Big news! I finally actually managed to read something in Japanese all the way through. It was the legend of Urashima Taro, a simple story about a fisherman who ends up spending a little longer than intended in a beautiful underwater realm. I feel quite a bit more confident about my abilities now :) Here's a little snippet as an example of the complexity:
It took me ages to get this far, and it's been really hard to get any further. I'm still trying though, so at least there's that. Aside from that, life has been exhausting and kind of boring. I feel like I do the same thing every week, and it doesn't really get me anywhere. That's why I try really hard to improve on myself and engage in lots of different things, but I guess it doesn't dispel the feeling that the wheels are turning but nothing's moving. Since it's impossible to stop the flow of time while I get my life on track, I'll just keep trying my best. In the theme of engaging in things, I'm still trying really hard to watch lots of movies and read lots of books. I don't feel like it's culturally rounding me at all, but I think that's just because I never have irl conversations with anybody except my flatmates and my coworkers. Lmao.
To be honest, I'm kind of like if a hikikomori had a job. Sure, I go to work, and I go out on the weekends and go out to lunch, but I don't ever have friends over, I avoid social events, and I prefer to be alone with my shows and video games. It kind of makes me sad.
I'm starting to think I should make a second page for this blog, cause it's getting pretty long. Anyway, today was looong. I'm looking forward to tomorrow cause I work from home on fridays. Unfortunately I just had to eat a massive dental bill, so no splurging on the weekend for me. Although I might still go and get something inexpensive from a restaurant.
On the bus home from work today, I sat next to a guy with snake bites. They look so cool, if I wasn't absolutely against mouth piercings I would totally get them. Instead, it got me thinking that I want an eyebrow piercing. For me, my desire for piercings is balanced by a fear of not being hireable - cause, you know, I like money. If there was no prejudice against heavily pierced people - and getting pierced was cheap - I would probably have a lot more right now. So far I have both lobes pierced twice, and two helixes on the right side. (By the way, people are so lying if they tell you cartilage piercings don't hurt that much. That shit burned.)
Well, life is trucking along. Not much has changed since my last blog post, especially not with the website - although today I did overhaul the 'writing' page. It's now theoretically easier for me to make a new page with my thoughts and just add it to a never-ending grid of buttons. In personal news, I might become redundant at my job in a few months, but since it's not confirmed I'm choosing not to worry about it. I've also been really interested in buddhism recently. I read 'the foundations of buddhism' by Rupert Gethin and I've decided to look into it more. It seems like a really good ideology and life philosophy that reflects my personal values. Before I really understood what it was, I was reflexively wary because I've had awful experiences with therapists and counselors trying to fix me with knockoff buddhist ideas like warped concepts of meditation. As I've found out, the real thing is completely different and far less threatening.
I've been playing my 3ds to death, and I'm near the endgame of Pokemon Sun. My favourite pokemon are Hariyama and Rowlet, and I would like golisopod if I could manage to catch a wimpod. No luck yet...
I've really been trying recently to bring meaning and direction into my life. That's been part of why I'm studying Japanese and learning more about buddhism, but in general I feel like I need to do something more, you know? Next year I'm looking to move out on my own (my flatmates annoy the hell out of me) so I hope that pushes me out of my slump.
A while ago, I got a neocities subscription and made a new website. In the end, I realised that I didn't want to move on to something new. I like this website, and I've spent a LOT of time on it. It's not going to change dramatically any more, but I still want to continue adding to it. Ideally, I'd like it to be a place where anyone can see who I am, and want to stay for a while.
No more sadness. It is time for the elusive... happy rain :) I'm back on meds, yay! So I suddenly feel a ton better. I'm also feeling more relaxed in my job - the level of work is comfortable, and I haven't felt stressed about it for a while. A few other things are going well at the moment:
At some point I really should move these blog posts onto a second page and make another page, cause this page is getting reeeeally long. Anyways.
This week has been a little rough so far because my anxiety has been getting the better of me. :( On monday I went to the cinema after work to see a movie ('Celia', it's a bit scary and very harrowing but very good), but immediately afterwards I had a panic attack and cried a bunch. It wasn't because the movie was scary, but because... Well, I'm not sure. It wasn't very fun. Then, yesterday I had a cry before bed over relationship woes that were basically all fabricated in my head. What a waste of energy!
My depression is pretty well under control these days, but my anxiety isn't going anywhere fast, and it's really frustrating. I can function perfectly normally as long as I abide by a very strict routine, but as soon as I deviate from it or something bad happens - well, it might as well be world war three. Big crowds, being late for something, making a small mistake - even being too cold or too hot can make me start to panic. It's pretty silly to start thinking 'I'm never going to feel comfortable again' just because it's too hot, but my brain has been so oversensitive for so long that it really can be something tiny that starts me on a downward spiral.
How do I deal with it? Well, by having a routine. Every day of the week is pre-planned out: the days I'm making dinner, the days we go to the supermarket, the days I go to the movie rental or to the library. After work I go straight home and I go to sleep at the exact same time every work night. Sometimes it feels suffocating to have everything so structured - I want to do things like go to the movies after work! But when I try, it ends up going terribly wrong. So even though it may not be the best way to deal with things in the long run, for now I want to just be able to maintain my safe and boring routine.
Is it weird to say that for a long time, it felt like my life was on hold? When I was in high school and university, I was purely waiting for those experiences to end. The thought that one day education would be over and I could escape was a salve for my incredibly distressed mental state, and I didn't have much space left over to really do things. I still did stuff, sure, but I was so trapped inside my misery that life felt like bland torture more than anything else. Even when I got my first full time job I still felt the same, desperately clinging on to the knowledge that it would end - but waiting for some day in the future is no way to live.
Now that I'm in a situation I'm not desperately trying to escape, I'm finally able to actually experience things meaningfully. In a way it's sad that I lost so much time; I never got to have a rebellious phase as a teenager, or truly enjoy my university experience. But I'm doing my best to make up for lost time. I'm having my belated emo phase right now, because I can now afford to buy clothes I like. I'm always having the vocaloid phase my teenage self would have loved. Mostly, though, I'm just trying to experience things.
To me, that means purposefully doing as many different things as possible. I try new recipes, and eat different foods when I have the chance. Every week I rent 3 movies from a local auteur movie place, and I've set myself a yearly goodreads goal of a number of books I want to read. I've subscribed to a mail list for getting poetry every day, and I'm even trying to get back in shape after three years in university of sitting on my ass. It feels really nice to apply myself like this - I want to be a fully rounded, interesting person, and to me that requires knowledge and experience about many things. It also means I'm making relationships and finding things I enjoy that had been hidden to me, like cinema and asian cooking.
I'm an artist at heart, and my goal with all this is not just to enjoy life to the fullest, but also to create something wonderful of my own. The way I see it, to make something amazing, you first need a bunch of input. How can you create a masterpiece if you've never seen one before? Sometimes a masterpiece is a sunset, or an incredible meal. If I revel in the arts and culture of life, one day I'll be able to synthesise my own contribution to that beauty. Hopefully. :P
I get to work from home on wednesdays, so I like cooking myself something nice for lunch. Today I had stir fry udon!
I cook a lot of rice and noodle based dishes, because they're so easy. Pasta is just kind of too much for me - it overpowers the dish and feels heavy to eat. I much prefer jasmine rice, udon, and simple 2-minute noodles. I also cook a lot of minestrone soup, and sometimes do stews and fun stuff like making burgers out of mince!
Went to work, was there for fifteen minutes, threw up, and went home. Oops. I'm kind of bummed about using up a sick day, because I'd only just gone back into the positives after getting covid-19 last year...
I don't really get sick often. I think this time was food poisoning, but I very very rarely actually contract a cold, flu or any other kind of sickness. I can vividly remember the times I DO get sick, because they're nightmarish - the week I had chicken pox as a teenager, or when I would get bronchitis as a kid. Nowadays it's really just food poisoning once every four years. My white blood cells must hit the gym a lot.
Ugh. I hate exercise. This is for a couple of reasons, none of them actually related to the part where you do exercise:
So, despite all of that, I need to find ways to work out, or I'll stay a chubby little potato forever. I used to do karate in high school (I even got a first dan black belt) but it contributed to me being severely depressed so. Not doing that. In the end I've devised what I am now dubbing RAIN'S EPIC NO SWEAT NOT VERY HARD AND NOT EMBARRASSING WORKOUT:
My goal is one day to actually be able to see my jawline. -_- I'm not fat, but I'd describe myself as soft and squishy. Instead of a jaw I just have a nice smooth skii slope right down to my neck, which is FINE but I really would like to have a sexy jawline, you know? One day I'll go from being a jubbly marshmallow to a sexy marshmallow, mark my words.
Today I finished watching Tokusatsu GaGaGa. Honestly, it moved me. The story is about a 24 year old woman called Kano who loves toksuatsu, but fears being outed as an otaku to her peers. Over the course of the series, she gains friends who share her interests, while still having to confront the fears of societal expectation.
I was struck by how incredibly relatable Kano is to myself. I'm 22, and AFAB. After my savings, my disposal income goes almost entirely into plastic toys made for teenagers. My room is completely full of plastic robots, posters of Gundam and Sentai, Pokemon plushies and Kamen Rider figures. As I get older, this pastime makes me seem more immature and certainly less societally 'regular'. But, as GaGaGa points out, 'normal' (i.e. not otaku) people aren't the enemy. The enemy is societal expectations, which make us scared to be ourselves. The creeping feeling that maybe I should find a boyfriend before it's too late, that maybe it's immature to watch shows for kids.
But, as GaGaGa shows, what kind of life is that? A life where I pretend I didn't cry watching Kamen Rider Zi-o? A life where I get a husband and have a baby and don't have time to go the local arcade by myself? The ideals pushed by the larger world are almost all geared to make us feel bad for embracing what we love instead of what makes us a 'productive' member of society, which for women generally means pushing out a baby. So it was immensely refreshing to see a show where Kano finds other adults who love otaku interests, and embrace her as a friend.
There might come a day where I can walk past a hobby shop without spending too much money on a gunpla kit - but until then I'll continue to do the things I love, just like Kano. If other people think it's immature or childish, well - that's their problem.
Ouougoughghgh. Normally my period happens like, twice a year, and I hardly even notice it. Not this time. I've been nonstop crying this week over everything, and feeling like garbage. On the one hand, maybe it's a good thing that I'm finally having a normal period? On the other hand, this shit sucks!!!!!! Anyway...
I set up a goodreads recently, and I'm doing their yearly reading challenge because I always feel like I don't read enough. It's been kind of fun! I've been reading a lot of poetry books recently like Allen Ginsberg and T.S. Eliot. I also just finished Hellsing, which sort of fell apart at the end. Integra and Seras were so hot, though, that they entirely made up for it. I've also been watching lots of movies. Every Thursday I go to a movie rental place (I know, so oldschool) and I get out three movies. This week I got Violent Cop by Takeshi Kitano (Beat Takeshi), and it honestly blew me away. It was incredibly poignant and also surprisingly homosexual. Surely Kitano knew that a man ramming his gun down another man's throat, or digging his shoe into another man's open wound, would be read as fascinatingly gay.... Surely,....
I have a passion for movies that portray homosexuality through weird means. Tetsuo the iron man is the obvious (and my favourite) example of this; Yatsu bringing the Salaryman roses, hunting him down in a female vessel, literally fusing with him into a giant phallus - it's sexuality at its most estranged from actual sex. That's also why I liked Violent Cop - the actual sex in this movie is impersonal and emotionless. The violence, however, is spilling over with passion. Noir is a world where the repressed feelings we hide in the dark bubble into the light, and the things we desperately desire are never reachable, which fits perfectly with the agonies of gay desire. I look forward to watching more of Beat Takeshi's stuff and seeing if there's any more like violent cop. :)
I've had poetry on the brain recently, it seems. I've been reading 'the fall of america' by Allen Ginsberg, and while some of his stuff is a bit too scatterbrained for my tastes, sometimes he gives such an incredibly evocative description that I can practically taste the smoke and grit of New York electricity stations. I've never been to the United States and don't intend to, so I like the feeling of having a viscerally strong view in my head of what MIGHT be the United States - but I can never be sure.
My own reasons for poetry are, I think, connected to the reasons why I do anything. I always have this feeling that I can't quite get what's in my head out into the world for other people to understand. If I write enough poetry and draw enough art, I can get closer to expressing myself properly. I don't think I'll ever express myself perfectly - that's impossible in a world where everybody has a subjective view of others - but I'd like to get closer. I don't have a particular story burning to get out of me; I just want to be understood.
My girlfriend recently told me something that really made me pause and feel incredibly happy. She told me that one of the reasons she fell for me was that I felt so much, and I spent so much energy trying to get those emotions out for other people to see and feel. She's autistic and regularly says things along the line of 'if I feel a complex emotion I'll die instantly' so I think we complement each other nicely. :) She captures strong, vibrant and clear emotions in her art, whereas I struggle relentlessly with subtle and not immediately apparent themes. Neither style is better - we're just two different people and I think it's beautiful that with the same world to experience, we can create such different artworks.
Every time I write a blog post I have to go find a relevant cute gif to match the post and it always derails my thought process. Anyway, I'm thinking of assembling another poetry collection. There are frequently times at work where I'm bored out of my mind, so I use those times to either read or I write poetry. I've always wanted to write and draw and get my art out there, but there's never been a story burning inside me. So I feel like I'm chasing the tail of poetry, trying to wring out the feeling of euphoria from it when I have no gas in the tank. I like it, though. When I finally manage to get it right, it feels amazing. I have a few other collections that I've uploaded to itch.io that I'll link below; if you like any of the poems pleeeease let me know :)
Ugh. I'm back to work now and it sucks. I work at a polytechnic, and don't get me wrong, I have a great job for the most part; it pays amazing, and I get two days a week work from home. But when I'm in the office and there's nothing to do, it is HELL. I just sit there and twiddle my thumbs and feel myself slowly dying as I pretend to work. Just let me go home!! There's nothing to do! (My job is as a quality specialist for a polytech, so my amount of work depends on other people wanting to make changes. So it's really slow when there are no students around, like now.)
When it's really dragging, I read old books from project gutenburg. It makes it look like I'm reading a serious-looking webpage when someone walks past >:) So far my favourite has been the count of monte cristo, and right now I'm in the middle of 'the blue castle' and anna karenina. Anna Karenina is pretty boring because the author keeps going on tangents about the politics of peasants and farming and boring stuff like that. But hell, it makes the day go by.
This year, my resolution is pretty simple; to eat better. I've lived fully away from my parents for just over a year now (I've flatted for longer, but I used to constantly go back to their house) and in that time my diet hasn't been stellar, mostly because I couldn't afford a better lifestyle and I was very depressed. Now I'm not depressed, AND I have a really good job that pays me super well! So instead of blowing that money on plastic figures like I want to, I'm going to try and focus on buying lots of high quality food, and cook with lots of vegetables. I really enjoy cooking and eating good meals, so hopefully I can keep it going.
My other resolution is to stick to learning Japanese. My endgoal is to be able to watch and read tokusatsu and anime without subtitles but it's a very long road to get that proficient... Right now, I'd describe myself as nearly at N4 level. My aim for the end of the year is to finish Genki II and go onto Quartet, which is the intermediate book in the same publishing line. I really hope I can stick with it!
My final resolution is to save money. I'm already pretty good at that, so this is more of a determination that I'll stay firm on my budgeting. I got a raise this year (yay!) but I don't really know if it IS a raise, or it'll just get eaten up by inflation. :( Either way, maybe one day I'll even be able to afford a house?
The covid equivalent of my fever breaking happened today. Yesterday I could barely speak or eat, and today I feel far better. My headache is gone, my joints are only a little achey, and I can talk again! It feels really nice to be able to actually do things again. I'm still housebound though, which is a little annoying because it's a long weekend and I had plans... So instead of going anywhere, I'm going to knuckle down and see if I can have lots of fun inside!
I managed to avoid for three full years, but I finally got it. :( My flatmates both got it so it was really only a matter of time, but I'm still kind of upset about it. At least I get a week off work? But I was about to start in a new position this week (I got a promotion!) so I'm a little grumpy that I have to wait another week to really start it. I don't feel too bad, at least. I'm just a bit achey, my head feels bad and my throat is a little raw. But it's better than my flatmates - they looked like they were dying when they had it...
It's been so long since I last updated my website that my life has changed a lot! I'm no longer a university student, for one thing. I graduated with a nice crispy bachelor of design which I'm probably never gonna use. Nowadays I work doing admin stuff for a tertiary education place, which is perfect for my kind of fragile mental health. I can't physically do five day weeks without having breakdowns and stuff, but this job lets me work at home two days a week which is perfect. I'm going for a promotion right now, which I'm really excited for! It would mean more work, but it would also mean that I don't have to panic about money like I do right now.
I also got a girlfriend between now and last year. I have a bunch of relationship-based trauma which is why I have depression and anxiety, but my current girlfriend is the best!!! I'm saving to visit her right now and I'm so excited!!! I love my Rola to the moon and back. :)
Aside from that, my interests have shifted a little. Gundam is no longer super interesting to me, and instead I like tokusatsu and arthouse movies. I'm getting back into reading, I've been learning lots of recipes, and I'm pretty okay at knitting nowadays. I feel really happy that I have some more skills under my belt and I think my life right now is pretty good! I'm much happier (when I made this website in 2020 I was getting better from my depression but nowadays I really am a ton better! Being medicated and having a good job really does wonders) and enjoying life! I hope the same is true for you, reader~
A full year and a day after my last post, I bring an update! I got a small burst of inspiration from my friend Erik making a neocities, so I decided to do a little renovating and add some new stuff. So now I have a page where I'll be writing down my thoughts on movies and music I like! Nothing too intense, just a space for me to hopefully find likeminded people to talk about stuff with. Which leads me to the fact that I've put my email on the main page! If you like, feel free to shoot me an email about anything on the site. I don't wanna do small chat so don't send me something like 'how's it going?' but I'd love to hear what you think about x media we have in common!
This website has, I feel, reached its natural conclusion. I like to think there's enough here to keep someone entertained, and also to make them know me as more than just a faceless internet user. There are links that go to nowhere still, and little blank spaces where there should be text, but I think that just adds to the charm. A website with the ugly edges sanded off isn't a website at all. So from now on I am considering this website effectively done. Don't expect any big changes. If a link breaks, I will do my best to change it. But as hosted images slowly disappear (as is already beginning on Juri's shrine), as blog posts get slower and shorter, as entropy opens its mouth and slowly eats this website, please accept it as it is. Nothing lasts forever. This website will shut down eventually. Please enjoy it as it is now.
I replaced my guestbook link! I'm sad to have lost the previous messages, but I read all of them and hold them dear to my heart. The new guestbook is less flashy, but I hope it will serve the same job of bringing me and the visitors of my website a little closer together. :)
Whenever I try to visit my guestbook or 123Guestbook, it won't connect. I ran it through 'is it down right now' and it looks like the whole website is kaput. Presumably this means there's no way to get back the comments kind people have left, which is a shame, but at least I've read and cherished all of them. If 123Guestbook comes back online soon I'll leave it as it is, but if not, I'll find a different website and make a new guestbook. :(
This website has officially been looked at 70,000 times. That's a lot. I'm really grateful to anyone who likes looking at my little corner of the internet! I firmly belive that the internet is a better place when it's more diverse, and there are more places people can go just to poke about and not be accosted by ads and ways of making money. I hope you all continue to enjoy looking at my website, and I'll continue to improve it any way I can.
Last night I dreamt about a big building - I think I was trying to escape it... Kitaoka Shuichi was there, and so was a young trans guy who was clearly in need of support. In this dream Kitaoka was a trans guy too (hell yes) and gave him advice on buying clothes, and when I woke up, I couldn't help but feel happy about it. It's nice when characters you look up to are supportive of you, isn't it? Maybe I should start a dream journal.
As Kamen Rider fans may already know, the Kamen Rider Wiki kinda sucks. As a data aggregate, it is perfectly serviceable. In fact, I commend the people who tirelessly update and work on the wiki. I'm a part of their discord, and it is clear that the wiki is a passion project kept up to date entirely through volunteers. That being said, that same community is fiercely protective of their darling, and it feels like there's a lot of gunk that falls through the gaps. This wouldn't be a problem... If people didn't treat the wiki like a primary source. I seriously can't stand it when people do this. Fan Wikis are at best secondary sources, which should ideally point to official primary sources for all their information. At best, they are a translated repository that reflects sources. At worst, they are lies and misinformation accepted as fact. If people weren't so willing to accept whatever they read online, the rider wiki having weird shit like using (likely) incorrect images for Ryuki stageshow characters wouldn't be such a pervasive issue that has fooled a whole community into thinking they're being told the truth. So I am going to single handedly fix this problem, because I'm just that cool. Not just by making an account and fixing the problems, which I have also done, but by proclaiming new rules that will definitely fix everything.
The fruits of my labour have paid off! Here's some data from GoatCounter, and what I'm gonna take away from it.
Most of the people who find my website do it by browsing, or from 'unknown'. Bit threatening, but alright! I feel like this suggests frequent updates is one of the best ways to advertise your website. It also shows the use of being part of a webring; hbaguette is the person I'm connected to through hotline webring, so it's nice to know I'm getting use out of that.
The browser information isn't very enlightening - it doesn't mean much unless there's a browswer my website doesn't work on.
Systems and screen size is pretty interesting. I wasn't expecting so many people on phones to view my site, and I wonder how well it works on mobile. It's ABSOLUTELY not built for mobile, and I seriously don't want to overhaul every page just to add some phone compatability. I'll be keeping an eye on this, and if the number of phone viewers continue to rise, I might extend a question or two and see if using my website on mobile is a truly miserable experience.
The final datapoint is viewers by country, which is mostly from the United States and Canada, though New Zealand is also up there because I view my own pages to check edits. Interestingly, I also have some views from Hungary and Bulgaria. So hi, you guys!!
I implemented Goatcounter into my website today. Most pages now track views - not all of them, though. I didn't add a few that I wasn't really interested in seeing the views on. But this means that hopefully soon I'll have a better idea of what people are coming to my website for. This is good for you because it means you get more of what you like, and it's good for me because I LOVE looking at and analysing statistics. It's a win win situation!!
It felt a bit weird to add the tip button to my neocities profile. After all, I didn't make this website for money - it's merely a passion project. And any money I were to receive would not be going into the website, because I don't have to pay for hosting. In fact, the money would most likely go to boring things like paying for my spotify subscription. But I am a student who doesn't have a job, and as such I will happily take any chance I can get for a little spending money. I try to be conscientious about it and donate money to charity when I have extra disposable income - so if you are considering donating to me, please first see if there's a charity near you that would be better off with the money. If not, I'll gladly accept your very kind donation, and if I'm able to, I'll donate it myself.
Today I'm going to talk about Kamen Rider because nobody can stop me! (And because if I pester my friends any more, they'll get annoyed.) I love Kamen Rider!!! It's my new Big Thing that I'm going to completely inhale and then get burnt out on, just like I did with Gundam. But who cares if I get bored of it in the end? I'm having a blast now, so I'm going to enjoy it! And because nobody asked, I'm going to write up my current tier list for every kamen rider show I've seen so far.
The other rider shows I'm currently watching are Kuuga and OOO. I wonder where they'll end up on this list?
I think that everyone should speak at least two languages. The idea of a world where only five or so languages are spoken is a scary one to me; languages are beautiful, and so many are unappreciated. I was brought up monolingual, and I'm currently learning Japanese. If, one day, I manage to be fluent in Japanese, I'm going to try to learn Maori. Maori is a beautiful language, and it's an incredibly important part of New Zealand's history and modern culture. It's very sad to me that it's not taught as a primary language across the country, but I guess that's racism for you. English is considered the 'useful' language, and because English is considered the 'useful' language, infrastructure to MAKE Maori useful isn't done.
I hope that one day I'll be able to converse freely in many languages. Right now, I'm only a beginner in Japanese, sadly. I can understand simple sentences- 'I'm going to the office', 'It's raining' - but not complex sentences, and a lot of verb endings still confuse me. It will be a long time until I can speak Japanese conversationally without trouble, but I won't give up, because I know it's possible with time. I hope I can convince someone, somewhere, some time, to try and learn a different tongue. Preferably, one that's under threat. If you live in a colonised country, there'll probably be a language you can learn that has relevance to where you live. I think it's the least we can do, right?
I love soundtracks! I bet we all do, right? There's something so cool about returning motifs, and the overall mise en scene a good soundtrack adds to a tv show. I'm a big tv show watcher - specifically anime and tokusatsu - so I have a few OSTs I really like. For instance, Kamen Rider Build has a really cool soundtrack that leans into being ominous, foreboding and industrial. There's a lot of heavy drums, synthetic choirs, and trembling violins that make it feel quite dark at times. By contrast, Kamen Rider Den-O's soundtrack leans heavily on brass instruments, giving it a regal and boisterous feeling that's perfect for a show themed around trains. I have immense respect for musicians, because it's something I definitely have no aptitude for.
I'm just a big music fan in general. I used to not listen to music much until I was about 17. That was when my best friend Jemcy introduced me to heavy metal, djent, punk and nu metal. Before that, all I listened to was my chemical romance and fall out boy. Nowadays, I have hundreds of songs I love, and I'm always finding new ones! Here are some songs that I have attachments to right now:
Lots of little changes to the website today! I added some more photography and a new little Kintaros gif. I also deleted the lolita page and made the NFT Fuck You link smaller. I'm considering whether to merge the games page with the zines and links page, but that sounds like a lot of work. Not sure what else I want to add to the website, but I'm sure I'll think of something.
Today I've been thinking about soap operas. Specifically, I've been thinking about how Kamen Rider, despite being an action-focused franchise, is a lot like a soap opera. I'd argue the same could be said for super sentai. I say this because I've been reading a book about soap operas, and the similarities between the two are interesting to me.
A large focus of the soap opera is a long, endless narrative that does not lead up to a clean resolution. Instead it is built to continue forever, repeating itself in minutely different ways to provide intimate, personal interpersonal dramas that reflect a melodramatic version of real life. In contrast, Kamen Rider shows are serials that have a beginning, middle and end. They use physical violence as a medium for drama. They may seem quite different at first, but I find the more I think about it, the more similar they really are. For example, on many layers, Kamen Rider is comfortingly repetitive. The rider will always transform using a belt, will usually fight a monster every episode, and by the end of the show, will defeat the villain and restore peace. On a larger scale, the shows themselves repeat; each year a show ends, and a new one begins. This unbroken rhythm reflects the way soap operas function.
Outside influences and external conversation are also a similarity between the two. Soap operas thrive on creating and sustaining conversations about the show in the times between the viewer actually watches the show. Magazines, TV guides and friends discuss and analyse the show, the characters, and the actors. By using knowledge like expiring actor contracts, guesses can be made about future plot points. If the audience has a strong positive or negative reaction to a certain character, it may impact their place on the show. Similarly, external discussion is integral to Kamen Rider. Toy sales are pushed by avid fan interest and encouraged by media coverage. Fans can guess at future plot points by teased suits and actor statements. Dan Kuroto is the living embodiment of how the viewerbase can directly affect the show. In this sense, Kamen Rider acts as a soap opera, dependant on sustained viewer interest inbetween the times they are actually watching the show.
I often hear it said that early heisei Kamen Rider is 'soap opera-y'. When people say this, I take it to mean they think the shows are melodramatic, and slower paced. From my own experience, this is certainly true; Kuuga and Ryuki luxuriate in rich interpersonal drama, using monster battles to punctuate said conflicts rather than distract from them. I believe, however, that the connection between Kamen Rider and soap opera as a genre is deeper than just the similarities in early heisei. I believe it persists even into the modern reiwa riders, and is integral to the concept of Kamen Rider, and Super Sentai, as franchises that we know will always be there for us to watch.
Unhappy today. Feeling down. My friends don't seem to care very much about my interests. I try to engage them and instead of simply being turned down, they stare at their phones when I try to show them a show, or kid around when I try to talk about my university work. I just want them to engage seriously with me. My interests are childish sometimes and always niche, but I care about them. I want to talk about kamen rider and phase diagrams because that's what I care about. That's why I listen to what they're interested in. So i'd like them to do the same thing back.
I'm feeling very stressed because of life. I'm struggling with a paper, and this week I forgot to hand something in. Doing badly in a paper makes me feel stupid, and I absolutely don't want to re-take a paper. I don't care if I get a C-, I just want to pass the paper. I have a lot to do as well. I've been skipping lectures and I have so many projects to do, it all feels insurmountable. My friends are working hard, so why aren't I?
I don't like flatting. Other people have bad ways of doing things. They don't clean up after themselves, for instance. They leave their things on the table and put things away in dumb places. I want to be at home with my family. We ran out of milk today, so I'm drinking black tea and feeling a pain in my heart that I haven't felt for a long time.
Does anyone else feel passionately about discord servers? I'm an admin in a Gundam server with 46 members and whenever I join a server run by other people, I'm always pretty shocked by their set-up. For example, today I joined a server that has nearly ONE HUNDRED channels, and four voice channels. Nobody needs that!!! So I'm gonna write my list of admin rules because nobody can stop me >:)
Since you use neocities, I bet you do too, huh? I was born in 2000 so I never used the 90s web, but I still remember a time before youtube, facebook and twitter were such monoliths. Of course, I use two out of three of those daily, so I can see why. But I miss the times when - especially in terms of fandoms - you had to go to lots of different websites to get your kicks, and niche groups were waiting for you at every one. For example, I used to frequent roleplay forums in my youth. Nowadays most of them lie abandoned, untouched, or no longer extant. Roleplay has shifted to places like discord, where the aspect of privacy is an advantage and a curse. While nobody can see what you're doing, there's no archival of your activities and it's effectively lost as soon as it happens.
Tumblr was never a nice place to be. In its heyday it was a festering cesspool of teenage hormones and fandom drama, where saying the wrong thing got you raked over coals and asinine arguments were repeated every week. Plus, the blog format was great at burying unique and awesome content, leaving it to die in the bowels of someone's finely manicured page.
That's why I love places like neocities. Static web pages never swallow content in a stream of consciousness, for one thing. Another thing is the revival of webrings and the ability for one-on-one conversation. If I could have my dreams realised, I would want neocities fandom forums, RSS chats and fanlists. I would ask for more fanfiction websites than just ao3, and more forums than just reddit. I'm doing my part by having a neocities website, but there's only so much one person can do...
I left this blog alone for so long that I became infatuated with Kamen Rider, oops! So far I've seen Build, Fourze, and Ryuki, in that order. I'm currently watching Den-O and Zero-One. After that I intend to watch Kuuga, and then maybe either Wizard, Gaim, Amazon or Decade if I'm feeling silly. I have a build figurise model (rabbit/tank form), and I pre-ordered a Ryuki figureise, which I'm excited about! Other than that, I move out next week. Scary stuff! It'll be okay though, I'm flatting with my two best friends. One of them is a guy who I love more than quite possibly anybody else in the whole universe!!! Except my little brother :P He's a great guy, and his girlfriend is great too! I'm excited to be living with them!! So wish me luck in the moving process ;w;
Whoops, I forgot to update my website for a billion years! This is because of uni, and also I don't owe anybody anything. I added a link to a sitemap and then never made one, so uhhhhhhh i'll add that at some point. Otherwise the core of the website is finished so anything else is just set dressing. Don't expect any big changes from here on out.
I extensively epanded the demonology section today. I have more character shrines planned (pompompurin, animal crossing) and I'm going to add more links to my contact page such as my email and toyhou.se account. But... I'm starting to feel bad. It's a kind of bad that I know pretty well, because I have generalised anxiety disorder. It's kind of a feeling like I'm trying to go in a dozen different directions, but obviously that's impossible, so I just stand in one place and panic because I'm not going anywhere. That's how I feel about life in general, and it's only become worse because of lockdown. This website was supposed to be a respite from it, but now I feel like it's not good enough, and I'm bad at making it. I'm not good at html/css and I'm getting anxious that this website sucks, and I'm wasting my time. I realise this is a very small anxiety, but I figured typing it out might help.
Anxiety is weird, huh? It makes tiny things into great big horrible things. I tend to have lots of physical symptoms. I'll get cold sweats, or a feeling of dread in my stomach, or my heart will hurt like it's getting constricted by a snake. I'll chew or pick at my lips, I constantly jiggle my leg when I'm sitting, and I have a tendency to fiddle with things when I'm idling. I get uncomfortable in silence, so at campus I always have my headphones with me. I'm a bit of a nervous wreck sometimes, but I'm doing better now because I've been on zoloft for a year for my anxiety and depression. I don't expect anybody to actually read this, but if you are, don't worry about me! I've only ever tried to kill myself once and it was a terrible experience, so I'm not doing it again. Plus, I've been self harm free for months now! I am STRONK!
Anyway... I'll try to stop comparing myself to other people. I'm unique, and this website is for myself, not for other people. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be mine.
Today's changes were mostly small. I cleaned up some stuff on the zines and links page, and I've made some placeholder text for the demonology page. I've decided on some of the things I'm going to include on that page: a library, an encyclopedia, and an area for my own personal writings. I also want to make a tribute page to anime and Japan, with a subsection chronicling my own study of the language. I'm not very good at it yet, but I think having a microblog in there where I write things like reviews only in Japanese would help motivate me to work harder at it. First on my list is the Demonology stuff, though. I'm also thinking about having a kawaii/pastel aesthetic page, just for kicks. Much to think about...
I added a lot more stuff to the website today. There's now a page of rescued adoptables, and some more information about OCs. I've also made a new website about demonology! I don't believe demons are real, but I'm fascinated by information about them and I want to seriously learn about them. I want to become a self-proclaimed demonologist! So I'm going to make a list of reading material about demonology, and learn enough to be able to call myself an expert. Like this one! https://www.gutenberg.org/files/40686/40686-h/40686-h.htm
This website has a games page now! I've kind of always wanted to make games, ever since I was a kid. First I though I could do the coding, then I thought I would do the art. My life has pushed me more towards art, but I don't have the patience to make stuff like icons or sprites, so instead of working as part of a team I make games using frameworks like Twine, Ren'py and Bitsy. My longest game is Ventura, which is a not-terribly-long visual novel about lesbians. I'm very proud of it, but it's not nearly as long as I had planned it to be. One day I'll make a bigger one...
I have a few games that I started work on then abandoned. One of them is a Twine game that emulates an old piece of Vaporwave software. The game revolves around you reading the journal entries, which unlock new websites you can visit as you piece together the identity of an unknown girl. It's on hold right now because I got burnt out and I don't really know where the plot is going; there's like, satanism and cyberpunk and 90s aesthetics all clashing together and it's not going super well. I also kinda wanna make a platformer, but lockdown is sapping all my creativity.
Other changes to the website are that I've renamed 'other stuff' to 'links and zines', and there's now a separate 'stuff' page. I'm not sure what stuff will actually be on it, but I like having a sort of misc page for all the stuff that would otherwise have nowhere to go.
The self isolation continues. I've updated the social media links so they actually go somewhere, so this website is functionally complete. Obviously I plan for more, but that's kind of on hold for now. I'm thinking about making zines to stave off going stir crazy.
At the time of writing this, today New Zealand moved up to level 3 pandemic alert, which is a bit scary. It's okay though, because I didn't go to university this week - I'm at home and my little brother is at his last day of school, so we'll all be together for the forseeable future. The only downside of this is the potential to go stir crazy, so hopefully that doesn't happen.
Anyway, I've added a list of cool links to the website, added the Web 1.1 page, completed the navigation bar and done a few general quality-of-life fixes. Hopefully now using this website should never lead to dead ends.
Good afternoon! I've been making some significant additions to the website. These include: a directory page for ocs, a directory page for characters, and a character shrine for everyone's favourite bastard Char Aznable. The html is a mess, but I've now got a template for more shrines so expect more soon! I'm just not sure which characters I should make them for... Maybe Utena Tenjou, Saori Kido, or Relena Darlian?
Other changes include wording on the main and about pages. Next on my to-do list is to get the 'My Services' page up, and design a web button that other people can put on their own websites. Once those are done, I'll start feeling like a serious neocities site! But for now, I'm writing this blog and updating my website to avoid doing my university work. I should probably get to it..!
I'll preface this by saying I am not a child of the 90s. I was born in december of 2000, missing the decade by an entire year. Any nostalgia I have for it is fueled by movies and media, the internet of the 00s, and the lingering traces of the web 1.0 still around in those days. That being said, I still have an immense appreciation for the aesthetic and personality of the internet in its early days, and I'm incredibly glad that neocities exists in order to revive it and continue its legacy. With this website I hope to both put a little bit of myself out there, and to make it easier for other people both to start their own website and find other peoples'. My ultimate, lofty dream is to contribute to a revitalisation of a decentralised internet - that is, people conversing in chat rooms and forums, and making their own websites, rather than only using Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.
Hopefully once this website is completely up and running that goal won't seem quite so far away. I'll be implementing some resources for finding other neo and geo cities websites, as well as stuff you can put on your own. I plan on writing some articles about internet phenomena like webrings, and my ultimate goal is to convince other people to start their own neocities websites. In my own little way, I'm making an impact on the internet, and leaving an artifact that has a chance of keeping a legacy living. And even if none of that happens - at least I had a good time.