charming little homes (Flash Fiction)
i feel like a fraud whenever I hear mention, any mention, of coding -- friends of mine majored in subjects not even close to video games, and create successful demos, render in blender. for four years, i studied games and how to make them. my diploma looks like a forgery. my assignments were always just me filling in blanks on templates, using the most easy-to-understand language.
websites on neocities are always so charming. old-web jpegs of anime cuties and scrolling blinkies, stamps, walls of shrines and escoteric belonging to a pocket of the world wide web still living in 2003. i tried and failed to make my own website, again, using a template that already existed. coding anything that felt personalized to me was not possible. i was impatient. 4 years, i had already spent doing this thing people did better than me, getting better results, flawlessly understanding something that came natural. coding is a drag. i want to make things that look nice, and not worry about all the technical stuff.
there are many sites that use their medium to their advantage. stories you click through. stories that appear in front of you word by word, vanishing where you move your mouse. exercises where you type or click or choose from dropdown windows or follow links or accept input. these are things i have played with, using websites rather than programs, hastily created just so i can say that i made it. fraudulent, again, my presumption that my eager hands can make something interesting off of other people's bases.
this website is one that i like. it is functional, and I can put things here that I make, that are entirely my own. i feel less like a cheater, somehow. but i am renting out a white workspace, somewhere easy and simple to create, somewhere i want to paint the walls but am prevented; not by the landlord but by my own inability to paint.