Hello, sorry for the very small update. My mental hasn't been the best recently, so I've just been trying to get through the days.

I recently started playing Yakuza : Like a Dragon and I have been enjoying it a lot. I really enjoy turn-based combat and I think it is really interesting how they implemented it. I like that most of the battles don't occur in a different scene, but instead happen on the actual in game map, as well being able to interact with map items during battle. I also think that the importance of positioning is interesting as well, as this is something that is usually never considered in turn based combat.

I am still working with godot, but the 4.3 update has impeded my progress. I was learning and working a lot with AStarGrid2D and procedural generation with noise textures but with the update and depreciation of the TileMap node, I am having to figure out how these work with the new TileMapLayers nodes.

I am super behind on keeping a lot of the site up to date, especially the shrines, so I will try to work on updating these as I get the motivation to ＞︿＜

- Sage

It's my birthday today! I always have some mixed feelings about it, especially as I get older and there is less to look forward to in the future. I know for a lot of people that their birthday is one of the best days of the year for them, but for me it forces me to think about my adpotion and turbulent family life.

Being adpoted is something that I struggle with daily, and will probably have to deal with for the rest of my life. I have wanted to talk about my experience of adoption, being an adoptee, but I never can find the right words and fear the retaliation from those who have adopted or have been looking to adopt.

My experience with being adopted has not been positive. I will probably do a longer write up of my experince of being an adoptee in the future (when I am ready) because I don't think that a lot of people who want to adopt (lgbtq+, infertile people, etc.) are aware of the effect of adoption, especially on the adoptee. This is partly because many adoptees with negative experiences are chased away from the adoption community. Adoptive parents/ prospective adoptive parents see it as a personal attack if you talk negatively about adoption, but I believe it is important for others to know the other side of the adoption, as it will impact the adoptee for the rest of their life (that's why I am still thinking about it on my birthday decades after).

There are many people who do want to adopt to help the children, and there are many children who want to be adopted, and I fully support them. I'm not advocating against adoption, but I am advocating for the awareness of the negative effects of adoption and how society treates adoptive parents and adoptees. Cute adopted babies turn into real people with their own thoughts and pains; some parents can't understand that.

- Sage

Hello! I haven't updated here in a while, things have definitely settled since my last update. So I had time to finally work on godot a little bit. Right now, my main problem in understanding how to work in godot stems from not really understanding how to structure and organize nodes and scripts within the program. But I am still trying to learn at least a little every week.

Recently I have been working with the AStarGrid2D node for pathfinding. I'm still trying to figure out how to make it do what I want, but at least I figured out point and click movement.

On another note, I *think* that zenless zone zero comes out today (I say think because I'm really bad with dates and times and I always get hype for things just to discover it's the wrong day). I'm honestly really excited and I really hope I can get ellen joe. shork girl grr

I need to update a good bit of my site, but I also have been playing dyson sphere program and it is actually kind of ruining my life because it's so addicting. When the game releases me, I'll get around to updating some shrines and probably adding one for zzz as well.

- Sage

Hello! In my last entry I said I would be updating less here to work on godot, but little did I know that life was going to happen. I had to go no contact with my parents, another family member just got diagnosed with cancer, and to top it all off, my drawing tablet broke. Let's just say that I haven't been able to work on making progress in godot cause I have been a little preoccupied.

Onto a lighter note, the one year anniversary for No. 5493 is coming up at the end of july! I honestly never would have thought that this site has been maintained for so long, cause my memory is pretty shit and I have a hard time remembering to do things routinely. I want to do something to celebrate, but I don't know what would be a good idea (maybe make a new free theme or something like that since that was something I wanted to do this year?)

I need to update my honkai shrine, and a new shrine will probably be added sometime in july depending on how much I like zzz. Also, thank you for 20k neocities page views!

- Sage

I think that I may be updating the site less frequently in the future (I just wanna say it now so people don't think I'm going inactive) because I have been making a lot of progress in Godot! Therefore a lot of my time is going to be focused on learning the engine and gdscript.

I have been working on small Godot projects from scratch, in order to reinforce a lot of the information from tutorials and guides. I'm at the point now where I can do basic things, but can troubleshoot it on my own instead of relying solely on tutorials. The one thing that I am somewhat struggling with is the math. I never learned calculus and never expected to do anything more than division in my adult life. So now it feels like I am trying to scrape up any remnants of math from the floor of my brain (×﹏×)

Here's a look at a small idle game that I have been working on! It's suppose to be about researching planets (haven't really fleshed that part out yet). I'm still trying to work on it so it's kinda broken but it's a start!

- Sage

Hello! I kinda feel bad that I haven't done a lot to my site in a while other than diary updates but I have been deliberating about something recently. I kinda want to change my site layout this year, but when I initially made this one I had so much motivation and creativity in my brain but right now I really do feel creatively drained. I also spent weeks making this one and I really do like it (maybe because I spent so long on it), but idk, let me know what you think!

I also started playing factorio, and I think I'm getting the hang of it. I definitely will have to start a new save in the future to make a better factory because I am running into issues with expanding. I'm also playing on peaceful because the enemies look too much like bugs for my intense fear of bugs.

Recently I've been thinking about food and how the older I get, the more food/dishes that I will never have ever again in my life. Especially since covid, there have been many restaurants that have shut down, or that I moved away from, that I won't get to have again. I definitely think that food is an important part of culture and life, and so it makes me sad that there are certain foods that I won't have ever again.

- Sage

Hello! I don't really have much of an update. I just haven't been feeling well a lot recently, so I haven't been doing much. I have been looking more into Godot, I made a (pretty bad) cat sprite along with some practice tiles just to see how they look and function within the engine.

I did one 10 pull for Archeron in HSR and I got her! I do one 10 pull on banners where I like the character but weren't planning on pulling, so if the gacha gods decide they should be with me then I have the chance to get them (this is how I got c1 Navia in genshin too). I really like Archeron's ult (I am a sucker for white haired anime characters with red color schemes, especially if they have red eyes).

Here is the cat sprite I made! The walking animation is wonky because I did it really quick with like no reference but it's still cute.

- Sage

Wah D: my shoulder has been acting up recently and causing a bit of pain. Unfortunately it is my dominant hand side, which means it hurts to do a lot of things. I have been struggling with it for maybe a year now, on and off, and it's just more annoying than anything. It tanks my mental because I can't use my arm if I don't want to make it worse and let it heal, but at the same time it prevents me from doing things I want to do like drawing which then makes me even sadder because I feel like I am losing a lot of the work that I have been putting into digital art over the past few years.

My godot progress has kinda stagnated recently. I want to start working on a small original project but I can't decide what to do. I feel like I would be more motivated if I worked on a project I am actually passionate about instead of creating clones of games/ following tutorials. But I am also wildly indecisive and it's really annoying because I know that it would be better to just start something instead of thinking about what to start, but my brain is actually broken and it is physically impossible for me to do that.

Hopefully things get better soon :')

- Sage

I started learning Godot a few days ago, and so far have made a pong clone as well as one simple level of a 2D platformer (I obviously used tutorials cause I don't know GDscript). However, I found a 12 hr tutorial on YT about Godot and I have been trying to synthesize the information. I feel like the engine is pretty intuititve, like the node system w parent/child hiearchy is pretty easy to pick up. But I don't even know how to approach GDscript because I didn't realize it is a lot of math and logic, both of which I haven't thought about since my freshman year of uni, where I also dropped a major due to how much I cried over logic.

Honestly at this point I think I just need to like absorb the information until it makes sense to me. That's kinda what I did to learn html/css, just kinda stewed in it until it clicked in my brain. I hope it gets easier because my brain might explode if it doesn't.

- Sage

Sorry for all of the very small updates to the site. Things in my life have been quite stressful. The family member who was in the hospital at the beginning of the year had to go back, along with other various stressful situations that have arisen since. I really wanted to spend a good portion of this year growing the site (not in reach but in content I have put on it) but life really finds a way to fuck up plans. However, I really am thankful for having this site as I am usually bad about finishing projects and this helps me feel like I am actually doing something in my life. So thank you for all who have left kind messages about my site ♡ It really means a lot to me because I have put a lot of time and energy into creating it.

I hope that this year that I can add some more free site themes to the site, as well as some more blog posts. I often get nervous to share the things I make with others due to severe imposter syndrome. I sometimes feel like even if I learn enough, there is always more to learn; therefore, I always feel like I am still a beginner no matter how much I spend learning (also because I am self-taught in most of the stuff I do bc of severe social anxiety). So I don't really have a frame of reference to compare my knowledge against others and their abilities.

- Sage

Sorry for the slow updates to the site! FFXIV has been taking over my life for the past couple of weeks.

I also don't really know what else to add to the site. I feel like if I made a new section that I would want to have a unique layout for it, but with a website that relies on fixed positioning, it takes a long time to get everything right. I want to have a place that is kind of half way between my blog and my diary, where I can just write out the random thoughts I have, but I don't even know what you would call that. I really like my current site layout, because I spend so much time on it, but I feel like a simpler layout would enable me to make changes and add new stuff easier.

- Sage

First update of 2024! Sorry it took so long for me to get around to it, but my life has been chaos recently. I had a family member go to the hospital on new years day, and they recently got out about a week ago. Luckily they are okay now, but it was a pretty stressful time for everyone.

I feel like I just now am beginning to recover from the holidays. My mental is pretty low because it was so draining. Sorry for not a lot of changes to the site recently, I still want to add a page/section for my neocities mutuals, as well as other cool sites that I find on neocities. Hopefully I can get around to that soon :3

- Sage

Ugh, the holiday season was really stressful and I am really glad it is over. I think I am going to need like a month to physically recover; it is so exhausting to have to pretend to be a normal person while dealing with unneccessary family drama. The drama got so bad that everyone decided separately on their own that next year they aren't going to celebrate with the family and go on a trip instead. However, knowing them, they'll all just end up at the same vacation spot anyways and end up indirectly spending the holidays with each other lol.

With the new year approaching, I have been thinking about things that I would like to achieve in the coming year. I usually don't set new years resolutions, as I have never really been able to set achievable goals. If I come up with any for the next year, I'll have to remember to record them somewhere on my site (in order to help keep me accountable).

- Sage

How is it already December?!? I feel like it was just June, but its almost 2024 now. I always get stressed out during the holidays, as I don't have too many fond memories of them. Growing up, I was always told that I was ruining the holidays, to the point where I think I've been told that I have ruined almost every holiday that exists lol. Even though I am away from that, I have a different problem now.

My partner's family is relatively close to one another, so now instead of just waking up and doing holidays, I now have to go to 3 different places to celebrate because all of them want to host. For a socially awkward, mentally ill, introvered neet, this uses up my entire social battery. Last year, I literally went to bed at 7pm because I was so exhausted. >_<

I've also been feeling really restless and scared most of the time now. I feel a lot of pressure to actually just start my life, but I think that I am too scared of failing at life, that I am just wasting away in a room. I feel like whatever I choose to do with my life is something that I have to succeed in to make up for the time I've wasted.

- Sage

I haven't been feeling the best recently; I have been sick for the past couple of weeks and have only now just started to feel better. My mental has kinda tanked, probably due to not feeling very well and also a lot of stress in my life.

On the brighter side, I have been playing some Oxgen not Included. It's like a civilization resource management kind of game, sort of like Rimworld, and it's been pretty fun. However, I only have played like 50 cycles because I always think of ways that I could have built my base better, so I start a new game instead of continuing to work on the same save.

I feel very lost in my life right now; my future is basically up in the air right now with no indication of when it is coming down. I feel guilty for not being able to do much in my current state, I feel like I am letting my partner down. I wish I could work on more things, but my brain feels like it is filled with sand most of the time.

- Sage

Its been 3 months since I started this site, and I am happy with the progress I have made with it. I honestly did not think that I would have remembered to maintain the website, but I did even better and even had a massive upgrade to the layout since it went live. If you're seeing this, thank you for stopping by! It makes me happy that some of you guys think that this site is cool :')

Recently, I feel like I have hit a wall in my progress in most of my interests/hobbies. I have been feeling pretty stagnant in my art for a while now, for coding, javascript is the next step for me (but it's really hard and makes me even more depressed than I already am). I want to start coming up with an idea for a visual novel or rpg maker game, something to occupy my time, but it's honestly really hard. I have been running really low on inspiration/motivation to work on any projects recently.

It's hard to not be depressed with everything happening in the world right now. I just hope things will get better soon.

- Sage

I have honestly been having a pretty shit time recently. One of my biggest fears has started to come true. A part of one of my tooth chipped off yesterday and honestly I am really scared. I have never had the best dental hygiene due to my depression making it really hard to take care of myself in general. I also don't have dental insurance anymore, so I can't really get it looked at or fixed because being a mentally ill NEET doesn't really pay well (or at all). I think it is really stupid that health insurance in the US doesn't include dental or vision, because I really need to see both.

I don't really feel in control of my life. I got a degree in something that scares me, I don't have the means to move, the only person who cares about me is my partner. I don't know what to do; I never learned what I liked, or what I wanted to do, as I was only ever told to get good grades, get into a good college, and get a corporate job. However, to me, that isn't the life I want for myself. If anything, getting a corporate job sounds like hell on earth to me. It sucks to live in a country where you need to have money in order to make more money, and if you can't make money you are seen as a morally bad person.

I haven't really been motivated to code since I released this site layout. Before changing to this layout, I spent a couple of months creating it so I had already added stuff that I didn't have in the old layout. I may have been a little too thorough, since I can't think of what else to add, since I am quite happy with how it turned out. I'll try to think of more things to add though, because I don't want to start getting rusty.

- Sage

Umm...So its October now. How is it already October?!?! I finished Baldur's Gate 3 a week ago; I really enjoyed it! I was hesitant to get it at first because I wasn't too sure about how much gore and stuff was going to be in it. It ended up being a little more gorey than I would usually go for, but I don't think it was used excessively and made sense within the context. I'm sad though because I wanted to romance Astarion but I fucked up the romance flags and didn't get to in the end ;-;

I have learned that I am pretty bad at creative writing. All throughout school, English/Literature class was always a subject that was easy for me. Academic writing was a breeze; in uni I would begin researching and writing papers within hours of the deadline. However, now that I want to write my own stories, it is incredibly difficult to even come up with an idea that I don't cringe at after sleeping on it for the night. Also, all of the ideas I come up with are basically the same one with different hats on, but it is so stuck in my brain that I am not capable of thinking of another.

In other news, K9 Kuro debuted! I haven't been able to watch any of his streams yet, but I am glad he is back. Ngl I was kinda (very) upset when his past incarnation graduated, so I am happy to see him come back.

- Sage

Recently I have been taking a break from coding after the new layout went live. I have been playing Baldur's Gate 3 for the past week or so, and I have been really enjoying it. I have been a little too obsessed with it, as I am currently in Act 3. Also, either I am just stupid or the combat is actually kinda hard because I am playing on easy and getting my shit kicked in ;-;

My insomnia has been really bad recently, leaving me sometimes with a couple of hours of sleep between 2-3 days. This in turn has led my mental to be pretty poor recently, with it being hard for me to find motivation to work on projects. I have been having to take breaks from art, as my shoulder is really messed up from drawing. This has led me to get rusty, and now when I draw, I tend to not be happy with the result.

I think that I currently am at the stage in my art journey where the knowledge I have is greater than my ability. Being in this part of the creative process really sucks, as I am able to discern all of the flaws in my work, but am unable to correct them. Even worse, I currently feel that I am recessing in my skill and ability, due to the breaks I have been having to take.

- Sage

I think that this layout is almost complete! All that's left is add some extra pages to the existing layouts. I feel like some of the pages also need some extra visual assets, but idk what I'm going to put there yet.

I've been losing motivation to code, and I think that is because I have a good understanding of html/css, or can at least figure out something that I want to do. The next step for me is to learn javascript. However, learning a whole new language is daunting, and I am having a harder time understanding js. When I was learning html/css, I had difficulty since it was the first code I had written in like a decade. However, once my brain understood what a div is, then everything else sort of fell into place.

It's not like I have to learn JS, but I would like to, as there are different things that I want to do that require me to. I would like to be able to write my own plugins for RPG Maker MV/MZ, as one day I would like to make my own RPG Maker game.

However, I have been introspectively thinking and have discovered that I may be a perfectionist, or just have a fear of failure and high standards for myself. I struggle with sharing the things that I make with others, as I don't want to present something to others that isn't up to my own standards.

I hate having my life ruled by fear. I think that my body is stuck in flight mode, to the point of becoming 引きこもり/ social recluse. I am scared of living a life that I will one day regret, so I just don't live at all, I just exist.

- Sage

I've been working on my new website layout for about two weeks now! My old layout is basically an iframe hell and I didn't customize it a ton. My new site has a lot of assets that I am making myself, and I have been learning a lot about positioning. I also have been learning grids, which I thought was going to be a lot harder than it actually is.

I really thought html/css was going to be a lot harder to learn, but I feel like after the fundamentals (learing what a tag is, basic structure, etc.) that it has gotten a lot easier to pick up things that use to be confusing. However...javascript D:

I slept for like 15 hours because I couldn't sleep and was up for around 32 hours. I hate that I have to basically run myself to exhaustion to be able to fall asleep, all because my brain decides to think about every bad thing that exists in the world when I try to.

- Sage