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I've been feeling stuck creatively. It's been over 2 years since I touched game development, I haven't made anything music related since my last Funnyrave set back in spring of 24, and I've only done a small amount of work on TTRPG stuff late last year. I thought about getting back into writing, but it's really hard. I wrote a full chapter of a short story I had been outlining, read it back, and ended up just tossing it. I'm so out of practice and reading bad writing is agonizing. I feel like it's possibly one of the most venerable mediums to work in.

So here I am making a website and a blog, I guess. I don't really know what it's for. Realistically, no one will ever read this. Something about shouting into the void on my own home-made platform feels better than the usual shouting into a void I'd do on somewhere like bluesky. I'm ignored and forgotten on my own terms here, and that's got to be better.

So anyway, I'm working out of a creative rut. I feel like when I get this really bad feeling of 'I need to work on something' but also can't manage to move off multiple blank pages, I start feeling like maybe at my core I'm just an uncreative and empty-minded person. Maybe I just have absolutely nothing to offer the world and that's why the page stays blank. My true thoughts are just as empty. This is catastrophizing of course, but I feel it deeply.

I think for this first blog, just to try to lift myself out of this feeling and to kind of introduce myself to anyone who might find this, I want to go back to my old works that I find myself still proud of. Looking back on some of these makes me feel kind of disconnected. I feel like the person who made these things isn't me anymore, or at least processes skills that I simply can't acquire again, but I know that isn't true. If I did it before, I can do it again.

During the pandemic's peak, I got really into music production in a way I hadn't really before. This track I made one day sitting in my room staring out my open front window, so I called it Open Windows. It's a simple little lofi beat, but I actually still really like it. Neko Cafe-Open Windows

I also did multiple years of this online DJ festival called Funnyrave. It was sort of a shitpost, but I really tried to give it my all. There was a bit where I genuinely considered that maybe post-lockdown I could be doing DJ gigs locally or at cons. This was a silly dream, of course, because actual skill is less important than popularity and charisma in DJing and I have functionally no charisma and don't know how to make friends. STILL, I did make this set for 2022 that I really put my whole heart into both in mixes and visuals and I'm really proud of it still. Funnyrave Set 2022

Finally, I haven't touched gamedev in a minute, but I made this Yume Nikki fangame for Dream Diary Jam 7 and I still think it's actually pretty cool. There's a ton of small details and hidden easter eggs I don't think anyone has ever seen, but there's also at least one full start-to-finish playthrough somebody did on youtube and watching someone so thoroughly consume something I made feels special. It's not a very popular game and unfortunately due to a harddrive dying on me, it's going to go unfinished permanently. I'm proud of it though. NEONSOMNIA

I feel like a fraud sometimes. I get really bad impostor syndrome about everything I do. I have to remind myself I'm capable of making art the way I want to. I hope this website eventually can be another example I can pull up and remind myself of. Think I'm gonna make this blog a monthly thing if I can.