june 9th was my birthday. i turned 20! i had a good day and talked with my (online) friends, but theres been something weighing on my mind. i dont feel 20. at all. maybe 17 or 18 at the absolute most, but i feel like everything since the pandemic has been a blur that hasnt really happened. i hardly remember my first year of college, and that only ended a month ago.
it feels like everything past 2020 has been some weird kind of experiment and im the test dummy. i lost all my real life friends during that time, and i havent made any new ones to compensate. being indoors for a year wrecked my social skills and i havent recovered them yet. plus, i was never really a social butterfly. i never had very many friends to begin with. i cant tell if i feel lonely or not. i should feel isolated and alone, but really, this has become so normal for me that i dont find myself missing out on much. i have a very low tolerance for activity. i dont like going out with people- i never have. and as ive become older, that became the only real way to maintain relationships. would i like to feel drained all the time just to keep up with people that may or may not really care about me?
online is the only way i can socialize and not feel worse than i did before. i dont need to keep up eye contact or pay any real attention to who im talking to- hell, i can ditch halfway through and come back a day later, if i need to. theres no expectations. i hate expectations.
this was really just a dump of everything thats on my mind, but it felt good to get it off my chest.

i should preface this one by saying im not your mom, and im not talking about sites that provide a warning that this may hurt your eyes or cause seizures.
you can do whatever you want on neocities, but i feel like you should also be considerate to others. this is, of course, talking about sites i can only describe as "sensory overload simulators." like 37 fast-moving gifs with no way to turn them off other than inspect element or just closing the site and finding one that wont give you a headache. a flashing background. an unreadable font. blinding colors. please, for the love of god, tone it down a bit or at least put a WARNING.
the point of neocities is freedom- but at the same time, your freedom shouldnt come at the expense of other peoples eyes- and potential health. people with epilepsy and migraines exist, and your blinding "scenecore carrd XPPP" website is NOT more important than someones health.
i understand that not everybody (me) is good enough at css/html to create responsive websites, and ultimately some people will be left out because of that. but holy shit, it is NOT hard to add a splash page that says "flashing lights ahead!"
hell, this extends to any site that allows freedom with css- i have clicked on someones toyhouse profile only to be absolutely flashbanged with zero warning at least once.
uhh. rant over. just be kind to others, i guess.

this isn't going to be the most happy blog entry, so sorry about that... basically, college is kicking my ass. im a freshman right now, but im barely enjoying any of my classes. the art classes i should be enjoying are 3 fucking hours long. i cant sit through that! i have unmedicated adhd! all the medications ive tried either do nothing or give me extreme anxiety. its over.

and im too antisocial to enjoy the social aspects of college, either. im friends with my two roomates and one of my suitemates. and like, one other person. thats about it. how do you make friends? i dont get it. the idea of having friends is great, but the process of going out and making them is terrible. its just trying to mask my autism for days on end until i feel comfortable enough around them to stop it. and then they might decide im weird and leave. which i am.

bleh... i just needed to get this out there. will i be going back next year? who knows.

well, i didnt see that coming. we didnt get johto remakes, nor did we get unova remakes- LEGENDS KALOS, BABEEEY! admittedly, im not the greatest kalos fan, but thats mostly because those games are basically just plain white bread. there is nothing to like. there is nothing to dislike. at least they gave me delphox.
so, what are my hopes for this game? well, 1. i want to have an actually good kalos game. please. 2. i am COPING for some time travel shenanigans. from the trailer, it looks both futuristic and retro, so who even knows when its gonna take place. my idea? both. give hoopa an actual use. put lear from pokemon masters in there to appeal to me and me in particular.
my most deranged idea... i want blue in there. faller blue. come on man. hes technically a battle facility head, if they wanna keep up that theme. he went to kalos. he says bonjour. come on gamefreak. please. pleeaaase.
thats basically my thoughts on the game so far. i cant wait to see where this one goes, honestly!

as of late, ive been taking a break from twitter, my main social media. ive barely checked tumblr, either, and ive only been active on discord and neocities. its honestly done wonders for my mental health. i dont want to come across as one of those boomers who hates the modern internet and all it stands for, but my god, it can be toxic.

the culture on there is to dogpile or be dogpiled. im not immune to this culture, either- ive caught myself dogpiling on people and then going, wait a second, this person really doesnt deserve this. if you have a slightly out of the ordinary, completely harmless opinion, FUCK YOU, youre worthless and need to krill your shelf. i have seen this so much in the pokemon fandom. dont like a pokemon? fuck you, go to hell. like this pokemon? well fuck you too, still go to hell.

there are some cases in which i think dogpiling is justified, namely, if a person has done something horrible to someone else that needs to be known, like abuse or severe bullying. but i have seen callouts for the dumbest shit. i saw someone completely unironically post a callout on a bunch of 14 year olds for exposing them to an enstars character they dont like. its okay. youll survive having to look at the ugly anime boy. hes not real, he cant hurt you.

there are people who i genuinely think are horrible people, but i dont think that they should be dogpiled. not because i feel bad for them, but because you are exposing others to the content. if someone posts something genuinely horrific, people will quote retweet them with "le epic dunk!" and not understand that they are just exposing others to things they dont want to see. no, you are not funny with your "ratio" tweet, you are just being an asshole to anyone following you.

its an extremely, extremely toxic culture- and most of the people in it have been numbed to it so much that they cant see that. i was that person until recently- i thought that it was normal to be constantly upset over inconsequential things online. but as i went to college and didnt have enough time to use twitter, i realized, wait a second- twitter stinks! im leaving!

what people need to realize is that you can just ignore things. this doesnt mean to numb yourself to real world issues to the point where you dont care, i just mean that you dont need to qrt that random bigot with "ratio," because nobody wants to see that. you dont need to be so upset you are brought to tears by someone not liking your favorite scrimblo, you dont need to get into a debate with every proshipper you see online, you can just chill out and talk with your friends, signal boosting important things about the real world when necessary.

thats my twitter rant. peace out!