✩ Juno's Journal ✩

I'm moving out next week. We get the keys tomorrow, and I'm planning to shuttle over all my stuff to the new apartment over the course of the weekend. When we started apartment hunting, I got cold feet often about how things wouldn't be "easy" anymore. I'm kind of a sheltered child due to my mom's chronic anxiety (instilled in her by her own family). I don't do a lot of the typical things someone my age should know how to do, or at least do regularly. And being thrown into a situation where I have to know how to do things like make my own food or do my own laundry or clean my own house is... daunting. It's scary! I don't feel prepared for it! And it made me hesitant to move out at all- even if I loathed how much I was stifled because of living with my parents.

Luckily, my friends and therapist talked it into me that living on my own, even with a shaky start, is leagues better than staying at home forever and never developing into a full person. This resolve helped me power through the rest of the apartment hunting process, and now we've got a place. I invited my friends over yesterday to help me get through packing, and at the end I ordered us all dinner from a local place my family has been eating at since before I was old enough to remember. They'd accidentally left their leftovers at my place, and seeing them in the fridge again made me realize: I may never eat at this place again.

My parents went out to the supermarket (without me. The last week of my life I can expect not to worry about groceries) and they went out of their way to buy my favorite dinners to have this week. It's my last week living with my family.

My parents "know" I'm trans, but operate as if they've conveniently forgotten this. They don't know I've been taking T for 9 months now. After the move, I'm going to tell them, and I know it could very well be the end of our relationship. This might actually be my last week with my family.

My parents are very nostalgic people, and they've kept a lot of stuff from my childhood around the house. While packing, I've come across these little fragments of my life that I'd forgotten I'd had. It's ironic in an almost too-obvious way. I'm both literally and metaphorically dismantling my current and (mostly) former life, to make a new one. I know the self is a rolling concept- just because I'm moving into a new phase of my life doesn't mean everything from the past will go away immediately and completely. I'm bringing some stuff from my extremely early childhood with me into the new apartment. But I'm also inevitably going to need to accept new things that may require me to scrap parts of myself I thought I'd have forever.

It sounds fucking awful, right? At least in this specific mindset. I'm going to have to take on new responsibilities in exchange for my free time. I'm going to have to sacrifice things I want for things I need. And it kinda seems like a miserable existence. And I want to retreat into the safety of my parents and living at home.

I know that's no way to live, either.

Running this site has become a new "constant" in my life- something I know I'd like to keep around in my life for a while. I know there are things like this that I've stopped doing. I can't help missing these things sometimes, but there's gotta be a reason I never fully go back to my old hobbies. They just don't serve me anymore. I guess that's okay. And I'd like to believe that whatever I give up in the process of adapting to my "new life" will be things that simply don't serve me anymore- things I might remember fondly, far in the future, but I just don't do anymore. I think it's scary now, because it feels like all my ways of being are going to be pulled away from me, but... realistically, habits fade out of your life usually because you've found something better. So I can only go forward hoping that's how things will shake out. Or at least, that I'll enjoy the freedoms of living on my own more than I'll hate having to do everything on my own now.

I feel like I've been shuffling around blindly in life for a few years now. Even when I know what direction I want to take, I never feel like I know if anything I'm doing between my starting point and my (imagined) end point is the right thing to do. I don't even know if I'm moving in the same direction I started in. And I'm not sure where I want to end up, ultimately. I'm not sure I ever really knew, honestly. At least I can say I've got a slightly better idea than I did when I was a teenager. I don't know if I'm reaching the light at the end of the tunnel. It seems like life, even past my youth, is just going to be a series of tunnels I have to shuffle blindly through. I hope there's more to it than that. I've gotten pretty good at finding happiness in, or despite, the darkness. I just hope I get my time in the sun, too.

Have you ever felt yourself improving at a new skill? Not necessarily in any significant way, but trying a new thing and being like "god, if I'd tried that a couple weeks ago I would've given up way sooner." That's how the last two days have been for me with this site lol

On March 21st (which I know because I signed their guestbook and it's dated lol) I found bassdrop's site. I was lowkey stoned at the time and I was websurfing because-- well, if you smoke you should try it, it's pretty fun. But I struck gold finding the dressup game they'd managed to put on their site?? I still don't understand enough about coding to know how they did this lol, but it really made me want to figure out how to add games to my site. They probably wouldn't be that in depth (god knows I'm no gamedev (other than that time I made a visual novel (except that game is like horribly outdated in many senses now so don't go looking for it (it's not like problematic or anything it's just kinda a walking reference to a social circle I was in more in like 2020 than I am now and also my art has visibly aged (I do want to make another (probably more original) VN at some point though. I had an idea for one yesterday actually but that's for another blog post))))) but it would be fun to have a little something, right? I just didn't know how, so it was on the backburner for a while.

Last week, I found a site that had a bunch of super simple html based games you can just slap onto your page, and I was like oh shit! This is perfect! I sat on it for a few days until I felt like working on my site again, and yesterday I decided that would be the day. Before I started, I decided to clean up my directory on Neocities a bit, and-

...Hey, why's the link to my graphics collection broken? Let me type the URL right into the bar, maybe my links are just acting weird...

...Oh no. The page is... I deleted the entire html file, didn't I?

SHIT!

So that was... basically all of yesterday. Like, literally all of yesterday. I started at like 11 AM and (not counting breaks for lunch and traveling home from work and actual work I had to do) ended at like, 8 PM. Luckily, this bad boy of a site started as a rentry page created out of a desire to Customize Something. (And also to start a graphics collection. Yes, this was the driving force to make this site. I take pride in that collection! It was my densest page! I don't know how I wasn't more devastated over losing it!?) It wasn't gonna be the majority of my previous collection, but I had what I'd started with, saved there still. So I moved everything over... and then added some new graphics I'd been sitting on (mostly the banner section)... and then added some new graphics I found from browsing that day, just for fun and to fill it out a little more.

So I'm proud to present the rebuilt version of the graphics collection!
(By the way, if I had your site's button on this page before and I forgot to add it back, let me know!)

Today, I thought, surely, today will be the day I add the games page. Nothing broke today, so I'm not sure why I didn't. But if you're reading this, I'm sure you've noticed by now- I've updated this page significantly as well! I realized that as my blog goes on, it'll become real annoying to scroll through one iframe containing everything to get to an older entry, especially since these entries tend to go long. So I figured out how collapsibles work (I also learned the word for collapsibles- I knew they weren't dropdowns but it was the only word I could think of to describe them lol) and turned each entry into a collapsible! No more need for iframes! Which is good, I think, because I feel like iframes can start to become a complacency thing for me if I start using them too much. But everything you see here? All in one page, babey

Well, except for one thing.

Someone in my Discord server (yes, I have a server for non-animatronics related things, but, like, I don't use it lol) started a discussion over my last blog post in the server. And by all means, I love when people talk in that server that isn't just me floundering over trying to start a conversation lol. But I figured, it might be a little more fitting to have a comments section under the blog entries right? Am I just fishing for interaction with people? Probably! But I won't be written off as an attention hog any longer, talking to people is fun and cool and we should all start doing it more instead of just liking and retweeting/reblogging/etc! Not to get all manifesto about it.

Anyway, I spent this morning fighting with a chatbox service site that for some reason included demo styles but didn't include the css for any of those styles. So I tried to inspect element and just copypaste the styling, but then when I tried to customize it past that, it'd just... break all of the css. And I didn't feel like figuring all that shit out, so I just used a different servicer lmao! The only downside is that, while I can just put the comments at the bottom of the collapsible container, the container doesn't, like, expand to accomodate the widget when comments start getting posted- so effectively all the comments would be invisible. I figured out that I can put the comments sections in iframes, though, and embed the iframe at whatever size I want within the container, so... win? It's not ideal, because I still have to make a new page every time I make a new blog post just so the comments sections are distinct between blog posts. But I'm sure in time, I'll get better enough at this to figure out a better way. Have that "oh, I've improved" feeling again. And if you happen to know more about how all this works than me, now there's a comments section! So... tell me!

Unfortunately this provider makes you "sign in" to comment, but you can just link your Google/Twitter/whatever. I worry that'll drive people away from commenting, but for now I'll keep it.

I've been marathoning Neil Cicierega's mouth albums while coding today (via this video, which has some really cool additional facts like telling you what's being sampled), mostly because I hadn't heard Mouth Dreams yet. I'm nearing the end now and listening to Pee Wee Inc as I type this, and... Jesus, he made anxiety into a song. I like Feel Good Inc for that sick bassline, but the laughing has always stressed me out lol. Neil managed to turn that shit up to 11, I hate it, thanks

Okay, I have to clock out of work in like, 2 minutes. Here's to another full day spent on the site! Try out the comments section if you've read this far!

Let it be known that I did try my best not to immediately turn this blog into anything deeper than surface level lol, but here we are. I have a lot of thoughts and I like to shout into the void! So here's what's been on my mind lately:

As is hopefully evident by my page, I'm transmasc nonbinary- which has started to feel more like a fancy way of saying "I dunno what I am, I just know I'm not a girl." I started taking testosterone at the end of August last year, meaning I'm just about 7 months on T as of writing. I was told my first year on T would be the weird rocky section, but I didn't really account for how rough the waters would be emotionally. I've been going through something of an identity crisis, both with my gender and my sexuality. I've found myself sliding down the masc side of the scale in terms of how I percieve myself- but being early in my transition (and on a low dose to boot), my body is not exactly matching the level of masculinity I want to be. I'm having dysphoria, basically, which is something I basically never got before T.

In recent months, for reasons I have to believe are pretty unrelated (but also birds of a feather, right?), I've come across many friends and acquaintances who are butch lesbians. And with my transition, I've been compared to butches in terms of my presentation. To their credit, I do look very much like a masculine woman- and I may have picked up the carabiner thing as a cool punk accessory before I realized it was a lesbian thing lol. I don't particularly mind the comparison, but when it started, it really grated on me. It felt like a form of misgendering- to me at the time, butches were just masculine women, and being compared to one felt like I was being told "I can tell you're really a woman," which really hurt given I had felt the most "boy" I'd ever been until that point. It almost felt like a regression for me.

Luckily, I've since learned more about butchness and am not nearly so insecure about the comparison anymore. Now, I read butch as almost a gender identity in itself- and it lead to me thinking I myself might be butch. I mean, if enough people were saying I looked like one, and if "butch" is just another form of being nonbinary, maybe it's a place I can find community in. Right?

I tried to make myself fit into the butch box, and I've only now realized it just isn't working out. You can't find a label and try to squeeze yourself inside it, just for a sense of community. All you're going to do is make yourself feel more ostracized. Butchness seems to me an identity that is masculine, but in a way that is rooted in womanhood and/or attraction to women. And while I do feel some level of connection to the girl I was as a kid, and that I feel having been a girl affects how I view my gender today, I don't think I necessarily consider girl-ness any significant part of how I view my gender today. And while I am bisexual and attracted to women, this doesn't necessarily affect how I think of my gender. Besides, I prefer guys anyway lol. While I understand womanhood in a similar way to butches, it doesn't really mean I am butch myself. And that's fine!

But of course, I was left with the obvious question: If I'm not butch, what am I?

The next clear step was to try looking for a community in trans men specifically. If I can't connect to womanhood anymore, maybe there's something to be found in connecting with boyhood. The only issue is, in searching for a transmasc community, I just... kept finding more butch stuff. I wasn't trying to look for it- after a point I almost started trying to avoid it- and yet butchness kept coming up. I didn't know why.

So I finally caved and turned to Reddit. I asked this morning on r/ftm- "What is transmasc culture to you?" And the answer was a resounding "fuck if I know." I've also tried to find some semblance of a transmasc community on Tumblr- I managed to find a lot of trans guys talking about their struggles with feeling invisible within the queer community, and a lot of discourse about transandrophobia and infighting with transfems and so on- I found a lot of people complaining, but no joy. And it's definitely fine to complain about our struggles, but if we do that with a lack of having anything more positive to unite over, it begins to feel like transmasc culture is our lack of culture. Transmasc culture is our invisibility. And I don't want that. I should hope other trans guys don't want that.

I had one person comment on my Reddit thread with something long and well-thought-out, talking about how transmasculinity is something of a baby subculture still. Before we had a word for our experience, we were butches- which is why I kept finding so much overlap with butchness when I was trying to find stuff for trans guys. After we separated from butches and got our own label, though, it seems like transmascs sort of... stagnated? For a lot of reasons. Cis people consider us confused girls and belittle and infantalize us- and I'd be lying if I said I'd never seen this seep into the trans community, too. We've had people talk over us enough that I think a lot of transmascs didn't feel like their voice mattered. In popular culture, too, the focus has almost always been on trans women too- for better or for worse (usually worse). The "guy in a dress" joke has been around for way longer than actual transfem representation in pop culture has. And as queer acceptance has slowly become more "in vogue," it makes sense Hollywood would want to course-correct on trans women- just at the cost of tending to forget about us transmascs.

I hope none of this comes across as me trying to pit transmascs and transfems against each other, or pitting trans men and butches against each other. I think any sort of comparison for the sake of "proving" any one group has it worse is useless and only serves to divide our community, when unity is the most important tool we have against the phobes. I only mention these other groups because we have similar experiences and our identities are in some way linked to each other (if me thinking I was butch for a while isn't a good example, I don't know what is lol).

My point being, while transmascs and trans men are long distinct from the butch community, it seems we haven't gotten the chance to actually build our own subculture yet. This whole revelation left me sorta conflicted. On one hand, it felt really good to finally find words that made sense to how I consider myself. On the other hand, it sucks finally finding the place I want to call "home," only to find it's effectively a ghost town. I want there to be a transmasc culture so badly, and I'm left almost with a sense of responsibility, to want to make this community I want to exist in. But where do you even start with something like that? Can just one guy like me even start it on their own?

I had a friend (who is also transmasc) float the idea that I could make a Youtube video about this. I guess I have something of a platform- I'm sure if I urged any transmascs watching me to help build a community with me, I'd probably inspire at least one person. But at the same time, I feel like once you make a video about being trans, you're stuck as "the trans youtuber." My partner tried to assure me that I can make a video about being trans without that becoming my whole channel, but them saying that made me realize- I'm not scared of my content becoming all about being trans, but I'm scared of putting a target on my back for transphobes. If I make a video about being trans, it's leaving the door open for transphobes to come harrass me in the comments- and the dedicated ones will start doing it on my other videos, too. People will talk about me behind my back, I'll have genuine "haters." And I had a taste of that after my RAE video. And it sucked! I'm not sure I want to invite more of that.

But, if I think about it, a lot of the hate I receieved after making my RAE video came from a place of transphobia (even if a lot of them wouldn't want to admit that). Transphobes will find me and try to make my life worse regardless of what content I make, and I know this because it's already happened. Maybe I'll be opening the floodgates if I made a video specifically about being trans- I'd probably at least invite the transphobes who aren't so intent on acting like they aren't transphobes- but I realized... there will always be transphobes on my videos, simply because I'm trans. I already am "the trans youtuber," simply because I am a youtuber that is trans. Which sucks! I don't want my pronouns to have an effect on how my content is received, I just want to talk about video games I like lol. And it's moments like this that make me rethink wanting to become a youtuber, or any other sort of internet personality.

But, ultimately, making Youtube videos is what gives me purpose. I like to write, I like to share my opinions, and I like to put on a show about it. I can't and won't stop doing what I love simply because I know people will hate me for it. If anything, that's part of the job. I can't promise I'll actually make this video- and if I do, I can't promise I won't pull half of my script from this blog post lol- but it's something to consider for the future. Maybe when I'm a little more secure in my own identity.

I've noticed while websurfing that a lot of sites have a blog section. I had considered making one for myself, but I wasn't sure what I'd wanna put in it? I know the importance of keeping your personal life separate from your online life, especially if you've got aspirations to be an Internet Guy(tm) like I do. But then I realized I tend to talk a LOT in the news section of the site... and also in general lol. For such a small part of the site (both in role and in size) I realize too many words there would clog it. So I decided a blog would be the perfect spot for me to go off about site updates for as long as I want-- and to go off about basically anything else for as long as I want, too.

As I said in the news sidebar (which god I hope people are reading lol) there's now a view counter on the site! For some reason I can't get my .html files to recognize .js files in my index, despite everything being in the same main folder. I wanted to initially just put in a line like "You are visitor [number]!". I found a script that could read my viewer count, but when I put in the script tags and then had it print where I wanted to, it just... doesn't print? I had a similar problem the other day when I found a sparkly cursor trail I thought would be fun to add. The script itself was kinda long, so I put it in its own .js file and then tried to link the file in the html... and it just didn't appear. Tutorials make this seem so simple... surely I'm not so dumb that I'm missing something here. I think sometimes God just wants to make me his jester.

As long as we're talking about coding, I for some reason made the decision to host this entire blog in an i-frame. Basically, my "real" blog is on a separate page on my site from the "/blog" page. (If you want to see what it looks like on its own, just slap "/realblog" at the end of my site's url!) The news sidebar also works like this- there's a /news page on my site that isn't linked anywhere, but gets embedded into the sidebar via an i-frame. I figured if my blog was gonna go on for a while, it'd be easier to scroll within a frame than it would to have one really, really long page. But the more I think about it, the more I figure it might be easier in the long run to make my entire site run like this...! Updating the sidebar on every page, whenever I make a cosmetic change or add a new page, is gonna get real tedious real fast. But it also seems like tedious work to restructure my whole site just so it can run on i-frames.... One day I'll eventually break and do it (maybe soon lol)

In non-webdev related news: I've been super into Dungeon Meshi lately! I started reading it a little more than a week ago, and me and Packtion started the anime together. We're now caught up with the show, and I'm on chapter 43 of the manga. My favorite character so far is Laios, mostly because I find his autistic swag... deeply relatable lmao. Chilchuck is a very close second, though- he's a real asshole in the funny way I love lol.

Maybe when I get a better sense of how they typically look, I'll get into making shrines? It'd be fun to make shrines of my favorite characters, but at the same time I figure it'll be hard to fill em up given most of my interests are super niche lol. I figure you need a lot of images of the characters/media you're making a shrine of, right? And when my favs are, like... animatronics and Shovel Knight characters, it's hard to find some good HQ images of those guys lmao. Imagine how I felt back when I was more into rp- making icons was hell lol

I've sorta lost the plot on this atp, so I guess that's a good signifier this entry is pretty complete. I'm glad I decided to make this! I was itching to add something more meaty to my blog, something you can spend a while on (both in the coding sense and the reading sense) and it'll only get more meaty as time goes on! So I guess I'll see you again whenever I decide to update this again B] Thanks for reading!