Shorter, informal thoughts not fitting for a full blog post. At times, may or may not read like a diary, but I try to extrapolate from my experience to produce something relatable, or at least, attempt to capture a potent and topical idea, feeling, or experience.

2025-03-26: Just as Ismatu expresses, I am painfully aware of the stage I'm on here on this personal website and, by extension, Neocities. Everything I publish here is written with the awareness of an audience. I try to lead with honesty and authenticity, but I notice the ways in which I edit myself. The presence of a stage implies I am performing.

I've been thinking about this topic lately, and I was inspired to put it on paper (webpage?) after reading d60010's blog post, entitled Let Me Show You, discussing editing and rewriting one's own story in public and private.

I think, even when authenticity is trendy on the internet, as it is now, it's impossible to be fully authentic. We're all cultivating our images on here in some way or another. Sometimes ensuring safety and privacy keep us from saying certain things, and other times, we just want to look good. Well, I'll speak for myself. I want to look good.

I notice myself smoothing out my edges because I don't want to appear too unhinged or too sick. I don't want people worrying about me here. Don't believe my smooth words. I am profoundly ill.

I think about talking about suicidality, for example, but I don't want to distress others and I have this weird complex that, at least spiritually, somebody is calling the cops on me.

I like people thinking I'm put together. I don't like people seeing the true extent of my suffering or dysfunction because I feel like I lose some of my dignity and people respect me less. I guess it's just masking? I don't know. I haven't been able to break through this cycle yet and allow myself to be seen struggling for genuine fear of being treated differently. Autonomy is extremely important to me, perhaps above all else, and it comes at the cost of other things.

If I just let people see my struggle, then maybe they could finally understand me better and it opens the opportunity for them to help me. (But a lot of times I don't want help!! I've felt let down by too many people and what they consider "help" to be). If I was more unfiltered, maybe it'd make me feel free? Or maybe it'd make me feel profoundly shitty seeing my shit-smear-life on paper.

2025-03-21: I forgot I placed a hold for Tokyo Ghoul volumes 4-6 until I woke up to an email that they were already in at the library. They came from a city an hour away, and I realize I may have held these books before.

Between the summer and fall of 2023, I was reading a lot more to fill the time while I was exceedingly lonely and jobless. I got through at least the first three volumes of Jujutsu Kaisen and midway through volume 5 on Tokyo Ghoul before getting burnt out.

I remember just starting to read Tokyo Ghoul in the seventh grade and loving the art style. Not long after, I swore off anime and manga because my dad thought it was demonic and my shame was too great. (What? A story about ghouls being demonic? Maybe. Would you believe me if I said he called Pokémon satanic? Pokémon). It was nice to, almost ten years later, finally return to the series. I'd consider a part of myself healed when I first checked them out.

Some of the stories I'm most drawn to are the ones where the main character exists liminally. That is, between two identities. Usually they belong to the "moral" human realm, but then have some "immoral," less human part of them too. And so they neither belong to one or the other because they're both. They tend to internalize the descrimination and hatred displayed by the society at large, hating that more "inhuman" part of them.

If you're interested in a great webcomic read, I'd recommend one of my favorites called Your Wings and Mine by hakeism. Half-angel half-demon Shealtiel befriends the demon, Luciferen, after he was originally tasked to kill him. It's a dramatic but largely comedic bl with some heavier aspects throughout, and it's finished now!

2025-03-17: Uh, yeah. Keeping with the current getting-off-social-media theme, I impart on you some wisdom. It's not an original thought; I got it from a video I know I'd not be able to find now, but it's good advice. That is, let yourself be bored.

I've done my fair share of, "But I'm neurodivergent!!" when it comes to advice I feel is not tailored to me. With ADHD, understimulation (which leads to boredom) can feel almost physically painful, so I prefer overstimulation. I also hate feeling like I'm wasting time, but that's me still being wrapped up in productivity culture.

Overstimulation isn't always great for your creativity, though. When you cram your brain with stuff, there's hardly any room for organic thought you see in such "shower thoughts". In fact, if I can, quite literally, bear taking a shower without music, I tend to just let my mind wander, and I may daydream, and usually, I feel inspired with new, exciting ideas.

When I was still actively working on my multi-chapter story, I'd run into a wall as to where to take it next. I'd rectify that by stepping away and doing something else, and usually it was something menial. I'd be driving and I knew, in the back of my mind, it was trying to work out the next part of the story, and usually I'd come upon a lightbulb-moment solution.

I also think we can be better problem-solvers when we're bored. Like, I'm not allowing myself to look at Instagram on my phone now, so what should I do with my time instead? The answer lately has been study Japanese. I've been studying so much Japanese lately.

2025-03-16: I took heed of badgraph1csghost's warnings on privacy and made some small changes. I've been thinking about ditching the Gmail account for ProtonMail, but it's like I needed permission. Google verifiably is a monopoly, and that's daunting, but also the reason I want to distance myself.

I changed my email on a lot of my accounts, updated the passwords to be stronger where need be (a New Year's resolution: stronger passwords), and deleted inactive accounts too. I'm trying to get myself to go from Youtube to Invidious too, and change any YT and Spotify embeds I have on the site.

I deleted my Substack account too. Devon Price brought me there, but I hate the social media feed and I hate how it all makes me feel. Some of it feels like some niche discourse that'd only exist online and doesn't really matter? Like, it's not things people "irl" talk about. Reminds me of my Tiktok days where the drama felt so real, but it only happened within the confines of the app. Nobody on the outside knew what happened there. It's an energy and feelings siphon.

I saw this post before I deleted my Substack account and I felt vindicated. I see people dickriding Substack, like how I mentioned a person claiming "doomscrolling Substack is like overdosing on broccoli." Meanwhile, the more I scroll, the more I want to fucking kill myself.

In regards to the remaining social media I still interact with, the taste in my mouth ferments and worsens by the day. Advertisements have long annoyed me to the point of anger, but lately, all I can think is, "Evil, evil, evil." It bothers me that I have to keep a Facebook account in order to recieve choir updates when all I can think is, "Evil, evil, evil.

2025-03-15: I've been thinking about idolism lately. I've been catching myself thinking, "Man, I hope this is somebody's favorite website, that they visit often, or at least that it sticks in their mind for some time."

I feel conceited saying it out loud. Granted, I have a few sites that are my favorite, and I check often and they stick in my mind even when away; however, it tends to border on idolism.

Without dressing it up in fancy clothes, I've long had an inferiority complex, and that extends to here too. I try to temper it, but my default is to see some of the people on here as better than me. They know something I don't. They live fuller lives. Even their suffering is more beautiful than mine.

Putting people on a pedestal is bad for many reasons. To idolize is to idealize; it is projecting this perfect image onto someone and it doesn't acknowledge their personhood. And inevitably, when they can't meet the impossible expectations you've set for them, the facade eventually falls apart in a sometimes bitter, but other times unremarkable way.

I used to follow this cutesy website and I never looked too closely at what this person wrote, but eventually they wrote something horribly transphobic and doubled down on it when politely challenged and I was disgusted. No, I didn't necessarily idolize this person, but I think because of how beautifully coded the site was, I thought they were better than me. Turns out they were just another person. Not better than and not worse than. Just a person with some bigoted views.

So, y'know, I don't want anybody idolizing me. I'm just some guy, and it's unfair to both of us if you idolize me. But I do hope that I make a difference by some of the stuff I create here. I hope I matter. Sometimes I do feel invisible despite any evidence otherwise. This isn't said to guilt anyone; I'm just making a statement. I'm fine. Just thinking about things.

2025-03-15: After another day of being overwhelmingly overstimulated, I decided to try again at quitting social media. I deleted Reddit and Instagram off my phone and greatly reduced the apps on my home screen.

So, I've decided I'm only allowed to view Instagram on my phone or computer browser. The browser version sucks so I don't stay for long. Just enough time to check the reels my friends send me.

Awhile ago, I installed IGPlus Extension so it'd hide reels and the discover page for me on my computer, which comes in handy now. It also only allows me to view my Following feed, which grows boring fast.

I've been removing digital clutter too, which also means unfollowing extraneous accounts or otherwise ones that grant cheap entertainment. Make IG boring!! Unfortunately, that means (warning, juvenile sex joke) @gojo_.strokes._hispickle_daily (LMAO) and @morningofmylifedaily need to go ...

I recently watched a video about getting off of social media and this person basically said, "Babygirl, you can't be stimming with Instagram Reels," and it cracks me up because it's true.

2025-03-14: I love that I'm not so mannish now that I can still compliment women on things like their nails and their hair and it doesn't come off as predatory. That's never my intention, of course, and I'm very much gay and effeminate.

I don't really know what to make of all of it. I felt I experienced a little taste of girlhood today. The woman taking my order said, "Let me see those cat eyes," in reference to my freshly done nails and I pushed my hands forward. She held my hands (and I loved it) and she tilted them so the light hit it just right to sparkle. She always has her nails done too, and I always ask to see them. Today, they were St. Patrick's themed.

I'm not sure if I pass to most people, and I'll never ask; I don't actually want to know. A part of me does want to know, though. How do you see me? I assume I don't pass because I go to the coffee shop often with chest unbound and voice high and shy, despite the thinning hair and patchy stubble to match. It doesn't wholly matter. People treat me nice and I feel more confident than I did before.

I'm not actually a man. It's merely a shorthand for ease of communication. More like a girlish boy-thing who insists upon absolutely not being a whole-woman. My bestie has always recognized me as a man. Don't tell her I said this, but I wish she was able to see me as I see me: how I'm a not-quite man who yearns for a taste of girlhood, but without feeling like an outsider as I always did living as a girl-failure.

2025-03-13:
Reacquired memory: My dad used to call me "sweet girl" despite me not being a girl, and given his propensity to demonize me, I was neither sweet. However, I find myself organically starting to call bestie "sweet girl" in some bittersweet reclamation, but this time it's true and a reflection of a real love divorced from conditions.

2025-03-13: Ugh, my brain is fried. I'm overstimulated. I've been perusing the Substack mobile app lately so that I could read more as opposed to just scroll; however, I've been extremely disappointed to find out that Substack is configured as just another social media app. ICK.

A poster yesterday tried to argue that "doomscrolling" on Substack was like overdosing on broccoli, but I can tell you when I got stuck browsing today, it did not feel good. Being informed on politics is good, but being inundated with it left and right is not good.

Also, I have this pathological desire to constantly be bettering myself. Nothing is ever good enough. I also have this weird belief that some people are more "enlightened" than me, like they have the answers I've been looking for, and that if I just keep looking, then I'll find them. Ew. Ew ew ew. I'm disgusted by myself.

Been thinking a lot about michaelmas's piece on disembodiment today. The voice I read it in is scathing and admonishing. I can't say what Michael's purpose in writing that was, but it challenges me and promotes some awareness.

I conflate disembodiment with, or maybe caused by, a systemic dissociation, and I'm just as quick to jump to defensiveness. I've always been an avoidant person, and it used to be a tool of survival, but it's a coping strategy I haven't outgrown yet. Also, dissociation prevents me from having so many severe and distressing PTSD episodes, for example.

But at the same time, dissociation is just choosing a different kind of discomfort. I let fear paralyze me. I choose to be stuck instead of doing the scary, hard thing. And in my depressive episodes, I feel flattened emotions: I cannot cry, I cannot rage, and I cannot derive pleasure out of things that normally bring me joy. In my depressive episodes, I mostly feel despair and hopelessness and sometimes terror.

So yeah. I'm overstimulated, but I'm not sure I can handle being present and being bored. I'm pacifying myself, I know that, and it feels good until it doesn't. Tonight, I deleted my Instagram app again and Substack too and I just want to be done. I worry, though, that I'll just replace one addiction with the next as I usually do, or cave and redownload the apps.

I'm even bummed Neocities has a social media feature because my monkey brain looooves it. There's no way, to my knowledge, to completely turn it off. I can turn off my site profile and delete my site updates, but I can still type https://neocities.org/ and there it is. I just found a Firefox extension to block sites, and that's cool and all, but the annoying thing is I can just turn it off, and knowing myself, I will just turn the block off and on as I see fit.

2025-03-08: This is my favorite one of this batch. I love the oranges and the perspective. I was standing here in the changing lights and found this really dynamic.

2025-03-05: I redownloaded Persona 3 Reload the other day. I'd never finished the game, starting with Portable in 2023 and stopping after unlocking Aigis, Koromaru, and as Ken first moved into the dorm. At that point, Reload was in development so I waited for it to release before playing again. I picked up P3 after finishing P4 and P5 (5 being my favorite), and it pales in comparison. I don't find the story all that compelling, and it's just so blue all the way through... I feel dread every time I go into Tartarus. It's just so repetitive. Even Persona 4's randomly generated dungeon floors are more interesting than this because they're self-contained and usually integrate some story and puzzle aspect. Tartarus certainly looks nice in Reload though...

It's rough coming off of P4 and P5 because there's so much less to do in P3 and there are game features that have yet to be implemented. I just unlocked theurgy and dorm hangouts (new to Reload), and that was exciting. I hope P6 has something resembling theurgy. This outfit looks really nice on him, and I like how the pink light reflects off of him. I don't spend enough time just appreciating the atmosphere. Look at that sky. It's fun sometimes to look out at an area players aren't necessarily meant to focus on... I'm hit with the scale of the buildings here. I feel like I'm on a college campus. Also, it pissed me off playing Portable and not being able to navigate a 3d render of the map.

To reference what it looked like before, here it is, and you'd just navigate with a cursor. Hah, a screenshot of 'Screen Shot'... Also, the light shutters throughout the sign and I captured the picture just as the "shot" part was lit up and thought it was fun. I sooo wish I enjoyed this game more. It makes me feel like i'm a lesser Persona fan because of it. I still derive some enjoyment out of playing. I love the renderings of the apartment buildings in the background. It makes it feel more real and immersive.

2025-03-04: I've been feeling tired as usual. What's new? And it sucks because sometimes I'll be too tired to even watch tv or do things I really want to do like read fiction, read blog posts, or otherwise browse indie sites.

I've also become overwhelmed, following so many webmasters that I don't know where to look, and I feel bad about it. I want to be more familiar with all of you, but my energy is finite.

If you, dear reader, would like to, please feel free to reach out to me at any point in time(!) via my guestbook or site profile (if it's not currently deactivated) and ask me to take a look at your site. Even better if you have a webpage you're particularly proud of or want eyes on. I'll do my best to take a look at it.

2025-03-01: Last time I did my nails, I started watching Trigun (1998), which was on my 'to watch' list. I associate doing my nails with watching Trigun now, but it may fade with time if it were only a one-time deal. I decided I wanted to keep on and maybe make it a tradition/ritual, so I turned it on while I did my nails this time.

I'm really not much for light-hearted, comedic animes that are also episodic in nature. I'd prefer if there was more of an overarching plot. It ever so slightly reminds me of Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) with their adventures, but Al and Edward have a clear goal from the beginning. I know Trigun has its serious moments, but pasted over it is the same levity that Vash carries himself with. I know there's a thick irony in the great Vash the Stampede who leaves destruction in his wake being this dorky guy who's lucky to come out of each altercation unscathed but, like the other characters, I have a hard time accepting him for who he shows us to be. Granted, he wouldn't be Vash if he was all serious, now, would he?

Despite my aversion to lighter stories, usually once I give them a chance and my reservations fall away, it's a refreshing change of pace. I'm not always so careful with what media I consume, and I feel I'm often poisoned and pulled down by icky stuff. The way I recieve my news is not very helpful, for example, and the effects have been deleterious.

The beginning of this song played on one of the episodes and it got me all excited. I listened to this song a lot last year and thoroughly enjoy it. I'm thinking about checking out the other music from the series because I heard another song in the anime that sounded beautiful.

2025-03-01: A solicitor for some unnamed charity approached my friend and me when we were out yesterday and I was extremely uncomfortable. My friend was quick to decline by giving a believable half-truth and the man left.

I felt bad after, as uncomfortable as I was, because his cause seemed noble and he supplemented it with a touching personal story.

Afterwards, I turned toward my friend and said, “I think I indirectly killed somebody today because I didn’t donate.” I actually didn’t say a word to the solicitor, but I didn’t buy what he was selling either.

It started sort of as a joke but also a (slight) hyperbolic representation of my guilt, but the more I said it, the more I believed it.

We called that evening and talked until early morning. My friend said she was proud of how she masterfully yet politely declined the offer, and I merely kept repeating, “I indirectly killed somebody today because I didn’t donate.” We were both laughing at the absurdity of my statement and she clearly cared enough to try to reassure me otherwise, but I kept repeating it.

I’ve really felt like a fundamentally rotten person lately, and I can only theorize the cause. I think it's a mix of things.

“I indirectly killed somebody today because I didn’t donate.”

2025-02-27: Last night, I did my best girl voice over the phone for my best friend to see if I could do it and, each time, I could feel the visceral cringe from her. She said afterwards that she's never cringed so hard, body curling in on itself. She said, "It was evil. It's just not you," and when I told her I wanted to put this in the blog she said she'd provide a testimony to which she reiterated, "I'm sorry for saying that. I love you, but it was evil and it sucked and I hated it." I told her it was affirming that she said that.

There's something really nice about meeting new people when you're well into your transition. Meeting new people, you have the gift of them only knowing you by your current name and your current voice. There's no wondering if, in the back of their mind, they refer to you with a name you no longer use, or if they hold onto that old version of you. I think it's a unique love; to be loved for who I am and not who you wish I would return back to.

2025-02-27: I think there's something oddly spiritual about the morning hours, from roughly 1am to 6am. I'm such a night owl, but how it usually goes is that I've finally built up all my momentum and you're telling me I'm supposed to break it by going to sleep? Lately, I've felt an incredible resistance to falling asleep because of this. My vision could have long gone blurry– as it is now– but I ignore the tiredness as I always do.

Settling into the quiet morning hours (or what I still consider night) can feel so special. There are no demands placed on me. The world is quiet. I know I'm not the only one that feels this way. I've seen other survivors of abuse talk about how they appreciate the early mornings most as a solace. I wasn't allowed to have a lock on my bedroom door when I lived in my childhood home, even well into adulthood, and it was another act of control and a way to strip me of my autonomy and healthy need for boundaries. I would get paranoid that my dad would open my door without warning. You don't have to worry about stuff like that at night time, when everyone is asleep.

A note I wrote to myself via discord message after hearing gymnopédie no. 1 in an ad of all things. I loathe the everyday barrage of asinine advertisements, but this one sounded beautiful. I have a weakness for this song. Do note, I accidentally spelt his name wrong in the screenshot.

2025-02-26: The "holding space" Wicked press tour meme is so funny to me especially with how many people, Cynthia and Ariana included, were confused with the "holding space" jargon. As a reformed self-help addict, I was immediately like, "that's just therapy speak, lol." You see it a lot in some corners of the internet. Psychology and mental health have gone mainstream and been commodified, and so you get sentences like, "I don't have the capacity to be in relationship with you anymore because you no longer serve me. I'm doing all the emotional labor and you never hold space for me." Lol. You can talk like that if you want. It's just very impersonal and weird. I think a lot of people using this language might often feel more "enlightened" and more "healed" than someone not "doing the work."

2025-02-26: "I'm not allowed to be myself. I won't be understood. I won't be digestible. People won't accept me." Fine. Don't be understandable. Don't be digestible. Let them choke on you in all of your acrid taste. Yes, safety, acceptance, and support from others is important, but suppressing who you truly are will both eat you up inside and attract the exact wrong people that often will, in some way or another, punish or reject you if you ever start showing the true parts of you that you are hiding. It's lonely being around people who don't see you for who you are, and to make it worse, it's because you won't even begin to show them out of fear.

I say this all out of sympathy, for you and for me. I understand unmasking and accepting your true, unfettered (and likely messy, weird, cringy self) is hard and scary. Just know your existence doesn't have to make sense. Live in contradiction or know that two opposing truths can be true at the same time.

2025-02-26: I used to struggle a lot with anticipatory grief. It still comes up, but I handle it in a different way now.

As an autistic person, I was never able to keep any friendships for more than a few years. I was typically oscillating between what people call "anxious" and "avoidant" attachment. I was closed off with most, high masking and mirroring what I thought others wanted of me, desperate to try to make friends. But when I was fortunate enough to make a friend, we were usually fundamentally incompatible. Maybe, for a brief window of time, my compulsive people-pleasing and masking would artificially align us, but eventually, when the mask started to crumble (because it always does), I'd have a falling out with the friend.

I remember befriending somebody a few summers ago. We got along well and seemed to have similar enough temperaments, but I was masking hard. I remember spending time with them and instead of feeling joy, I'd feel anxiety and grief, wondering just when this great thing would fall apart, because it always falls apart eventually: nothing is forever.

Well, it did fall apart, and it was painful. I'm glad it did though. I don't think we were as compatible as we thought. Since then, though, I've begun to find my real identity, unmask, and accept more parts of myself. I met my now best friend in the fall of last year, and I think we truly are compatible. I went into the friendship as unmasked as I could, showing her my "freak" cringe side, and it gave her permission to show her "freak" cringe side.

I don't worry so much anymore when things will end. My friendship seems secure enough, and now I've got relationships that have lasted for 2+ years now. Sometimes the anticipatory grief comes up, when I look at my cat and realize she's going to die someday, or how some day, I'll miss this phase of my life. I'm not much one for "mindfulness," at least, not in the pop psychology sense, but the solution for me has been slowing down and just taking in the moment. I pet my cat, feel the softness of her fur and the weight of her laying on my chest, and I assure myself that she's alive right now, and that some day, when she's gone, I'll wish for this exact moment again. It's anti-taking things for granted, and it's recognizing that anticipatory grief does little to prepare you for the real thing. If anything, it just robs you of a beautiful moment while you're still in it. Everything must end. Everything. So enjoy it now.

I'm also not huge on affirmations, especially saying things you don't yet believe about yourself, but I heard one the other day that I like, and that is, "these are the good days." even if I, personally, am in hell during a certain phase in my life, once i'm out of that phase, I forget a lot of the pain and grief and still feel nostalgic for the little pockets of good memories that are no longer.

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