My Rough Start on Neocities

I wanna talk about something. Something that's been on my mind now that I've made so much progress in life. I want to talk about my start on Neocities, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I wasn't in a good mental state when I started. In fact, I was on the brink of suicide. I wrote a letter to art, feeling trapped by it--that's still on my site--at the bottom of my journal.

A little hard to read. I was in a very bad place at that time.

Anger and Salvation

I was really angry, erratic, and potentially manic when I started on here. My site was haphazard and my writings were bizarre and furious. I was furious. At what exactly? Well, I was mad at my life, but I didn't fully recognize that at the time. So, I took that anger out on the broad idea of the internet as a whole. Now, I still have a lot of (reasonable) gripes with the current day internet, I think everyone does. But, my takes then were anything but reasonable; they were misdirected anger.

I made a big show of how much I didn't like anyone, which really was a very silly way of confessing how much I didn't like myself--at the time. I didn't like myself. I didn't like that my art had gotten so dark and strange, I didn't like my interests--my obsessions. I didn't want to be an artist, it felt like it was forced upon me. And it still does, but I like doing it now. And what changed? Why do I like it now?
Simple answer: support.

Not just outside artistic validation (which has helped), but also support from a person. A person who saved my life. He pulled me back from the edge of hatred and sadness. Trippy. And that's all I needed, was someone to care about me in ways I had never been cared for before. Someone to remind me when my anger and trauma are clouding my judgement. Someone to support me and believe in me and my art and everything I do. That's all I needed.

Artistic Support

People's overwhelmingly warm responses to my art has been nothing short of amazing--and even healing. I really, at the time I started, thought I'd never be accepted because of the content of my work. I thought it was too gritty, graphic, and disturbing for anyone to ever understand. I thought I couldn't be understood--that my life was so messed up--no one could ever understand or even care.
But that wasn't true.

People do like my work, it resonates, it matters. A friend through the smallweb even called it "important"--and that stuck with me.

Important.

My work is important. There's a lot of people out there who need it, I think. It's the story I needed and searched for so desperately most of my life. I found it now, it was inside me the entire time. What a cliche.

Moving Foward

I'm always happy to look to the future for greener pastures. I'm so much better now, I'm more . . . me. People like me more. I'm stable, not so scary now, compared to when I was angry and unpredictable. I've made lots of friends on the smallweb since I've gotten better. And that makes me really happy. I love friends. I never had any growing up, just siblings, all from the same toxic hellhole. Now I can finally experience different people from different backgrounds, and cultures, and everything. It's wonderful.

I'm so excited to finally be creating the actual comic book for Suzu & Jack too. My entire time on Neocities has been like one big build up to this moment--to this comic. I wrote the script a few years ago now, I've evolved so much along the way. I'm a better version of me. A kinder, softer, cared for version of me. And I'm ready. I'm ready to share my comic, my story, my art.