Life slowly continues to roll along, in whatever path it may choose.  Sometimes I feel like I'm done trying to fight it anymore.

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Let's start with some cool good news -- I cleared Lugdunum, one of the hardest (if not the hardest) Caesar 3 levels, in my Augustus very hard difficulty playthrough!  This one has been a long time in coming, so I feel proud to finally be able to cross it off the list.  The next mission is Tarsus, which seems to be set in a desert province, but honestly I might actually give Lugdunum another try or two, just to prove that I really understand how to beat it well.

There were a couple more things that I learned through the process:

First is that you really just can't have random tents lying around for labor in Augustus.  Because of how the city sentiment/crime rework functions, they'll just continually spawn protestors/thieves and it'll be a bad time.  You can of course keep a contingent of tents around at the city entrance while your city is still getting up and running, but it'll have to be torn down at some point, otherwise they'll just continually spawn robbers/looters, and though they will take a while, they DO travel to your main city and take goods from granaries/warehouses.

The other option is to make sure you keep your roads concise for that tent area and have enough prefectures such that the looters will all be taken down, but probably better to just feed those people if you can...

One issue is that all of the plateau farmland needs to get labor from somewhere, and that means some houses have to go on the plateau itself.  Usually you'd want to just use a few tents...but like I said, that's going to cause problems.  Luckily there's enough space on the plateaus that you can provide some basic needs to evolve them to hovels, at least, by adding a market and a temple, and that will suffice.

There is space for quite a lot of farms on the plateau, and it probably doesn't make sense to have all of those farms transporting food all the way to the entrance to the plateau area (that's too far of a distance to really be efficient), which means you should probably have a housing block on the far end of the plateau.  In my playthrough this actually ended up being the block where I had 3 villas (along with the requisite foods and warehouses and such), but it's probably also possible to have this simply be a block of small insulae and instead use the 9 farms on the southern island to feed the villas (?).  I might try that strategy out in my next run.  Those 9 farms can probably also sustain one =small= housing block of small insulae, but not much more than that, so be careful not to stretch that too thin.

Space is at a premium in the area near the natives (you'll have to squeeze two or so housing blocks somewhere in that area) so for religion you probably want all of your oracles / nonessential temples to be either interspersed with the native huts, or somewhere completely different like the entrance to the map.

Unfortunately oracles DO require engineering posts, so putting them near the entrance to the map unfortunately means that you'd have to feed some people near the entrance to the map, which would be challenging as you'd either have to have a market that "tosses" food across the cliff boundary, or import food there.  Interspersing them throughout the native villages is OK but you also probably need to run aqueducts through there, and getting labor access / engineers there might be tricky.  Importing food is pretty bad at scale but for an isolated situation where you only need to feed a few houses it might actually do just the trick, so I might try that and place those houses on the eastern corner of the map since there's easy water access there.

Another interesting option might be to rely on mausoleums, since those can't fall to fire or collapse.  Those actually might be perfect to just go and build near the natives (lol, building a bunch of mausoleums in the native lands, perfect), but alternatively I guess you could just build a bunch near the city entrance (each gives access to 750 people, so you'd probably want 4-6 large ones ideally) and then have them live there without any labor access afterwards!  They even cost less per month than oracles/nympaeums, so maybe this is the way to go?

As for money, you essentially want to get to selling weapons to the natives as soon as you can (though before that you can use the normal trade routes), and then get to a "stable city" where you can just wait around and let cash accumulate so you'll have enough for everything else you'll need to do.  That also lets you solve unemployment easily by just putting down more mission posts (they don't require engineering posts) and you won't have to worry a ton about all of the wages you'll have to pay.

A Ceres Grand Temple is another possible option that might help out the city, but unfortunately grand temples do require labor access and I feel like there's just not a great place to put it.  But providing the farm cart pusher speed boost and reducing food consumption would probably make the population targets easier to hit, maybe worth the monthly fee?

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Warmer weather (and the associated influx of bugs) is just starting to hit...I'm not quite sure what to make of it.  I don't quite mind the changeup from winter, actually, though of course I'm really not excited for it either.  I...guess I'm not really too happy about it.

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I finished reading "Light From Uncommon Stars".  Overall I enjoyed it!  I wouldn't say it was something that made a deep impact on me or anything like that, like Tale for the Time Being made more of an impression on me, for instance.  But I liked reading it, it was an interesting blend of sci-fi elements with a more familiar type of story.  The sci-fi parts helped take a bit of the edge off of the other stuff, which I appreciated.

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I finished playing through Mother 3 as well.  You can tell this was overall a better and more expansive / well thought-out game than Earthbound (Mother 2), there's just..."more" and "better" of everything.  I admit that I sort of skimmed through the game rather quickly, fast-forwarding quite frequently, so I'm sure I didn't get quite the same experience as you would playing through it vanilla (particularly the enjoyment of the soundtrack), but I enjoyed it nonetheless, and it was quite interesting to see certain things that it did, such as how the final bits were handled and stuff like that.  You can really see the influence carry on to Undertale/etc. and how some of those ideas were expanded upon and given a different spin.

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Somehow I've nearly made it to the end of April...somehow.  I guess next month is May.

If you've been following along you've read that this month I've had trouble finding what there is to look forward to in life.  I've had trouble as well, seeing the beauty in not only my life but also my self as well.

...

On Friday I dressed up for dance in a new outfit that I purchased during my recent travels.  Looking at myself in the mirror, I...felt beautiful.  Of course, I am not perfect.  When I spin around, my dress flares out in a flattering way but also shows part of my legs in a way that I didn't appreciate (but it's too warm to wear leggings...).  But that doesn't change the fact that I really did feel like I was beautiful.  Yeah, other people also commented on my outfit a bunch too, and that certainly didn't hurt, but really the main fact was that I felt comfortable in my own skin, even though nothing much really had changed about my skin.  I just wore the right clothes (well, and put on the right makeup) that I realized that yes, I am actually beautiful.  I don't know if I felt popular, or loved, or all of those other things.  Socializing is still a bit of a challenge -- maybe that's not necessarily a bad thing.  But it's really hard to feel good about yourself when you don't like the way you look and feel, I think.  I didn't participate in those VBall waltz stuff this year not because I thought I was not qualified, but because I just didn't like the way I felt dancing at the time.  That sort of thing really matters.

Today, I felt nice too.  I wore a different piece of clothing that I had also purchased during my recent travels -- I guess something good came out of it after all -- this one more casual.  I didn't feel "beautiful" like I did on Friday, but I still felt good about the way that I looked, and felt.  It was a pleasant feeling.

Today, also, life ended up showing me "why?".  Why there is still a point to continuing on.  It reminded me of the things that I should be looking forward to, and what I should be both grateful for and reaching for at the same time.  This month I had felt like I was going through a process of "trying to remember what makes life fun".  It turns out that that is not something that I had to do all on my own.  And life had a way, of stepping in to gently push me toward happiness.

Relationships are at the same time both tenuous yet enduring.  When I say that, I don't mean that some relationships are fragile while others are lasting (though that is true, too).  But rather, that a single relationship, can be -- and often is -- both, at the same time.  It's easy to feel that a relationship is so conditional, so passive, treated so..."secondary"...but even when it feels like you can't depend on a relationship, sometimes it is still there to catch you anyways.  Relationships take a lot of work, I think.  That's something that I realized over the years, that I can't expect there to be a relationship where I can just have it take care of me automatically.  I need to be explicit in my needs, to communicate my wants, and ultimately to facilitate my relationships and not just "hope" that they will turn out the way that I want.  But maybe =I= don't always have to be the one facilitating everything.  The idea of that is really overwhelming, after all.

Sometimes, things don't quite turn out the way that you expect.  It was a little over a year ago, when I had been shown a path forward in life, and felt incredibly validated by it.  It as though my way of being was actually paying off -- that my steadiness and consistency was bearing fruit in a big way, that it was actually leading me to somewhere better.

It turned out that that was not the way forward at all, though.  That door was closed off to me, and I was left to wander in the woods until I stumbled upon another path -- the right path.  This one was not so easy for me to get to, and I had to cross some of the thorny vines in the forest in order to get to it.  But having been on it, I realized that this was really where I was supposed to be.  I just didn't realize it earlier at the time.

Maybe a similar thing happened to me earlier, last week.  That I felt like the path I was on was a dead end, that I wasn't really getting anywhere, that I was back in the same darkness that I had been for so long.  But life came to show me that there was a way forward, and that things really weren't that bad.  Things turned out differently than I expected, like how a road can seem so confusing in the dark of the night, but so peaceful and tame once the sun comes out.

Under the sky, after crying
The sun and flowers are all laughing

You said that this world is too terrible, making you want to escape
With red eyes you cried, then smiled, saying you don’t want anything

My angel, be happy, don’t cry anymore, okay?
Look back, there are friends behind you who would let you rely on them anytime

There's stuff to write about, but I'll do it later.

For now just a note to myself that this year will be my 8th all-nighter and my 10th big dance (link to last post).

I guess I ought to be writing here more, so here goes.

I'm starting to believe that I'm not broken, I guess.  Maybe.  I feel like for me, the thing that usually makes me feel most "safe", most confident, most sure that things will be okay, is knowing that it has worked out in the past.  Having already tackled the same problem before.  Having already suffered some of the same things before, and knowing that it will be okay.  These are the sorts of things that make it easier, each time, to continue to move forward.

Which makes it hard, then, when your past experience isn't particularly encouraging.  When I delve into my memory banks and find that, oh, maybe it IS true that I am broken in some way.  In those moments, I'm reminded not of all of the times when things worked out, but all of the times when they didn't.  That, I think, is what leads to a feeling of helplessness.  It's not that you failed one time, but that when you look back, you see that you ARE a failure, and you regrettably label yourself as such, because that is what your emotions are telling you.  Logic and memory are blind in the face of feelings.

But despite that, I guess I'm okay.  It's weird, I guess, thinking about the pain that I have suffered in the past.  A lot of it, seems so much clearer to me now, than it did in the moment.  I mean, of course it does; these things are always hard to understand and deal with when they are happening to you.  I'm not sure how it makes me feel.  Sad, I guess, for my past self, for having to go through that pain and suffering.  I wish...that my past self didn't have to.  I guess a lot of it was necessary; painful learning experiences are a part of life after all.  But it's too sad, thinking about all that I had to go through in the past.  I think thinking about that makes me think, "I should make sure they don't have to go through more of that again".  But of course, it's easier said than done.

Anyways.

I've been continuing to play Melee online, through unranked netplay, but...I'm wondering if I should stop.  I think at the beginning, it was sort of an exercise in courage, of sorts.  There's always a sort of intimidating that you can feel, jumping into an online game, much less one where you're directly put against someone else.  I had put off playing Melee online for a long time because of this.  And in the beginning, yeah, it felt really awkward, as I adjusted to the latency, the feeling of moving around again, how to control everything well.  I still miss a ton of stuff, more so than I would offline I'm sure, but once my hands are warm I at least can feel like I'm somewhat in control.

But I think I'm past the fear of playing, which I guess is good.  It's become something that I've gotten used to.  On the other hand, that just leaves playing Melee with random people, which...is somehow, not as fun as I felt it might be.  I've noticed that I'm starting to get a feeling of...pointlessness?  After playing a bunch.  Maybe that's simply because I'm not approaching it with an eye toward serious improvement, maybe it's because I don't have any real "goals", maybe it's the stress of measuring your own skill against that of another.  But somehow after a session I realize maybe it didn't actually make me that happy in the end.  So maybe I should stop.

I tried booting up Caesar 3 to give Lugdunum another shot -- I'm going to have to try to successfully tackle it at some point.  I didn't get super far, but remembered some things about how I want to approach the mission, so we'll see if I can gradually come into some sort of workable strategy.  That ought to be something that I can look forward to, but it's been surprisingly difficult to muster the activation energy to tackle it.  In the meantime I guess I've been making progress through Mother 3, alongside trying to do some physical exercise.

I...have both come so far from where I used to be, and also feel like I have not gotten anywhere at all.  It's a strange feeling.  My birthday is coming up and with it I think of all those birthdays in the past when I wondered why I felt so bad on mine.  At first I didn't understand; I just thought it was a thing for me to not have a good time.  Then I started getting bitter because my birthday served to remind me of all of the people whom I wanted to care about me more but didn't.  It made me think about the state of my relationships, and that wasn't really something I could be proud of.

As it approaches again this year during this time I feel...worn.  Of course, I think about the depression that I'm currently in and I feel bad, but I think more than that I think about all of the depressions that I've had on the way here and it just makes me feel really terrible.  I wouldn't really say that I've wasted my time getting here, or that I've been focusing on the wrong things.  More just, that all along the way it feels like I put in so much effort to so many things but somehow don't have the happiness to claim for it.  I can point back so clearly to the thoughts I had when I was...what was it...16 years old?  Somehow, I've come so far since then, but also not gone anywhere at all.  Unlike most times, this lack of change is unsettling.

What is the point?

Well.  I suppose I should write =something=.

Life...isn't "fun" anymore.  But I don't really want to write about that.  Instead I can write about something else that I've been considering lately.  About how to feel good with myself.  And about compromising, about "settling".

They say that you shouldn't "settle".  "Life is way too short to settle for anything less than what we truly want.", one article writes.  Which seems bizarre, in a way.  If life was extremely long, you'd probably be less inclined to settle for anything.  With a short life, wouldn't you be better off sticking to something that is within your reach, rather than grasping for something and perhaps coming up empty?

I've been working on trying to feel good about myself, in a few ways.  I guess dance is one of them -- I'm trying to figure out how I can feel good about my own movement, my own dancing.  It's incredibly difficult.  Partner dancing is one thing -- that, I'm not perfect at either, but at least, I know and understand, somewhat, how I can make myself beautiful, graceful.  But when I am dancing alone, I'm a far cry from being satisfied with my performance.  Maybe it's because internally I'm comparing myself to videos of full choreographies.  Maybe it's because I just don't dance with enough confidence.  Maybe it's because I never had any formal training.  Maybe it's because I simply need more practice.

People tell me that my dancing is good, that it's cool.  But I can't see it as such.  I guess it doesn't really matter as much what other people think, though -- the opinions of others aren't going to lead to a self-confidence in myself.  And even if other people think that I'm awkward, silly, weird, that wouldn't matter as much if I knew for myself that I am good.

The way I dress, too.  I know there are people that thing it's weird, awkward, unattractive, probably.  But that is something that I've learned for myself.  I know what is beautiful to me.

Yet, that, also, is something that I still struggle with.  As I watch myself in the mirror, it's not only my dancing that feels off, but also my figure, my face, my body.  They're not "beautiful".

 

Really, what I mean is that my body isn't an ideal.  My self isn't an ideal either.  I hold those ideals, though.  I want my hair to be smoother.  I want my face to be shorter.  I want my shoulders to be less broad.  My legs to be more curved.  There are a lot of things that aren't what I want.

Should I settle for what I have?

In a sense, I have to, at some point.  I can work out.  I can put on makeup.  I can develop a sense of fashion.  But in the end I'll never be perfect.  I'll never fit that narrow ideal of "beautiful".  I think to "settle" is to recognize the beauty in myself.  But right now, perhaps I haven't yet.  I thought that I had progressed and worked on my dancing so much, but when I try to watch myself, it still feels so lacking.

At some point you end up having to give up on "perfect".  But what do you do then?  Do you use that ideal as a compass, guiding you ever closer to what you need?  Or do you stop and look at what is around you, in the here and now, trying to appreciate everything for what it really is?

As we grow older we lose more and more.  We lose our youth, we lose our energy.  We lose our senses, our hair.  Eventually we begin to lose parts of our mind.  Isn't it painful?  To grow farther and farther away from your ideals?  To know that you'll never be as close as you were to beauty as you once were.  Is that painful?

I guess it is only natural then, to move in different directions.  To recognize beauty in other forms.  To move onto new things.  To toss away our ideals, to live in the moment, to realize that even though we have lost so many things, there is still more to come.  To settle for never being perfect.  Never being as perfect as you once were, even.

I've never learned how, I don't think.  How to embrace imperfection.  Everything in my life that is "wrong", is "flawed", is meant for correction, or complacency.  How can those who are flawed be worthy of love?  What meaning is there when I can never be my best self?  How can I love myself even if I am not beautiful?  How can I love myself even when I am not who I want to be?  Sayuri is easy to love.  She is not perfect, but she is an ideal person.  Even in her flaws, she is beautiful.  But me?

What happiness is there?  If I can never be what I want to be.  If I can never have what I want to have.  If I'm destined to lose everything someday?  Everything that I play with disappears and blooms into flowers.

Perhaps I've forgotten what makes me happy.  Or I've lost it.  With happiness, perhaps we can stand and accept ourselves for being imperfect.  Maybe it helps us to realize that there is value, even in things that are not perfect, not beautiful.  As long as you are happy.

So, how?