16th august 2023 - neocities (?!)
waving emoji. hello. happy 10am, etc. this is just gonna be more unedited train of thought rambling, btw.
i've been wondering about neocities a lot recently, and about its role in the current "web revival" that people tend to talk about a lot. ive got a bunch of mixed feelings on it, but i dont think that i have any specific conclusions to draw either. it's very much like. we're all flocking here in search of a return to the "old", whether from nostalgia, bitterness towards current web standards, a love for the format, or something else. inherently, though, i wonder a lot about the contradictory nature of the whole thing. we're still technically bound to a single host, and one that implements many social media features into that platform. not that neocities is evil or anything, but a lot of the reason it does as well as it currently Is Doing, is because of this familiarity.
i say this, because personally, because while i did start my website as just a fun place for myself, the increased visibility that neocities provides is a bit of a mixed bag. it's really fun to be able to connect with people on here!! while i do have a slight bit of distaste for the social features, i can't go criticising it too much because it does a really good job at helping the community on here actually Be A Community. it also doesn't fall prey to as many of the failings that other social media platforms have; you are, first and foremost, working on your website. you're not sitting on a tumblr dashboard, or on twitter, staring at a bunch of posts by people you may or may not know. it Is still social media, though. there are still follower counts, comments, likes, etc. sometimes i think people forget that, and are very eager to claim to have "broken their shackles" by "moving away from all that social media stuff". like man i am sorry to say but we're still in the thick of it. you can supposedly turn all of it off in your account settings, i think? which is good to know, and a point in neocities' favor.
however, as someone who likes to "win" at social media. this is like. bad-ish for me, i think. i've always really loved joining a platform and finding a character of sorts, and building up an image of myself and getting popular. it's immature and very silly. i've done it numerous times by now, on a bunch of different sites, and i'm getting that same feeling i used to get on all of those, but now over here on neocities. i'm not interested in building up anything on here (other than the site itself), mostly because i think that attention like that is inherently very controlling, and not fun to have to grapple with. tldr of this single paragraph i suppose i'm Very Aware of how visible this site could potentially get, and that makes me a bit worried?
(edit from 30 minutes later WOW time travel) this reminds me that i need to like. talk about authors. specifically the kind that exists as a social media entity re: "selling the self". i think theres something there maybe that could use discussing. but in this case "discussing" is just me talking to myself and the 2 people that read these blog entries. it's hard to convey exactly what i mean, but i think the act of playing a character on social media in order to grow your "brand" is like. a thing that exists across the whole net, and could Maybe Potentially invite discussion. (end of 30 minutes-into-the-future me intermission) it's a complicated situation, as a lot of these large web-centered discourses tend to be, so i hope i'm not coming off as someone critising people who have denounced other platforms to move here. i think it's a better alternative to a lot of the other options we have nowadays? as i said though, i dont really have any conclusions to draw; i only really started thinking about this in depth recently. i'd say "having awareness of these features of neocities is probably good when your goal on here is to push back against web2" isnt a bad take (though we are still Technically centralised here on neocities) but awareness will also only get you so far, so ???? who knows.
waving emoji. hello. happy 10am, etc. this is just gonna be more unedited train of thought rambling, btw.
i've been wondering about neocities a lot recently, and about its role in the current "web revival" that people tend to talk about a lot. ive got a bunch of mixed feelings on it, but i dont think that i have any specific conclusions to draw either. it's very much like. we're all flocking here in search of a return to the "old", whether from nostalgia, bitterness towards current web standards, a love for the format, or something else. inherently, though, i wonder a lot about the contradictory nature of the whole thing. we're still technically bound to a single host, and one that implements many social media features into that platform. not that neocities is evil or anything, but a lot of the reason it does as well as it currently Is Doing, is because of this familiarity.
i say this, because personally, because while i did start my website as just a fun place for myself, the increased visibility that neocities provides is a bit of a mixed bag. it's really fun to be able to connect with people on here!! while i do have a slight bit of distaste for the social features, i can't go criticising it too much because it does a really good job at helping the community on here actually Be A Community. it also doesn't fall prey to as many of the failings that other social media platforms have; you are, first and foremost, working on your website. you're not sitting on a tumblr dashboard, or on twitter, staring at a bunch of posts by people you may or may not know. it Is still social media, though. there are still follower counts, comments, likes, etc. sometimes i think people forget that, and are very eager to claim to have "broken their shackles" by "moving away from all that social media stuff". like man i am sorry to say but we're still in the thick of it. you can supposedly turn all of it off in your account settings, i think? which is good to know, and a point in neocities' favor.
however, as someone who likes to "win" at social media. this is like. bad-ish for me, i think. i've always really loved joining a platform and finding a character of sorts, and building up an image of myself and getting popular. it's immature and very silly. i've done it numerous times by now, on a bunch of different sites, and i'm getting that same feeling i used to get on all of those, but now over here on neocities. i'm not interested in building up anything on here (other than the site itself), mostly because i think that attention like that is inherently very controlling, and not fun to have to grapple with. tldr of this single paragraph i suppose i'm Very Aware of how visible this site could potentially get, and that makes me a bit worried?
(edit from 30 minutes later WOW time travel) this reminds me that i need to like. talk about authors. specifically the kind that exists as a social media entity re: "selling the self". i think theres something there maybe that could use discussing. but in this case "discussing" is just me talking to myself and the 2 people that read these blog entries. it's hard to convey exactly what i mean, but i think the act of playing a character on social media in order to grow your "brand" is like. a thing that exists across the whole net, and could Maybe Potentially invite discussion. (end of 30 minutes-into-the-future me intermission) it's a complicated situation, as a lot of these large web-centered discourses tend to be, so i hope i'm not coming off as someone critising people who have denounced other platforms to move here. i think it's a better alternative to a lot of the other options we have nowadays? as i said though, i dont really have any conclusions to draw; i only really started thinking about this in depth recently. i'd say "having awareness of these features of neocities is probably good when your goal on here is to push back against web2" isnt a bad take (though we are still Technically centralised here on neocities) but awareness will also only get you so far, so ???? who knows.
(the return of) image of the month
28th july 2023 - the homestuck segue
hiya new blog entry new awesomeness etc hello. its 11pm here and i have work tomorrow early in the morning so i won't spend ages here. (EDIT: LIE) anywayas hi. site's been decently stagnant recently, which is. ??? mostly neutral actually i suppose. nothing inherently wrong with that, though i've had this itch to make new pages for awhile now that i can't seem to properly scratch; nothing i've tried making has felt right, and i've scrapped every idea i've had a go at so far. for now, i'll just let it sit as is, rather than force myself to work when my idea of what to actually Work On is as vague as it is.
in terms of actual ideas, i've had a few. manifesto-type page but instead of making an essay on my views (which i'd probably end up disagreeing with within a month or two), i'd just have a mix of minor lighthearted stuff i agree with. but even then, the idea already feels kinda weak, so i dunno if i'll revisit it.
other than that, i've thought about expanding the whole skeleton bit that i have hidden on the site? maybe have a maze or something, or a fun little skeleton base of operations, even. nothing major, just adds some more fun stuff to the site. again though, i've got little in mind other than the basic concept; what would the page actually have on it? (minus the obvious inclusion of more early-web skeleton gifs).
i've had a couple shrine ideas too, but they're things that I dont think i'm as passionate about, when compared to the shrines i already have, which makes me less inclined to include them in my Cool Shrines for Stuff that i Like Very Much space. fire emblem, homestuck (though that one is mostly because i dont think i could do a hs shrine justice LOL), persona 2, and undertale/deltarune all feel as if i could call them shrine-lites. i would like to make shrines for these, but each has their own little reason as to why they just don't seem to feel Right as a shrine. as im writing this i have to laugh a little bit about how seriously i think i'm taking this. the shrines on my website are soooo important and everypony in the world cares about them deeply.
completely fucking unrelated segue here in the form of me saying HIIIII im rereading homestuck. i mean i've been rereading it for a month or two now, but regardless, i'm having fun. i'm choosing to take my time with it this time, partially because i read it in a fucking haze last time (took me 8 days total) and dont remember as much as i'd like to, and also because i managed to grab a copy of the author commentary, which adds a lot of extra fun stuff to look through every couple of panels. homestuck is hard to talk about, at least for me. the reputation it gathered (which i'd argue is not indicative of the quality of the text itself) is frustrating to work around, and also sometimes i tend to forget that reading the whole thing is basically the equivalent of slowly being boiled. you get used to a lot of the quirks of the webcomic; people who see bites of it without context will be far more likely to have a negative reaction to it compared to someone who read the full text. a chunk of that is due to reputation alone, but also holy shit it is not 100% constantly the prettiest comic in the world, and takes "is a product of its time" to a fucking extreme. this shit is THE 2010's internet and an examination of storytelling in general, both "condensed" into 8000 fucking pages. anyways i like it, despite how much weirdshit it invokes in name alone.
^ my tier list that exclusively means nothing
ALSO. getting into hs has increased my distaste for a lot of general fandom stuff. i dont know how exactly to articulate what i mean, but reading the comic,
and seeing depictions of characters who represented many different ideas, who were used to communicate things and not to act as these big "Character-driven" characters (they function as drivers of the plot, and are fleshed out very little in comparison to "main" characters. eridan comes to mind), i have to like. take a slow fucking blink when i go to find discussions of them, and how they functioned in the story, and end up with yaoi. i should clarify i am NOT a hater in this area, do whatever the fuck you want. if drawing homestuck character yaoi is fun then go do that shit. but sometimes i feel wretched and like everypony hates me because i go to look for meta-oriented discussion. and its all yaoi. so sad. i wake up every morning and hold a little sad funeral for all the time i have lost looking at yaoi when i wanted some freak with 12 million philosophy degrees to talk about fucking Republic or Symposium or some shit and tie it all back to homestuck somehow while i sit there and kick my feet all cute-like. did you get all that
ok tldr maybe i am a hater but it is out of love. who wants to talk about character archetypes and story function and stereotypes and subverting expectations and hostile storytelling and metanarrative. hello. ok i've been writing for like 20 minutes and i need to go get ready for bed. im not proofreading this shit buh bye
image VIDEO of the month
(just open it in a new tab and mute the background audio here if you want)
22nd july 2023
ok i cannot be fucked to do like. a beautiful awe-inspiring summary of the last month to TL:DWTW (Didnt Want To Write): i have mostly recovered and i'm starting to go back to work. yayyyyyy thumbs up etc hooray everyone clap and cheer for me immediately
anyways site stuff has been fun recently. i'm not working on it super often; mostly just touching up things every now and again. however, i believe i've finally finished working on almost everything i originally planned out for the place. shrines are all done, pages all function well (unless someone with a screen size of like 500000 x 100 pixels tries to use the site) so i'm happy about that. i'll probably work on some new stuff soon regardless, but it's nice to have it all "finished", technically.
this is a short entry, mostly because it's 10pm and i've got shit to do that doesn't involve shitting around on here. imagine a beautiful and heartfelt goodbye message here. and a waving emoji too. cya
image of the month
21st june 2023
writing this shit at 1am instead of trying to sleep for no reason other than it's one of those nights where i feel like i could talk for hours and hour about absolutely nothing of value LOL. expect this entry to function as little other than a glorified and unedited stream of conciousness. anyways uhhm i feel like i should cover general life stuff, since i've had Shit of some nature occur this month.
speaking of, yayy ^_^ pride month. or whatever. im not someone who runs out in the streets carrying flags, nor have i ever equated my experiences with being queer to being like. holy or true or particually Fantastical in any way. i've got some perspectives, due to my background, that i think many others may not have the benefit of...having, and i'm very grateful for that. but overall pride month isn't something i typically drop everything to celebrate, it's moreso like. yay. cool. i'll chuck a flag up for a bit. im happy that others get to use this time to have some fun, though; i think that shit's needed, at least on some level.
AND when it comes to queer things, i finally managed to get surgery earlier this month (right on the 1st, which is funny timing). i'm almost completely broke now as a result, but hoooly fuck am i so glad i've finally managed to get that roadblock actually out of the way. it's been this constant Thing in my life i've always thought i'd be dealing with, so knowing that after this recovery period, i'm just kinda. done with it all? is so fucking refreshing in a way i haven't experienced much in regards to this part of my life. THOUGH. holy shit. recovery sucks and is awful. to be fucking real with you. just waiting for the day when i'm recovered enough to go back to work, because i do really need to start making money again LOL.
otherwise, not much else in terms of "big things" that i can really mention. i'm basically just stuck at home for the next few weeks, which has both good and bad consequences. however, knowing that these few months will basically leave me set for the rest of my life Does ease the stress of the whole situation a bit.
unrelated, but hoooly shit is it difficult to get into reading really wordy stuff. i've had an interest in philosophy and general texts of that nature for a couple years now, but i've struggled with getting through a lot of them. and while i'm leagues better at pushing myself through a lot of these than i was in the past, it is still undeniably DIFFICULT and also wicked frustrating. im really hoping i can keep at it, because i have a really deep respect for just kinda pulling apart Things, and directing that passion towards inherent concepts that surround our being is both incredibly engaging and also just kinda fun. also good for the whole knowledge side of it too, of course. for anyone curious, i'm currently going through Debord's "The Society of the Spectacle", and im hoping to give CDC Reeve's translation of Rhetoric a try once i've finished the former (though with how chunky that second one is, i'm likely just going to try and take my time with it; i think trying to speed through it would be kinda reduntant).
that's all, i think? i was going to make a passage where i complained about twitter and the general internet habit of complaining about things that do not matter once you turn the screen off (think discourse about tvs shows or death threats over someone hating something you enjoy). but also that would inherently just be doing the thing i'd be complaining about, though maybe with less suicide baiting. EITHER WAY. im gonna go head off to bed, or at least try to. bye bye
image of the month (gif edition)
23rd may 2023
hiii ^_^
life has been weird recently, but i Think (?) in a good way. like u know when u just kinda mooch around and settle down into a steady stream of routine for a bit and it gets u thinking? like Holy Fuck i need to do things with my life that are interesting and Maybe matter. unsure! weird transitional periods that are actually kinda wicked stagnant. that kind of thing. not sure when it'll pass. shrugging emoji
in terms of stuff i've been engaging with recently, i got into homestuck. which is interesting ?? to say the least. i was vaguely considering reading it for a few years now, partially because people kept fucking telling me that i seemed like a homestuck fan, and also partially because there is So Much about it that seems to permeate the internet as a whole (or at least the parts of it i engage with often). AND TL:DR i enjoyed it. obviously it is a product of its time and etc etc all the disclaimers im supposed to make. but! overall, it was a really fun thing to read. i like viewing it as an unintentional commentary on storytelling as a whole, especially with the "disappointing" ending many people were unsatisfied with. with all the 4th wall shit and how intertwined the story was with that whole "meta" aspect, it felt oddly right to have it fall flat on its face at the end, or to have such fundamentally. yucky? feeling plot conclusions throughout. like...i think the whole experience of homestuck is really interesting to me when taken in as an entire entity (failures and mistakes in all), and not as the single story being told by hussie. not sure if i explained that well in the slightest but. SHRUGGING EMOJI X2
THAT has also gotten me thinking moreso about storytelling and art in general, which is wicked fun. my favourite thing that i've been working on recently is transitioning my way of considering meaning from art, and discarding traditional the traditional "This Is Good" and "This Is Bad" systems. Especially the whole like. 5/5 1/10 "ohhh i give it 5 stars!!" rating system. to me, compressing an experience down to a number feels inherently kinda reductive, and while i understand the purpose of it to reduce Long Review Essays when someone just wants to buy something, there's this off-putting mentality permeating the internet today that places art on a scale of "important and worthy" to then just like. Bad Shit. i dont mean praising things that might be traditionally "lacking" without any nuance, but most things Do have a meaning or a purpose that they carry, and quite often that purpose is one that isnt shoved directly in your face with a label that says "STORY" printed in red all caps impact font.
Things like...how the work was conceptualised, what went into it, the intent and the outcome (and the differences between the two) all mean a lot to me. AND. and probably the most important one is just. finding shit. connecting dots that may not have been intended, but are there nonetheless. storytelling is this transformative way of communicating with an audience, and as people who Live In A World, there will always be connections to that World in any story written, whether concious or subconcious.
and so, tying that idea of Fishing for connections with research into the background of a work leads to so many interesting ways of pulling apart a story. only half of the potential lies in the story itelf!! the rest is all there for you to just kinda draw circles around.
ok im ending that whole tangent there because it feels really hard to communicate what i mean. and also i have a delicious fucking awesome kinder chocolate bunny on my desk that i want to eat. ok bye ^_^
image of the month
24th feb 2023 - womp womp
Hi again. Long time no website update but that's ok. I've been working a lot recently at monitoring my internet usage (i.e. mostly trying to pull away from lots of unnecessary time-wastey sites) and I just haven't really felt like the site has needed much upkeeping. I guess it's in a good enough state now that I just don't have that immediate urge to throw myself at the code editor for hours at a time. That could also be partially because I've lost a bit of interest in it, but tbf I also just believe I've done enough load of work on this thing to last awhile.
Either way, not much has been going on in my life. I'm still just working at my job like usual, saving for an upcoming surgery (which could be months away, but I do have an initial consultation sometime in April so fingers crossed it speeds up after that). That'll be good to get done, at the very least.
Also!!! I've recently finished Fire Emblem: Awakening and hoooly fuck. DUDE. LOL. I thought Three Houses would be my only foray into the series, mostly because I tend to shy away from strategy games that don't offer me more modern QOL features...but! I get why people praise this game now, to say the least. Immediate favourite, I adore how well they handled so many elements in the story, it genuinely felt like such a complete game, everything was tied together so well and was so tightly controlled in the best of ways. Back when I played 3H for the first time I went stupid buckwild over it so I'm hoping this doesn't last as long as that one (iirc it was. more than a year. a little miserable in retrospect but at least I was having fun). EITHER WAY. GOOD GAME !!!!! I'll have to sit on it for a bit before I can fully decide if I consider it one of my all-time favourites, but chances are it'll be up there.
I think that's mostly it. Not much to say despite the long break, but that's fine. I'm content with letting this dude of a site just chill out here while I do other things for a while. Not sure I have the same interest in working on it that I did a month or two ago, anyways. Thanks for reading, and for checking in on the blog. Take care! o/
gif of the month (sorry. budget cuts)
11th jan 2023 - blog up
HIIIII i was at work. once again. was kinda an okay shift actually? i spent the last hour just sneakily giving free shit to the trainees and making paper planes out of some spare wrapping paper.
nothing's really happened in the past few days (other than some more personal shit) but i AM currently doing the aformentioned thing where i sit at home for 2 weeks since everyone else i live with decided to head off to a different state. it's been ??? mildly interesting, to say the least. could be worse. it's nice to have a break from other people occasionally but i DO appreciate that it gives me a better understanding of what having people around can really do for you. though i'm glad im not being forced to constantly clean up after other people for a little bit LOL its a nice reprieve.
?? i think? that's all i really have to say for now. not much to say i think, for better or for worse. ummm if you're reading this ^_^ take care
gif of the week
6nd jan 2023 - still online
WORKED TODAY and it was. actually fine mostly other than just general frustations i have with the job. its like 12am right now and i should be getting to sleep soon because i have another shift tomorrow so i'll try to make this quick.
ohyeah taiko web went down :( pretty bummed abt that since i've spent a good while on it over the past few months; the site had so so many charts you couldn't find in any of the modern games, and was just super accesible and easy compared to the shit bandai continues to pull with the series nowadays ($80aud for the game ported to most modern consoles with typically like. 30-40 charts. dont forget the $100+ worth of dlc too !!!) whatever. very frustating but i'll just keep pirating the games wherever i can.
i DO need to get to work on actually tranferring most of the site's images off of catbox since it keeps going offline, and taking my site down with it. i dont think i have enough stuff to require me to purchase neocities supporter yet (not that i'm opposed. i assume i'll get it eventually) but it'll still be super time-consuming to just sit there and download and reupload files for a few hours. ohwell. not like ive got too much happening in my life at the moment so i'm sure i'll find time.
also i got a few of my jack frost plushies in the mail today ^_^ i ordered like. 5. for practically no reason other than i worked 5 days one week and wanted to reward myself for not dropping dry ice in the deep fryers at work.
the silly ↑
i think thats all i really have to say for now. byeeee ^_^
5nd jan 2023 - finished mother 3
doing a lot of nothing today i think. mucked around and went to a couple of shops earlier to check out potentially getting a tiny shitty cheap but also Nice and Okay rug or carpet-thing of sorts. didnt find anything that wasnt over $500 and also everything was very fancy and just.not my taste really. i need some $30 ikea bullshit but i dont really have the means to get there super easily. thats a goal for another day i suppose
on another note i finally finished watching a playthrough of mother 3 today !! AWESOME GAME im very glad i at least managed to finish it in some form. i did try to play the game myself a few years back but many older rpgs of that kind just don't really work for me; no matter how charming or engaging the plot n world is, sometimes stuff just feels too gruelling or repetitive for me to handle. i guess. vinny's playthrough was the one i watched though. and even though i did contemplate watching a more "genuine" no-commentary one, i'm pretty glad i stuck with what i chose. theres a limited amount of streamers nowadays that i'm willing to watch anyway, so my options were technically limited, since i doubt i was gonna find someone completely new for 30 hours, but i digress. it was really good. to put it in four words, i mean. good game and also a very. i dont want to say "human" playthrough because that sounds atrocious, but the game felt very appreciated. less constant ham-fisted jokes and moreso a careful tread into new territory (which was also likely because of how many people were treating the game in chat, but. dunno)
when it comes to my personal life, i do have a fun little challenge of sorts for myself over the next few weeks, as the ppl i usually live with are all going on a trip up the country, so it means i'm in charge of managing the house and taking care of the dog while they're gone. maybe not the most difficult thing for most people, but i guess that lack of a backup...group? of sorts will be something new for me to tackle. could be fun. could also drive me nuts but i suppose we'll just see what happens. i still have to go to work so its not like i can rot inside for 3 weeks straight anyway.
not much else really. in terms of Very Current events, i'm sitting at my desk trying to grab the last achievements for future tone, since they require me to just play like...i think 70 music videos total, which is. a little bit Nothing. but i like to do silly completionist things sometimes so i'm just letting them play in the background while i write this up. also putting my music on shuffle, which adds a good bit of flavour to the silent 3d model animations playing in front of me. i suppose later i'll just pack my things for work tomorrow, and maybe fry some potatoes for dinner since i dont have the energy to make a complete meal of any kind (and cutting potatoes is oddly fun
2nd jan 2023 - crazy world where i have a blog page
hiii ^_^ typing up this entry as i made this page. hello. not entirely sure yet what i'm going to do with all of this here, or how im going to theme this page, but i'll figure it out eventually.
didn't really do too much today personally, but I still got a couple long-standing things done which i'm super happy about. made a trip up to IKEA and grabbed a few cheap $30 shelves, and spent some time watching the old vinesauce mother 3 vods while i put them all together. was really fun actually, even if i fucked up numerous times along the way LOL.
[note: holy FUCK those twisty screw tools are AWFUL and will kill your hands. though, i fashioned myself a solution by just absoluting covering the tool in tape and paper until i could use it without needing a 5 minute break each time.]
anyway not much else of note really, other than doing a much-needed deep clean of my room. can finally see various parts of the floor that i had covered with old blankets and pillows from a year-ish ago.
