morning, folks. another month, another chance for me to rant about nothing for 2,000 words straight. i'm starting this off too drab, sorry. i haven't really been doing or feeling much these past few weeks. just listening to music and taking naps much longer than usual. other than that, everything is as it should be. well... except theatre. or theater. however you spell it.
yeah, i'm back on this. since i have a minor presence in this year's play, i haven't really gotten the chance to do much of anything. i've been called into less than 5 rehearsals so far. meanwhile last year, i probably would've been at my 15th. obviously, you can't land a major role every time, it's just a part of life. but surprisingly, rehearsals have felt more like a chore than ever, probably because i'm not quite accustomed to it yet.

not to mention, last year i had a best friend, and now i don't! we don't talk a whole lot anymore, so calling us "best friends" is a real stretch at this point. like i've probably mentioned several times before, i basically forgot how to make friends until sophomore year. and not even my middle school friends were a big help. just last week, one of them "invited" me to an escape room she and several others were attending. despite saying she'd add me to their group chat, she never actually did. so that came and went, i suppose. to be fair, she doesn't know the singular social media i have, and i really should've given it to her while she was there. (our school emails are the same format, though...)

i am going to Homecoming this year, though. my friends and i agreed to buy tickets, and i already have an outfit ready to go. they're not exactly the type to engage in big social interactions, and neither am i. what we're supposed to even do at that event is beyond me. if i had to guess, we'll probably end up in the corner of the room or chilling outside, if we're allowed. i'm fairly certain some of them took Dance during freshman year, but i doubt those skills would hold up two years later.

another thing that's happening soon is a class field trip, specifically for AP Computer Science (Principles). our teacher didn't actually tell her students about the trip until two weeks ago, but she told our parents a week before then. so i had my parents asking me about some "cybersecurity trip" and i stood there with the most confused expression on my face. hey, at least it's not child labor. there's only 13 students in the class, yet the teacher is having issues finding people to drive us to the place. knowing my luck, the other 12 students will find a suitable ride and i'll end up riding with either my mom or the teacher. my mom is perfectly fine, but my teacher's a Swiftie, and i can't handle that.
a field trip is good, right? after all, i plan on looking into Cybersecurity for job opportunities. unfortunately for me, i'm me, and i don't talk to anyone. there's this one guy in the class who somewhat considers us friends, but i barely know the guy besides his name. he's the second biggest nerd in the class right behind me, while everyone else seems to have trouble knowing what an 'if/else statement' is. we're going over nested loops now, and it makes me realize how much i hate using Python loops. guess i'm too used to Scratch's 'repeat(X)' block. oh, how i miss the simpler times.

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as for my play rehearsals... they've very much been happening. not gonna lie, it's been feeling a lot different than last year's. and i know i haven't been giving it my all. the current scene we're working on involves me (my character) and a childhood friend who haven't seen each other in years. i've clearly gone insane since then, after strange things have started occurring in the place in which i reside. the friend tries to comfort me, yet i don't feel anything. but all of that feels so... familiar to me. an empty, forgotten husk of a person, and a friend who desperately tries to make them feel better to no avail. now where have i heard this before? it's poetic, really. realizing it or not, my teacher gave me the picture-perfect role in this play.

despite this, i've been having trouble acting. in the moment, i can barely take it seriously. while the girl playing my friend can cry on demand and pull a straight face, i'm standing there with a big ass smirk trying to remember what we were just taught minutes beforehand. and the scene is ever-so-slightly romantic, with the characters clearly having a bit of affection for each other. i know that absolutely should not apply in real life, but i'm not not saying i at least somewhat like her. eh, i'm probably just too lonely. after all, i rarely talk to anyone outside our rehearsals.
a year's gone by since the first play, and i'm still in the same place i was before. guess i'm a slow learner. even if i had more friends and bothered talking to my peers, i'd still call myself a sad sack of sh*t. indeed, i do have self-esteem issues. i really started to notice during one of my theatre classes. in fact, the whole class noticed. luckily for me, they haven't brought it up since. my mind has, though.

we were playing a game where people slowly get kicked off the game, and my teacher made a joke about "betting" on me to win. i didn't win, and he jokingly frowned. i looked at him and said "what did you think, betting on this guy?" except i didn't say that sarcastically, i meant it. the entire class heard and knew i was serious, and proceeded to tell me i shouldn't say stuff like that.
here's another example. during last year's musical, they announced a sort of "buddy program" to help incoming theater kids learn the ropes. the upperclassmen would be paired with lowerclassmen, and they'd help each other out as the musical progressed. when some castmates asked me if i was signing up, i replied "no, i wouldn't be a good apprentice." again, i was told i shouldn't say that stuff. but it's not like i'm wrong. i'm lazy, i can barely keep my head up in class, i don't communicate, i don't really participate, and you think all that makes a good apprentice? funny stuff.

sometimes i wonder why i even bothered signing up for the musical. i was depressed, and definitely didn't talk to anyone. one time i came close to bringing my airpods on stage, which really wasn't a good sign. at least i met a few people, but lord knows i barely talk to them now. i have all the resources in the world to talk to these guys, but they might as well not exist.

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maybe it's not as bad as i thought it was. i know i'm a competent actor, but i rarely give it my all. during last year's play, i almost never practiced at home. that includes rehearsing my lines, blocking, tone, all that stuff. and despite probably being the only one who never bothered reading any of his lines at home, i still came through with a solid performance.
i can tell i don't usually do my best at literally anything school-related. actually, maybe i just never do my best at anything. i'm just lazy. it took 2 years for George 1 to be finished, a year and a half for the Remastered Collection to be a competent game, and 8 months for me to actually study in Honors Chemistry. might as well say that most of my Theatre Arts assignments so far were all first takes, and yet my teacher continues to compliment me anyway. deserving, i know.

at least my CS-related classes are going swell. i'm definitely the top of both those classes, each for different reasons. majority of the kids in Web Design blatantly don't give a damn, and usually argue with the teacher over the most first world problem crap imaginable. some are heavy sleepers (although the teacher struggles to keep them awake), some talk way too much, and others don't understand what an 'HTML' is. or maybe i'm just the biggest nerd in the school, who knows.
i already mentioned earlier that i'm the top of AP Computer Science (Principles). i mean, Python isn't terribly hard, despite my gripes with concatenation. what i do like is how indentation is required in Python, since reading unindented code gives me a stroke. but to be honest, i have no idea what i'd use it for in the long-run. apparently it's useful for "web applications", which is possibly the most vague answer one could get. maybe by the end of the course i'll have learned enough to make something worthwhile. at least Javascript is gonna be taught starting November, could make some fun stuff with that.

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but hey, that doesn't matter since George 1 is now in widescreen*!! hell yeah, that's what i've been waiting for! so yeah, i made another widescreen port. as we all know, George 1.5 isn't coming out for another x+5 years, so this is the best i can do for now. i plan on making a devlog once the Big Patch comes out, hopefully this month because i neglected to make significant progress last month. after that's done, i'll work on pushing out a minor Labyrinths II alpha. its players are very content-starved so, i'll throw 'em a bone until Alpha 2 comes out. and yeah, i'll change a few blocks in George 1.5 every now and then.
i do plan on writing a big ol' devlog post once the Big Patch releases. gotta convince people to play it somehow. i'll rip the bandaid off right now and tell you that the Remastered Collection will not be getting a widescreen port. now that i've said that, i can lie to you and release a port later so you all think i'm super cool for going back on my word and putting in more effort for a game that probably doesn't deserve it! however, i can confirm that George 1.5 will get its own port later down the line. i have some future updates in mind.

one project i wanna talk about for a bit is Super Scratch Melee: Blitz (SSMB). what started as a demo made for Christmas 2022 turned into... a 3-year hiatus. the most i've done with the project since then is dump a shoddy demo of it in the LG Productions Presentation and host a stage-making contest. if you thought Fire Forge was dead, look no further than this game.
however, development actually had a slight resurgence a few months ago. i rewrote a sizeable chunk of the game and did most of Campaign mode. even then, i still have 9 fighters, 5 bosses, and a ton of stages left to add. i probably won't bother much with this game for the time being, since i have at least 3 other projects that require attention. until then, i think the Remastered Collection will be fun to play. it's got infinitely more soul than its initial release, and a few surprises i'm excited to show. not sure if i'll give it its own trailer, but i might as well since those George videos aren't coming anytime soon.

y'know, October arriving so soon has served as a big wake-up call for me to get to it. i swear, this year has been such a blur. lucky i have this here blog to document all the times i spiral into crippling depression. pretty sure i mentioned this in some other blog post, but i wanna discover more Neocities websites. i wanna read more blog posts, because i might as well if i'm not gonna bother picking up a physical book. i've already added some cool sites to the About page, and i hope to add more very soon.

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that about wraps up this particular blog post. see you all later this month for a new devlog.
also what did you think of the blog page update isn't it so cool how you can sort posts by their type now
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