#i'm back on regularly posting on tumblr and i come in with super long rambly posts...

[sincerely-sofie]

Check-in for 01/28/24

It's been a while since I did one of these. Time to remedy that!

I've been doing well in my assignments, but due to some registration issues at the start of the semester I was unable to sign up for any web development or programming classes :< It's nice to take a break, but I'm really worried about getting stagnant in those skills, and maybe even losing what I've learned over time.

This is where a couple of new projects come in: A blorbo database and a tool for drawing pokemon from memory. These things are going to keep me avoid stagnancy and help me develop my web dev and Python programming skills, and I'm real excited to talk about them.

First up, let's talk about that tool for drawing pokemon from memory. I love drawing pokemon from memory, but it's a bit of a struggle to find tools online that work well for a solo experience when you're doing this challenge alone. So I made a program in PyGame to solve this problem, and I've actually already completed it! It was a great learning experience when it came to getting a taste of APIs, and PokeAPI really helped me do all the heavy lifting with it. I also ended up using ChatGPT to help me understand how to phrase my questions and the things I needed to research. This is the end result:

If you click "Get Random Pokemon", the program will provide a pokemon's name. The point of it is to draw the pokemon as best as you remember it, and then click "Show Pokemon Image" to see how you did. You will then have the option to get a new random pokemon, which clears the image from the window.

There's a lot of stuff I don't understand about how the program works--- APIs evade my understanding, and Tkinter is a dark art beyond my comprehension. But I was able to make a program that solved a genuine problem for me for the first time, and that's super exciting to me!

Now, for web development--- long story short, I'm making a website dedicated to cataloguing my OCs that's very much inspired by tumblr user @snekkerdoodles's personal site on neocities, which I regularly stare at in an effort to motivate myself to make cool things like it (everyone reading this should check his page out IMMEDIATELY and tell him how cool it is). Here's the screenshots of the WIP I'm chipping away at right now:

I don't have much to say about it, as the interesting stuff will really be the content of the pages, and I still have yet to finish the template page I'll be filling with my OCs' information. However, I can say that I'm very upset with the lack of proper teaching that took place in the first (and currently only) college web dev class I've taken. I spent an entire semester doing my own research to learn everything they were supposed to be teaching us. I'm still very peeved about that.

To summarize this very rambling post I'm too sleepy to edit properly, I'm making a digital blorbo encyclopedia, and I finished making a little desktop app thingy, which means I need to summon a new programming project. I'm tempted to make it a video game... maybe I should turn back to that visual novel idea I had ages ago and boot up RenPy!

[sennqu]

just noticed the disconnect that sometimes happens when it comes to analyses from the ST subreddit. if it's related to the lore, they can and will look at the more subtle things and clues...when it comes to ships though, they're more likely to take things at face value. e.g. theorizing whether it was vecna that took will by comparing the monster silhouette in S1 and other discrepancies between S1 and S4 vs. believing that mike's S4 storyline is just building up to him saying "i love you" (god this is such a boring hypothetical storyline)

but ngl though, their comments really give me a lot of insight on how non-byler shippers view the Cali plot and how much of an out ST still has at this point in time (pre-V2) to commiting mutual byler into canon.

most upvoted opinions on mike's weird behavior this season:

"finn's acting badly", (lmao)

"cali plot is badly scripted",

"mike and will have just drifted away because of time and distance",

"mike is subconsciously picking up on and is weirded out by will's crush on him because mike is straight straight straight". (from people who don't know finn said that mike is unaware of will's feelings. w/c tbf was also me before i went into the byler tags because i don't really watch/read cast interviews. this is probably also a commonly held opinion by people who only watch the show)

i do like that they're noticing just how cruel it would be for will to have his feelings unrequited. now please connect the dots and see how a storyline where will never gets a "win" would be a horrible one.

i think that once will has a more connected role to the lore again, byler will look like an actual option to most viewers. because he'll be an actual protagonist again and people will want to root for him and his happiness.

as for what'll it take for people to see mike's feelings... tbh what we only really have right now is subtext. i do think that mike's behavior is because he's realizing he's in love with will and not el, but there isn't anything more overt to really confirm it as of yet. we'll have to wait for V2. and even then, it'll probably be something that can still be run through the straight lens if people try hard enough.