i've been working on a new project, XMERA, which is all about like old internet stuff and things like that. and it got me thinking that i'd like to sort of enter that Vibe myself. i never really got the oppourtunity to use things like geocities or whatever when i was younger, they were sort of out of vogue when i started using the internet, but i think it's kind of cool
in a very hipster pretentious way, that is. like it's cool that it looks like shit and html / css are hard to use.
but also here i have full control over what i post on my site and how it works or how i can use it. there's no algorithm dictating anything for me, so it's probably better for me to put things like my art etc etc on here as well as other social media sites so that god forbid twitter bans porn or (eugh) furaffinity shuts down or whatever i can still kind of do my thing. i think more furries should do this kind of thing, actually
i'm thinking that i'll use this site as, i guess a blog? it's kind of unusual to me, the idea of using a blog, because i've never really had one before. the closest thing i've ever had to a blog has been my tumblr, which is hardly even a blogging site for realsies
i had a dream where i had you by the throat
in the mid-afternoon, it was filled with light
the way your thin throat jumps around -
i was watching it all, on the verge of tears
...
if i could jump into that nuclear reactor
i have a feeling that i'll be able to sleep like i could back then
as a little bit of a recap on my life:
i'm currently in VA, and i have been for the past few months, helping my grandparents around the house. i was under the impression that i would move down here permanently, and later be joined by my irl friend J after a few months of living with the gparents. that was the original plan, but a week or two before i left, my gma got into an accident which has left her profoundly paralyzed from the waist down. she'll probably never walk again
so it turns out that they needed a lot more help than was previously thought, and honestly, a lot more help than i can actually provide... but i tried quite hard to stick it out. i managed to get a job down here after about a month, with a work-from-home call center, and that kind of worked out. but the internet here is pretty bad - for some reason, internet service randomly drops for only a few minutes at a time, but when it drops it's completely gone. obviously this doesn't work when you're trying to work in a call center. i dropped several calls, and eventually decided to quit because it just wasn't going to work out.
i did manage to get another job at a fast food restaurant training for a shift lead position, which didn't sound half bad, but i'd forgotten how much i despise working in food service and it completely exhausted me every day. after about a week of working there i'd made my choice to go back up north, back to the midwest, and stay there for a while longer while i determine my next move. it just so happens that my gparents are moving into a (rather expensive) assisted living facility come december.
i told my mom about it one day after work. the next day, i had a 12 hour shift, and when i came out to the parking lot at 11pm, my car wouldn't start. i guess mercury really is in retrograde.
so at any rate i managed to get a new car battery, and i got accepted for a small ($2000) personal loan which should be enough to get me back up north and allow me to pay my bills for maybe another month or two. my mom is flying down on wednesday to accompany me on the drive back up, which will be difficult for her because she really dislikes her family right now - most of my aunts and uncles are various flavors of asshole, and she doesn't agree with the idea of forcing gma and gpa into an expensive facility that they honestly can't afford.
we'll be leaving to go back up on friday, probably arriving saturday or sunday.
so that's kind of the state of my life right now, there's kind of a lot going on
i figure i should probably be posting my progress on this site, for posterity or to see how far i've come or whatever! so here's a list of things i've implemented on the site so far, and stuff i'm working on:
things that exist now
basic site framework. i've set it up so that i can have a blog, an archive for said blog, an art gallery, an about page, and another page i'll mention later. i'm pretty proud of how the basic layout looks, even though it's pretty plain i think it looks great!
a few css effects. more or less this is normal, but again, i think it's cool. i can use bold and italics (and i also have strong and em set up with the same), my links are pink and get highlighted when you hover over them, and there's a few special effects i can use with spans, like making things blackletter or censoring them until you hover.
ticker bar. this is kind of a silly one, but there's a ticker bar at the top of the homepage now, currently displaying your horoscope for today. i don't see any practical purpose for it, so i might get rid of it, but we'll see what happens
fixed decorations. the barbed wire and chains you see at the bottom of the screen, as well as the spotify player in the top left. it was kind of difficult trying to fix the chains images to properly render in a proportional size, as well as allow you to press the back home button at the bottom of the page, but i did it! i'd like to find a player that will persist across pages, though, so you don't have to start my bitchin playlist from the beginning every time you go somewhere new.
things that will exist later
better gallery. there are a few issues with the way the gallery is currently laid out - namely, that it's just a series of images top to bottom, with no way to filter them or sort through them or anything. i'm thinking i'll eventually have them laid out in a grid, and you can click to expand? but that might require more complex coding that i'm unsure of how to make happen
better image storage. there's also the issue that storing images right here on neocities takes up quite a bit of space... i'd prefer not to pay for extra space, but it might become necessary. the problem mainly exists for my artwork, which i tend to render in a large canvas size, so maybe the solution is just to compress my art down for this site. still, i'd rather not do that...
character hub. i'm working on a page containing brief bios and information on each of my OC's, so that anyone interested can look at their Lore.
better blogs. the way i'm doing blogs right now is, i think, not the best? i'm sure there's a better way to do them, so i want to find out if that's possible. one thing i want to include is tags so that i can sort through them, and more automation so that i don't have to do everything manually, but we'll see what happens
good morning is used at the time of farewells
and goodbye = see you
and then as it was time for the sun to go to sleep
you appeared in my dream!
colors pile up, aah.
i think that neocities is like, kind of the perfect platform for furries?
i think the main problems that furries have on most platforms are algorithms, control, and normies
and i kind of think that neocities is the perfect solution to all of those problems at the same time, on top of being free and a few other reasons
as far as algorithms go, there are zero, unless you count the websites bar on the main neocities page (which i don't). most of the time when you come across new content, it's because somebody else had already put it out there for you to find... like they have a button linking to someone else's site, or a page of interesting links, or whatever, but not because neocities just Decided you'd like to see something in particular. and it's because it wouldn't really work on a platform like this... my content can't be supressed because this is my site, whether people see it or not is irrelevant to whether it's available to be seen
that dovetails nicely into the like control element. i can post whatever the fuck i want here. i can put porn in my gallery and not worry about whether or not it will get taken down, because it's literally mine. i have full control of the content. likewise i never have to worry about hate speech on my page, or misinformation, or things like that, because i'm the only one with the keys to the castle. and it also means that if i don't like someone, instead of having to block them and everyone who follows them, and mute their name on my tl or whatever, i can just
not? go to their site lol
the final point is normies, which is maybe better expressed as "culture". neocities, in particular, engenders a very cringecore culture - that is, a nostalgia for the earnestness of the early 2000s internet, which has stopped existing since and may never truly exist again. this earnestness, this zeitgeist of the oughtsweb, is the exact place that furries live by our nature, because being a furry is a very cringe thing to do. and if we could build a bigger and stronger community here, instead of relying on major social media sites, i think we could be a lot happier? just living in our little cringe bubble of the internet in peace, where we can all say "emo wolf so cool" and agree with each other. the normie community that does exist on neocities is mostly furry-neutral it seems, and again, we simply do not have to engage with them
i don't really know where i'm going with this! i want to end it with a call to action, but i don't have the reach or influence to make changes in the furry fandom
a few things i would like to see happen on here: it would be nice to have a furry version of districts or something like that (particularly one that's friendly to nsfw content ;w;), and it would also be nice to see a furry webring come into existence because i think the idea of that happening is. so poggers. also, we should collectively figure out a protocol for displaying art from other artists that we like...
haha wow i've only just realized how much i'm writing about being a furry and unironically liking being a furry... it feels a little embarrassing, but in a freeing way. i really like this community and i think it's done a lot to help me out in terms of self-expression and self-actualization in the past several years, so i just think it would be cool to see it flourish in healthier soil!
i've been watching serial experiments lain today... i never actually finished watching it the first time around, embarassingly, but i think if i binge it all in one go i'll be able to do it
although my internet has been kind of spotty today also :(
i've kind of been thinking a lot about changing up my art style? but it's weird because the art that i kind of really admire, and that i think is more interesting to create, is exactly the opposite of the kind of thing that is widely marketable to furries
one example of an artist i really like in this way is nextel. his stuff occasionally touches on abstract sort of grungy vibes, with a focus on typography and graphic design that i think adds a lot of cool aesthetic flourish...
but i know that if i did stuff like that, it wouldn't get nearly as popular as the stuff that i do which is more realistically rendered and lush and whatnot!!! so it's difficult
anyways, in terms of the site, i did actually go ahead and start work on that characters page, but it's still under construction and likely will remain that way for a while. i already kind of want to change some things about it...
also, i've been thinking about making my own webring? i think it would be a fun exercise, if nothing else. there's a tool i found called onionring which makes it easier to create a webring - it's not automatic, in that i still would have to add people manually to the whitelist, but for my purposes that's actually better?
i think the last thing i wanted to mention was this artbook by bayboy, which is just really fucking cool and if you haven't looked at it yet, please go do so. josh is one of my favorite artists in the furry scene right now, their style is so cool and unique and interesting
actually, this is the real last thing, i wanted to shout out this zine by marlo mogensen... it's just got impeccable vibes all around
i've been enjoying writing daily blog posts like this, just kind of talking about my life and my projects and things... although i'm sure that nobody's really paying them that much mind, it feels good to put something out there! it feels more satisfying, in a way, than just writing in a journal or tweeting into the void.
in any case, that's all i have for you for now. xoxo
so the most important announcement i have today is the creation of furryring, a webring for new old web furries to connect with each other!
i wrote about this before but i really think that twitter, tumblr, even furaffinity etc are all either unhealthy, actively hostile towards things furries make, or ethically questionable in their practices. i would love to see a new furry fandom grow via personal sites and the like, so as to undo the damage wrought by these toxic platforms
and in any case, i've been having way too much fun running this site and building it and whatnot. so i definitely want to share the love!
in other news... i did eventually finish watching lain. and then a couple of youtube videos explaining all the themes and story beats i failed to pick up on while watching lain. one thing i don't necessarily enjoy, though - people characterize lain as being inhuman, more-than-human, etc etc, but i think part of the point of the show is that lain is, in fact, just a little girl
like, maybe she did originate in the wired, and maybe it was deus who gave her a physical form. but i think by virtue of having her body, of making a form in the real world, she became human. i think that one of the themes of the show is how everyone wants so much from lain, and is so obsessed with her, and all she really wanted was a genuine human connection. and one of the great successes of the show is how it predicted a lot of the issues we go through today
one thing that's touched on is that children have more latent psi than adults do, and i think that's really important to understanding some of the things that serial experiments lain is doing. children were used and exploited in KIDS, and then again by the knights. speaking of the knights, they even recruited a child because they knew that he would be able to get closer to lain. and finally, they elevated lain to this messiah-like figure who would thrust humanity forward into a new era of development. but lain is also just a kid who loves people and loves being human
and that resonates with me so much. i think a lot of the messages that kids and teens born in the 90's, even into the early 2000's were that they're the internet age, they're the future, they'll thrust humanity into a new cyber utopia. but all we really want is connection. see? my heart... it's beating. you're cold, but yours is too, lain.
aaagh i didn't mean to turn this into a lain mini-essay... it was just a really great show!!
not a terribly eventful day, other than the fact that i've been procrastinating packing all my stuff up to leave for too long and will have to hurry up and get it done tonight...
i leave on friday to go back up north! i have a lot of mixed feelings about it but ultimately i think it's going to be good
as soon as i get a job again - on the subject of which, i'm supposed to be getting a call to possibly interview at a company a friend works at soon - i'll probably be moving in with an irl friend
in a way, i'm happy that i'm leaving my current situation - it's gotten to be a lot, and i just think going back home is the right choice for now. but at the same time, i was really optimistic about this move, so going home again kind of feels like admitting defeat...
i think i just need to reframe it. i'm not admitting defeat per se, i'm making non-linear progress
anyway, i kind of want to make a kind of zine thing page... i'm thinking maybe i'll do a page with my fursona (or maybe other people's sonas too?) in a bunch of different outfits, like a webcore lookbook. my style has been feeling really stale and lifeless to me lately, so i'm hoping that working on that will reinvigorate me! i know that working on this site has certainly made me feel a lot more creative and interested in web design + stuff like that than i ever have been before
don't be surprised if you don't hear from me at all this weekend, i'll be travelling cross-country! :3
so... it's been a minute, huh?
i don't have any huge updates to make right now! i moved back up north (for your information, i live about an hour or two away from the canadian border!) and that took me several days. and now i'm home and it turns out my bedroom is being used as a home office, so i've been trying to rearrange it and make it usable as my bedroom as well...
but i'm back! i may end up writing a longer blog post later today, in case i think of anything really interesting to say, but for now i just wanted to let you guys know that i am in fact Alive
so - this has been my third try at writing this blog post! i had some weird computer issues a while ago that made my computer crash for whatever reason? (i think i fixed it, i just needed a new SATA cable...)
i wanted to kind of share what sorts of projects i've got rattling around in my head, whether they're actively being worked on or simply ideas for future things to do
my hope is that by posting about them here, i'll be more encouraged to actually do work on them!
XMERA. this is my most "major" project on the backburner right now - a tabletop rpg about old internet, furries, and escapism. i've got the system sort of figured out, mostly, and the only thing i need to do to it is fine-tune it and then add content; i'm thinking i'll release the basic system as a small zine, and then later on as i build onto it, i'll make a "big box" release
detention. speaking of ttrpg stuff, i still do want to add onto my kind of old one-page rpg detention! similar to with XMERA, i think that i'll continue to build on it and then release a big book including a bunch of modules. the cool thing i'd like to do with detention is to allow you to mix-and-match with the different supplements depending on what you care about. don't care about school popularity, but you do care about weaponsmithing and chase scenes? great! you can include only the modules you want to, and leave the others out
fashion zine. i can't stop thinking about drawing a bunch of characters in cool outfits!! i'm not very well-versed in fashion, but it seems like a really fun thing to do. maybe in the future i'll be asking around for fursonas to add to this?
flat forever. this one is a more nebulous idea... i've been kind of meditating a lot on the midwest lately, so maybe i'll congeal thouse vague feelings into a semi-autobiographical comic? i'm not so sure about whether or not i'll do this, but it seems like it could be cathartic, if not meaningful or important
oc page rehaul. i was thinking about it, and it might be better to have my ocs be put on separate pages grouped by "universe"? since i kind of envision a lot of my ocs as existing in separate continuities, though not necessarily in different universes - like for instance, i think crater probably exists in the same universe as reggie and boscoe, but they don't really interact since crater is a delivery driver in outer space. so i might do something like that, and style each of my oc pages differently to reflect their individual continuities/groupings
that's all i really had for today, but i also want to make more updates, since i kind of stopped for a bit... i'll try to continue making daily blog posts whenever i can! it's just sort of hectic around here lately since i moved back, and i'm probably going to be getting an apartment here soon... in any case, i'll see you guys around! ^^
i'll eventually put like, buttons here?
is that a thing people do?