Thinking a lot about an ex-friend of mine, I suppose the six month anniversary coming up might have brought it to the forefront of my mind. There was some miscommunication, not particularly helped by my instability at the time, that was never resolved, things that I could have refuted and salvaged the friendship with, things that I could have come back and sorted after I took time to collect myself, and this haunts me. I don't want them to despise me and swear off talking to me again for hating them and lying to them about my feelings, because that was never true. I'm really battling the urge to go and apologise - beg for the friendship back - but I know that I can't do this even if I wanted to. I hope one day the dust will settle and we can be normal again even if this is years down the line. I guess.
I miss that connection. Even if the romance can't work out I appreciated the friendship. I still do, I always will. I was more open and trusting than I was with anyone else. We grew close over four years in a key part of my life. It's hard to just let something like that go. Impossible to hate someone who was patient with me, someone I respected and enjoyed talking to, someone who willingly spent time bonding with me when nobody else did. Someone that, for a while, I genuinely believed I loved. I wish it wasn't completely ruined by my incompatibility with romance. I regret my schizoid behaviours in relationships horribly. Nothing I can do to change things other than leave them unblocked and... hope. Hope for something to change, hope to slip back into the friendly, familiar, routine, listen to some new music with them, play a round of a game. I doubt they look at my site, but maybe they'll read this.
I've been trying out some dating apps lately. It's going okay but I'm feeling pretty weird about it. I don't think I actually want this kind of thing. I don't like the format and the expectations, the way people local to me are extremely uninteresting with worldviews to match. I hate feeling like I'm being scrutinised superficially for being strange. I'm getting matches which is nice for my ego but the whole process is genuinely nauseating. It makes me feel guilty, almost, it's surfacing a lot of internalised shit about the 'aroallo man who plays with women's feelings to get off' stereotype. I'm not very assertive which doesn't help with making me feel like I'm being authentic, always putting on the act the other person expects of me because I'm butch. I wish there was another version of Grindr, the whole quick, semi-anonymous, hookup format, where I feel less... weirdly horny in a room full of 'I just want to find friends to frolic in a meadow with!' girls. Less cruel and heartless for not particularly wanting to befriend anyone beforehand. Generic hookup apps are just flooded with profiles like 'looking for our third!', 'I'm straight but my boyfriend wants to watch us experiment!' shit.
Another thing is, and I know this sounds ridiculous, as it became more of a realistic prospect the more conflicted I became. I felt like I was 'cheating', which is probably too extreme a descriptor for it, I guess moreso that I felt disgusted at the idea of being with anyone other than my wife at an intimate (emotionally or otherwise) level, being monogamous and all. I also don't feel particularly attracted to anyone else physically anymore it turns out. I didn't experience this kind of reaction before which is why I thought it would be a comfortable arrangement to take care of the side of my feelings that aren't isolated to fiction. I believe I would probably be okay if I essentially abstained from real relationships for the rest of my life, I could just find other ways to take care of the yearning. So maybe I'll duck out of the search for now and think about it.
There's something uniquely heart-wrenching about feeling such a deep and exclusive connection to someone you'll never get to meet or touch. It's worth it, I love her dearly, no matter if it would be more 'normal' and give me physical intimacy I will never see anyone the same way, never feel as sure and content, as I do with her. It's just certainly an dull ache in my chest I feel a lot lately. I'll figure it out.
Anyway, I ordered a camera as an early birthday present. It's a nice superzoom bridge camera that will help me take significantly better photographs when I'm out birdwatching! I've wanted to get into more professional photography for a while now, so I'm super excited.
I was at the zoo yesterday and I had a lot of fun! I didn't get to see the bongo, unfortunately, but I did get to see the forest buffalo, lowland anoa, southern cassowary, blue tree monitor, blue white-lipped pit viper, and bactrian camel, all some of my favourite species of all time, along with tons more. I loved it so much and I'd love to go more recently than my current routine of once every 13 years. lmfao. I got a pressed penny souvenir because one of the designs was a saola!! I was so taken aback by the fact that was even an option, the humble saola... one of my favourite creatures.
The downside was that it did not stop raining for the entire five hours I was there, I was completely soaked by the end of it. My binoculars have covers but I was taking the covers off and a torrent of water would pour out of them anyway. It wasn't too bad though, if anything it improved the experience as I was hanging around the tropical exhibits most. It was just... the wet season. They had several replica rainforest environments, both indoor and outdoors, where it was humid and full of plants native to rainforests around the world. I was thinking a lot while I was walking through these, looking at the free-flying birds (I had a Victoria crowned pigeon walk right next to me and that guy was HUGE), and I resonated even more with the ideas spoken about in the hearthome panel at the alterhuman convention. Even if the areas the zoo replicated weren't the exact geographic location my feelings are focused on, the Upper Guinean forests, I really just belong in a tropical forest.
In other news, I will be trying to renovate this site a bit over the next few days so expect some ongoing construction. I want to update all of my writing, improve the CSS, and take down defunct or crudely coded pages to redesign for the future. Make everything easier to navigate and improve where I can. I just want to create a nice canvas that's representative of current me, rather than me two years ago, to build on for the next year.
Haven't updated this in a while. Artfight has finished and I was really pleased with my work + what I received this year! I'm looking forward to next year already. Other than that... since the last time I updated, I've been recovering from the ensuing art burnout and going out on adventures. I went to the beach and hung out in the bird hide near the tern nesting site, finally saw an egret for the first time, played on the world's most ancient and least functional Dancing Stage EuroMix machine, started learning to sculpt in air-dry clay (badly), and I toured a cold war bunker to look at the decommissioned nuclear weapons. I got to watch one of my favourite films, The War Game, in the bunker cinema, which was cool.
Over the weekend I was at Othercon, an online alterhuman convention, which was an enjoyable event as always! I've attended the last three years and the panels are always enlightening. Maybe I'll host my own someday. The recordings get uploaded onto YouTube if you want to scroll through past topics! This year I took notes so I will have something concrete to refer back to. It's inspiring me to go through all of my essays and consider the topics once more, rewrite and update things to reflect my current knowledge, especially since we're approaching the two year anniversary of my first essay on here. I also desperately need to post thinkpieces more regularly on the Fictionkind Dreamwidth and break my track record of... once a year.
I've been getting really into the deathcore band Whitechapel, mostly their newer albums because I love the prog twist they have but their early stuff is neat too. In their recent iteration they're kind of like if Opeth were a metalcore band. I put Hickory Creek as my rec on the homepage here because I've been looping it for days, but I'm also vibing really hard with Anticure.
I should be going to the zoo sometime this week as an early birthday trip. I'm really excited to visit! I haven't been to a zoo for fun rather than for college work in a decade. They have a lot of species that deeply mean something to me, like the lowland anoa, bongo, okapi, and forest buffalo. I hope I get to see them.
Been focusing a lot on Artfight this past week. I've drawn a lot and have finally gotten through my priority list along with a mass attack of donkey characters. This year I've doubled my points of all previous years combined and have managed to graduate from bust portraits to fullbody scenes. I'm very proud of that. All I have left to do is revenges, which I have a lot of time left to complete.
Yesterday I bought a bass guitar and amp from a charity shop for very cheap. Neither is a well-known or quality brand but it's a really nice start. Though, I spent about an hour trying to follow lessons, realised I don't have a USB cable to get Rocksmith to work, and then got bored and started trying to record weird sounds from the bass with the amp to make into a harsh noise track on Audacity. It's one way to make use of them.
And finally, been deliberating on how batshit insane I've become about fictionkin doubles. I think avoiding both fictionkin and fandom spaces has made me even more neurotic. It just comes from insecurity, probably. I recall in my (remarkably short-lived) relationship earlier in the year my girlfriend saw me as my fictotypes: she called me by their names as well as drew me as them and that was the most comfortable I've ever felt. Now that's gone I'm back to being a high-strung dog snapping at my mirror reflection. I do need to find a fictionkin space where I can be genuinely seen as myself but one without 'competition', although those spaces tend to either be the 'IRL' ones that are full of teens misconstruing delusions or they tend to be extremely aggressive towards doubles directly. I don't ever want to become a 'fakers kys' gorespammer guy.
I had my first appointment with the gender clinic earlier this week :] it went pretty well! I was stressed out of my mind about it but I felt much better afterwards. It was just an hour discussion about my life and my gender, my mental health and my relationships as well as what I wanted from the clinic. I don't think I've ever talked about myself in this much detail in-person in my entire life. I will need a second appointment before I get a diagnosis and referral to an endocrinologist, the estimated wait is about 12 months. Which sucks, but at least its on the horizon instead of my original waiting list limbo where I didn't even know if I was on it.
And regarding the name change, I spoke to my mother again and set out as clearly as possible how it made me feel and set an ultimatum so now she's finally making an effort. So is my dad, my brother, and my grandma. It's a strange feeling to hear my name spoken all the time now, but strange in a very nice way.
In other news, I've been preparing for Artfight and made myself a new fursona. A donkey hybrid that's more based on me right now than the heavy kin references my other sonas have. I've also started playing a new rhythm game: Paradiddle which I play on PCVR. I'm taking to it very fast, I've always wanted to learn the drums but both expense and neighbours stopped me from taking it up. I'm having a lot more fun compared to things like Guitar Hero, which I also play, because my poor fine coordination skills made it take a whole year to jump from easy (three buttons) to medium (four buttons).
I also saw a weevil for the first time (that I was aware of) while gardening! I took a photo of it which I'll probably put in my gallery page later.
I changed my name legally at the weekend, met up with two friends who finalised the paperwork for me. I'm glad to finally make the step. I'm now in the process of changing all my documentation and records to match my new name and sex. Takes a lot of work to change your whole identity...
I organised my first appointment with the GIC for next week, over a video call. I won't be diagnosed or referred for anything until my second appointment, which will happen a year later, this is just a chat to get to know me and my history, but it's good to get the ball rolling. I'm hopeful for the first time in a while. I've made a promise to myself that I will seek employment and finally be able to live a more normal adult life once the hormone therapy takes effect. Being in my twenties without hitting the 'right' puberty has stunted me and wrecked my confidence in interacting with peers in-person, at least as an adolescent it was normal to look ambiguous.
Though, it does bother me that despite reassurances about trying, literally nothing has changed in regards to my family. They still call me by my birthname and refer to me by my assigned gender. I've been patient with them for years and yet nothing changes. The goalposts move every time I reach them. I don't know what it has to take to get them to see me any other way. It's pretty disheartening. At least I've gotten back in contact with my friends, anyhow, so I'm not entirely without support.
It was nice to talk to people again. I'd isolated myself for way over a year. I'm aware of a local queer pub now, which I might visit with them sometime to rejoin the real world.
Yesterday I saw the first Matrix film at a 25th anniversary special screening at the cinema. It was really fun to see it on the big screen, and especially nice to listen to the soundtrack that was so influential to me! I love these special screenings a lot, I never actually realised they existed until a few years ago when I was invited to see the 20th anniversary of Saving Private Ryan with one of my friends. Now I check the list of films for cool ones all the time. I'm hoping to catch Saw or Fight Club later in the year. I think the cinema experience is a lot different to what I can get at home so I don't mind paying to see these older films I've already seen, and I think it's nice to get to watch something decades after it was released. These reshowings also tend to be much cheaper and attract less of an audience due to them being more obscure on the cinema's site.
Also, after three years of waiting I finally recieved my letter for my first appointment at a gender identity clinic today out of the blue. Honestly quicker than expected... I believed they'd just forgotten me. NHS waiting list moment. I'm very happy though! I feel much less lost and sad now that medical transition is in the cards for me. I just hope I can get through the appointments without being discharged for some bullshit reasons relating to the latest culture war. I've wanted to transition for a very long time (actually started the process once before, but at 14 where they couldn't offer anything more than a chat. I will be in adult services this time) and I know I will be truly happy once I do. I hope it can happen. I've sent off an email accepting the invitation to a first appointment so I hope I can get some concrete dates soon.
I've been going purely by my name for years (we don't have many instances on where legal names have to be used) but I'm trying to get some people to finalise my name-change paperwork so I can get my details altered in time for my first appointment, but only gotten one volunteer so far. It should be fine with just one but ideally I needed two. What I get for only having the contact details of four people.
With my retreat from using social media and spending my time in isolation instead I've gotten quite into Freeview television. Especially the movie channels. It adds some spontaneity to my days and gives me an external event to look forward to. I watched Apocalypse Now for the first time [last night] and as I type this, I'm passively watching the following Making Of documentary.
I enjoyed it quite a lot and it's probably one of the top war films I've ever seen. It was very poignant and unique and the visuals were beyond amazing - it also didn't overstay its welcome and although I was watching the much longer cut, it didn't drag. I realised quite early into the film that one of my favourite electronic albums, Unsound Methods by Recoil (please listen to Recoil...), references this film quite heavily - in the title itself, too, in fact. There's this track, Incubus, one of my top songs, which is almost entirely quotes from it. This new familiarity definitely added some extra layers of appreciation to both things.
Anyway, I do enjoy the fantasy of being completely alone without any connections, of cutting the cords to all my devices and going old-school, getting my 'media-consumption' from aerial television, physical media, newspapers, and radio. Safely hidden away from the eyes of everyone else. I appreciate the internet too much to do it for real, and I guess having no IRL connections to replace the void would make me go more insane than I already am... my website is important for me to manage as well, and I know my desire for this is less of a genuine desire and more of a reflection of wanting to avoid the embarrassment and distance I feel in social groups. I suppose I can kind of get there in the closest sense with what I'm doing right now: I use and enjoy all of these formats, plus most technologically-connected people these days aren't nearly as Disconnected as I, given that the closest thing to an outgoing line to the world I have is an obscure Neocities site. So, in a way I am still living in a cabin in the digital wilderness.
As a final update, I started a SoulSilver randomiser the other day! I'm currently about halfway through the game. I completed a randomiser of Black earlier in the year and I found I really, really enjoyed it. It adds some excitement and challenge to the games I've played a million times since childhood. I'll probably share my hall of fame team on the blog when I've finished.
I've been thinking about AI art after coming across a Pinterest user who had amassed several thousand followers purely from posting their AI-generated art which they somehow claimed ownership of. Every piece was so visually perfect, aesthetically themed, and categorised by simple prompt-lists... perfect to look at, but at closer inspection was clearly inhuman and devoid of substance beyond being nice to put on a Pinterest board, it became unsettling for this very reason. Made me think of 'AI can't make ugly people' but for art.
AI being used by non-artists to generate something pretty to post for followers instead of commissioning someone or learning the skills does reflect this shift to impersonal, immediate, effortless 'consumption of content/media' (I viscerally dislike this phrase) instead of connecting with works of art through its creator, background, and meaning. Links with the way that young artists and artists with styles that aren't commercially viable are snubbed and insulted for not providing TikTok-worthy perfection. I wonder how many beginners have given up because their skills can't match up to the AI-generation their peers are basing their values on.
It's the same with making AI 'finish' other people's fanfictions, or making things with the AI voices of actors or singers: the artist themself is disregarded in the scraping process that builds itself off their backs and by the individuals who feed the prompts to get more art to look at. The selfish consumer ego. I'm not even militantly against AI art, I wish for it to be regulated and used ethically in similar ways to photobashing unlike the environmentally-damaging pillaging free-for-all it is right now. It's the context it evolved in that I dislike. The way it's used is born from the entitled 'I want more content at all times and I have no patience or respect for artists' mindset that social media and streaming services validate.
I got six Pokémon films, Bolt, and Zootropolis DVDs at a charity shop today for under £5. I've reached exactly 75 DVDs in my collection with these; I catalogue them on RYM if you want to peek (I only buy things I find in person with cash so I lack a lot of interesting ones. Sadly). It's truly the best time to start collecting DVDs and CDs since their prices have plummeted to the point where I see them given away for free sometimes - you can build a sizeable collection with very little cost compared to how it was in their heyday, the only downside is the 20+ year old discs are beginning to decay from age and might not play as smoothly. The optical disc as a format will never die while I'm around though... I really love physical media, and I love cinemas too, it's sad to see them phased out for streaming. When I got my PC earlier this year there was only one case design that included a disc drive, even though to me this is an essential feature. Maybe I'll watch Bolt tonight (or tomorrow, I'm already falling asleep at my desk), it's been over a decade since I was obsessed with it. This dog is Literally Me as the cool kids say.
I also thrifted a framed print of Golden Pheasant in the Snow by Itō Jakuchū, which I have put on my wall above my desk. Golden pheasants are one of my favourite birds, as are most galliformes, I've had the pleasure of working with some in a zoo aviary and they are beautiful creatures. I don't actually collect art, surprisingly, this is my first piece that isn't just... IKEA art, but I really should start. It would be nice to create a wall of art pieces that I find inspiring for my own work.
My sleep has been really disrupted lately. I've been awake all night and all day today, so I'm very tired. I spend too long awake at night, I'm always awake until the sun has risen and the birds are singing outside, and then I pass out all day and miss out on things. I have medication that makes me drowsy in an attempt to stop this, but the drowsiness is just a suggestion and doesn't knock me out, which would have been more effective on someone as stubborn as me. I wish I could sleep beside my wife at night... it would ease me to have her to focus on.
Today I left my cave to rejoin society. I went to an antiques emporium that also had some eclectic independent shops, including a collectibles shop which stocked various stamps, coins, and banknotes. I bought my first stamps :] Some assorted bird-themed stamps from around the world and a pack of stamps from Liberia, both are secondhand pages from others' collections. I vigorously rummaged through every single world stamps box until I found the only Liberian set; I think everyone should gain an interest in an obscure country so you can feel unbridled joy over just finding some stamps from it in the wild. Sometime soon I will pick out the coolest ones and I will scan them to put on the site!
I started this journal today. I don't know how often I'll update or what I'll talk about here, but it will probably help me find an excuse to write down more longform material that doesn't make the cut for Vent.
I stopped using Tumblr just over a week ago. It got to a point where I was doomscrolling and becoming irritated and self-loathing frequently and at that point you have to put a stop to it. I've blacklisted it on all my browsers, like you do for a child. There is something I despise about Tumblr culture these days: the userbase touts it as the 'autism website' but most of these users are the type of autistic that has never had to work through ableist values, doesn't think they have to, and are therefore vile about those who are disabled in a different way to them. This accounts for pretty much anyone who isn't a former gifted kid who self-diagnosed autism in their twenties. Unsurprising that the top reasons one is insulted on this site are related to sex life, social skills, food aversion, employment status, and... the club... or whatever - it seems more embarassing to derive superiority over these things, honestly. I have a not-serious theory that over lockdown, normal, functioning, people spent longer periods of time on the internet and never left, gentrifying the habitat us freaks thrived in beforehand. Or maybe the updates that made post tags universal took away the horse blinders I used the site with.
There is something to be said about how the internet treats mental illness these days. I think over the past... five or ten years, mental health awareness and promotion of therapy for everyone has somehow done nothing to reduce stigma for mental health struggles beyond a certain acceptable trope. You have this fiercely individualistic form of recovery dominating the forum where your recovery has to be done completely alone (except for a paid therapist), not impede your life long-term or severely, not inconvenience anybody, and it's immature/immoral to seek communal support, aid, or favours. If your most stable self relies on care from others, this is a crutch preventing real recovery. Even if you are doing just fine. The saddest views I've ever heard were written in the form of therapeutic speak. I do wonder, how many of these people taking up therapy and acknowledging their depression, are people who - if we were here but ten years ago - would turn their nose up at the thought of having a mental health problem. Being in therapy has simply given these people new phrasings and terminology and an egocentric view that blames those with more complex issues for not trying hard enough. Hating the profoundly mentally ill and finding them bothersome or scary has turned into cutting off people or brushing them aside because it's detrimental to your healing journey. Anyone who wants a close friendship involving sharing emotional burden is a narcissist leeching your empath energies. Going off your medication (usually antidepressants, but they never say this) to 'find yourself' is a popular trend, despite being a very dangerous thing to promote so vaguely. I don't know. I find it more cruel to give mentally ill people, already at risk of social isolation, bricks and mortar to build their walls higher, and make superficial relationships and picket-fence isolation the moral path, than it would be to believe nobody should have to survive the world alone.
In other news, I'm putting together an art commissions page. Once Artfight is over I'll have a better range of recent art to use as examples, and then I'll open them up. I'm not sure how popular I'll be or how fairly I'm pricing myself, but I'll figure all this out in time. I've very rarely taken commissions that weren't extremely reduced ones for friends... I feel very guilty about charging the average person money. I wish it were easier to barter instead: your most prized dairy goat for a furry portrait.