Updating on life and projects
Oct. 22nd, 2025 12:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
merydianHi! I've been super busy so I haven't been able to get on here a bunch. I think enough has happened for me to have a decent update, so here we are.
School: I started the fall semester for school and I have midterms coming up. Thankfully my classes aren't too bad, but since work has been so busy in addition to some real life issues going on (health, family, etc), I've just been struggling to keep up. I have no idea how much longer I want to do college, what level of degree I want to get to, if the US will even still have financial aid programs in a few years, etc, but at least I'm halfway through this semester of it and I'm closer to getting an associates degree?
Events: I'm taking a break from most exchanges and events due to the above. I have honestly gotten so horribly behind on commenting on gifts I think it's only fair for me to try and use the time I would be putting into assignments on getting caught up on feedback. I just have been having a v hard time putting my thoughts together very well due to all the aforementioned issues scrambling my brain, so... it is a very slow process. If I do owe you comments, I haven't forgotten and I am so very sorry it is taking so long ;-; I just want to be able to make sense when articulating why a fic rocks.
I also just don't think I really had the time for events that I was deluding myself into believing I did, lol, so at least for now I need to get back into a better routine and schedule to ensure I can focus on the parts of my life that enable me to buy basic necessities, and THEN maybe keep an eye out for interesting exchanges. It's hard not to sign up for 142 at a time when I am in an exchange phase, so I need to cut myself off from them entirely for the time being and just stick to lower effort prompt challenges without big deadlines and people depending on me to follow through with making something decent.
Projects: I have managed to make a few things in the meantime, mostly related to websites. I don't always have the energy to prioritize creating over scrolling, but creating also DOES give me energy so... I'm trying very hard to give myself a decent balance rn and avoid putting my energy into relationships or spaces that feel moreover draining than encouraging on this front.
- I've been moving some of my old F/F over to Sunset, a new archive focused on femslash! If you would like an invite code, let me know. I'm moon on there.
- I got some 1000xRESIST prompts from No True Pair that I completely failed to do in September. I did some drafting and I'd like to keep the prompt pairs in mind for inspiration, but I did get one of them done:
Data Harvest - Knower, Mimi - G - 529 words - Newly appointed to her position, Knower finds a file that elicits more questions than answers. (Part of this work uses an optional custom work skin.)
It's not very good, but I mostly wanted an excuse to play around with making a custom work skin, which is then what got me back into site making. I honestly burned myself out on front end development so badly a few years ago I hadn't picked it up since, but my motives back then were more about having a fallback career than fun, whereas now it's just... fun. And if it helps me with my job, then that's an added bonus. So it's been more therapeutic for me and I've been focused more on just diving into projects and learning as I go in a more enriching hands-on manner than just watching structured tutorials that don't really click. I vaguely remember enough to have a decent foundation that lets me do this, but JavaScript may be my death still.
Website Projects (please note the mobile responsivity is all very debatable - an attempt is there, but it's not my priority) -
- Personal site - This is what I started with! It is intended to just be my own corner of the Internet where I do whatever I want and update on my projects and web dev progress. I am particularly proud of the page I made to celebrate my favorite characters. (Biggest issue for mobile is I haven't yet put in a mobile nav bar so you can't easily navigate the full site.)
- The Secret Saturdays Shrine/Cryptipedia - This is a tribute to one of my favorite shows ever in honor of its 17 year anniversary (holy shit) and a way for me to learn some basic JavaScript. I have been compiling all information about the show's cryptids across varying resources and trying to make an interactive Cryptipedia like the one in the show. Most of my work on this rn is the data gathering, so a LOT is missing and in-progres on the site itself... but I'm so proud I got the foundation of it working at all and it has been so fun having an excuse to revisit the comics, drive myself insane trying to learn how to extract assets from the game, etc. (Currently hosted on my personal site, but will probably branch out into a more in-depth fansite/shrine that will necessitate moving it to its own neocities account.)
- Earth 2 Shrine - Just started this so it's extremely basic and also just a page on my personal site, but I completely adore all the old E2 fansites I've found from the 90s so I think it's time for me to finally make my own. Rn I'm compiling my old fanworks, some links I find cool, and hoping to start archiving some articles from magazines I've got because I love preserving stuff like that so much.
- 1000xRESIST Fansite - Inspired by the Ghost of You Shrine Challenge, this is a space for me to pay tribute to 1000xRESIST, share cool stuff related to it, and compile all my fanworks/ocs for it. Biggest accomplishment so far is the random quote generator that changes text color depending on speaker. (It also has some backgrounds for different characters which also took a bit to figure out, but I think it is too distracting so I likely won't keep that component. Also unsure if I'll be keeping that URL or changing it to something more clearly fansite-y.)
- I am hoping to make some other shrines/sites in the future to, particularly for Space Island One, Mercy Point (I ended up with a fuck ton of script reproductions from this that I think would be cool to talk about somewhere), Cleopatra 2525, and Terra Nova. I have a bunch of magazines for all of them and I've done so many Internet deep-dives I'm sure I have things to link to and talk about. At the very least, a page about niche sci-fi that briefly touches on all those could be cool.
I hope everyone's been well! And I hope I can get myself more together soon so I can do fandom again the way I feel best doing it: creating and engaging rather than being stuck in bed scrolling through reblog after reblog that criticizes how people play with dolls. It's just nicer on here where people seem more focused on doing fandom because they actually like it. Anyway, if anyone else is into making little sites like that I'd love to see yours!
School: I started the fall semester for school and I have midterms coming up. Thankfully my classes aren't too bad, but since work has been so busy in addition to some real life issues going on (health, family, etc), I've just been struggling to keep up. I have no idea how much longer I want to do college, what level of degree I want to get to, if the US will even still have financial aid programs in a few years, etc, but at least I'm halfway through this semester of it and I'm closer to getting an associates degree?
Events: I'm taking a break from most exchanges and events due to the above. I have honestly gotten so horribly behind on commenting on gifts I think it's only fair for me to try and use the time I would be putting into assignments on getting caught up on feedback. I just have been having a v hard time putting my thoughts together very well due to all the aforementioned issues scrambling my brain, so... it is a very slow process. If I do owe you comments, I haven't forgotten and I am so very sorry it is taking so long ;-; I just want to be able to make sense when articulating why a fic rocks.
I also just don't think I really had the time for events that I was deluding myself into believing I did, lol, so at least for now I need to get back into a better routine and schedule to ensure I can focus on the parts of my life that enable me to buy basic necessities, and THEN maybe keep an eye out for interesting exchanges. It's hard not to sign up for 142 at a time when I am in an exchange phase, so I need to cut myself off from them entirely for the time being and just stick to lower effort prompt challenges without big deadlines and people depending on me to follow through with making something decent.
Projects: I have managed to make a few things in the meantime, mostly related to websites. I don't always have the energy to prioritize creating over scrolling, but creating also DOES give me energy so... I'm trying very hard to give myself a decent balance rn and avoid putting my energy into relationships or spaces that feel moreover draining than encouraging on this front.
- I've been moving some of my old F/F over to Sunset, a new archive focused on femslash! If you would like an invite code, let me know. I'm moon on there.
- I got some 1000xRESIST prompts from No True Pair that I completely failed to do in September. I did some drafting and I'd like to keep the prompt pairs in mind for inspiration, but I did get one of them done:
Data Harvest - Knower, Mimi - G - 529 words - Newly appointed to her position, Knower finds a file that elicits more questions than answers. (Part of this work uses an optional custom work skin.)
It's not very good, but I mostly wanted an excuse to play around with making a custom work skin, which is then what got me back into site making. I honestly burned myself out on front end development so badly a few years ago I hadn't picked it up since, but my motives back then were more about having a fallback career than fun, whereas now it's just... fun. And if it helps me with my job, then that's an added bonus. So it's been more therapeutic for me and I've been focused more on just diving into projects and learning as I go in a more enriching hands-on manner than just watching structured tutorials that don't really click. I vaguely remember enough to have a decent foundation that lets me do this, but JavaScript may be my death still.
Website Projects (please note the mobile responsivity is all very debatable - an attempt is there, but it's not my priority) -
- Personal site - This is what I started with! It is intended to just be my own corner of the Internet where I do whatever I want and update on my projects and web dev progress. I am particularly proud of the page I made to celebrate my favorite characters. (Biggest issue for mobile is I haven't yet put in a mobile nav bar so you can't easily navigate the full site.)
- The Secret Saturdays Shrine/Cryptipedia - This is a tribute to one of my favorite shows ever in honor of its 17 year anniversary (holy shit) and a way for me to learn some basic JavaScript. I have been compiling all information about the show's cryptids across varying resources and trying to make an interactive Cryptipedia like the one in the show. Most of my work on this rn is the data gathering, so a LOT is missing and in-progres on the site itself... but I'm so proud I got the foundation of it working at all and it has been so fun having an excuse to revisit the comics, drive myself insane trying to learn how to extract assets from the game, etc. (Currently hosted on my personal site, but will probably branch out into a more in-depth fansite/shrine that will necessitate moving it to its own neocities account.)
- Earth 2 Shrine - Just started this so it's extremely basic and also just a page on my personal site, but I completely adore all the old E2 fansites I've found from the 90s so I think it's time for me to finally make my own. Rn I'm compiling my old fanworks, some links I find cool, and hoping to start archiving some articles from magazines I've got because I love preserving stuff like that so much.
- 1000xRESIST Fansite - Inspired by the Ghost of You Shrine Challenge, this is a space for me to pay tribute to 1000xRESIST, share cool stuff related to it, and compile all my fanworks/ocs for it. Biggest accomplishment so far is the random quote generator that changes text color depending on speaker. (It also has some backgrounds for different characters which also took a bit to figure out, but I think it is too distracting so I likely won't keep that component. Also unsure if I'll be keeping that URL or changing it to something more clearly fansite-y.)
- I am hoping to make some other shrines/sites in the future to, particularly for Space Island One, Mercy Point (I ended up with a fuck ton of script reproductions from this that I think would be cool to talk about somewhere), Cleopatra 2525, and Terra Nova. I have a bunch of magazines for all of them and I've done so many Internet deep-dives I'm sure I have things to link to and talk about. At the very least, a page about niche sci-fi that briefly touches on all those could be cool.
I hope everyone's been well! And I hope I can get myself more together soon so I can do fandom again the way I feel best doing it: creating and engaging rather than being stuck in bed scrolling through reblog after reblog that criticizes how people play with dolls. It's just nicer on here where people seem more focused on doing fandom because they actually like it. Anyway, if anyone else is into making little sites like that I'd love to see yours!
