Disconnected - 09/04/24
Published: 16:06 [?]
i haven't had much to write about lately; sorry for the lack of blog posts. here is something: i officially don't have a home. i'm only staying over where my computer will be for the foreseeable future. i ended up donating or selling a lot of my stuff, but i'm deeply thankful for the ko-fi donations that allowed me to hold onto my PC & keep my websites running. i'm currently in a position without an internet connection, so don't know how long it will be until this gets posted to the website, but at this point in time my hopes are relatively high..! emoji=ball_death
i just finished Serial Experiments Lain for the first time yes, i'd only seen the first few episodes before i adopted the nickname and i've never been moved by something like this before—not even by a piece of music or an experience in real life. i feel like this series answers so many questions i've had about myself & explains so many parts of me that i hadn't been able to figure out, but i'm frankly glad i waited to be this age and maturity before going through with watching it. there are themes complexly pertaining to agency & identity that i relate to and used to feel ashamed of, or that i felt but didn't understand, so thought that it was worth feeling ashamed of. it's tough to avoid spoiling so i'll attempt to remain vague.
at the very end, she does something that i wished i could do my entire life. i've dreamt the exact sequence of events and the feelings she expresses were, to my judgment, the exact same as mine—but before it happened (and before that was even truly apparent), i started to cry because of how badly i didn't want her to do it, and when it finally happened, i just broke down. that's basically where the show ends; it was probably extremely unsatisfying for most people, but for me it was so climactic because everything about her reminded me of me, and so much of what lead up to it - including it - was something i felt before and i'd think about or envision obsessively.
particularly that final episode - i couldn't sleep because of how touched i felt. i've rewatched the entire show already since then. to understand it, you will likely benefit from watching it more than once. there are only 13 episodes.
over the past few days i've been making very slow and unsteady progress on my other websites, though no time for music. for a moment when i had internet, i regretfully searched "smlwiki" to see what people were saying about it while i was gone. i need to stop doing that at my lowest points—i don't know why i even bother or care anymore.
it's the same as it has been, which has seriously made me not want to work on it anymore, but i'm now in a contrite position since some people have funded to keep it afloat.
the way people talk about me in relation to my project is bewildering & way too personal, as if i could possibly be mishandling my own labour. people are severely disappointed for reasons i don't understand, and it still hurts.
i've once again created something that people confuse for a 'dignified work of art' and take too seriously, and that people are so creepily entitled to. they get angry when i take risks or express the grief that drove it to creation. its conception wasn't particularly ambitious either—being sort of a culmination of emotional baggage i'd been carrying for years and became ready to finally deposit, all i really had to do was make the video and code the site, and then i should've been ready to move on. they seem to want me to feel the same way as they do about it, but it doesn't mean the same things to me. i cannot relate.
i'm equally befuddled when someone makes a comment about my friends who are no longer with us, something like "they would have loved this". all i can think is—"where did these people even come from and why do they care so much"? all of the sudden, an inhuman amount of people are aware of me and parts of my trauma, and the way that it manifests is through me doing grueling, partially-satirical solo work. it feels like everyone is prying at me, and when i become protective or confused, or try to spin it into something for my own fun/enjoyment, they berate me for it; as if this work i've poured myself into is somehow theirs.
this is precisely my personal hell.
i think my new strategy will be to just try and ignore the audience; which is admittedly sad. i of course want to resonate with the community even if it misunderstands me forever. there are parts of the story people haven't figured out yet that i would love to help nudge in the "right" direction—but i think those direct engagement are desires i need to learn to forget, or at least work around during the rest of this particular project. it's something that feels inherent as an artist/author, but i've learned is not healthy - or rather, not something i know how to do healthily which is to be expected, i'm inexperienced and unwell.
truth be told, as time goes on, it does become more and more like an ARG. i'm still very hesitant on boxing the website into a genre for all of the reasons i've gone into in previous blog posts. it sparks some really serious and heated discussions where watching from the sidelines isn't very fun. this is precisely why i made the website as part of my plan to retire and i accept that it's my fault for going back and ever updating it. thusly: because of the very personal/sensitive origin of the website and YTP, i didn't want any of the raw aspects to be misconstrued as fiction. i also didn't want any of the satirical aspects to be taken seriously or become blurred—though i'm not ignorant to the fact that these things are already happening. i know i ought to learn how to embrace it, but everyone seems to think that'd be easy to do and that i'm just stubborn, or something like that. feels like i'm starting to beat a dead horse by reiterating these points, so since i put it succinctly here, this is the last time i'll go in-depth about it.
the story is almost done and i don't want to resent it, so i should probably wrap it up. it's getting there, but opportunities to work on it are sparse these days and so is my desire to share/release anything i do finish.
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