Anville Town from Pokemon: Black And White
oh god it's been almost a week since my last entry WHOOPS
sorry about that. College started back up again so my last remaining free time was spent playing modded minecraft lmao
anyhow, I've just been gettin to thinkin about online social spaces and whatnot. Social Media, not social media, it doesn't matter. point is, I've always been a bit of a lurker in these spaces. Idk if it was learned behavior from trying to be funny in YouTube comment sections when I was younger (it didn't really work, most of the time) or if it's just a natural result of my relationship with the internet as a whole. anyway I've always viewed it as a space that I am firmly outside of, like a little ecosystem that I have no business messing with. Hope that makes sense. People who were interacting regularly on the internet (be it youtube comments, twitter posts, or discord messages) were, in my mind, people who were distinctly a part of the internet, were part of the community that was the internet, and I was distinctly not a part of it. And y'know maybe that's a more healthy mindset than I give it credit for lol
Still though. it was a kind of... silent alienation that I probably inflicted upon myself more than anything (along with low self-esteem. Like my mind was goin, "why would any of these people want to interact with ME? I'd probably just be bothering them. If I were to pipe up now people would probably be weirded out by my presence aghhhh grumble grumble etc etc). That along w my overthinking problem led me to vastly prefer talking with people in-person (or, more simply, with voices and a physical presence-- games like VRChat fit this description). TL;DR I am a lurker through and through.
Lurking like this also leads me to like, idolize members of a community? Like if someone's making something I'm a big fan of I'll be like "oh man,,, they make such cool things,,,,, I probably shouldn't bother them they must get like a bunch of messages about it,,,,," and I mean, a lot of the time that IS the case, but most recently that sort of view has been put into question by FNF Battle Cats of all things???
so, uh, context: I had stumbled upon FNF Battle Cats in like late 2021 when the initial version of the mod came out, and that was the thing that got me INTO The Battle Cats as a whole. I eagerly waited for V2, cuz V1 was just a demo, but unfortunately due to directorial issues V2 came out in an unfinished state. I really liked the mod though, so I said "fuck it" and finished whatever I could of the mod, dubbing this version "FNF Battle Cats: Meatshield Makeover" due to most of the songs I finished being about meatshield cats, a niche of cat units in the source game. I initially just asked the official account if it was okay to do this, but to my surprise, they were incredibly cool with it, even being open to me updating them on its progress, and pointing me towards someone who could help (who was the co-developer and source of a lot of the other ideas present in FNFBC:MM). It was a surreal experience, especially since I'd never made a proper FNF mod before. fast forward to 2024, and I'd been keeping a close eye on the official account, since they announced plans to release additional content. things were slowing down, and they were asking for help developing the mod, to which I threw my hat into the ring-- not really expecting any sort of response (since I didn't think my art was that good) but hoping to get some consideration anyway.
well I'm on the team now
again, it was surreal being able to work with the people I previously appreciated from afar! It's real fun cuz they're more appreciative of the work I put in than I am. Being given concrete direction and pointers to revise assets instead of a flat "cool!" or "oh this is good!" is a level of feedback I'd never experienced before, and it's way more engaging! It's a weird thing to be excited about, I know, but still. I'd even learned that they really liked Meatshield Makeover (despite its flaws. I'd actually grown to dislike my work on that before hearing their praise of it), and that it may have been part of what inspired them to continue working on FNFBC stuff. So I'm incredibly thankful to them for that. Being able to see that my art actually has an effect on people is awesome! ESPECIALLY on people I look up to in one way or another.
Anyway, this past year has been an exercise in reining in that idolization, especially as I join in on smaller communities (like this one!). The biggest hurdle for me, still, is making friends in these communities-- I join discords and whatnot but it's very rare that I ever talk in them. Part of it is due to me not being used to the higher amounts of activity compared to small servers with personal friends, and part of it is anxiety. So I do hope you'll bear with me here.
