28/04/2026
Hallo hallo! After many years (a week) I return to this site, and I find it... eh, fine. Kinda boring, kinda interesting. The interesting thing to me is how, when casually scrolling, I don't really want to click on anything? Maybe because I already know what's there. It's honestly just fine? This irritates me because I'm a perfectionist, and thus everything I create must immediately 'wow' everybody, especially me. And if it doesn't serve as a shining monument to my ego, then it clearly isn't satisfactory.
Meh. Whatever.
Still, there's the same feeling when I'm browsing other neocities sites - or rather, when I'm not browsing them. Mostly because it's hard to get immediate satisfaction from the journey? The only real point would be as research: finding out who's doing what sort of thing, and how. That is interesting. Yeah... maybe because there's no feedback in and of itself, or even like, no way to bookmark it except within my browser.
Then again, is this a flaw? Does everything need to be satisfying in order to be perfect?
Wow! Overthinking it!
What I've Been Up To
God, how are we here? Money is a nightmare, the world's on fire. I'm getting into strength training and meal prep in between massive world events - how about you?
But anyway, I've been up to this and that recently. I've gone for a couple of walks. I've done some op-shopping, and picked up a few... interesting books. Mostly for fanfic research. I don't know why I'm more motivated to read a yellowing, ancient guide to architectural styles rather than one of the handful of new and well-recommended novels sitting on my shelf, but there you go.
I've also been chipping away at the Fallout fanfic! I've almost definitely worked it up into something big in my head, with the feeling that it needs to be Amazing in order to be good, so that's put up some roadblocks. Once again I need to stop caring, and stop overthinking, and just have fun with it.
But what if nobody likes it?
So long as I have fun writing it, that's what matters. I'm just really attached to the characters man...
You know what, here's some art as a teaser, since I'm doodling along as I go.
Once again not a hundo percent happy with it, but we're trying not to care.
You know what could be fun? Since I'm posting the fanfic on this site, I could take advantage of that somehow to... I don't know. Insert pictures, at least? But I really somehow wanna share my research somewhere, because it feels like I do nothing but research for these things. That, and editing. I swear, I definitely spend more time editing than I do writing/drawing.
That's an idea to test: what if I limit myself to only drawing, and first draft only? My instinct is to say 'but it won't be good enough'! And what I mean by that, is, it won't be amazing. Hrmm...
Well, given that it's the sort of thing I definitely don't want a lot of attention for, maybe that is good enough. It couldn't be more clearly 'just for me' if I'm not editing it for a perceived audience. Worth giving a try, I reckon! And if I really want to, nothing says I can't go back and edit later. I'm just starting from the assumption that I'm not going to, though. It's an option, not an assumption.
But argh, these are artificial rules I'm setting for myself! I'll feel pressured to follow them! Curses.
Well, I shall see if I do, and see if I don't, that's all I can say.
Okay, here's an idea. What about a 'fanfic research section'? And I'll post summaries and references from all the stuff I used for research, in a way that can let other people use it too. Like I bet I'm not the only one writing a fallout fic right now, right? A page with all my research on 'early Australian building styles and architecture' might be useful to somebody - just as an example. It also lets me off the hook for not posting chapters very often (although obviously fanfic is only something I do for free and for fun, it is a choice not a task).
I've noticed I'm also leery of reading other people's OC fics for Fallout. Is this just a me thing? I had assumed so, since I often avoid reading fics for fandoms I write for, just in case it skews my perception of the source material, or the vision of what I want to write in my head. I had assumed I would go read some when I finished my own. But now I'm not sure! It might give me a better idea of what I want if I can see other people doing it slightly differently. Ah! I know why I'm scared: I'm afraid they'll do it better.
Heh. Maybe all the more reason to do it imperfectly, so I don't intimidate other writers when they're chasing their passion. Fanfic shouldn't be polished - it should be passionate. I also do definitely want it to be amazing though.
It's also like, though, accuracy matters to me? Unfortunately? Like, I saw the other day, there was a novel that was just clearly FO4 fic with the barcode scraped off. 'Nick Something-Else, Robot detective'. And like, hell yeah, get that bag. But I don't wanna read that either! Because it's not accurate! I am insane in many small ways. At least it's only because my standards are high in general, not just for other people... but maybe the same solutions can apply. Can I choose not to care, that a fic may not be one hundo percent perfect? Stars and garters.
As soon as I do, though, my motivation for writing my own dims, because the same thing that makes my standards high, is because I'm not getting exactly what I want out of something already available. If I wanted to accept an imperfect story, maybe I'd just play the game again. Hell. I bet a lot of people do.
I reckon buy-in has a lot to do with it. You're bought into the game because it's your character, but also annoyed because it forces you into a certain character - so there's a desire to write your own, or in better games, document your progress.
I think I like it as a setting because of the nostalgia, both for the game and the climate. Like, I lived in a very hot and desert-like place for a bit growing up, and I've always been rural to some extent. It's a hard life, and I think it's fair to say I didn't like it at the time, but that I like it now because it was hard. Like when you want to figure out why a thing happened, or make sense of a situation to your satisfaction. I was a kid, too, so I had a lot of questions that never properly got answered. And since an intellectual answer doesn't mean much to me now, I think Fallout... and telling stories within that setting... could maybe help me work out an emotional one. Starting with, what are the questions I have? Because honestly I don't even know.
Maybe it's enough to say it happened, and describe how, and see how the characters react. Maybe that's all a story needs to be.
