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It took long enough to nail everything down, but I think I’m finally done with my new avatar. Working on this was quite the learning experience!

WIP1: This was kind of the mockup stage. I knew the general shape I wanted, but I had no idea what specific colors to use, how to highlight the W effectively, whether the outline would work, etc.

WIP2: I changed the outline to a shadowy effect - I wanted it to look like a window into another world. This didn’t pan out so well, so I removed it in future iterations. Tried to refine the colors a bit more, but I still couldn’t figure them out.

WIP3: It was about this time that I realized I was basically going for a Material Design look, so I researched Google’s design documentation and a few tutorials on getting the shadows and colors to look right. 

WIP4: Decided to redo the geometry from scratch - some of the objects didn’t appear to be lined up quite right. I made it slightly smaller so that it could be comfortably resized to 100px. A friend suggested that the purple was too bright, so I toned it down to match the blues more closely. I also reduced the shadows because they were jumping out at me too much.

Final: I wanted the shadows to only draw along the W, so I redid the geometry again to add some shadow masks underneath the shapes. I also changed the cyan to be more blue than green, while still keeping it the same kind of relatively bright color. The results speak for themselves!

It's time for a report on something nobody asked about but maybe someone kind of wondered: playing Mari0 with the Nintendo Switch's Joy-Cons! (insert ® and ™ as needed)

For the unaware, the new controllers for the Switch are PC-compatible out of the box, no need for drivers. You just connect them via Bluetooth and they're good to go without any other setup. They interface through DirectInput, which is an older standard, so they don't work with every game. However, Löve2D recognizes DirectInput, so they work in Mari0!

Mostly. …Kind of.

The first setup I thought to try was to put the Joy-Cons together as one standard controller, and play with two sticks. Even though they're technically recognized as two separate controllers, there's nothing stopping one player from using two controller inputs. Curiously, though, the control sticks are recognized as "hats" (like a d-pad) rather than axes, and Mari0 only recognizes axes for aiming the portal gun.

This screenshot was unfortunately not taken with the new capture button.

In other words, this idea was pretty short-lived. You can play like this if you have a platforming-centric mappack (read: doesn't use the portal gun at all), but it's not exactly the best experience out there - especially since, in my testing, the right Joy-Con often had input lag of up to half a second. It was pretty excruciating to say the least, although that's probably just my Bluetooth driver not playing nice. (It's kinda amusing, though, since everyone else is having problems with their left Joy-Con.) If you're just going to platform, using just one on its side is your best bet. This still leaves us with one other option, however: one Joy-Con in one hand, and the mouse in the other.

This picture, on the other hand, was taken with the capture button. The one on my phone.

The problem with playing like this, however, is the button layout. There's not really a comfortable way to map even just run and jump. You could use SL and SR (the side shoulder buttons), but those are hard to press when holding it like this. You could use L and ZL (the back shoulder buttons), which works pretty decently; however, you have to hold the controller in a claw grip, which I can't imagine doing for more than five minutes - and I have small hands! You could press the stick for one of them, but that's hard to do when you're constantly moving it. Any other buttons require removing your thumb from the control stick, which is no bueno for platforming controls. And just imagine a left-hander trying to play with the right Joy-Con! In sum, it works, but with plenty of caveats. Final verdict: 2/10, just wait until Super Mario Maker: We Finally Added Slopes Edition comes out.

The Missing Sketchbook

I finally found one of my missing sketchbooks last night! Naturally, my first instinct was to take pictures and post it online, lol. It's around ten years old, so I've forgotten about nearly everything that's in here – this is a big deal for me!

This is the first page??? I don't remember the context of this sketch, whether it was by reference or whatever – but I definitely don't remember ever drawing anything this complex. The fact that I even attempted it kinda blows my mind 🐲

Holy frick it's a redraw of a super old Kirby puzzle I made... Every row, column, and diagonal has something in common – can you figure them all out? (Probably not, some of the answers are really obscure details that I could never quite capture.)

Once again, I have no memory of ever drawing something this complex, but my inner 14-year-old's heart is fluttering with excitement. The Mario vs. Donkey Kong series was my first time really sinking my teeth into level design! But that's a story for another day...

Mini golf courses! These are fairly simple, but I was always fascinated by the design and gimmicks of a particular one I went to as a kid. There's a bunch more of these in the other sketchbook I'm missing, including one with a waterfall!

WAIT WHAT??? ANOTHER BIG PAGE????? And it has a bunch of redraws from the original AAAAAAAA

Okay, okay, before I get carried away, the Big Page was something I did in my first sketchbook where I would fill in a bunch of boxes with little Kirby scenes!

Here's what the original (four or so years prior) looked like – much bigger page, but much, MUCH smaller boxes, lol. I remember it being so hard to draw that small, looks like I corrected that mistake in the newer one. Maybe I should do this again sometime...

Wait? Wisps?? Sonic Colors???

counts out the years on my hands

Yeah I guess that adds up, doesn't it...

I did a lot of perspective drawings in this particular sketchbook – it was kind of a natural extension of the mazes I drew in my graph paper notebooks (which I always did way more of than sketches).

This one was a test for the next two...

SPACE! This scene was inspired by the later levels of Thruspace, which I can't seem to find screenshots of. I really loved how the walls open up as you go, and you start seeing more outside the tunnel.

I hope I can stream Thruspace one day, it's still near and dear to my heart.

This sketch helped me map out the image on the right – one of my first pieces of digital art! I'm still really proud of the concept behind it. No two pixels touch orthogonally... although one's missing from the digital version, whoops!

This was for Mario's 25th, ten years ago.

Here's some Mario items and enemies, to practice shading with just a pencil. Honestly, it wasn't "practice" at all – I just thought they looked cool like this, and I wanted to try it out in different ways. Whether it looked right didn't matter as much.

I really miss that mindset…

Some more assorted sketches:

A few Chao in various shapes and sizes. They sure are a diverse little species, aren't they?

A Zelda dungeon room – I don't remember how it works. I just remember wishing I could make whole dungeons! (Still do, honestly.)

Finally, here's the wackiest one of all: A concept for a rotating game system! Each of the four colored sections has a control stick, two buttons, and a "paddle" at the bottom (the colored-in part). There's also an accelerometer, so you could rotate it and play from any section!

One game might ask you to put one hand on either side, like a regular controller. Another might ask you to hold it from the bottom, like a Game Boy… but four people could hold it and play like that all at once! It's a little like the Switch's multiplayer, but pre-dated by nearly ten years!

I didn't really come up with any games for it, though – and in hindsight, I think it may be a little *too* out there for anything much more than the obvious:

A Platformer But With Gravity

Steering Wheel

WarioWare: Twisted

But I'm just amazed I came up with this at all.

———

Anyway, that's mostly it! This is a tiny sketchbook with 24 pages, and I've shown all the big stuff.

Drawing was usually a way for me to express ideas rather than practice quality, but I'm surprised by how much I tried to push my limits here – only to completely forget it all.

This was the last sketchbook I kept up with regularly, before being overtaken by "I can't draw, all my drawings suck" for several years... right as I had just started looking at quality on my own terms. Luckily, I'm starting to catch up again lately ✨

I'm still missing one other sketchbook in between this one and my first, but it might be lost to time – I knew this one was buried in a box somewhere, but the other had been missing for much longer. If I find it, we'll do this again!

In the meantime, back to drawing.

wow look at all of this repressed stuff in my brain!! there's like a whole person in here!!! i gotta dig this up and start using it ok how do i express these things like other people do

...................................uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

i'm pretty sure that both my struggle to express myself and the fact that all of this stuff is repressed to begin with stem from the same issue, which is one of complete alienation

it's a little hard to explain, so strap in...

i have a very small and tight-knit circle of interests, mostly guided by one Special Interest:

✨ Video Games ✨

and surprise surprise, most people in my life are not into those things. nobody's ever bullied me for it, or anything, but nobody knew how to support it either.

i was homeschooled so i didn't get to hang out with other kids my age very much. most of them were into other things like sports, and i had no connection there. besides, they already had friends from school. once i turned ten i stopped trying to make friends myself.

the few friends i had who *were* into video games were either church friends or family friends, and lived far enough away that we had to drive there. which would happen when my parents wanted to meet up with theirs, not when i did.

so i got to see them like once a month, maybe.

that means most of my time was spent with adults… who have better things to do than listen to some kid babble about nonsense they don't understand, like games.

i actually used to autism spout, if you can believe that. most of it was met with some variant of "that's nice, dear"

so i learned to just… accept that nothing i had to say was important. that everyone else had more important things to talk about. that i was supposed to sit in my corner and wait for someone to reach out to me first out of pity. that i would be left out most of the time.

it seems silly for that to happen over video games, but remember: i have autism, and that's my special interest. it's all i have to express myself with. i didn't learn much else!

i did figure out how to express myself creatively, but honestly... that just added to the loneliness.

and trust me, i know people are allowed to have other interests and that sometimes i should just stop and listen.

in fact i would usually say i'm proud of my listening and observation skills,

except i am now 25 and still feel like i haven't really had my turn to speak?

truthfully, as an adult, i've had a few chances. but at this point it's not even alienation anymore, it's repression from being made to feel Unimportant. every chance i've had to lead the conversation, or come up with a topic… i don't say it. because who cares other than me?

and when someone else is already talking about other things, i just go into Listening Mode, because i have nothing to contribute. unsurprisingly, that is still most of the time. most other people have diverse interests, or they talk about other people that i don't know, etc.

so i sit there with nothing to say. while they have everything to say. because they know how to express themselves, and i never got the chance to figure out.

and this happens every time.

i can be at the same table as ten people who i call close friends and still feel completely alone, simply because they are all chatting about or doing something that i have nothing to contribute to. (that's not an exaggeration. this has happened. several times.)

and it's not just talking! i can be with a friend, who invited me there, playing video games together, and still feel like i am wasting their time that they could be spending doing more important or fulfilling things that they would probably like better!!

i don't get it!!!

the most i've ever gotten to express myself through my interests without feeling alienated for it… is here. social media. and y'all know this isn't the healthiest way for me to go about it.

but at least it's better than those empty pity interactions. ("so how's work going?")

anyway i realize i've focused a lot on "talking" and "video games" in this post but please know that the general sense of alienation and chronic loneliness is pervasive and affects a lot more than just those things. this is just the most direct way that i know to illustrate it

and even then, there's a whole lot more that i've repressed for so long. this is just the one that i'm the most familiar with, as i dig down into this huge mess of other things that i had no idea existed

it's a lot. there's so much. it's gonna take time to work through it all.

it is weird to have effectively come out a second time and only now start having such realizations as "oh i do get to have gender euphoria" and "oh i am trans after all"

calling myself nonbinary was an escape from who i am not. calling myself genderfluid is an embrace of who i am.

it is weird to have effectively come out a second time and only now start having such realizations as "oh i do get to have gender euphoria" and "oh i am trans after all"

my animal crossing oc, Rivers, may be her own character instead of a self-insert, but there was a brief moment where she almost wasn't… and it completely smashed my understanding of my gender identity

i started playing new horizons as myself, much like i did with new leaf. thing is, this was a very boring way to play AC, because i didn't click with the majority of clothing options, and mostly stuck to jeans and hoodies

(i also do this IRL, which is usually a yellow flag regarding gender…)

more importantly, this also extended to hairstyles. i didn't like any of the male styles at the beginning of the game, and wrote off the female styles as "not for me." so i went with the one i disliked the least, hoping there would be more options later.

and there are! after a few days, a magazine shows up that unlocks more hairstyles and colors. unsurprisingly, i still didn't like any of them. the only thing i could decide on was blue hair, but even that didn't feel right for some reason…

i started messing with the female hairstyles, just to try everything, make sure i wasn't missing something that might work. i still didn't click with them…

until this one appeared. and i froze up.

i don't really know how to describe everything that went through my head all at once.

"i like that one!" "that's not me." "it's cute!" "it's WRONG." "it COULD be right…" "…but i'm so scared." "…but it's so nice…"

"…why am i having such a hard time with this?!"

keep in mind: this was before she was Rivers. this was me deciding for myself.

and after an exhausting few minutes of chasing myself around… i finally managed to hit the A button. just to try it out for a bit. i could always change it back, after all.

i didn't change it back.

and for a little while… this was me! not just a character to project onto, but me.

in fact, Rivers only came into her own a few days later, after i was a little more disconnected from the idea of being a girl. (i am genderFLUID, after all!)

i wanted to try the same thing again with clothes, but i still had the same issue where nothing really clicked with me. at a certain point i just started trying on whatever might look cute on her, and that's when Rivers really became her own character.

in any case… i will always remember that moment of frozen hesitation, of hard self-examination, of asking difficult questions, for being the moment that put the biggest chip in my shell.

Thank you, Animal Crossing, for bringing me one step closer to finding my truest self.

we all know adhd leads to forgetfulness, but here's some especially insidious ways that this wears on me:

i forget about things that i'm looking forward to, like games, events, or days off – so my future looks bleak, boring, distant, and joyless, as though every day is just going to be another day of Work and Not Much Else.

i forget about my own burnout and how little energy i have – then i push myself too hard and collapse almost instantly, over and over again. then i guilt myself about being so tired all the time!

i forget about my own accomplishments, no matter how big or small – leading to a strong sense of imposter syndrome and even worthlessness. digital projects hidden in folders away from sight, physical works fading into background noise on a shelf somewhere…

i even forget my own emotional state, and the events that lead up to it – meaning i usually end up internalizing all my feelings, bottling them away for years without ever acknowledging or processing them, simply because i forgot they were there!

my world consists entirely of what's in front of me right now, and what's on my mind right now. even then, i don't even have my whole present, much less any of my past or future.

i'm just doing my best with what i have, in the moment.

Long Desk

with a little help from twitter, i decided to get some upgrades for my streaming setup! easier streams lead to more streams, after all ✨ so i got myself a new monitor and a new router so i can stream from my room again. but the biggest upgrade by far:

how it started vs. how it's going, Long Desk edition

look at how much more space there is now!! this is literally exactly the same model of desk i've had for nearly a decade, except twice as long. thus: Long Desk.

i've always liked these cube shelves, so i made them part of the desk setup.

what used to be a completely separate entertainment center setup that i had to fumble around with every time i wanted to stream, is now a dedicated streaming/recording setup that cleanly extends my existing digital workspace – ready to go live at any time!

definitely not hinting at any future drawings here...

but far more exciting imo is that the whole other half of the desk is a dedicated PHYSICAL workspace, something i've never had before! i'm hoping this will encourage me to experiment and sketch more often, as well as practice drawing in a much more focused environment.

all i have to do to change my focus is switch the chair from one side to the other, and all the tools i need are already there – no more having to get Set Up, do stuff from my bed, clean up clutter gathered from a thousand different hobbies… less friction, more creating!

Long Desk

it's been about a year since i started taking a vitamin D supplement regularly, and while it's no silver bullet, it does still clear out a significant chunk of brain fog!

of course, i literally never go outside so that should've been expected, but… i nearly didn't start at all

so many people over the years told me that i should just "go outside, exercise, get some vitamin D"… it made me so resentful. it sounded like people were blaming all of my mental health issues on lifestyle choices.

and yet, despite knowing better, i still internalized all of it

for a while i tried to convince myself to just go outside and take a walk… it never helped, but i always figured i just wasn't doing it enough. if i just tried it more, maybe it wouldn't be so overwhelming for my autism.

if i could practice, make a habit, stop being so lazy…

it's telling that i thought taking a vitamin D pill would be "giving up." never going outside again, resigning myself to a sedentary life where i wasn't "truly" taking care of my health.

well guess what: i'm glad i "gave up," because it's helped a lot. ☀️

interesting gender things i'm noticing lately that i'm maybe not totally able to put into words but i'll do my best:

i'm determined to stick with any pronouns atm, but i like she/her a lot lot LOT every time i hear it, even in "guy mode." i figured this would happen hehe~

the more i express myself as genderfluid/cat/etc, the less Other i feel, which is extremely good since my Otherness was always rooted in alienation and repression (which i knew from the start)

anything left of my Other is now just Cat. don't ask how that happened cause idk

i'm still fine with people calling me Will, but i'm more than happy to retire WillWare. i have no idea why! i expected to be more attached to it than that… it's not because i'm ashamed of my legacy though, that's for sure. in fact i'm still working to carry that with me

now that i'm counting out everything that happened this year… what the literal shucks was 2020??? even for there being a pandemic and having to stay indoors, this is still the most high-velocity year i can remember since college – but, unlike college, not all of it was bad.

granted, the first half of the year was pretty bad – my grandmother passed away, working from home was a rocky transition, even nearly got kicked out (that's a story for another time). yet somehow i made a ton of levels, poured my heart into Rivers, and built Cartridge Tilt.

meanwhile the second half was like restful discovery: forging an important new friendship-turned-relationship, coming out as genderfluid AND pan, improving my living situation with a new desk and other nice things…

and i've barely even scratched the surface of this year!

i may not have accomplished everything i wanted to – and honestly, who did? – but i'm happy about the fact that i not only survived 2020, but did so with grace. despite everything, i have new skills, new resources, new friends, and a new understanding of myself.

i don't keep new years resolutions well, so i have just one for 2021: finish more stuff than in 2020. not "make" more stuff, finish more stuff.

my creative energy definitely suffered this year, but now that i'm finding my footing, i hope i'll get to do some neat things soon 💖

today's Gender Realization: as a kid i was teased when i acted like a girl AND when i acted like a boy. teased when my hair got long, teased for playing in the sand, teased for going down the "wrong" toy aisle, teased for going down the RIGHT toy aisle, what do you want from me??

as i grew older it only got more complicated: i had very few role models in my life outside of TV, which often depicted men as violent, women as temptresses, and positive qualities as punchlines.

and, ugh, my parents explained NOTHING about puberty. it was all just more teasing!

multiply all that by autism and is it any wonder that my gender identity was so repressed? that i started at nonbinary because i was so confused by everything and everyone?? that even now i worry my boy feelings are """toxic""" and my girl feelings are """lustful"""???

it's only as an adult that i've seen positive reflections, depictions, and discussions of gender in my life… and they're all queer.

every. single. one.

(i could say the same for relationships, honestly…)

hi everyone! i'm doing better after the other day, thanks for the well-wishes. things are leveling out a bit, but life is still kind of a roller coaster lately – with my highs at their highest in recent memory, and my lows at their lowest.

that would be exhausting by itself, but what really concerns me is that the intensity has been increasing over the past three months or so – the highs keep going higher, and the lows keep going lower… if it gets too much more than this, i'm scared i might lose my lunch!

for now i'm gonna keep riding this out and hope it slows down soon, but in the meantime my availability may be spotty, and i probably won't have a whole lot of time or energy to make stuff like i want to. that's okay, though – life is more important right now.

i had plenty of toys as a kid but today i find myself reminiscing on the ones i didn't have, that i only got to play with once or twice at friends' houses. like those marble tubes i was always jealous of because they reminded me of super monkey ball

usually when i had my eyes on a toy like that, it was because i wanted to use it in some greater design. my brother and i would often fill the entire room with huge contraptions, racetracks, or games made of multiple different sets of toys! we were definitely tinkerers, hehe ✨

at my grandparents' place up north – which i've only visited maybe three times total? – they had a set of hand-painted wooden blocks, the type with ramps and arches and stuff. i remember making 3d mario levels out of those blocks, even as far back as when i was nine years old!

just now, as i realized how much i missed those blocks, something in the back of my head said "what's stopping you from getting your own set?"

and honestly, not only is there nothing stopping me… i could totally still use those for the same purpose!

a lot of 3d modeling tools are really intimidating to me right now, and i could use something easy to sketch some ideas out if inspiration strikes, or just to practice creating in that way. some basic wooden blocks would be perfect for that~

i could also use my (frankly ginormous) collection of legos for a similar purpose, but i don't think it's quite the same… with legos i'm often tempted to hyperfocus on perfecting the details of my creation. they're a great tool for engineering, but too focused for level design.

part of me wants to say "then just don't be a perfectionist; block out the detailed parts and come back to them later." but i have adhd, and my hyperfocus often kicks in without notice.

meanwhile, wooden blocks force me to look at the bigger picture; they force me to sketch.

really what i'm learning from writing this out is that i need more physical props and toys to mess around with in general. they're great tools for spontaneous creation!

interesting side effect of being a queer left christian is that i get to watch fellow queer leftists and fellow christians whisper in hushed tones about how the other group is "indoctrinating" people over the most trite affairs, like pronouns, or going to church

even when they get to the "big stuff" (which still usually isn't all that big), the awe and mysticism in their tone is honestly just hilarious; it's like they're blowing the cover on some big secret that really wasn't ever a secret to begin with

i don't mean to "both sides" it at all – i'm living proof you can be both! – but when each party treats the other like a cult, it's hard not to see the parallels

if you missed last night's stream, these innovative watercolor paintings are in fact still frames of the video quality from the new stream setup. it wasn't always this bad, but it was often enough to be really distracting. (luckily, most of us were playing, not watching~)

this quality reminds me of back when i used to stream from my laptop, and that probably means it's being encoded on my laptop after all (while streaming); the whole point of the new setup was to offload the encoding to the capture card itself, so this is pretty disappointing.

i need to look into alternatives to make this setup work, but it might not be feasible outside of getting a new computer.

in the meantime i've still got my old desktop, so i can stream as long as i don't mind filling the room with hot air (and i don't just mean my commentary...)

i don't usually give my depression enough credit for how much it affects me, but this week it's kicking me in the teeth. couldn't even get through a game night with bae without collapsing into a crying heap like an hour in.

objectively speaking, my life is better than it's been in at least the last ten years, possibly ever. yet, i'm struggling to appreciate it, because depression sucks the life out of me.

i just want to enjoy things again!!!

this depressive episode will probably let go of me in a few days, as they usually do, but it's always a background process in the back of my head. i need to give it the attention and care it deserves, instead of constantly forgetting it exists.

mastodon being decentralized twitter and letting anyone host an instance is a great idea in theory, until instance owners start playing social politics with each other and blocking other instances wholesale, cutting users off from their friends unless they move

there's no real way to know which instances are "safe" unless you follow the discourse, which is exhausting and ever-changing

so users either get constantly displaced, or cut off from the rest of the fediverse

not even the main instance run by the creator of mastodon himself is safe, because it got too big for its britches or some other nonsense

(sorry i don't follow the drama enough to know the real reason, i have better things to do with my time)

you could argue this is due to a lack of useful moderation tools, but that argument only goes so far; there was a massive instance block campaign over an instance harboring one single user, not even a moderator – and there are definitely tools to block individual users

in summary, i don't think anyone expected mastodon would somehow make twitter-style social politics WORSE, but it sure succeeded

honestly i think my goal as a trans christian is to be so visibly trans christian that i make heads roll. i want a certain class of people to be confused and unsettled by my mere existence.

i want to wear a cross necklace and a trans pin when my hrt has just started to kick in – and have somebody tell me that i'm misappropriating the cross that Jesus died for my sins on.

i want to openly talk theology using my masculine-sounding voice coming from my feminine-presenting appearance – while somebody in the room wonders whose agenda i'm really supporting.

i want to be invited to church by a member who is so well-loved that they're socially obligated to treat me well by proxy – except for the pastor, who isn't afraid to stare me down the whole sermon.

but i don't just want to make people mad. and i know i cannot change everyone's hearts alone.

all i want to do is change the conversation.

because right now, the conversation is that it is not POSSIBLE to be a trans christian. after all, none of them have seen it for themselves.

but i'm both. and i'm right here.

so i want to be LOUD. i want my existence to be KNOWN.

i want to FORCE people to realize that it is possible to be trans AND christian.

whether or not they Agree with my existence, they cannot argue Against my existence.

it's going to make some people Mad and Afraid. those people were never going to listen anyway.

it's going to make others Confused and Shocked. those are the lives that i want to touch.

because even if they never agree with me... they'll remember me.

one day the good christian kid they raised might come out of the closet... and that parent might remember me, and it'll be that much easier to accept.

or at least, it'll be that much easier to give up and go "FINE, I CAN'T STOP THIS, DO WHATEVER YOU WANT, JUST KEEP IT AWAY FROM ME."

i am far from the first trans christian, but i exist in a time when we are still not truly welcome.

more importantly, i am far from the last trans christian – and i want to make it easier for those who will come after me.

so i will Exist Loudly as a trans christian, and through that i will shake the very foundation of hatred that tells me i should not exist.