Just as I’d predicted last week, I couldn’t get a whole lot done due to running back and forth to deal with my parent’s dogs while they were away on vacation. I also have some internal issues that are probably the result of external stress, but we’ll get into that in the (very) personal section!

Game Update

Rendering was pretty much impossible this week, so I focused my energies on the writing bits that I had left over — namely the epilogue. 

It was supposed to be a simple thing. It was supposed to be just still frames and text going over what happens with the surviving characters after the case is finished. Then as I wrote, I… kept writing. And writing. In short, this became a big ol’ scene. I really wanted to avoid adding so much that it’d make this update take even longer to release, but I figure that I need to make this finale “stick the landing”, unlike some series that aired their finales this past week. Not naming names. 

I still have a bit left on that epilogue to write before I can send it off to the beta testers, but I can pretty much call it complete. It would have been fully completed, but…

Personal Update

… Morgana sent me a message from work saying that her heart rate was over 100 beats per minute (usually it’s around 60ish), she was feeling lightheaded and dizzy, and she was seeing spots. Naturally, I told her to stay put and that I was taking her to urgent care. By the time we’d gotten there, her heartrate was down to the 80s, but they still ran a bunch of tests. They did an EKG and blood test and the whole bit, but they could find nothing wrong with her. As Morgana was starting to feel better, they told us to either go home or go to the hospital emergency room if we were still concerned. 

After our last hospital visit that resulted in seventeen hours and $1200 just to learn there was nothing really wrong, we opted to just go home. 

Later on, as I was talking to one of my guildmates in FFXIV, she asked if Morgana got migraines (which she does). This is where we learned about “silent migraines”, a wonderful little phenomenon where you have all the side-effects of a migraine without the pain. Learning about that made us feel a lot more at least, but hardly helped how Morgana was feeling. Thankfully it passed after about a day and a half. 

This week I got hit with… maybe imposter syndrome? Maybe just a spike of insecurity. I’m very nervous about the finale of Mythos. I know I shouldn’t compare myself to other devs (especially those who work as a team or do this for a living full time), but it’s hard not to. I see devs putting out updates after four months with patch notes stating insane numbers of renders and animations and it makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong. I spend so long on each render, I couldn’t possibly put out the quantity that some others do. A lot of the content I create I scrap and redo because it doesn’t hold up to my standards for myself.

These inner doubts are hardly a new thing for me, but I think it’s just the added stress of this being the home stretch for Mythos, combined with the stuff going on with my mother.

Be warned: I know I share a lot of personal stuff on here, but this may be a little more personal or dark than some people would like to know. You can always skip to the checklist, don’t feel pressured to read about what’s going on in my life.

So my mother has always struggled with alcoholism. I was almost certain she’d put herself on the right path, but when I picked my parents up to take them to their cruise ship, she was acting very much like she was highly intoxicated, and it was about noon. She was falling down the stairs, slurring words, repeating herself, the whole bit. It could be some medication she takes for anxiety, or maybe a lack of sleep from being excited for the trip, I don’t know. I need to get my dad alone at some point to ask him point blank if she’s drinking again. After having two friends quite literally drink themselves into early deaths within the past year or so, seeing my mother possibly going down that road again is very difficult. 

I never drank very much or often, but I’ve gone completely without alcohol lately. I don’t know if I’ll ever drink again. 

So yeah, that’s the swirling mass of darkness my mind has become this past week. 

Chapter Six To-Do:

• Outline – Done!
• Closing Credits Sequence
• Chapter Six Scenes
  • Whodunnit? – Complete!
  • I Can Has Murder? – Written!
  • Gehenna – Written!
  • Personally Victimized by Regina George – Written!
  • On Your Wedding Day – Written!
  • Divine Deception – Written!
  • I’m Kickin’ My Ass! – Written!
  • Thin Black Line – Written!
  • Violating the Traditions – Written!
  • Rogue Nation – Written!
  • Mordred Ascendant – Written!
  • A Childhood Lost – Written!
  • I’m With the Band – Written!
  • Drumroll, Please! – Written!
  • France is Bacon – Written!
  • Merlin’s Declaration – Written!
  • Curtain Call – Written!
  • Epilogue – Written!
• Chapter Six Achievements (2/15)
• New Music (1/?)
• Tales from Mythos: [Title Redacted] (0/1)
• My Rating of the Final Season of Umbrella Academy: (3/10)

Oof, sorry for that trauma dump. Hopefully next week will be better news all around. 

Keep the legends alive!
– Nine