#And also for the record I like never publish anything I'd block over

[bonefall]

test to see if i'm anon-blocked 👍 (so sorry if this is annoying,, i'm the anon who sent my opinion on skystar that one time [shitty person, good villain, if they wanted to give him a redemption arc they should've done it properly] and i'm worried i articulated it badly and got blocked lmao)

LMAO no don't worry you're fine. You have to be REALLY annoying to get anon-blocked. I think I deleted that ask a while back tho since it wasn't relevant.

To be fair tho I think that a Skystar redemption arc is like, inherently a bad idea because he's such a good villain, if that makes sense. He's a hooooorrible person and that's what makes him so good at causing conflict.

Power doesn't corrupt; Power reveals. When someone gets power, you see what they always wanted to do with it. What Skystar wanted to do was control the people below him. His mates, his subordinates, even his family. He's too fragile to handle disrespect and his behavior is rooted in deep insecurity, which he justifies as "concern for everyone's safety and well-being"

But he's obviously full of shit. He's not concerned for anything besides himself-- he wasn't concerned for the well-being of Jagged Peak, or Fox or his brother who was being mauled by him under Sky's orders, or his son, or Frost, or Jackdaw's Cry, or Rainswept Flower...

And it's why the narrative wets itself with the "redemption arc" where Clear Sky continues to be the same goddamn person he always was. StarClan saying, "Clear Sky was bad because he was scared of death :( But don't worry we exist so you don't need to be afraid anymore :) Atheism was why he was evil :)" was laughable.

There is no reason Clear Sky would ever want to change, unless he lost all power and was materially not going to benefit from being the person he was anymore.

#And also for the record I like never publish anything I'd block over #I block and move on #I have had to block quite a few people tho #I subscribe very heavily to the philosophy ''Don't feed the trolls'' #Re: Im old and from an older period in internet history lmao #warrior cats analysis #Again it's actually like... it awakens a Deep One inside of me that DOTC really opens up Sky's redemption arc with #'actually atheism is why he was bad. now that he has religion he wont be so scared anymore' #someone really wrote that

[nyarlathotep-thecrawlingchaos]

So imposter syndrome is a thing and I need to give myself a pep talk. Like. Now.

And if anyone else is dealing with it needs one, then I'm sharing it. This is pretty personal, but I don't like the thought of anyone dealing with this because I know how utterly miserable it is, and absolutely no one deserves it.

So I just want to take a minute (or an hour, or several) to talk about this because I realized during the past decade (or longer), when I wasn't letting anyone read any of my writing whatsoever, that imposter syndrome is a lying fucking thundercunt, and that it hurts so many creators, and that it shouldn't be allowed to exist at all.

I got burned out constantly when I was publishing on fanfiction.net back in the day, and another site I can't remember the name of for original work that doesn't exist anymore.

Would get stuck in a rut on everything I wrote and never finish anything.

Good or bad feedback, didn't matter. It always devolved into, "This is shit, and I am shit, and I shouldn't be shoveling this shit to other people," and I'd try to just ignore that and write and...nothing would come out. Or what did come out, I felt like it wasn't ever good enough.

I'd read over what I had already written and just cringe. Cancel a project entirely and trash it because thinking about it made me want to vomit.

The same way you might cringe hearing your own voice on a recording, or see an unflattering photograph of yourself and second guess everything about what you see in the mirror.

This always led slap into a writer's block, which for me also tends to lead toward depression and general self-loathing because I don't feel like me when I'm not writing.

Same thing has happened on and off with most of my hobbies through the years. I started getting deeply into culinary arts when I was sixteen, wanted to learn more and try new recipes out daily, and messing something up would just destroy me. I started playing guitar at thirteen, played daily through most of high school, and went through a few stints that lasted for literal years where just looking at a guitar made me physically sick because I felt like I had hit a wall that I couldn't get past.

I guess because writing has been with me for the longest, it was what helped me the most. I was writing silly little "horror" short stories and Pokémon fanfiction as early as six years old. Writing is ingrained into me to the point that I feel like a different person entirely when I'm not doing it. I feel like I don't know myself.

And that feeling of being inadequate when I was actively writing, I realized, didn't actually start until I began letting other people read what I was writing regularly. Largely when I started posting it online. That was when it went from being my joy to being my dread.

Dread that if I didn't finish a chapter or a story quickly enough, people would stop reading.

Fear of making even one single typo that someone might point out.

Fear of being insulted or berated.

Of not being good enough.

Of failing.

I realized during my extensive haitus from writing that I never had that fear when I was a child. When I was writing for me. Writing what I wanted to. What I enjoyed, what made me happy. That at some point, writing had changed from a form of self-love into people-pleasing.

I spent a few years not writing at all, and gradually started again. A short story here or there when the mood struck instead of trying to force it out. That made the mood strike more and more often.

I eventually bit the bullet and read over some of my old work that I would cringe over, and it made me smile instead. Still made me cringe a little, but instead of that resulting in a need to pull into a shell and stop entirely, it turned into a desire to improve.

It clicked that it was because the only audience I had was myself, and I could do whatever the hell I wanted and just have a good time with it. No worries, no deadlines, no one to impress, just creating what I wanted to and enjoying it.

It's not fool-proof, but when the feeling starts to flare up, the following is a rough inner monologue of how I try to address it.

"Look self, who cares if you're a talentless hack or not? If you like doing the thing, do the thing. If it only brings you joy when other people care you're doing the thing, or you only do the thing when you're hoping it could even potentially impress other people? Then you're not enjoying the thing, you're enjoying the attention, or even just the idea of attention. Take the attention out of the entire equation, and just do the goddamned thing."

Art is passion in physical form. Passion stems from happiness. That happiness stems from you. From you, looking at what you've created, before anyone else has laid eyes on it, and smiling. That moment when you finish your creation, the feeling of fulfillment in knowing that you created something that wouldn't otherwise exist if you hadn't taken the time and energy to do so. That one moment before any potential second guessing or anxiety can rear its head in. That moment, that comes from you and only you, free of any influence from the outside world, is happiness.

Basically, the old saying, "dance like no one's watching?" It applies to everything. EVERYTHING that imposter syndrome could butt its disgusting lying filthy head in on. Sing, play [instrument of choice] like no one's listening. Paint and draw and sculpt and mold and create like no one else but you is ever going to see the finished product. Write like no one else is reading. Enjoy it for what it gives you first and foremost. Extend that moment of happiness and enjoy it, because you did something no one but you could have done, you created something that no one but you could have created.

After that, if other people enjoy it, great! It's always nice to share happiness!

If they don't like it, or if they pressure you to do better or work faster or harder than you're capable of doing in your present state?

If they take your peace and mold it into pain?

Then they can take a flying fuck at a rolling donut.

It's your passion. It's your love. Not theirs.

If they don't like it, they don't have to look.

If you were kind enough to share your happiness with them, and they're miserable enough to stomp on it in any way, shape, or form, then that's their problem, not yours.

[gameminds]

yeesh

(not for reading, just a long diary post)

long week, nothing accomplished

i spent way too long playing terraria this week lmao. it's such a zero-effort game that rewards planning and execution so well, it plays itself for hours at a time.

if i hadn't gotten a bunch of writing done on monday and tuesday, and gotten ahead of my homework a little, i'd have gotten basically nothing done this week lol

I've been struggling to put work in on making videos to publish. I like videomaking projects, and i feel like i have a vision and a sense of timing, humor, dialogue. but since i've never really put anything big out there consistently over a long period of time, it's not natural to me to be excited about the possibility of showing my work to people. I get excited about showing people my writing and some of my arts and crafts type stuff, and magic decks and things. but i'm not used to putting real art out there to be consumed and potentially monetized.

Twitch has been invaluable in making me feel like there's a reason to prepare myself to be presented to people for consumption on a week-to-week basis. i think my natural next steps are to integrate more of the VOD making process into my routine and get used to the editing and publishing workflow-- I've been recording my Tomb Raider sessions, so that's probably what's gonna be coming to the channel first.

and then that's the ultimate thing. i'm just really bad at putting in consistent effort and building conscious habits like a day-to-day work routine. things i don't like doing or don't enjoy for their own sake are really difficult to do regularly, so even like the idea of doing the little elements here and there that i'm not familiar with or excited about is building this sort of mountain out of making a 20 minute video with like 6 hours of work. I've done 5 projects in the last year or so that are at various stages of incompleteness, and each one has gotten hung up on a different step of the process. it's not even like i'm getting farther each time lol, the first one was basically done and edited and just needed visual effects. the most recent one is basically a script and 10% of the voiceover with a bunch of visual assets.

you know, putting it in the perspective that i've basically finished one or two of these projects and like 90% of the work on them is done makes me feel a little more confident. just need to block out some hours and actually follow through.

I'm also working on a small, 2-D roguelike concept i've been brainstorming this week, and getting some hours in on Godot. for now i'm just getting a proof of concept off the ground, we'll see if it makes it to a place where i want to publish it of it it's just a fun project.

this week, Phyrexia: All Will Be One releases (well, prereleases), and i've got a box in the mail that I ordered like 4 months ago! it's an exciting set, lots of cool cards with impact on eternal formats.

#thursday thoughts #just rambling #not content #diary