Having music or YouTube or something to soften the blow of silence would help.

Yeah, I guess I'll look into that tomorrow. It's been on my "Side Quests" list on the whiteboard for a while now. Along with setting up a Tumblr for my main art stuff.

I feel like I've been slipping a lot lately, somehow. Like a lot of stuff has fallen through the cracks. I think it was that rough patch of interrupted sleep, honestly, and this box fan has been an utter lifesaver. I could just barely hear my upstairs neighbor walking around when I had the box fan on today, I think it masks the sound really well and the cool air always helps me sleep. But I think the sleep deprivation really fucked up my life for a while there and I'm still playing catch-up.

Oh shit, so... despite the reasoning behind it being... freaking out about my health... I started a workout program today. That's good! I've been really good about those historically, I started doing them during the pandemic - these 30 day exercise challenge things from Darebee. I'm redoing one that I did last Spring(?) when I was binging out on Elden Ring. I needed to find an exercise routine that I can do in my apartment (so I don't have the excuse of social anxiety) but didn't involve jumping around and shit because... I'm the apartment above someone. This one is "combat-based", so all those kinds of movements that would normally be jumping jacks and burpees and shit are squats and kicks instead.

In the past, the first day of these workouts has completely utterly destroyed me. They do the exercises by Levels 1-3, with each Level being 3-5-7 sets respectively... so you can take the exercise plan and scale it to whatever you can handle. And in the past? I was always Level 1. And when I first started doing them, I even struggled with Level 1 sometimes. Today? I debated doing Level 2. I honestly don't even feel sore. It's weird. Maybe all that yoga is paying off more than I had thought! But Level 1 today means... all-in-all... I did 60 squats, 60 front kicks, 60 strikes, 60 jab + cross combos, and 60 elbow strikes. And that feels like a lot for a first exercise. And I knocked it out pretty easily. So I'm proud of myself for that. I'm trying to attach it to the end of my morning yoga.

I also started with reassessing my diet. I... haven't made a ton of progress, to be honest. My therapist was harping on portion control. And I guess I could tone that down. But I legit woke up starving this morning, and that does fuck with my sleep quite often. In fact, I might get a small trail mix snack right now just to have something in my stomach to delay that hunger.

I'm struggling with the diet shit because... most of the things they recommend for healthier eating? I already eat... I don't think potatoes or onions are bad... avocados are always stocked in my house as a go-to snack or meal accompaniment. Beans usually play a role, but I could put more of a focus on those... I only eat chicken, as far as meat goes, and really not that much or that often. It's usually only there to kinda... bulk up meals, if that makes sense? Like in a quesadilla or in rice, to just add... more? I don't know how to put it. I'm basically vegetarian besides that. Even the sausage I have in my freezer that I never eat is chicken sausage. I don't eat fish... which is the one thing all the reading I did was pushing. So that kinda puts a wrench in the works.. So basically... I guess what I'm gonna do right off the bat is... cut down on butter a bit. Switch the whole milk to something less. Maybe tone it down with sour cream? But I really don't use that much... And... the ice cream has been put on hold. Besides that? I have no idea what changes to make.

But I found a list of Low-Cholesterol Recipes which had some stuff that looked good, so I'm gonna try to take this as an opportunity to try new cooking experiments. Then I'll actually look forward to it.

I can't figure out what to make of eggs though. Some of what I read said they were good, some said they were bad, some said they make no difference. Ugh. Either way, I did my "fancy Ramen" tonight as a break from the pasta, and just put 2 eggs in it instead of 3 or 4. It's pretty light for a full meal... but yeah. That's the best I can do for now. The resource my therapist gave me for fitness and dieting (specialized for nerds, which made me go "fuck yeah" =D ) is... a bit more expensive than I think I can budget right now? Unfortunately. But I'm gonna keep it in mind.

I'm trying to keep my motivation going, and use this news as an opportunity to make good changes to my life that I've wanted for a while. I just have this weird reflex that doesn't want to. Like I'm fighting myself. Like... I want to be active. I want to exercise. Not exercising is really weird for me, in the grand scale of my life. I have always been active. But man, being in the city? Where going outside feels... unsafe, to me? When I don't have a car? I have to put a lot of extra effort into making that push out the door worth it.

I guess you don't really know what you've got until it's gone, and I was insanely lucky to have such amazing nature trails so easily available to me for so long.

Alright, I think that's pretty much it for today. I just did yoga, exercised, ate food, watched streams and drew a fuck ton of tiny circles. XD I'll share the piece with you guys once it gets further along... assuming I even can... it's not even half done and it's already 2 fucking gigs!

Oh, I guess one last thing. I had this thought last night... I think it was last night. I think what's fucking me up and making me so anxious is... Most of my life I have been brought to the doctors with the expectation that something bad is wrong with me. And every time (for the most part) it was nothing. Tests were negative, I was surprisingly healthy, despite not taking good care of myself. Now? I go in for a routine physical and they find unhealthy stuff. It's poetic, I guess. But I think that's why it's hitting harder. Because it's like... the first time I let my guard down... XD Also... I keep thinking of one of my teachers/mentors in college... the one that had Asperger's, whose way of viewing the world really changed the way I view art... just... in general. I've been thinking of him lately. He died of... I think an aneurism? He was plowing the driveway at his girlfriend's (my advisor) house and... he was just gone. And yeah... that's been on my mind. That hit close to home, he was like.. my favorite teacher in college, one who a lot of people would shit on for being weird and different. And hearing "high blood pressure" and "high cholesterol", even though they might just be slightly elevated? When you've seen how out-of-nowhere it can just... blink you out of existence? It's kinda lurking in the shadows around me. I can't see (feel) it directly, but I can sense that being a factor in how surreally intense my anxiety has been lately. Just felt that was worth mentioning for self-reference, it seems much more important and relevant than I've been consciously processing.

Tarot time.

Past - VIII: Strength (Overcoming fear, mastery of emotions through equilibrium and inner strength.) Present - Seven of Pentacles, inverted (A pause to evaluate the fruit of your effort.  Reflection on accomplishments made thus far.) Future - Nine of Wands, inverted (The Wounded Warrior.  Defense, guarding yourself. Suspicion, self-protection.  Need rest and recovery.)

Alrighty. We got a new one here, the Seven of Pentacles. I think I can kinda intuitively get the gist of this one, but lets dive in.

The thread starts with a card that I like a lot, one I strive for a lot in my life, but one that's always wavering for me. Strength. The lion-tamer. The state of finding a balance with your inner beast, an equilibrium between conscious and subconscious, logic and emotion. The source of this thread is that state.

What it leads to is... inverted Seven of Pentacles... which is an image of a woman presenting bread that she baked, representing an appreciation of and reflection on the culmination of past labors. This is either something in dysfunction, or is something that is presenting itself to me but I am not engaging with it.

And that leads to... a card that shows up a lot for me, both upright and inverted. The Nine of Wands. The Wounded Warrior. And I read an inverted Nine of Wands to be... stuck in bitterness, defense and suspicion. A very... the-bad-sides-of-Dr. House kinda symbol, for me.

So... my process of overcoming fear and seeking balance with my emotions... has been leading to me struggling to... or neglecting... celebrating my accomplishments. And the result of this... is that I end up trapped in a place of injury, a place of weakness and never-ending recovery. And that weakness and vulnerability... leads to suspicion, and distrust, and constantly being guarded. ANXIETY. So... ironically... my work towards mastering my emotions... has somehow resulted in me being their slave. My attempt to coexist with the inner lion, has me living with The Sahara's Finest prowling around my loft apartment every day. And the big component that is making that so? My inability (or refusal...) to recognize how much I've overcome. How much I've done. How much I've accomplished. How strong I am. How capable I am.

Yep. This one resonates with me a lot. Self-esteem, confidence, is such a huge piece to life. I really need to work on it more. So... my plan to set up streaming stuff tomorrow? That should help. The two biggest things that have helped me cultivate confidence the past several years have been streaming and snowskating/skateboarding. If I can get those balanced into my life? I think it would do a lot of good.

[dzpenumbra]

12/23/22

Alright well... over the past few days I have been followed by 12 bots. And I just tried to do my civic duty and report these things... and... I can't really find a good way to do that. I mean, the thing that made the most sense was "impersonation". Because, you know, they're not actually people, and they steal people's likenesses for profile pictures - which is surreally creepy, I mean honestly, imagine running across a profile that wasn't yours that had your face as a profile pic, good lord my heart goes out to those people, that's haunting. But Tumblr won't even let you file an impersonation report unless you are the person in the photograph. Is this a thing where fucking idiot teenagers cried wolf too many times? This shit is out of control.

I mean, for me it's just obnoxious, and super depressing, but for a site as a whole it's just a really fuckin bad look. Just sayin.

Okay. I'm done talking about that. XD Today was... unexpectedly productive.

I woke up early, like 6 hours of sleep early. Like my essential oil diffuser hadn't even gone into hibernation mode because it hadn't finished its 6 hour shift yet. I woke up and went back to sleep a few times, tried to browse social media to reset the vibes. It's just a comfort thing, again my dreams haven't even been bad, just vivid. But I'm so fucking useless to the world when I first wake up that I don't even have the wherewithal to remember to write my dreams down. I remember reflexively trying to capture highlights when I first woke up, but it was like trying to hold water in trembling hands or something. I guess I'm just out of practice. I need to get back into doing a pre-sleep mantra kinda thing to remind my subconscious to practice, every second counts when it comes to dream recall.

When I finally got up for real, I got kitty some food, got some breakfast and decided to start recording for a new Rimworld series. Yep, a new project. Another one. And a fucking movie, to boot. So the concept is to take a playthrough and record it, paying close attention to story points the best I can and trying to get good cinematic shots. I want to do a sorta... RP playthrough, voicing over the main character through the form of a journal or log or something, recalling her story. Or someone reading her journal or something. That part I won't be able to figure out until the story is over. But I'm doing the new DLC and I'm playing the Sanguiphage scenario, but with a bunch of mods for more immersion and personality. And I plan to do a movie of it, rather than do it episodic like my last one. And very in-character. I think it'll come out pretty cool, time will tell. It's a good longer term project because I can do other projects while it plays itself in the background.

The first playthrough was a bust, it went south very quick and the story wasn't really interesting. The setup was amazing, but they just got taken out by wildlife in the first week so that was like... bummer. So I did yoga, showered and went skating. Skating was pretty sick. I got a few 3 shuvs pretty clean, I got a standing still heelflip (which I haven't gotten in probably 2 years?), a moving kickflip and found this... I don't know what it was, some kind of big metal cover on something? I packed snow around it and set up a ride-on grind and it slid okay. I got a 5-0 across the whole thing, it was like 8 feet or something. But... yep, there's a but... I tried a boardslide, and I really was hesitating for a while because I didn't know how it was gonna go... and there was a big screw thing poking up that I didn't see... and it tore up the bottom of my board pretty bad. And now there's a big groove in it and it just... killed all my speed. Even on flat. Even on hills. I'll see how much tuning it up will do, but to be honest, it's really deep. So... fingers crossed, we'll see how that goes tomorrow.

Came back, made buffalo chicken pizza, which came out really good. Did all the dishes and cleaned the counters. Killed it. Played/recorded a new Rimworld playthrough over dinner and it looks promising. When I was getting a little... bored of it... I had something pop into my head. I don't know how I got to it but... when I was packing, some random dude sent me a message on Reddit. He was replying to a post he put up 9 FUCKING YEARS AGO. He was requesting a Baroness tab, back then I did full-band tabulature, transcribing by ear for every instrument. You know, as educational tools, so people can learn how to play the songs they love. That's how I learned guitar. My acoustic case is still full of printed out sheets of tabs, like dozens of them. This dude wanted me to tab out Mtns. (The Crown and Anchor) by Baroness, off Yellow, and I didn't know the song well. But I took it on. I remember doing it, and getting really close to finishing it. Then I'm guessing my life went to shit, because I never sent it to him. And that harddrive is now pretty much fucked. Pretty sure, not really brave enough to try to get shit off of it again.

So... I had a thought. Why the hell am I putting in effort to make Christmas gifts for people who treat me like garbage? Why don't I give this a go, make a special gift for someone who obviously really cares about this song so much that they're going to follow up on it almost a decade later. And I did. And I fucking hyperfocused on it the way that only transcribing music and super inspired art can do for me. I sunk into that for probably 3-4 hours? Lost all perception of time. I transcribed most of both electric guitars and bass, drums are gonna be tomorrow along with the acoustic and lead guitars. I'd say the bulk of it is done though. Pretty cool feeling. It's been a while.

So, I'm gonna drop the tab to that guy on Christmas, and he better have Guitar Pro because I really don't feel like doing any of that .gp5 conversion or - god forbid - make it a pdf or some shit. I mean, I can if I have to, but like... I put a lot of work into getting the sound right, you know? They're kinda meant to be experienced in Guitar Pro.

So yeah, that was pretty much my day. Now it's almost 3AM again. And all the snow is disappearing. But it's okay, I have plenty of really cool shit to do.

Kitty is calling, bed time.