Catching Up - Tumblr Posts

Catching Up: The Blog

It's hard to believe that I've been running this blog for over seven years. That's the majority of my time on the internet! But besides the passage of time, it doesn't seem like that long because I kinda stopped keeping up with it about halfway through for various reasons – some of which include college, depression, Twitter, guilt, and trying to start a new blog from scratch (which also got tabled...). Regardless, I have the time, energy, and drive to write again, and this is the perfect space to do so!

Still, picking a blog back up after years of being in and out of the habit is a strange position to be in. Where do I even start? Do I comb through years of Twitter threads and forgotten projects to get my audience up to speed, or just pick back up with journaling like nothing happened? Dig through the past, or focus on the future?

How about I just... talk about the present!

Here's the plan: every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday through the rest of the year, I'll talk about how an important aspect of my life is going – whether it's a life update, a project I'm working on, or a bit of self-reflection. Some of this will be stuff I've talked about on Twitter already, but I'll be adding new context to them where I can... and even reveal some secrets I've been hiding. So there's something new for everyone, regardless of where or how long you've been reading!

Self-promotion aside, I'm also using this as a way of closing out the decade. As you'll see very soon, the 2010s have been a tumultuous few chapters of my life. So, I'm more than happy to wrap it up in a neat little bow, put it all behind me, and look towards a brighter future. (...Hopefully.)

Of course, life doesn't change just because the calendar does. But in the past year alone, I've been able to address some of the biggest challenges looming over me, even some that have lasted since the beginning of the decade. There's still a long way to go, but I'm proud of the progress I've made... and even a little confident that the rest will come in due time.

So it's time to slow down for a bit, look at how things are going, take stock of what needs to be done, and head into 2020 with hope for the future.

Catching Up: Working Full-Time

In one of the biggest moves I've had to make in my entire life, I started working full-time in March of this year (2019). All at once, I had to get my first car, look for my first place, and live somewhere new by myself for the first time. Thankfully, due to a series of miracles, everything worked out, and I am now a Real Adult! [citation needed]

The tagline I give to people unfamiliar with my work is that "I make software for boats that drive themselves." It's certainly not what I expected to be doing with my life; I wanted to make video games, but it turns out that's a really unstable industry to work in. Thankfully, working on remote boats isn't too far removed – there's a lot of UI work, 3D visualizations, AI path planning, and other video-game-y stuff! Quite often I struggle with understanding how to do all that, but everyone there is wonderful and more than willing to help me out.

The first few weeks of getting adjusted to my new life were really rough. I'd had jobs before, but they were part time, other people drove me to and from work, and I still lived with my parents. Rather than a gradual process of learning to drive, then to work, then to live on my own... I had to do it all at once. Even with some experience doing these things individually, it was completely overwhelming. Having several mental health issues did not help with this; I was sliding backwards every week, with less and less energy for myself. It's hard to get adjusted to adult life when you don't have any life left.

Luckily, the company has an excellent accommodation process. I was able to lower my work hours to 32 hours per week, which has significantly reduced the burden on my energy levels. This was actually a dream of mine since college – to work 30ish hours a week, so I could still do things in my spare time. I'm still struggling to do very much when I get home, so I'm not quite there, but I'm happy to be this close to my goal!

In addition, my mom moved in with me over the summer (more on that later). She's been helping with cleaning and cooking, for which I am eternally grateful; I never notice when things need cleaning, and all my attempts at cooking took three times as long as they were supposed to.

Unfortunately, between not having a degree, and working less hours... I don't make a whole lot of money. In fact, I'm paycheck to paycheck now that my mom is here with me. I have no money left to save, and often have to dig out of my savings when something goes wrong. And apparently, due to a company restructure, no one knows if they're getting raises or Christmas bonuses this year, so I might be stuck with this for the long term.

Obviously, I could bump up my work hours again. But it ultimately wouldn't make enough of a difference, even if it wasn't complete self-sabotage on my health. Mom's been looking for a job, but hasn't been able to land anything, even after dozens of applications. I could stream more or set up Ko-fi, but I'm struggling with my hobbies as is and monetizing them would kill my enjoyment of them altogether (more on streaming later).

I do have plans on how to tackle all the problems here – my energy levels, finances, and adult responsibilities. However, it's kind of a slow process, and in the meantime, working is the biggest thing in my life, to the detriment of all else. Pretty much everything I want to do with my life is being slowed down by this massive thing that I have to do with my life. It really sucks.

At the very least... the job itself is fine, I haven't missed any payments, the house is taken care of, and we're making it. The rest will come with time.

Catching Up: Mental Health

If I could sum up the state of my mental health in a single word, it would be "improving."

When I got home from college and started my journey of self reflection to figure out what went wrong, I only knew one thing for certain: that I had some kind of anxiety disorder. I also thought that I might have autism, but I wasn't certain. A year and a half of counseling later, I learned that I may have four mental health conditions... sort of. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to continue counseling since I started working full-time, so I'm unable to clear the air on a few questions I have, but as of right now, this is the state of my mental health as I understand it.

Anxiety disorder is a given, of course. I got panic attacks, I was constantly on edge, and I had an overwhelming amount of negative self-talk. After discussing it with my counselor for a while, I talked to my doctor about taking medication, and found one that actually worked! It lowered my anxiety levels so much that I was able to start applying for jobs, which is how I finally started working full-time (more on this later). I took it for about three months total before I noticed it was affecting my mood too much, and stopped taking it (don't try this at home) – but the benefits have outlasted the medication, and I'm happy to say that my anxiety is now at a manageable level.

There is also an element of depression in the mix. To be honest, I've known this for a while and didn't want to admit it, but I can't escape from it any longer. Some of the traditional signs of depression are not present, but even now as I have a stable income and no homework, I still struggle to do any more than sit in bed in my spare time. Plus, depression is often comorbid with anxiety disorder, and both affect the same parts of the brain; it would be remiss of me to continue denying it. But because I show signs of both, and they're both so closely related, does that mean I have two disorders... or just one?

I also have autism, of course. I was always different in some way, which my mom noticed early on – that's why she decided to homeschool me for ten years. My special interest is video games, and it's how I made friends, where I looked for new hobbies, and even why I started learning computer science. I'm also hypersensitive to light and sound, to the point where I need sunglasses to go outside and noise-cancelling headphones to vacuum. It just makes sense.

But the one that surprised me the most was learning that I have ADHD! Specifically, ADHD-Inattentive, the artist formerly known as ADD. Looking back, this is obvious; I was always a spacey kid, and I could barely focus even on things I enjoy without drifting off into my own thoughts. There are posts here on my blog from years ago that I could retroactively say, "Yeah, that's typical ADHD," and I had no idea at the time. Plus, just like with depression and anxiety, ADHD and autism are often comorbid as well. In fact, I've learned so much about them both in the last year, that I can no longer tell where one ends and the other begins. Again, this makes me wonder whether I have them both, or just one of them – but at least I've narrowed it down.

As I said towards the beginning, I haven't been able to resume counseling or even see a doctor for a while. However, I just started taking vitamin D in the meantime, and so far, I'm showing signs of improvement! I don't know whether it will make enough of a difference, but we'll see how it goes in the long run. I've read a few things about how vitamin D deficiency can worsen depression, energy levels, hypersensitivity, and even executive dysfunction – I'm only taking a small dose, but I hope it will make a dent at least.

So to sum up: I have something in between anxiety and depression, which is on a path of steady improvement ever since getting out of college and finding a stable income. And I also lie somewhere between autism and ADHD, which will always be a part of me, but I'm learning to work with in healthy ways. It's a lot to keep track of, but it's finally a comprehensive list.

Catching Up: Retrush

Before working, before college, before even this blog, my earliest days on the Internet were spent toying with a little fangame called Mari0, a mashup of Super Mario Bros. and Portal. It was my first time with a Mario level editor, and I made tons of mappacks – everything from traditional Mario levels to Portal-style puzzles, and even a mappack where Mario can't jump. My latest project, Retrush, is a speedrunning mappack where you have a limited amount of time to get from checkpoint to checkpoint, and I'm really proud of how it's coming along!

However, I started work on it in 2014... and five years later, the mappack is still not finished. What gives?

First, a little context. Retrush started out as a tileset demo of sorts, to see what kinds of levels I could make with just the tiles from the original SMB, but with tons of different color palettes for each tile (also all from SMB). I had no shortage of ideas – a fiery cavern, a train chase, an abandoned aquarium – and the "hook" of having limited time for each section of the level was a lot of fun! So I decided to make twelve levels, which I thought was plenty of levels to play without being too overboard to work on. College slowed my output on this considerably, but even still, I had ten of the twelve levels finished within a year or so.

As I was starting to wrap things up (I even sent out a beta to several people), I had an idea: what if there were extra challenges for each level after you finish? Say, scouting the level for red coins or having to beat the whole level in one run (no deaths). It was supposed to be a quick way to add extra content for people who wanted more to do.

But like all things I make, it spiraled out of control, and became Red Coin Remixes. Each level still has the same layout, but all the enemies and obstacles are rearranged, and the challenge is increased. Even the color palettes are changed, so now the fiery cavern becomes an icy one, the aquarium becomes a chemical plant, and so on. Rather than a quick way to re-use content, it effectively means there are twice as many levels to make!

And then, in the process of making the remix levels, I got an itch to make some more levels from scratch. It's hard to pass up on the idea of a desert level with a shimmering, hazy sky whose remix is a seabed with shimmering refracted light. I decided to make four more to round out the level count, which is actually eight more levels including the remixes...

And that's the story of how I went from 12 levels to 32 levels.

That said, it has been five years. You'd think I would be close to done with them by now. And I am! At the time of this writing, twenty levels are completed (or mostly completed), six levels are in progress, and the other six haven't been started for various reasons. I've made a bunch of animated tiles and backgrounds, tons of custom enemies including an Unagi with custom graphics (my first pixel art!), and systems for keeping track of Red Coins collected and resetting them on death (which do not exist directly in Mari0).

Obviously, progress has been slow because of mental health issues and working full-time. But even with that, I'm fairly certain I could finish all the levels and polish everything up with two or three months of focused effort. The reason I haven't finished Retrush isn’t really about the number of levels, or the graphics, or the polish, or even being an adult.

The reason... is music!

At first, I had no idea what music I wanted to add to the mappack. I tried using music from Kirby Canvas Curse, but I couldn't find good tracks for some of the levels. Once I added the Red Coin Remixes, all pretense of finding a fitting soundtrack was out the window. I need a song for every level in the game, with tracks that fit both the original level and the remix – and frankly, that's not happening. So I took the only logical course of action and decided to compose my own soundtrack.

I've kept quiet about this for a while, partly because I wanted it to be a surprise, but mostly because I didn't know whether I would actually follow through with it. I've always wanted to make music, but this is my first time doing so, and it's for a [checks notes] 30+ track OST. That's a lot even for a seasoned composer! Eventually I realized that, in my mind, Retrush would be incomplete without an original soundtrack. So, whether or not I actually can do this, I have committed myself to trying.

I was hoping to have something to show before I actually announced this, but frankly, this is the biggest stonewall in Retrush's development by far. Due to working full-time and struggling to learn Famitracker and music theory, I only have a handful of tracks in various states of completion, all from two years ago. I've felt like there's some aspect of composition that I haven't picked up on, and once I "get it" I'll finally hit the ground running... but that's simply not how real life works, and in the meantime the rest of the mappack is languishing.

You might be wondering, "why are you doing this to yourself?" The answer is that, before I started working full-time, it seemed within my reach. Now, I don't have the energy to push myself that hard – to make something so big while learning how to do it along the way. I've done this before with other things, which is why I continue to aim that high so frequently... but I don't know if I can at this point in my life, as much as I want to.

Regardless, Retrush is still one of my most important projects on deck, and I still intend to finish it at some point... with or without music.

Catcing Up: Nonbinary

Every time I write about my gender, I struggle with the same issue of not fully understanding it myself. And yet, the more I think about it and try to put it into words, the more I discover, and the more confident I get.

Nonbinary is still the closest I've come to hitting the mark. I'm not a man, and I'm not a woman... I'm Will!

The colors I wore for Pride Month.

I'm fairly certain that being autistic is a strong factor in my gender identity – but that also makes my experiences more difficult to describe. For a long time, I didn't understand gender at all, but I always knew that I felt Other in some way. Watching movies and TV as a kid, I always felt far removed from both the boys and the girls, for reasons I couldn't explain. And any time someone said "man up" or "boys will be boys" in my direction, I always had this weird feeling like, "But... why does anyone care? Why can't I just be me?" The few times I managed to ask, I still couldn't make sense of the answers.

Beyond that... I usually never thought much about it. Gender was never all that important to me unless somebody else brought it up. Instead, I always put more value on "being yourself," since my parents encouraged it of me so much. So even though "nonbinary" is more of an umbrella term, I feel it fits me best – since it gives me enough room to be myself, without having to consider how masculine or feminine I present myself as. It's just a reflection of who I already am!

Outside of that "other"ness, my dysphoria seems to be fairly minimal. As such, I haven't felt the need to change my appearance in real life. This is mostly for convenience's sake, as I'm too lazy to shop for new clothes, and too anxious to deal with people giving me funny looks. Besides, I still use the same name, and I don't mind hearing people call me "he"; heck, most people don't even bring up gender at all. As far as the average onlooker is concerned, I'm just another guy. And so, I "pass" by being completely invisible – much like how I go about the rest of my life, really. (I do recognize how much of a privilege this is.)

Even so, I've been open about my gender with the people close to me, including my friends and my mom. The only people in my circle who don't know are my workplace (which has protective policies for gender identity – I'm just erring on the side of caution) and the rest of my family (not because I'm hiding it; we'll get to that later).

But still, nothing's really changed. I haven't changed my name, my pronouns, my appearance, my mannerisms... I haven't transitioned. In that sense, I almost feel like a fraud. Am I transgender or not? Do I even count as nonbinary? Am I just appropriating this label because it's hip? How long will it be until people figure out The Truth and shun me forever? (Anxiety makes you say really mean things to yourself, sometimes.)

But it's not fake. Calling myself nonbinary may be a small change, but it fits me better than "male" ever did. It's another important step toward figuring out who I am and how the world sees me. And besides, this decision has influenced me in small, subtle ways – by allowing me to define myself the way I want to, rather than what others might expect of me. In choosing my own path, I'm free to be more myself than I've ever been.

And it rocks ✨

Catching Up: Redesign

One of the biggest things I accomplished this decade is creating my own logo and branding. I did avatars, banners, promos, thumbnails, video elements, and so much more – an entire graphic design suite, all made with no professional or academic experience! I'm really proud of it, especially the little things like the W hidden in the logo, or the graph paper backgrounds calling back to my early days making mazes.

A lot of this was made with a heavy focus on video, though, and I find myself starting to move away from that field (more on that later). In addition, some of it is hard to work with – tons of layers, multiple drop shadows, blur beneath specific elements – and it leans too much on Material Design guidelines that are not my own. So last year, I started working on a new look, with two major goals: make it easier to work with, and make something that is uniquely WillWare.

Unfortunately, this is where my lack of experience comes back to haunt me.

A promo image that I've posted at least five times now.

One of the first things I decided in the redesign process was to keep the isometric grid, but rotate it 90°. This is to better support vertical content (like a webpage!) and potentially even allow 3D elements somewhere down the line. However, it came with the big side effect of needing to completely redo my logo; it was made for the horizontal grid, and simply rotating it would not be effective.

A plain version of the new logo.

So after prototyping for a while, I ended up with the shape shown above! The W is much more prominent now, and it has a very Gamecube-esque feel to it that I quite like. However, I struggled to get any particular color combination to work with it; it was still too plain by itself.

Around the same time, I was experimenting with the grid, and I tried out a dotted line grid that makes the whole grid pop out of the page. In fact, it was almost too strong, but I liked the idea so much that I decided to make it work somehow. After a few attempts, it hit me: what if I made each dot like a light?

And thus, the Light Grid was born.

An early animation made in Photoshop, because I don't know any traditional animation programs.

All of the shapes and logos are drawn directly on the Light Grid, which is animated with pulsing colors. In an early version of this blog's redesign, the background was a basic GLSL shader that provided the animations. It looks fantastic in motion!

Once I decided to draw the actual shapes with this same light, everything started to come together.

This neon looking render reminds me a lot of the Pac-Man Championship Edition aesthetic.

However, this is where progress has come to a halt. I keep coming back to the drawing board on a number of issues, some of which are probably just out of my skillset, and others that may be more difficult to work around.

Colors: The color choices I've made are not particularly good, and I've been struggling to come up with something better. I was dead set on a Red-Blue-Purple color scheme for a while, but getting those colors to work together has proven difficult. I'm toying with the idea of making the colors match the content – so cyan for Twitter, purple for Twitch, yellow for Mario Maker, etc.

Content: How do I get content onto the Light Grid? This question is half design, half technical; I could just make a box with an outline, but where do I lay it out on the grid? How do I make the outline draw with the light underneath?

Animation: I like the idea of the colors moving along the grid, but I need to teach myself how to use shaders and animation software to make it work. Wasn't one of my goals to make this easier to work with?

And more: Fonts, icons, thumbnails, video elements...

Of course, this all begs the question, "Why don't you just stick with what you've already got?" And the answer is that, for now, I am. Even though I'm proud of the redesign so far, I've grown quite tired of working on it, so I'm taking a break for a while. I still want to come back to it, of course – but if this new look is going to define me for the next several years, I want to make sure I get it right. Hopefully, when I come back to it, I can approach these issues with a fresh perspective!

Catching Up: Now U Know Gaming

This one isn't a particularly important update, but it illustrates how much work goes into even smaller projects behind the scenes – and it comes with a little story!

Shortly before moving back home from college, I went to MAGfest 2017 with a close friend of mine (who is no longer on social media, so I can't link anything here). Instead of flying, we drove there and back over two days, and we were bored to tears. Pretty much the entire way up, all we could do to keep ourselves alive was recite increasingly mangled versions of the DK Rap as we laughed ourselves into hysterics.

Luckily, just before we headed back, we thought about starting a fake gaming facts blog, as a riff on things like Did You Know Gaming and Supper Mario Broth. That kind of parody account was dime a dozen back then (and still kind of is), but it at least gave us something else to do on the ride back, rather than singing for the hundredth time:

🎵 His Coconut Gun 🎶 🎶 Can Fire In Gun 🎵 🎵 If He Shoots Gun 🎶 🎶 It's Gonna Gun 🎵

Instead, we came up with 180+ jokes. I wrote them all down, in case we actually did something with the idea. You'd think they would be trash, since we were basically delirious at the time... but most of them are still really good!

After reviewing the material, we made it official, and started Now U Know Gaming. Together we alternated posting about 30 of them before we both had more important things to do (and eventually fell out of contact). The account has languished ever since... but I felt like we never got to the really good ones, and now I want to finish the job. So, at some point, I will!

Long story short, here's the deal: there's a ton of material already written. All I have to do is get a relevant image prepared for each one, and post them. This wouldn't be too hard, except as always, I make things too complicated. So the plan is:

Batch queue them so that a bunch (not all!) of them are shuffled and ready to go. That way, there's less maintenance in the long term.

Cross-publish to Twitter and Mastodon. When I initially ran it, I wasn't satisfied with the crossposter I was using, so I want to find another one... or write one from scratch.

Tweak the graphic design kit I made so that it looks a little more professional and is easier to work with.

Of course, between working full-time and on other projects, this hasn't really been a priority. But I'm not letting this one slip through the cracks. Now U Know Gaming will return someday!

Catching Up: Drawing

As a kid, I used to draw all the time. I was pretty much entirely self-taught; I never took art classes since I was homeschooled, and I didn't grow up with those "how to draw" books. As a result, I could pretty much only draw Kirby – but I filled whole sketchbooks with him doing different things. Anytime I had an idea, drawing was the way I brought it to life, and Kirby was the actor through which I actually could. I would draw at home with my brother, bouncing ideas off each other; in the car, keeping as steady a hand as possible; even at church, in the margins of the bulletins.

The Big Page, full of tons of little scenes with Kirby. (Each box is only a couple of inches in size.)

I was never a very talkative kid (probably due to autism), but I was always creating something. So, anytime someone asked about me, I would show them my sketchbook. And they loved it! It was cute little sketches of a cute little pink blob from a cute little kid – who wouldn't like that? As the compliments piled on, so too did my confidence; before long, I wasn't just having fun with it, I was proud of it!

Then, one day, somebody finally told me I was bad at drawing. And I stopped.

I have no harsh feelings toward the person who told me this; I'm sure somebody would have said it, sooner or later. No, my frustration is that I believed it. All my life I had people supporting me, telling me how much they liked my little doodles, encouraging me to keep doing it. And then, the moment I met a little opposition, I gave it all up. None of that support mattered anymore, because drawing became about quality, and all I could do was scribble a couple of Kirbys.

Why did it hit so hard? I think it happened at the time I was the most vulnerable: when I was just starting to care about quality on my own terms. At the very end of my sketchbook (right before it goes blank), I was experimenting with 3D, trying to draw more complex characters, adding more subtle details. Since I had no guidance, I had never thought about those things before, and I had no idea how to make them work. I was frustrated that I couldn't quite figure them out, no matter how much I tried – and then those frustrations were validated because, actually, I can't draw! And I successfully convinced myself of that for years.

A simple perspective shot that was almost a turning point in my artistic career.

The last drawing of Kirby in my old sketchbook.

Ever since recognizing this, I've been trying to reconnect with drawing, to little success. Every once in a while, I would pick up my pencil again, intending to draw "for the fun of it." But it wasn't fun anymore. Even when I surprised myself with the results, I still felt this lingering sense of pointlessness. "This still isn't good enough." "It's just a scribble." "You could've done better if you didn't give it up." And then I would go months without another attempt.

A few weeks ago, I looked through my old sketchbook again, trying desperately to remember what made drawing fun. As I flipped through pages full of Kirby doing various things, it finally hit me: drawing was fun because it let me express myself. It wasn't about practicing my skill or impressing people; it was an avenue for telling stories, creating worlds, dreaming up ideas! And more importantly, at a time when I hadn't figured out how to speak my mind, that was how I communicated who I am to others.

Then, I came up with a new idea, and I decided to try drawing it. And, for the first time since I was a kid... it made me happy.

Leaf Kirby using Leaf Uppercut. Not the best drawing of all time, but that doesn't matter now.

In fact, I had so much fun with it, that I immediately started sketching a ton of other things. I decided to let myself be bad at it – not erase anything or clean it up, just draw for the heck of it. In fact, I've been doing this every couple of days since then, and I've been looking forward to it each time! It's so refreshing to finally enjoy drawing again ^^

I'm determined not to let skill dictate my enjoyment of drawing anymore. But, even from a quality perspective, this has allowed me to actually practice in a way that I couldn't figure out how to do before. I've been drawing from Sonic, Splatoon, Pokemon, and others, and while my first attempts were comically poor, I've been figuring out how to do it as I go. I'm surprised at how quickly my skill has improved in just a couple of weeks; I'll be sure to post my progress as I continue to improve.

And I will improve, the more I practice. That's how these things work – which I always knew, but I could never enjoy doing. Now, I can. We'll see how it goes a few years down the road.

Catching Up: Streaming & Videos

It may not seem like it, but I've spent the better part of the decade gearing up to make gaming videos. I wanted it to be my main gig, what people knew me for, even over things like writing and level design. All of the graphic design work I did was built for this – heck, even my URL is willware.tv! But, ultimately, it didn't amount to much... and now, at the end of the decade, I find myself starting to move away from videos. And I think I'm okay with that.

When I was struggling through college, one of the biggest things that helped me stay sane was watching videos and streams. It offered an escape from the stress of my responsibilities into something that I really cared about! I kept up with a couple dozen creators, and always made time to watch them (which definitely didn't affect my grades, nosiree). The more I got into it, the more I was inspired to try my own hand at it; I knew it would be hard work, but it seemed like a lot of fun!

Initially, I wanted to do Let's Plays, but that was eventually superseded by streaming. So I switched into reviews – and I have pages of scripts, gags, and plans for them. But I never actually finished any of those, so I never started making them into videos. Part of it was that I was still buried under the weight of college... but really, the problem was that I buried myself under a mountain of obligation. It wasn't just about any one particular video – I wanted to make a channel. I was making my own branding, writing running gags, conceptualizing whole video series, and basically creating an identity for myself, all before I had even made it out of the starting gate. And if I could barely keep myself going with college, there was no way I was going to be able to run a whole channel.

Thankfully, when I got home from college, I found myself with enough time and energy to finally make a video! But it wasn't any of the videos I had already been preparing behind the scenes. No, instead, it was one of the worst possible choices I could have made: an E3 video, which has an inherent time limit of relevance. I thought it would be just enough motivation to get me to finish it; I wrote a script, got all the footage I needed, recorded my lines, and even re-recorded because I wasn't satisfied with the results. But by the time I could even start editing, it had been weeks since E3; the deadline was up, and I had nothing to show for it. So I gave up, and all that effort went to waste.

That experience burned me so hard that I lost most of my motivation to do videos. Each time I've tried since then has only resulted in frustration. The dream is pretty much dead, now.

But not all is lost. Alongside all of the scripted video stuff, I was also streaming. And, in complete contrast, that's gone really well! Every stream has been a complete surprise with how many people show up, how much they enjoy themselves, how much I enjoy myself. As if it wasn't fulfilling enough in its own right, streaming helped me learn stuff in my everyday life: how to improvise, speak up more, juggle multiple tasks that take a lot of attention, even have some more confidence in myself. And to top it off, I did well enough to earn Twitch Affiliate status – which is admittedly not a high bar to clear, but it still tells me that I'm doing pretty good with it!

As a result, I really want to keep streaming, keep that momentum going. However, it takes a lot out of me to stream, and I just haven't had the energy for it lately, especially with work taking up most of my energy each week. I would like to get to a point where it doesn't drain me so much – but that requires streaming more, so I can get more comfortable with it and learn how to tackle it more efficiently. It feels like I need to clear space in my life to be able to do that anytime soon, but it's still a goal of mine, and I want to make it work.

But as for the other stuff? I'm probably done with it, at this point. There's still a couple of video ideas I haven't let go of, but they're far from priorities now. I just don't have the motivation for it anymore... especially now that I have bigger fish to fry.

Catching Up: Other Projects

I've started and not finished way too many projects this decade, many of which I've barely or even never talked about before, all of which I was incredibly invested in when I was working on them. Today, I'm going to talk about none of them. Instead, I decided to clean out my closet and keep only the most essential ones – the ones that still mean a lot to me – and I've put the rest to, well, rest.

I've already talked about some of the ones I'm keeping in this series, but there's a few that I haven't yet, either due to time constraints or because there's not much to say about them. So, without further ado, here's what's left.

Portfolio

When I was still looking for a job, I wanted to put together a portfolio site to show off all the different skills I've picked up. Even though I've found a job already, the idea stuck around, because... well, I've made so much stuff in the past decade that I need a place to put it all! I've used Imgur for this purpose in the past, but I haven't updated it in a long time, and I'd like to make something a little more robust.

The thing is, putting this site together involves programming, which is hard to do when it's what I already spend most of my waking hours on at work. So I've put the idea on the backburner for now. In the meantime, I'm thinking I'll use this blog as sort of a "content hub" with collections and tags for everything. It's pretty easy to keep up with, and would be a suitable replacement until I can put something more fancy together!

Mario Maker

When Super Mario Maker 2 came out, I thought I was going to lose my entire life to making levels for it. Instead, I forced out like three levels before I realized I was still kind of burned out on the first game. But since the new update dropped earlier this month, I made four in the span of a couple weeks! I think it's safe to say I'm back in business ✨ Since I haven't yet posted any of them here on the blog, I'll be doing that very soon, as part of the previously mentioned "content hub" thing.

Part of my initial fatigue is that I started to plan out these massive adventures where I try to fit as much as I can into one level. And while I did finish one of them, called Skyway Metro... I felt like it needed a strategy guide to go with it?? For some reason??? So this huge, completely finished level has just been sitting here waiting for me to make a completely unnecessary add-on that most people won't even see. Well, I'm happy to say that I'm officially abandoning that idea and releasing the level later today!

And as for the other big level ideas? I'd still like to make those at some point, but I find I'm having much more success (and much more fun) making smaller concept levels that I can put together in one sitting. All of them are written down, though, waiting in the wings for when I'm ready to tackle something on a bit larger scale.

Ice Cap Zone

Recently I finally opened up "Project Community," AKA Ice Cap Zone, a Discord server/gaming community that's not tied to any one game, person, or topic. I wanted to make something that isn't just "the WillWare server" or "the Mari0 server" – something that anyone can join, make new friends, play games together, etc. You can join here if that sounds like your kind of thing!

Unfortunately I haven't been able to put a lot of focus into it, and as a result things have been pretty quiet. I think part of the problem is that it's hard to make a server with no topic appealing, especially when literally everyone has a Discord server these days. I feel like it would almost be easier to just make it a personal server instead.

Regardless, I'm not letting this one go just yet. I've still got a few things I want to do with it.

Springloaded

Here's an interesting one – I've got a whole story set in the world of Splatoon that I'd like to tell someday! The thing is, I feel like it would be best told as a webcomic, and well... you've seen my story with drawing. But part of why I've been practicing lately is to get to the point where I could draw this passably. And so far, I feel like I might just get there!

Pretty much everyone who has made a webcomic has the same advice, and that's "Just start making it! Don't wait until you're 'good enough' – you'll get there by doing it." And personally, I feel like that's solid advice. So, I will!... as soon as Retrush is finished. After all, I really don't need two massive, years-long projects on my plate at the same time. Plus, it'll let me get some extra practice in!

Games???

Way off in the distance – past Retrush, beyond Springloaded – there are a metric ton of game ideas that I'd like to make sometime. In fact, making games has been what I've wanted to do since I was a kid!

Much like with webcomics, the best way to make them is to just start doing it. But right now, between work and all the other projects I'm putting together, it's just a little too overwhelming for me to add game dev on top of everything else. That said, I am starting small and letting myself tinker with capturing some parts of the ideas I have. And one day, when I have a little less on my plate... perhaps I could put them together.

———

Even after I've narrowed it down, this is still a lot of projects and things to do. I often joke that I've got enough work for the rest of my life! But the reason I do it is because I'm equally excited about all of these things, and I want to share them with the world.

A lot of people struggle with the mindset that if they're not constantly producing Content™, then they're not a real artist/musician/developer/creator. Thing is, I know I'm a real creator. I'm constantly dreaming of new things to make, I can't even switch it off! And I enjoy putting them together, as much as I can (reasonably) handle. Now I want to push my limits, learn new things, dream even bigger – and make them real.

It may take forever, but I'm playing the long game. It may take work, but I'm giving myself space and doing what I can. It may take skills that I don't have, but I'm always learning. And if even one person gets as excited about these things as I have been while making them... then it's all worth it.

𝕐𝕠𝕦 𝕘𝕠𝕥 𝕚𝕥 𝕣𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥. ℕ𝕠𝕨 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕨𝕖'𝕧𝕖 𝕔𝕒𝕥𝕔𝕙𝕖𝕕 𝕦𝕡, 𝕚𝕥 𝕒𝕞𝕒𝕫𝕖𝕤 𝕞𝕖 𝕙𝕠𝕨 𝕞𝕦𝕔𝕙 𝕨𝕖 𝕤𝕥𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕚𝕟 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕞𝕠𝕟. 𝔸𝕟𝕕 𝕚𝕥 𝕕𝕠𝕖𝕤 𝕞𝕒𝕜𝕖 𝕞𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕜 𝕠𝕟 𝕙𝕠𝕨 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤 𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕕'𝕧𝕖 𝕓𝕖𝕖𝕟… 𝔹𝕦𝕥 𝕙𝕖𝕪, 𝕨𝕖'𝕣𝕖 𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝕟𝕠𝕨, 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥'𝕤 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕞𝕒𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕤.

Yuuji and Junpei probably would have related to each other a lot even beyond the movies. They are both only-children who don't have any ties to their extended family. Both of them have never really had any close attachments. Probably grew up as latchkey kids. Neither of them knew a thing about sorcery until very recently.