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Some Surprises (maybe), and here's to Ming!

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  • Some Surprises (maybe), and here's to Ming!

    First,
    Here's to Ming ​ ​,

    Most frustratingly patient moderator and now owner in history! ​
    ​​​​​]


    Hi everyone, it's been 10 years since I came here, I used to be a regular on this site, but due to some major life circumstances, I had to leave without much of a farewell. But as anyone who has been in 'Poly for a while knows, you can't ever leave, well you can, but.... you're not going to like it. ​ = ​... uh .... ​

    I wanted to give a heartfelt apology and a special thanks and appreciation to the person behind Ming. I know I was a pain to deal with when I was a teenager, when I first came to this forum, and despite some of my earlier antics that may be correlated to the need for moderation for the Off-Topic (yeah I was kinda bad ​), and my gloating that after my first login was finally "force-retired," I was now the "Thorn in Ming's side" ​ ; I have to say life has a way of putting things in perspective ​ ​.

    But in all reality, I can credit Ming with possibly saving my life, to be honest. Anyone else would have just seen the stuff I pulled as an immediate perm ban ​ ​; instead of having the patience and the wisdom to understand and identify me as a real troubled youth! The depths of which some of you would not have imagined. If he had responded to permanent banning immediately in the condition I was in I would have gotten madder and probably looked for a more desperate angry place where I probably would have been radicalized, but god knows what! ​ ​​​​ Knowing my initial feelings of alienation and my fascination with bad things like war, and conquering I could have been a neo-Nazi or something bad like that I could see that. Knowing I eventually wouldn't fit in there even, and the result of it would probably put me on a more self destructive path, I could have been anything from a school shooter, to a serial killer, to a terrorist.

    But that little bit of patience and understanding wise Ming had at the time, deflected tragedy at least in my life if not others!

    That said, what really was going on in my life at the time. Was extreme social isolation, alienation, and social posturing to be someone I thought I had to be. I was so afraid of being called weak or scared that I took the path of making myself seem macho, and super masculine; which did direct harm to who I was. Also remember this was back in the late 1990s, I didn't have resources, or knowledge of certain concepts, therefore I assumed I couldn't fix hating myself!


    For the big reveal:

    I am again Thorn; Besides being the following logins on Apolyton in order:

    Evan von Christoph
    Thorn
    Emperor Craetsezar
    Evan Madrigal
    FormallyKnownAsThorn
    (can someone hit me ​ for spelling this so badly please!)

    Turns out I suffered from an extreme form of undiagnosed at the time medical gender Dysphoria. What that means is I didn't recognize my body as anything but alien to me. With my self-loathing, lack of understanding, and no help from a good support system in spite of some psychiatric notice and treatment I never was getting better. I was hospitalized twice in my youth (I was quite the chaos engine, people who left the job later on remembered me, as I later found out that it's a small world.), and had so much documentation that I was given full disability at age 17, without government objection, which in the USA is rare btw.

    Years passed, and I still am unhappy my mind continued to deteriorate, I finally began to learn about the LGBTQIA+ community, which helped me realize I was not resigned to being a girl trapped in a boys body to the total detriment of my health.

    So yeah, I am transgender-women of 40 years old now. I've been more stable and happy with certain aspects of my life then ever before. I'm actually not the only trans person on 'Poly but I wont out anyone in spite of how bad they treated me, as that's not right and not my place or time.

    So again lets give a warm thank you to Ming, thank you for your years of service here, for your help, and for being a friend it took me a long time to recognize!

    Hail Ming Imperator of Apolyton!
    ​

    Thank you friend.

    As for the rest of 'Poly, if you like me you can call me Anna, if you don't like me; I can always show you that people actually can identify as attack helicopters! ​ lol ​
    ​
    "Our words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS!"​​

  • #2
    Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.
    "Hating America is something best left to Mobius. He is an expert Yank hater.
    He also hates Texans and Australians, he does diversify." ~ Braindead

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    • #3
      i'm here because global is not the opposite of domestic
      if i got something from indiana, that's still GLOBAL because we aren't off the damn globe
      this new age of stupid marketing words pisses me off

      congratulations on your personal journey
      remember that all your problems are that of a white person

      Comment


      • #4
        Congrats, Anna, and welcome back!
        Apolyton's Grim Reaper 2008, 2010 & 2011
        RIP lest we forget... SG (2) and LaFayette -- Civ2 Succession Games Brothers-in-Arms

        Comment


        • #5
          Ming and his brother Rah have a well displayed humane quality, compassion and a very big heart. Ming has it and Rah had it too.

          As for you I didn't like you as thorn and I don't like you as Anna either. That's so noone can accuse me of gender inequality

          Comment


          • #6
            I have faint negative recollections of the Thorn / EvC / Madrigal handles, but it was very long ago and I don't really give a damn.

            So I'll say that I'm happy for you, although I think it's not true that you're transgender women. At least I doubt that you're more than one person, so you'd be a woman then.

            As you've probably seen, this is pretty much dead.
            Indifference is Bliss

            Comment


            • #7
              I am pleased that I'm no longer the only one here that over uses emojis...

              Have Fun!!
              There's nothing wrong with the dream, my friend, the problem lies with the dreamer.

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              • #8
                ATTENTION:

                I've got a really exciting project I'm working on that is not off-topic related, it's a new installer and fixer for the old civilization games that all had 16-bit installers, that is everything before civ3. I would love to call it something like the Apolyton Edition but we all are aware of copyright law issues.
                "Our words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS!"​​

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Thorn View Post
                  ATTENTION:

                  I've got a really exciting project I'm working on that is not off-topic related, it's a new installer and fixer for the old civilization games that all had 16-bit installers, that is everything before civ3. I would love to call it something like the Apolyton Edition but we all are aware of copyright law issues.
                  That would be really awesome. If you ever do, you should contact Blake00, who will also be interested in archiving day.

                  There's also a fan-made dll-injection patch for ToT posted over at CFC that adds a lot of features, it could be interesting to bundle it into the install maybe.
                  Indifference is Bliss

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    I'm aware of civfanatics, we would have lost so much more if they weren't preserving, ig Apolyton lost all of its old files then.
                    "Our words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS!"​​

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                    • #11
                      I was even considering adding a loader for the snes civ1 and the psx ps2, just for completeness.

                      BTW I have had experience writing complicated Installers, and coding, ive worked on a few other game based fan based projects before, for other fandoms.
                      "Our words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS!"​​

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        BTW, Anyone remember this yikes, see what I mean about how unstable I was:

                        So it ends..... bye from Thorn. - Apolyton Civilization Site​
                        "Our words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS!"​​

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Thorn View Post
                          BTW, Anyone remember this yikes, see what I mean about how unstable I was:

                          So it ends..... bye from Thorn. - Apolyton Civilization Site​
                          I knew I spoke to you before somewhere, my memory is not my strong suit anymoar.
                          The Wizard of AAHZ

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Thorn View Post
                            ATTENTION:

                            I've got a really exciting project I'm working on that is not off-topic related, it's a new installer and fixer for the old civilization games that all had 16-bit installers, that is everything before civ3. I would love to call it something like the Apolyton Edition but we all are aware of copyright law issues.


                            This is very much of interest to me.. a lot of people are having troubles installing the various versions of Civ2 these days along with the windows versions of civ1. A few things to point out..

                            1. You should definitely come visit the Civilization 1 and Civilization 2 areas at CivFanatics. These areas are sadly pretty much dead here at Poly whereas at CFC there's lots of active projects going on with scenarios, mods and rebuild projects for these old games.
                            2. The Multiplayer Gold Edition and Test of Time versions of Civ2 were 32bit apps so technically the last Civ game to use a 16bit installer and game exe was the final Civ2 addon Fantatics Worlds. MGE came along after that. MGE and ToT still have some issues on 64bit OS's however fan patches fix them thankfully. Although people have started having problems with some of the official patches as despite being 32bit some require registry entries that aren't being created in Win 11 for whatever reason..
                            3. As mentioned by N35t0 there are fan dll injection patches for both MGE and ToT that fix many issues and add lots of great features. Although at least one of them is still actively worked on which would make it hard to package them too. There are simple 64bit exe bug fix patches for both MGE & ToT separate from the bigger patch tools though so maybe just focusing on getting the games installed, official patches applied, and the basic fan 64bit patches is the best option for your custom installers (and then people can install the bigger patch tools themselves later if they wish).
                            4. With the true 16bit Civ games even if you get them installed they still won't run as the game files are 16bit too so presumably you're going to package with WineVDM or something? Since if you use a virtual machine (eg either in Dosbox or VirtualBox) instead then you'd have to put an illegal copy of old Windows in them which may limit where you can share it (eg I dunno about here but that wouldn't be allowed at CivFanatics) so going with WineVDM would prob be better. However some of my own tests with old Civ games and WineVDM has revealed some bugs.. eg no cd music being played in civ2 and animation issues in Civ1Win.
                            5. The topic of getting the old civ games into easy to use installers and being sold in digital stores is an active topic at CivFanatics too so that thread might interest you.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Blake00,
                              Hey I'm a fan of your work in general, I'm too lazy to register on CivFanatics, and I've been on this site since '99.
                              "Our words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS!"​​

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