Welcome to my Journal!

I use this place to write down my thoughts, and topics can range from site progress to random happenings and personal thoughts.

May 5th, 2024

Happy Cinco de Mayo / Revenge of the 5th, everybody!

I've reworked the site a smidge in terms of layout. I made the top bar thinner so it isn't as intrusive, and I changed how the side bars are arranged ever so slightly, but it's probably not that noticable anyhow. Ideally the middle window would stay dead in the center while the two side bars share an equal space on either side, but I haven't quite figured out how that works just yet. It's not major, but... it does peeve the perfectionist side of my brain.

In other news, I was on a pretty fun stream with my boyfriend and two other friends of mine! We did some Deep Rock Galactic for three hours, and we had a grand old time being dwarves and killing bugs. You can watch the stream here or here, but I think you'll have a good time either way. It's been a pretty chill day since, and I figured I'd work on the site after watching a bit of Hypnospace Gameplay. It's one of the inspirations for me doing this in the first place, after all. :P

That said, I've also felt pretty melancholic for no particular reason. Maybe it's because it's only now hitting me that nearly half the year is already over, or that I'm still trying to make a career out of modelmaking and I'm making some serious projects, but either way it's a strange, comfortably warm feeling to me. Just need to make sure it doesn't last so long that I end up causing me to stagnate. That said, though, I might end up streaming my modeling process soon so I can show the good people at home how I do my thing. Plus, I could use it to stream my end of things when it comes to games down the line, too! But I'll get to it when I get to it. need to make sure my stream setup works anyhow.

April 29th, 2024

FINALLY GOT AN ENTRY UP ON THAT STUPID GALLERY!!!!!

It's the most basic thing on the planet, and I'm definitely going to rework in the future. I've gone on about how I'd like to do it before, but right now each one's gonna consist of just a few pictures/renders of the thing and links to where you can get it if I have it up for public download. That said, I at least HAVE a system in place where I can post what else I've done and show off more of my work later on. I should probably do the same on my socials too so I can give them more eyes, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Other than that, though, Today was a pretty chill day. Played with friends, hung out, and got to rewatch Smiling Friends with my hubby. Not much else besides that, really.

April 6th, 2024

Nothing much I wanna write about for now, but my Mr. L model that I mentioned a little while back is being featured in a future SMG4 video! I don't watch his stuff myself, but it's still cool to see my stuff being used in other places. Here's the poster he put out!

March 28th, 2024

I cannot believe I didn't know how to spell my favorite turtle's name multiple times now. Frick.

In lighter news, he's been put on the backburner for a commission I got from a good friend of mine, so I've got a break from the mutants anyhow. Honestly feels good to get them, and I might open them up publically soon enough once I work things out. Not sure how I'd want to recieve requests, though. I thought about an email just for commissions as the ones I have are already choc-full of other things, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Not much else, just felt like writing something tonight.

March 23rd, 2024

Things have been chill for a while, still haven't gotten around to that art gallery though. I need to, honestly. It'd be a neat way to show off what I've done, and I could link to things like models on sites where I can host them, or even potential projects I use those models in like videos, game mods, etc. Speaking of models, I've actually been making low-poly renditions of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as they appear in Rise of the... well, you can guess the rest.

I only have Donatello left to do at this point, and once the whole gang's done, I'll have each of them up as entries in my gallery alongside Mr L. I've honestly been proud of each one, and it feels great to get some Low-poly models done after a while of not doing those sorts of things. Planning to do more of them in the future, but for now I'm gonna think about tackling the purple boi.

March 9th, 2024

I've gone back to touching up the website, and I'm so VERY close to having the kind of art gallery I want. I'm only missing one function I want where when you click on an Icon, it brings up a menu of sorts within the page that shows either a series of pictures showing the model off, or a model viewer that the user can turn and rotate to inspect like what Sketchfab offers. There would also be a few links at the bottom of this menu showing where someone could get it for themselves if I have it up somewhere (SFM workshop, A download, ETC.) I mentioned it a few sentences ago, but right now Sketchfab doesn't seem like an option as I can't upload models without the site giving me errors, so I'll need to look for an alternative if I want that viewer. In terms of what I have done, though, I've updated the look of the site just a bit so the little buttons up top don't immediately flash pink on hover, but light up to show that your mouse is over that option. The same goes for the gallery, though the entries there scale up a bit instead to show the same thing.

I haven't thought about web design for a good bit, but I'm getting back into it because I would like to start opening up Public commissions for 3D models sometime soon and I want to make this place look good and have a spot where potential clients can have a look at what I've done. I might sound a bit 'buisnessman-ey' here, but really I'm just excited to try and get this little business Idea of mine off the ground and try getting some more opportunities to create things for people. I'm not letting it get too out of control to where I'll expect this thing to blow up immediately, I'm fully aware there's plenty of people out there that have done 3D commissions for years and are far more established than I am. Still, I'm looking forward to throwing my own hat in the ring and making models that myself and my future clients will be more than happy with. When the time comes, You're more than welcome to be one, dear reader!

March 4th, 2024

I JUST realized that all the entries I've written this year all still say they're in 2023. I am a stupid.

Last month was pretty chill, honestly. Hung out with friends, got more involved with House Vulpes (Please check them out they're such a cool group), and got more modeling work done. I'm considering streaming my workflow just to keep myself motivated and show friends and friendly strangers alike how the sausage is made. That, and maybe play games and just feel like I'm doing something productive even if I'm actually not. :P

That said, I honestly feel like a new chapter is starting with how things have changed in my life, and I'm grateful I'm in a position to actually pursue what I'm doing the way I want to which is something not everyone has, unfortunately enough. I'm more productive, I'm enjoying what I'm doing, and once I get some more practice in, I might open up public commissions and try to get some work that way so I can sustain myself with just the hobby I love. Not saying it won't be hard or it'll get to that point super soon, but It's something to strive for nonetheless. Not much else to say today, just enjoying life and working on a super secret gift for a friend of mine. ^^

(Also watch this video I'm in pretty please thank you xoxoxoxo)

Febuary 9th, 2024

I finished my first two 3D commissions in a long time not too far back.

It was a pretty fun experience actually making something for someone again, and I'm hoping I can do it a whole lot more once I get more settled with Blender again. I also finally have a reason to get that art gallery of mine up and running, though it'll really only have one of them up at the start. Namely, it's a model I made of a Creepypasta character named “Mr. L”, and it's not the paper mario one for those not in the know. My friend Director Brian already put him in a video teasing a future Halloween special, but you can go ahead and grab him in Garry's Mod and Source Filmmaker now if you wanna mess with him. I'll get the entry up on my gallery at some point, but I wanna try and get a model viewer going so people can actually get a closer look at him without having to open him up in the source engine. Maybe I'll use Sketchfab for that, the workshops already have integration with that site and I'm not really using my account there for much anyhow. I don't know when I'll start taking commissions publicly, but I'm hoping to do that once I have more than a few models under my belt to show off. Either way, feeling real good about getting back into my hobby and making my clients happy. That, and my wallet's pretty cool with the whole thing too :P

Also! I'm in a few videos my friends made out of a session in le funny meme game Lethal Company. Watch them!

January 19th, 2024

It's, uh... been a while, hasn't it?

A fair bit's changed since the last entry. The new year's come around, I have a new boyfriend, and I'm slowly working up to doing regular 3d modeling again with some bases for humanoid characters! I've been taking it slow otherwise, though I realized that I haven't done much of anything with this site for a good while now. It might be a bit before I dedicate more time to it, but I could get that long-empty gallery up and running with some projects once I have some of those ready to go. I do have some pre-portfolio stuff up I could share, but... I'd rather populate that gallery with newer stuff, and maybe add the older stuff I'm proud of later. Also, I apparently inspired a buddy of mine to make a website of his own, so that's pretty cool! If the button isn't showing up with everyone else's, Here it is!

All in all, pretty good time so far. Here's hoping to a lot more of it for the rest of the year. C:

November 25th, 2023

Breaking up is hard. Really, really hard. But I had to after I realized that the relationship I had wasn't getting better and I needed to break out of the cycle of misery that was keeping me there. I don't think this negates what I was saying in the last post, but I do think it serves as a much-needed addendum that if things don't get better no matter how hard you try in a failing relationship, then the best thing to do is to cut it off and save your own sanity.

It'll hurt a lot, but sometimes it's the right thing to do for yourself.

November 18th, 2023

Love is a weird, confusing, ugly yet beautiful feeling. It amplifies everything else in your life good and bad, and it makes you think things that you wouldn't even think were possible up until it actually hits you. I say this because my current (and hopefully lifelong) relationship was pulled from the brink by the skin of its teeth. A lot of animosity had been building up in me for a number of reasons, and I'd come to the conclusion that I needed to get away from my lover and take a break to think things over more clearly. I took a day to just hang out with friends after a depressing talk the previous night, thinking my boyfriend wouldn't message me. I assumed wrong, as he started texting me out of concern and asking me to talk. I chose to tell him that I didn't want to talk that day, but that statement made him text me even more to try and figure out what was going on. I wasn't mad at him at the time, but he interpreted my statement as such and started trying to reach me through any means he could to get me to say something. It may have come from a place of concern and panic, but he still went overboard in responding to me and it made me panic in turn from his reaction. When the messaging and calls ceased, I went and blocked him on every platform I could think of, determined to never speak to him again and cut him out of my life. It was hard and painful to do and cried for a good while, but I felt like it had to be done for my own sanity. The feeling got even worse when a mutual friend got involved, calling me in my BF's stead and I had to ignore him too. After the main round of texts had settled late at night, however, I decided to talk to the friend as he'd been concerned about our relationship. I brought up everything I'd been thinking about to the best of my memory, and he decided to arrange a meeting between all three of us where we would try to work things out. The talk was rocky at first and I felt like I was getting drowned out, but I eventually got to say my piece and got to have some clarifications on things I'd been worried about for years before we officially hooked up. Eventually we came to the conclusion that both of us overreacted in our own ways, and that we needed to be more open and honest about our situations to prevent this kind of near-breakup in the future. We then spent the rest of the day playing FF14 save a nap halfway through, and we resolved to stay together.

So why am I writing about this here?

A number of reasons. A reminder to myself of what happened and how it occurred, a possible lesson in being open with your partner to anyone reading this, a self-indulgent personal tale to fill up my journal after half a month of near-inactivity, even. But I think any which way I justify it, it's an event I want written down so I can look back on it whenever I feel tension rising between us again. I haven't felt so much emotional weight come off my shoulders from so close a breakup, and I wanted this here in case I felt that sense of dread come crawling back years or possibly months later. There will be arguments in the future, and they could be caused by something as simple as a lapse of judgment in a video game. I won't like everything my BF says and does, and I'm sure he feels the same way about me. But unless something absolutely catastrophic occurs between us or the spark of love dies out for good in either one of us, we need to keep working at our relationship and do what we can to keep it alive while it's making us both happy. I'll admit a lot of my own thoughts stemmed from watching a video from JaidenAnimations specifically about relationships, and I think what she says is dead-on when it comes to any sort of serious connection. Even if the worst comes and we fully split off in the future, I'll at least be able to look back and say I tried my damndest to make it work and grow as a person with it. That, and still maintain a social life with the other friends I've made over the years and maintain a healthy balance between the two.

And if my boyfriend happens to read this in the future... Love you, handsome.

October 31, 2023

Happy Halloween, everyone!

The spoopiest day of the year is upon us, and yet it doesn't quite feel the same to me as it used to anymore. I'll admit, some of it is my fault. I don't go anywhere, I haven't dressed up like I used to, and I don't gorge myself on candy the way I used to. That said, Halloween also happened to be on a weekday this year which means that it was probably on a fair few people's work/school days and it meant that me and my BF couldn't spend all day playing and doing spooky stuff. Even writing this now is a bit melancholic as I usually spent my halloween nights either watching spooky stuff or playing a spooky game with friends. I'm not saying Halloween is ruined or anything and the night is still young, I just wanted to reflect for a bit on time gone by and just write down what I think. I'll say this, though, I did do a bit of dressing up in Final Fantasy 14 when I bought a fantasia and made my character a Miqo'te. I've been on a bit of a Tekken kick lately, and I found a way to essentially make catboy Jin Kazama (Jin Nya-zama, if you will) in the benchmark character creation, and I imported it into the actual game as the new look of my character. I even got some glamour going for my monk to try and make him look like he's wearing Jin's outfit, though I could really only keep it simple for now and just do his Tekken 3 iteration (Legacy fighter gloves, no shirt, craftsman's coverall bottoms dyed soot black, pagos sandals) and call it a day for right now. Would love to try and recreate his Tekken 4 look, but that seems way too specific for me to find parts for right now. Even so, I was still pretty proud of what I had, and the character looks great even when he's being used for my main classes in game. Besides that, though, I haven't really done much in the halloween spirit tonight, though the night's still young and there's still time to do something spooky and fun, at least. In any case, though, I'm still glad I can get enjoyment out of this wonderful holiday and savor my last few moments of freedom before the spirit of Mariah Carey comes along and serenades the holiday season into a complete and total takeover of society for the next two months.

Edit: Spent some of those last few moments watching Young Frankenstein with my family. I'd say this Halloween turned out pretty good all things considered.

October 27, 2023

Tekken Tag Tournament my beloved. Well, kinda. I've been on a bit of a fighting game kick since I got into MK11, and I remembered that not only did I used to rip the few PS2 games I found at a thrift store to my PC, but that one of them happened to be the aformentioned Tag-team fighter. Only thing I'll say is that the external disk drive I used to rip the disk had this wierd issue where it made the sound on my computer freak out while the game was being ripped, but I got it to work nonetheless and I eventually got it up and running in my emulator of choice.

I gotta say, I'm actually surprised at how quickly I got used to the controls again.

I didn't play that many characters, just Jin and King, but Jin had a lot of fun combos and moves that got me through the arcade mode, and I actually messed with King a bit in the past and some of my muscle memory for his basic combo and big kicks came back fairly quick after trying it a few times. Maybe it's just me, but I find the moves in tekken to be a lot more managable in terms of directional inputs and button presses. Nothing against MK, but I do appreciate that some of the combos can be as simple as holding a direction before hitting the same button a few times. I might be mistaken, but I hear that Tekken 8 is supposed to make the combat system even more accessable and there's definitely a few videos out about it now that the closed beta test came and went so I'll see if that rumor ended up coming true or not. Either way, I'm really curious about getting more into Tekken and I'll see if I can't also get TTT2 working as well to enjoy more of what little of this franchise I already have.

Unrelated note, I ended up going with my grandparents to a nice fish restaraunt for their anniversary. Was pretty good, and I doubt I'll eat anything for the rest of the day let alone the next morning, truth be told. Not really that important, I just thought it was delicious.

Also, hello to the two new followers of mine! I like both your sites, and I'm glad you both took an interest in mine!

October 23, 2023

Found the strangest thing today. Somebody made a fake spanish netflix page as part of a phishing scheme, and I couldn't find a way to report it anywhere. I ended up blocking it, but I realized that I have no clue if there even is a way to report sites like that and the best I can do is just block it and hope nobody else ends up falling for it. In lighter news, though, I'm warming up more to MK11 and Kung Lao in particular! I picked him because I already knew he had the sawblade hat, but his gameplay honestly really speaks to me as a rush character that focuses on smacking the enemy hard and fast. I'm no expert on fighting games, but with a little help from friends I'm starting to understand this game a bit more with each match.

October 21, 2023

It's been a week now since I've looked at my website. Other things have been grabbing my attention as of late, but I wanted to at least come back and do something with it. I'm hoping to turn this place into a sort of portfolio/personal/fun place that friends and friendly strangers alike can come to and see what I've been up to, but I need to put a lot more work in before it turns into something I'm truly proud of. Then again, I've also noticed that this site's been somewhat of a distraction when it comes to other things too. My gallery page currently says that I've put 3d art off to work on this place, and that is true, but I've been thinking of making new models lately but I don't because I have this urge to get the site “done” before I go back to that and I end up burning out somewhat on both. Not to mention that and balancing out IRL issues I want to get solved means I spend a whole lot of time thinking and not a whole lot doing before I say 'fuck it' and go hang out with friends to worry about the whole thing the next day. It's turning into a vicious cycle that I know I can't stay in forever, and my perfectionism isn't helping either. Fun fact, did you know that every single journal entry before this one was run through Grammarly? I did it because I wanted to make sure that every single one was as clear and concise as possible, but looking back It somewhat dulled my actual desire to write in the journal because the program would cut down and grade how I wrote the piece and it gave me little dopamine hits whenever I saw high scores along the side bar. Now that works just fine when I'm working on an assignment or some other professional document, but for a personal journal like this it feels like I'm sanitizing my own thoughts and I'm just left with some pre-approved essay that isn't being graded and has no need to be 100% perfect even though I felt like it did at the time. It's burned me out like most other thoughts of mine have, and I have to fight the urge to not become a vegetable that sits in his chair and looks at Youtube all day.

And at the very least, I've been successful in a few regards.

I drove my mom to the store on Wednsday, so I got a little more practice driving. It's nice to do something besides driving around in loops around the neighborhood, and actually going out and doing things is probably the way to go when it comes to getting more used to it all. It's still a bit nerve-wracking to get in the driver's seat, but at least going to the store made me feel a bit better about the whole thing. Speaking of improvement, I figured a re-visit of an old skillset of mine was in order as well. I've started re-learning C# thanks to another bro code course video (Seriously, these videos are amazing if you have the time and want to learn) and I'm already thinking of smaller programs I could turn into projects to make my life a little bit easier. I originally went into college to become a programmer, and both this site and some other small Ideas of mine are really helping me get back into that mindset. I could even go back to college and get a bachelor's degree in computer science If I really needed to, but I'd really rather avoid going back AGAIN if I can help it, so I'll probably save that as a back-pocket plan if nothing else comes up. It's funny, I started this entry feeling down and lost, but putting these thoughts to a journal helped me sort them out again at least a little and made me feel a lot better. I guess that's why I started it in the first place, but... I'm glad it seems to be working.

Edit: Decided to stick a link to my site in my discord bio. To any friends/family that are seeing this... Hi!

October 14, 2023

I think I got the mobile version of this site almost figured out. I never meant to make it the main focus, but I wanted it to at least be functional if I or anyone else wanted to look here on their phones. now I just need to get the order I want where it's content first, then the stamps, then the article afterwards. I also might rearrange the journal a bit to not only make it easier to scroll through, but also organize it in general so site updates and personal ramblings aren't intertwined like they are now. It's silly for a personal site that isn't meant to be that serious, but I still want to do it so I can go through my own journal without scrambling like mad trying to scroll through an ever-lengthening block of text just to get to the bottom.

October 12, 2023

I guess this is technically going up on the 13th for some of you, but... eh.

Not much has been going on with the website as of late. I experimented with the stamps, but they're better off as cute little web decorations. A few will have special links if you mouse over them, but I'll leave those up to you to find! In personal news, a yoyo I ordered came in today, and I've had a pretty good time with it so far. It's neat to throw a few sleepers waiting for my next CoD match, and it's miles better than the little fidget cube I used to mess with when I wanted to give my hands something to do. I also like the stickers on the side, too. The ones in the preview pics are just a blue logo across a transparent background, but mine came with a black logo across a white background, and I think it looks a bit better! I bet my close friends are gonna tease me for messing with it once I tell him about it, but they would understand if they ever tried attaining the state of yo. Back to CoD, though, I'm having a grand old time with the MW3 beta so far. The gameplay's great and all, but there's nothing quite like hearing someone get mad I get dumb enough luck to get to melee them to death over and over. I also heard people get mad at the Rust map which... I mean, that's the one everybody's supposed to love, right? "1v1 me on Rust" and all that? Anyhow, fun times all around this afternoon and Hopefully I'll get to enjoy some more over the weekend.

October 10, 2023

I FIGURED OUT SHARED HTML ELEMENTS BAYBEEEEEEEEE!!!! No more suffering from changing the header, footer, etcetera on every page! It'll be so much easier to add things like new stamps and have this video to thank for it! Come to think of it, now probably would be a good time to re-learn JavaScript after so long of just not using it. I took a few Java courses before, but none ever really stuck as I heavily preferred C#. Still, both languages have Bro Code videos, so I'll get those sorted out once I'm in the mood. Also, I compared how big the site is now compared to before, and I managed to save 0.01 megabytes of data by implementing the shared elements. Yay optimization!

I just wish I could get this excited about other things in my life right now.

October 8th, 2023

No site progress today, I just did some IRL stuff I figured I'd talk about here. I did some driving practice today and felt pretty good with where I am, though I want to go to more places and get used to going outside my little corner of the world before going for the test. It's something I've only recently wanted to do at age 26, but I'm hoping to get it done fairly soon before something causes me to lose the drive (heh) I now have. Besides that, though, I just spent the day relaxing and taking a small break from everything else. I'll do more site progress tomorrow, but I wanted to at least get into the habit of updating my journal at least once every few days now.

October 6th, 2023

Took a break from coding the site some more, still letting the new look settle in at the moment. I want to add more decorative stuff later, but I would need to to a bit more back-end stuff to make it less stressful to add that stuff in. In other news, I tried a teensy bit of Guilty Gear XX Reload today. I'm liking it so far and will probably do a few arcade runs with some characters I like, but I'll probably save the majority of my play time for when I get GG Strive one day, preferably on sale. I saw they're doing a new $99 pack for everything, so I might wait until then to get it if I'm still interested. Nothing new besides that though, Will probably just chill some more over the weekend save some stuff I'd like to do.

October 5th, 2023

Good news, no more opening that separate window! It turns out the site displays correctly on my end in the same place I edited it from Neocities, so no more of that opening a separate window I mentioned yesterday. I also spruced up the place with a fancy checkerboard background I made and some new stamps I found, too. At some point I really need to get that thing I wanted set up where I can share a header and other elements across multiple pages, it's getting really tedious copy-pasting everything across the site. I found a few methods that could work, but I'm not sure which one would be best for me to implement. Either way, I think the structure's almost where I want it save for the gallery and some backend stuff. Then the REAL fun begins and I can start adding more fun stuff! Good thing, too, I need something to take my mind off the IRL stuff I'm trying to deal with when I'm not playing games with friends.

October 4th, 2023

So my site looking strange only happens when I look at it myself through the link on the Neocities activity bar and the edit page. When I look at it anywhere else, it looks exactly how it should. Still annoying I have to use a separate window to get a look at how my site is, but at least it's not a problem for any visitors.

In other news, got a bit more done and added some stamps to the side. I could just link to them, but I had the idea to have them saved locally for now in case those sites go down. It's a bit of a storage cost, but hopefully I'll have the site optimized enough to offset it. :P Other than that, it probably just going to be more little tweaks here and there to get the side more mobile-friendly. It's mostly the buttons up top and the arrangement of the sections of the site, but for now the site does seem to work well enough for what it is. I know there's one other thing that can let me update the site remotely and there was a really good page for it that I found, but I lost it and I need to go look it up again to figure it out. Either way, still liking how things are going and will probably tweak a whole lot more down the line.

October 3rd, 2023

The site isn't even live as of writing, but I like how things are going. It's still not quite there for me, but this is a much better layout than the basic layout I had the last time I uploaded anything. It's also a nice distraction from some of the IRL stuff I'm dealing with, as I can take the time to get the progress I want done and not worry about the world for a little while. One thing I really want to do after getting the backbone of the site up is to get a faux-90s theme going like a lot of the other sites Neocities has. It's a breath of fresh air from the clean, slick design modern sites have, and it's also a lot easier on the one gig limit Neocities has for free users like Moi. I'd also like to go and grab some stamps to slap on the sides and maybe find a use for that article to the right there, but all in good time.

Addendum: Turns out something borked and the site's formatting is all wonky when I uploaded it to Neocities. Not sure what it is, but hopefully it won't look broken for too much longer. It's especially strange as the preview pictures in places like the activity page show what it's supposed to look like, but going to the site itself shows what it currently looks like. Pretty strange, but I guess it makes sense my site borks when I think everything's ready to go. :P