at the moment. . . at the moment. . .small update but it's now winter term. spent a lot of money so now i'm going to revel in what i have obtained and personally add new links to the site for DND resources, mostly.
have mostly just been getting through Dimension 20 stuff, currently watching "A Court of Fey and Flowers" and it's gotten me back into the swing of things, i'll be honest. not by a lot, I have a few friends who are REALLY into the DND lore, but I try and manage what I can with what I can find...
i've mostly just been working on commissions and art trades in the mean while, and trying to not explode emotionally. a little hard, but I am managing... school just takes up so much of my energy, i feel like i'm tired from simply existing. it's easier when i just have one class two days and three on the other two, but surely it's being made clear that i'm still trying, yes? i want to try, i want to try, i want to try...
watching other people craft stories has certainly eased that pain and has made life just a little bit more easier for me to bear for a little longer, but i only have so many hours to spend on... i want to be heard and seen and i want my words and advice to travel far into the future as a storyteller, which has been made all the more harder in the modern day where obscure findings are... well... hard to come by, indie productions taken advantage of by capitalists that hold no promises, and modern stories twist the idea that art is content, that characters have to do agreeable things, that they must be as mundane and as safe as possible.
and when it's easy for creatives to think that nothing is original because something new has to come from something, plagiarists are actively seen churning out other people's words for their own personal gain, because they have never had to be creative before. thinking of something, regardless of if it's been a simple story with a simple plot, was made by someone in their own eyes, first and foremost. and creatives should honor this talent more than ever. Now, more than ever.
needless to say, i watched that hbomberguy video. and i love my little run on sentences and commas and pausings. and i love rambling even more. i should go talk to my friends. and drink water. good night.
back at it again with another update---
it's finals week for me so i'm just trying to get everything done before then. but i've done a few things since then...
mainly, i read Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. it was a very insightful read, some parts hit way too close to home...
but it also kinda reminded me of what I don't have. I don't have a public space where I can just be myself, only those fortunate enough to be born in a small percentage of the world have the right to express themselves freely. and even with the internet, I have to carve that space out for myself.
kinda why i turned to neocities in the first place. but i've given that spiel before, and I don't really feel like repeating myself.
should probably be doing other things right now but nope. Reverse 1999 time. it's so fucking good, i love wasting my time...
i definitely need to change this site's layout sometime, but i'll do some digging for that later. there aren't any templates that really catch my eyes at the moment, and i'm too inexperienced to try and make my own. - most average thing a site owner can say in 2023.
if i'm feeling better i may go to my local library and get a card there. despreately need to check that place out, especially since no one really goes to them anymore here..
on another note, i've been getting more and more into my privacy online and shit, so i've downloaded a few front-ends. my experience with FreeTube has been great so far, Skytube is nice but a little jarring with the UI, and Spotube has been a little finnicky regarding the mobile app but has been OK on desktop. I've used the latter two pretty recently, so I'm sure I'll solidify an opinion later down the road, but for now, I continue doing fuck all...
drink water, take meds if you need to, get yourself a snack if you want, shrimp pose check, all that good stuff. take care of yourselves now.
feels.... appropriate to give an update.
other than feeling like the world has been against me at points (this is typically normal behavior from me don't worry about it), i've mostly just been trying to take things one at a time and focus on my schoolwork with the best of my abilities. a little hard, considering i have 5 college classes (this counts as working 60 hours within a week), but i've been mostly catching up and keeping up with everything.
still going through all of this begrudgingly because i don't really like this term but i'm hoping it mellows out the next few terms. speaking of, i should sign up for classes sometime this week.
but yeah it's just been pretty boring. the extra time i do have is mostly spent drawing and secluding myself to the wonders of the internet. god i really am the worst at this "taking a break" thing...
story process on some guys that i've recently made up is going... good? my brain doesn't hurt as much and i have a few ideas but i think i just need to tone them the hell down. i know i'm pretty much all edge with no point but i want to actually... like, WRITE good characters, y'know? give them nuance, don't make them all black & white, hell, make them hypocritical!
the thing is, writing trauma is a fickle thing. cause i don't want to come across the wrong was and present it in a way where it's deemed as something i'm "romantisizing" or "condoning". i want to at least LESSEN that assumption as much as i possibly can because like.. yes, bad things can happen to all kinds of people. and some of it is completely unecessary. useless, even. the damage that was given was just another tuesday to the perpetrator.
but i think i'm still succeeding in the writing department. i recently got some friends together in a seperate server that's basically a writing training ground. it's my... well, second time doing something like this, but i know what i'm doing this time!
anyway yeah that's kind of all from me at the moment. go play SLARPG
ok i've been getting through The Glass Scientists lately. Almost getting caught up with it, actually.
holy fucking shit.
i may make a blog here discussing my thoughts on it! it's really good and you should go read it for yourself! be wary though because it DOES feature more adult content in later chapters, like blood, gore, sexual themes and the like.
though, back to talking about my break. i've had time to mull it over, and considering everything i've analyzed during this time to myself, i don't want to end up resenting this project because of this pressure i unknowningly put on myself.
i realized i was really into working on the whole worldbuilding, and how that related with the characters. however, even now seeing their names pulls this little twang in my heart. it feels like i abandoned them.
i suppose that's the kind of attachment i get from them, anyway. somatoform symptoms are no joke...
thus, upon this revealation, i will take it upon myself to build each of their characters individually, as well as how they could possibly interact with one another.
this makes it sound much more serious than it sounds, but it's more like... i'm gonna give them all a vacation too. a sleepover, maybe. focus more on their personalities and personal stories rather than focus solely on the overarching story itself. it feels like i've neglected them in that department, anyway.
i'm still gonna be taking my time, though! i'm not gonna jump like... right back into working on them. this is moreso of a plan for myself when this little break subsides. it's still all in the brainstorming phases anyway...
... oh who the hell am i kidding. i sound like an actual workaholic who doesn't know a thing about how to take a break in the first place.
going to the w3schools forest might be good for me. i'll think about it.
there are just so many things i could do...
the cards (six of pentacles, ten of pentacles, four of swords reversed) essentially told me i'm finiancially stable so i shouldn't worry about tackling my problems head on and ignoring them won't do anything. which, i won't deny, i do sound like i am whining.
maybe i should purchase some inspiration? look into other stories that are vastly differnet in style and see what i can learn from them? i should really get back into psychoanalyzing fictional things, even if it's improper of me to do so without a liscense. keyword: improper. not a harsher term like disallowed.
either way, this guidance has been a little insightful. i'll be off to scarf down some dinner! ♡
i didn't know how exhausting working on a project like this could be.
... okay that's a bit of a lie. i can confidently call myself an artist, for goodness sake. i should have just been more well aware of the risks of being this ambitious. of working in and trying to fill in the cracks, trying to see every plot hole there could be. think of possible ways that this could be portrayed, as well as actually thinking of plot points within the story.
or maybe i should have been more aware of what these symptoms were doing to me.
it was all i could legitmately think about at certain points in my day. i would try to encorperate it into my school projects so that i would feel compelled to work on it more. but burning the candle at both ends was going to end in pain and misery for me. it's happened before, it will happen again.
so i've issued a break for myself. i don't know how long it will last, but i do know it will last for a week at the minimum. when i've pushed all of my schoolwork to the side and all new projects will not be Specific-Story related, i might catch up on the things i have been missing out on for a little while now. i've heard The Glass Scientists is really good... could watch so many let's plays...
this break is specifically for benefiting me, so i may update the site more frequently..! i dunno with what, though. maybe add a site page? could store all the cool buttons there...
i'll be brainstorming ideas... as well as taking my sweet time..!!
trying to finish up my homework. being a procrastionator is such hard work... /joke
time for dinner. i wish fall comes soon. i'm tired of dealing with gnats in my room.
feeling a lot of things but i can't properly describe any of them.
just sorta procrastinating. i wanna flesh out my archive / story site further but i always get this urge to stall things when i'm at home. when i'm trapped in this room.
i dunno when i'll have a place to call my own but it's been... really depressing lately. i thought i would live on campus and be somewhat independent for once but... nope. still stuck here.
i'd still be trapped in my room anyways.