thoughts

February 2025

Identity and appearance

January 2025

New Year's resolutions

December 2024

Neocities, tumblr, and the web

03/FEB/2025

Identity and appearance

This might sound weird but recently I bought my very first real bra, at the ripe age of 20-something. I did have a few bras as a young teenage assigned-female-at-birth but they were all very very cheap and crappy ones, that were too uncomfortable and looking back definitely too big for me.

A few days ago I saw one bra (of a fancy enough brand) on clearance and it seemed to be my size. I liked the pink color and thought I had nothing to lose by buying it. I bought it and tried it on, and it in fact was my size, or at least close enough to fit me.

I went back to the same store and bought two more, same size of the same brand, but these were a push-up style. I tried them on and I felt like a dress-up doll. Like those online dress up games? If you're in neocities you most likely know what I'm talking about.

It took me many years to even feel comfortable wearing tank tops or anything tight. The other day I looked at my reflection while wearing at an outfit I've worn many times before, and realized I hated how my cleavage looked in it. I tried it on again while wearing one of those new fancy push-up bras and again I feel like a doll, I feel like everyone can tell I'm trying too hard. Or maybe that I'm not trying hard enough.

I have never tried to fit in, not really. But I always tried too hard to be myself. But what even is myself? Who? I'm not sure what this whole entry is about other than my big realization that I can do whatever I want with my body, it doesn't have to mean its me per se. I can be someone else for a day based completely on how I dress.

I have a somewhat alternative style irl, band tees from hot topic with high waisted mini skirts, over the knee socks and combat boots. oh and chokers. I'd say its somewhat similar to the e-girl style but I take offense to the comparison since I took all my outfit inspo from "grunge" and emo tumblr girls in 2014. Jesus this description is really giving "my name is Ebony Darkness Raven Demetria Way and I have long raven ebony hair…" I'm sorry about that.

My point here is that I put myself into this "emo/alt" style box by the time I was 14, and it took me a couple of years to realize how much that alters how other people view me. I used to think it was a positive thing, that people who would befriend me didn't care for superficial things. But I'm not so sure anymore, sometimes I want to be someone else. Not the same sad teen I was.

The whole "dress up doll" thing for me means that I've realized I don't have to keep myself in this self-impossed box. I can try a different style every day. I can be someone different everyday. Even a different gender. I've spent so long hating myself, while also trying to prove myself, everything I did in the name of self-expression.

I don't know how it never occurred to me to play pretend until I can find who I exactly want to be, at least for now. Maybe its a midlife (quarterlife technically) crisis, but I feel like I'm just now doing things I should've done as a teen. Like getting a real bra or trying different styles. I guess its never too late to try. I should really buy a binder while I'm at it.

02/JAN/2025

New Year's Resolutions

I've always struggled with setting specific goals for myself so hopefully posting this on here will help me hold myself accountable. That being said this is a very “free” list and my intent is to constantly do these things throughout the year.

Drawing more, to finish at least one artwork per week. It can be just a sketchbook drawing or a full rendered piece, but it has to be something.

On that note, to make more art studies. More sketchbook practices. I feel like my rendering process is good but my drawing skills have always been quite weak. I need to go back and study more basics / drawing fundamentals.

To read more comic books lol. Better than doomscrolling.

Play more videogames. I want to make a better use of my free time, and spend my energy into things that I enjoy. I wanna replay the Batman Arkham games, and I should finally play Gotham Knights. Still need to finish LiS: Double Exposure.

Continue updating my Neocities. I'm happy with how its coming along.

Learn more html/css and learn more about coding. Start The Odin Project. Learn JavaScript.

To listen to more music. Instead of drama and AITA YouTube videos that I don't even pay attention to and just use as background noise. Or listen to a podcast instead, when I actually want to listen to people talking. More positive podcasts, something that makes me feel like I learnt something.

Study Korean again, so at the very least I don't forget what I've learned.

To finally make my portfolio, yikes.

Here's to 2025 hopefully being a good year <3

05/DEC/2024

Neocities, tumblr, and the web

Lately I've been thinking a lot about what I do in online spaces. I realized not too long ago that most of the content that I see online leaves me drained, it feels soulsucking, brainrotting. It's all "drama", consumerism, and the most stupid fandom discourse.

I'm forever chronically online, there's no denying that, but I wasn't having fun online anymore, maybe I do have a phone addiction. It's impossible to think about it as an addiction when everyone is sucked into their phones. When I was thirteen and I wanted to talk to my mom, but she wouldn't even listen to me because she was too busy being on her phone, on facebook, on whatsapp. When I was on a date, on my 19th birthday, and they would do the same thing, too busy texting someone else.

I remember telling them I wasn't gonna download tiktok, that it was trying too hard to be like vine. They told me some of it was genuinely funny, that I just didn't get it yet. Now 4? 5? 6? years later I ended up having to put a daily one hour timer for tiktok.

It's too easy to get sucked into an endless scrolling, video after video, you're not giving it even a second of your attention. Fried dopamine receptors. I am a victim of that too, always having to listen to something on the background, god forbid I hear my own thoughts.

I am not a good writer, in fact I'm no writer at all. And this won't make much sense, but its meant more for me than it is for you.

I don't like posting on social media, I never had. Maybe only when I was a 9 year old kid with a facebook account, and no critical thinking skills. But even then, I liked making edits on photoshop and running fan accounts. Naturally that led me to discovering tumblr.com. I made a blog there back in 2012? 2013? I was first a one direction blog, like every 12 years old girl should have been back then.

I recently remade my account, to what now is my 3rd blog on the site, (link is on my homepage if you care to find it.) I think tumblr did shape a lot of what I expect from online interactions and content. I appreciate the anonymity yet friendliness from total strangers. I enjoy only reblogging stuff, maybe I'll post an edit here and there, but I don't *have* to post anything myself in order to be active.

I know how ironic it sounds, given that I am now making my own little blog section on my own little webpage, but I guess I want you to understand that this is challenging for me, as it is entertaining in some way

Regardless, what I enjoy the most out of tumblr is how it feels like a little time capsule of everything my past self enjoyed. From one direction to doctor who, to emo bands to dan and phil, to star trek and star wars. And every meme I thought was funny for the last 10 years.

What does instagram capture? Important milestones sure, like my first kpop concert or my uni graduation. Or every time I posted a story waiting for an specific person's reaction. Vailidation. How someone that I never even dated still looks at everything that I post. Two of them actually, maybe three. Instagram is public, tumblr always felt more private, to me only and my own little world. Free to be myself. I might be cringe but at least I am free.

I, like many others, wanted to make a neocities to control my online experience. Make it fun. Make this to expand my own little world further. I'm also undiagnosed autistic and hyperfixated on making this for the past week. So here we are.

I also really enjoy the personalization and customization options that you only ever get with html editing. I started learning html and css less than two months ago. It feels nice to create something, to be creative again. Oh art school burn out when will I be free from you. Regardless, I've been having fun on here and will continue to spend more time developing this site than doomscrolling.