No website information today other than rearranging dates, otherwise just rambling.
Scrolling through Yesterlinks has given me quite a lot of thoughts in regards to using this space as a personal imprint on the internet. Perhaps the fact that this space is so self-contained and little known is what so far has made me compelled to feel comfortable in sharing personal things that I otherwise wouldn't. There is no viewer count, the shoutbox is limited, and hotglue by itself is a very niche space, which has given me a little confidence in shouting things out to the void where I can't determine if someone is judging it or not. Nor will I ever hear it if they do.
Moving? Not anytime soon.
On a side note before the tangent, I've dreaded the idea of remaking this entire site in pure CSS, due to hotglue positioning not being relative, meaning that every screen that isn't some form of laptop screening puts the entire layout of the shards into the corner of bigger screens. My brother with his 4K monitor already sees the entire website as a tiny speck. Maybe that will be a future endeavor, but for today I need to stop fretting. I realized this stress comes entirely from wanting to be "presentable". A leftover of dealing with social media spaces, no less. I apologize for any big resolution screen readers in the audience: my intent was not to be mean to you.
So back on the topic, I've realized that if I'm to use this journal as a rambling space, I might need to rethink this whole Journal page. I've tried to fit it into a neat box, but my talking is often much, much longer than the size of this box whom I refuse to enable scrolling bars on (not to mention the potential gallery links in the future). Maybe with a stroke of luck an idea will strike me later.
Daily questionnaires, perhaps?
I've looked for some interesting questionnaires today that I could sprinkle into each entry (especially seeing as they might be more frequent than I thought), and annoyingly found out that it takes an incredibly specific space to find any of particular note. DeviantArt holds mostly OC ones and my search queries for more user-tailored ones ended up with very generic "Meet the artist" templates and AMAs. I had to use Tumblr to get a hit! Forgot how full of treasures that website can be.
I could've always made some of my own, but it's hard coming up with questions! Literally! And I figured, they might be fun trivia to you, dear internet stranger, but they will also be helpful to me. Forgetting random tidbits about ourselves isn't uncommon for us, and while these questions might vary greatly depending on who answers them, at least it might provide me with some insight we can look back on.
I'll be picking random questions from random lists, so here's the first one.
Ironically, I usually would avoiding providing simple responses in a place where I can talk your head off. But for this specific question we all generally share the same pick (albeit with different levels of reasoning). Mulan isn't an unpopular choice, and I hope the irony of a generally trans system picking a crossdressing character that pretends to be a man isn't lost on you either. Even more ironically, it was our favourite since childhood too. That part never changed.
"The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all." It's an extremely sweet message to those struggling. Whether be it with their family, or with social expectations, disorders or mental issues, and feels comforting to those that need it. Obviously, the quote isn't the character, but it is intrinsically linked with Mulan's development. Everyone wants to have the strength to push through hard times and blossom into a better person after facing so many challenges. And some of us want to Be a Man as well. The beauty of surviving, and the icon of perserverance that is the titular heroine. Even if I wouldn't classify her as a "princess".
Rapunzel is a close second pick for us nowadays due to not too dissimilar reasons, even if thankfully we are blessed to not relate to the theme of abusive households. There is also something heartwarming about presenting a heroine as traditionally feminine and strong at the same time. Though that may have to do with the burnout I feel from recent big animated features and games going for the "all strong female characters are tomboys" trope. Love tomboys, but it's like I'm being served the same spaghetti for dinner. I adore spaghetti, but after the twentieth time I will start to get sick of it.
Starting Refsheet!
With this entry's question out of the way, have we been working on anything else? I wouldn't have mentioned this if we weren't, haha.
We picked up Refsheet! I thought about using the Artscuffle discord bot today, and that reminded me that I need to update my public character references. Toyhouse is an amazing repository with great customizable CSS, which is exactly why I haven't done any work on it. Too many possibilities and my autism can't decide. Refsheet is much simpler and standardized, so I'm starting to first move my Artfight bios to there. This will likewise be a very long endeavor (all of the character bios to write...), but I'm confident I could get it done by the end of the year. The character listings, that is. Many still lack a drawn reference, and this might be a much longer task.
Warned you this will be a long ramble. Hope you're not too tired from my complete incoherent-ness. But thankfully we're reaching the end for today.
A quick dissociation tangent.
Quite a while ago there was a conversation amongst my friends in regards to mental health. It got me thinking about how to explain severe dissociation or memory issues to people. It's the old "everyone experiences those two things, so why are you any different?" scenario. Truth be told, we never even looked into how bad those things were until someone else started going through their own journey. In a bout of venting that I do not recall anymore, there is a glint of memory where we spoke about "feeling unreality". Which in its own can be a specific type of dissociation. But back then we used whichever words we had to describe this feeling. Nowadays our vocabulary is ever so slightly larger. "Forgetting about forgetting" was my quote when we discussed our then unnoticed memory gaps.
Everyone experiences memory issues. Even neurotypicals do. Not everyone forgets their favourite summer trips. Or loses that day's school knowledge the moment you step out of the building. Or looks at an internet account, or perhaps a physical notebook, and feels alienated from the contents of it, like they aren't even yours.
Everyone experiences dissociation. It's a natural thing even if you don't notice it. It's a natural mind's response to stressful things. Not everyone forgets their bodily needs for the entire day while not hyperfixating. Or slinks off into a mind's world the moment your focus slips off from the real one even a little. Or feels completely detached from their surroundings and sensations even when trying.
It's been actually a pitifully short amount of time since we've discovered ourselves as a system. Maybe a year at best. We don't have it as bad as many others, I realize.
Some people have managed to speak about their condition openly. I am quite envious, admittedly, something I hope this website helps me get over. And I don't mean the "fakers", besides I'm against the culture of "fakeclaiming" someone. The stigma of talking about multiplicity and dissociation disorders without a diagnosis is quite severe, and oftentimes even harsher than telling people about you being a system. But it is painfully hard to know which steps to even take to undertake one, with the horror stories (from my friends included) abound. So you have to grow comfortable with just having to understand yourself, for yourself. Not to prove to anyone your worth as a person. Up until therapy is available, anyway.
Perhaps I have our childhood daydreaming to thank for us getting along decently well since the start. Because we already played our roles together without realizing. Even if I wish it didn't evolve into maladaptive daydreaming later on. But that's a tidbit I might ramble about some other time. It might be fun to look over our journey (which still needs to be pieced together). So keep checking the journal!