Hello there, welcome to my blog. I like to store my various thoughts and ideas here while I wander. Feels like I forget stuff more often than not what while leaving history behind; so I hope that by writing down what affects me, I can look upon this record and remind myself of what I've learnt. I hope you can gain something from this too.
The cards are calling me out again... well I'll power on as usual.
So reporting back on my last entry, I feel like I made some progress in some areas; although not as much as I would have liked so I guess I was right about giving myself too much to do. The break has been nice though! I feel ready to return to streaming soon now that I've had some time to do a bit of vegetating (and gestating!). Although I wish I had done more to prepare more content for streams, I think it's fine to eke out what I can on the back-end stuff to keep growing the stream. With my newfound knowledge of CSS, I was able to style an element to look like a post-it note so I can write little messages on them and the background expands with the amount of text! I'm pretty proud of myself for that one. Next is trying to figure out a countdown element. It never ends ! !
In regards to reconnecting with my creativity, it's a bit bare on that front. I picked up the pen and attempted a few doodles but I would end up feeling discouraged. I did try drawing in the company of discord friends and I managed to squeeze a few sketches out while spending time with them. They encouraged me a lot and it gave me a bit of courage to keep going. It reminded me of what essentially motivates an artist.
Bare with me, this is a bit of a tangent. I used to draw a lot of fandom related artwork and the main factor in what drove that passion to draw so much was what I like to recognise as a 'Positive Feedback Loop'. I would draw something I knew would get a reaction out of the viewer, they in turn would get hyped up about the content of the artwork, which in turn would hype me up to make more and draw out more reactions. Happy, distraught, playfully angry at me for torturing our poor favourite characters. It was like playing pretend but through pictures. It's no secret that creativity is a form of play, and making art is no exception to that.
Anyways it was a good reminder that it's okay to make art because you want attention for it. No artist can be a completely self-contained island. I think people generally need each other to stay sane, and to play with each other of course!
It got me thinking about the concept of cringe again. I wasn't sure how to navigate through it until I came across an interesting video by Amelie Doree. There's a part of the video where, while sitting on a log, laptop balanced on her knees, that she shares this surprisingly poignant thought:
"If being my honest self is cringe… then I’ll accept being cringe, because being honest with myself has allowed me to have deeper bonds with the people I know and accept those who aren’t accepted by anyone else. Being honest has made people I know happier. It’s made me happier. This year, the first I’ve come to terms with all of myself, is maybe the first year of my life I’ve spent more days wanting to live than wanting to die."
-- Amelie Doree, The PC-98 Game with the Funniest Name (and Finding Meaning in Art) [41:01] 10/12/2023
That really struck a chord with me.
So I recently got my Official Autism Diagnosis completed the other day. The result was better than expected if I'm being honest. I landed in the realm of needing substantial supports but that part doesn't bother me as much as the psychologists had hoped. I think they were anticipating my world view of myself being shattered. Truth is, I've known for a long time that I'm autistic.
I had a pseudo-diagnosis when from a family friend who happened to be a paediatrician, but the signs were pretty obvious even before that point. I was only 6 at the time when I was given a name for my apparent 'weird' disposition. I wasn't given much else.
As much as other people would shame me for having a disability beyond my control, I don't feel ashamed of being autistic. If someone were to ask if I would've preferred being born without it, I'd say 'no that's eugenic type shit' and honestly I couldn't fathom being myself without also being autistic at the same time. The autism is me. It's how I'm wired. There's no shame in that.
A friend of mine is struggling with it though. They only recently got diagnosed and had no idea they were autistic until now. It's a huge shift for them and they often ask me how I deal with it. To me, its no deal at all because I've had years to make peace with it and grow an affection towards myself in that regard. Can't change it, don't want to change it, and I won't be pressured into being a dishonest version of myself that makes me want to die. I'm happiest when I get to be myself.
And then the neurons aligned and something became very painfully apparent.
My fears about showing the cringey parts of myself... enjoying making art for fandoms, or even animation memes. The magic words I needed to overcome it was the same motions I use when it comes to my disability. Amelie really did say it best. "If being my honest self is cringe… then I’ll accept being cringe." It might take awhile to let it set in but if I can at least relate the two then I know its possible to accept that part of me too.
That's all I wanted to keep note of. I really don't want to forget this one so I'm glad I was able to record it somewhere. I'll keep doing my best as always~! Might even try drawing again soon. Take care!
I made the annoucement yesterday that I was taking a break from streaming to focus on catching up on some tasks that have been left to the wayside. I gave myself a timeline of two weeks to accomplish what I can but if I'm honest, it feels like I gave myself too much to do. The weekend is dedicated to just relaxing because the burnout was really getting to me. Streaming lately has felt less like a fun activity and more just a routine I do regardless of whether I have anything to say or not. But I did hear an interesting perspective today from a wizard... Creating vs. Reacting.
I feel that I've been neglecting creating and overindulging in the reactive. Streaming games all the time might feel fun in the moment but after a while, the well of witty commentary has run dry. No wonder I feel as if I haven't got a lot to say. My brain needs time to bake, experience things outside of streaming, re-engage with my creative pursuits. Learning something new like web development certainly helped. Learning new things means I can bring something back for my viewers to chew on. Although the psyche once said that sometimes leaving space to breathe and not feeling compelled to bring 'something' everytime can allow for interesting conversations to occur.
Point is, my attention is drawn to what I can do to re-engage with my creativity.
The other day, I opened up a little bit about an animated project I was working on a few years ago but gave up on completing because the subject/topic was... well cringe. It was an attempt at an animation meme about my favourite cartoon show at the time where it was exploring the dynamic between two characters. It was a bit shippy and very angsty but I'm still proud of the skill and artistry of it. But alas, I never finished it because I was so scared of showing that part of myself to others. I still am. What if other people think what I like is cringe, what if they bully me for it? Of course, in my mind I know that the opinions of strangers don't matter. My friends who love me and adore what I create because it came from me is what's important. But I can't seem to overcome the barrier. I wish I had some magic words to avoid the obstacle altogether.
In the meantime, I guess I'll do what I can to clear space in my head. And do the best I can. Shall report back soon.
It took a little while but I managed to put this blog together. Admittedly I stole most of the code from kopawz's journal , but it took awhile to understand and learn from it. I even added my own stuff to it like the button on the bottom to show entries from the previous year (no actual content there just future-proofing) and the custom scrollbar. Eventually, it'll be nice to update this with my own code but that might be awhile off yet. I'm still learning and growing after all.
I'm really happy with the pages I've made so far. It was a good move to make the simplest pages first and move up from there. Although, I'm stuck at deciding what to persue next as I don't want to get too complicated too quickly. The homepage still needs a lot of work and I think that drawing up a few ideas of how I want my website to look will be a good idea! I'm really inspired by the layout on plushiecryptid's site since it's so clean and pleasing to look at. I especially love their Watchlist page with how the entries on the table light up when you hove the mouse over it! Makes it so much easier to read.
Anyways I got my work cut out for me! Better get back to it!
