August 2016 to August 2019.
i've changed a fuckton throughout that period of time.
prepare for long-winded walls of text (but i do hope you read through it, pretty important stuff to me).
...
in 2016, i was about 7 or 8 months into my newfound depression, which started in January. i spiraled into a deep nihilism that i struggled to shake off. it felt like i'd been smothered by the void-- that living just didn't make sense to me for a second. by now, my mother had known her old boyfriend for a little while, and i was still living on the couch, disturbed, and...
well, i wasn't in great shape. i roamed the rooms and paced at 4 AM, contemplating every single thing.
by now, i had developed a crush on someone i didn't expect. i learned of a girl that played the piano a while ago and got to meet her with her friends during lunch. it took perhaps a couple months to realize i genuinely liked her, although i don't think it was anything like "love", rather, it was as if i found someone i wanted to anchor myself onto so i could stay above the water of my own pessimistic fucktangular mess of a mentality.
i noticed just how damn amazing she was at both music and art. just like me. similar passions, and we both had an interest in Undertale. of course, since i became an edgy little shit, i saw myself as Sans, and considered her to be like Toriel, considering her optimistic and kind nature.
in 2017, what would become the most insufferable year of my life, i'd end up being miserable as hell. for the first few months, i would continue my edgy ramblings, fit for r/im14andthisisdeep. i started to pursue music and art a bit more, but it mostly was a means to just escape and keep my mind off things. i still liked that girl, but something happened by the end of the 2nd semester, between her parents, and the principal.
...something about college papers. the principal did something. she had no choice but to leave the school as quickly as possible.
summer was an awkward and sluggish period of the year. i tried to talk to her, but we would slowly drift apart, barely even on speaking terms every 2 weeks. 3 weeks, and for the following years, once every couple months.
for my first semester of 9th grade, i would be alone, tired as hell, and frankly, fed up with living. family life was fucking shit. my mother's boyfriend treated my father and i like shit and he'd occasionally fight with my mother. i wasn't comfortable. i lived on that couch for at least a year or two by then. i got used to the cold, and although i melted in 104*F degree weather at night, i got used to that too. my grades were shit. i failed many of my classes. my GPA was around 1.8 at the time.
my personality was also fragmented in a way. i realized how apathetic i was, but couldn't do a damn thing. i didn't understand people. people didn't understand me. i struggled to talk with anyone, really.
by now, i've reached out online, and had been trying to talk to people more. i shared my shitty situation with others and hoped they understood, and i met many friends through that. i had been talking more in the forums of this one game titled "osu!", and met some cool people there too. i did what i could.
life was somewhat of a blur. everything was so fucking dreary, i honestly didn't find much hope in my life, and i held onto whatever interesting things i could find and research at the time, and hoped to express myself someday through my art and music, even though i didn't really know how i'd do it.
but i thought about it.
i tried to end the year with what i've learned. i started spending time with a friend, just a day every few months, to take my mind off things. i would be there for his birthday and for a christmas/winter event of sorts.
in 2018, i started to collect things to fill my apathetic shell.
small things. anything from friendships to different anime to indulge in.
i had left my old school due to the pool of misery it was, and attended another one nearby.
the second semester of freshman year was a period of time where i slowly started to climb from the bottom of my 2-year mental pitfall. sadly, though my mentality was stabilizing, albeit not much better than before, i found myself in probably the shittiest circumstantial point of my life.
my mother and her old boyfriend moved out. we had to move out too. the landlord was selling the house.
2 weeks to move out, yet we had so much to pack.
filling up boxes upon boxes, the monotony was numbing.
we needed to find a place to go, but the situation was pretty bleak. my dad was almost out of money, and hardly had enough to buy food for the second week.
half of our food spoiled because my mother took the refrigerator.
we threw dirty clothes into a bag since the washing machine was taken too.
flies, some bugs here and there. we managed.
by morning, my dad would drive me to the family i'd live with for the following months until he found a place to live. i walked in and tried to be as little of a burden as i could, setting down my things, as they set up what would be my second couch to sleep on.
...
several days passed. my freshman year was coming to a close, and i'd been on the verge of failing a couple classes. i wasn't particularly comfortable at this new family's home, but it wound up alright.
i get a message on discord.
a message from my father, who hardly knew of its existence.
he was hospitalized after being run over by his own truck on the way to his sister's residence. he was lucky to even be alive, as it could've crushed his intestines if the tires were just a bit higher up on his body. he was let off with bloody tire burns on his thighs.
a couple months passed. he could barely stand, but he managed. meanwhile, i sat on the couch, trying to make the most of the day. i was told my mother would arrive soon to bring me to her apartment, with her boyfriend. i despised this.
but as i finished up with school with passing grades, i'd end up managing that as well. life with them was tolerable, but tiresome, and frankly depressing.
but, i'd eventually get to meet my father again after the incident. he wound up okay after another two months or so.
the following months were a mess, but in summary, i would end up moving back and forth in a dreadful cycle between the custody of both of my parents. a legal battle broke out between them over sharing custody.
during this time, i would begin to release my music to the public starting on August 8th, with a single melody that would stick and resonate with me for over a year thus far:
https://soundcloud.com/achromatism/inertia
i'd continue to make music and would use it as a means to express myself.
school began once again, but i decided to give it a reasonable effort. i'd be alone, but at least i had time to myself. i brought my laptop along, which was pretty unusual. other students would come over and listen to the music i was making, then walk off and do their own thing. i'd meet a couple acquaintances and would enjoy their company, but never really made any friends for the first two or three months.
well, i'd eventually meet some friends i could actually hang around with, so that ended fairly well.
we need to skip ahead, it's getting long-winded.
2019, a year of change for me. on the 1st of January, i changed my motto. 2018 had been a year where i could say "i'll manage", but 2019 would be the year i told myself that "it's time to do better".
sadly, i struggled. in some classes, i hardly managed to scrape by, and had some issues with teachers. i fell into an insanely oppressive creative block.
i wouldn't be able to come up with anything or release anything for 5 more months.
in addition, i fucked up my laptop mid-February. i frequently mistreated my electronics, and eventually, that caused the hard drive of that particular laptop to give out (after the battery, of course). i did my best to work through it all, though.
i had no means of making art or music.
i got a replacement in March. it took a while to regain my creative composure, though.
in May, I would finally break the silence and release a song, titled "Atrophy". it's one of my personal favorites:
https://soundcloud.com/achromatism/atrophy
it was obvious that i'd lose traction, and it didn't do as well as i'd hoped. i continued on anyways to make songs like Apophenia, and then Invictus (despite this one performing the worst thus far).
but that summer would be essentially life-changing.
i spent June biding my time and figuring things out.
July, though, was where i made my decision.
i'd break into the indie-game development community, starting on
itch.io.
i posted on a "Help Wanted" thread for this work-in-progress game titled "Yami no Yume". i didn't know what to exactly make of it, but i thought it was a pretty damn cool game with potential in its concepts. i introduced myself and showed my portfolio of work at the time.
immediately, i was accepted. i spoke with the project manager, one of 3 people who still worked on the game at the time, and i was told in the post-acceptance interview of sorts that they decided that my work would fit their game best, and the music i made was essentially perfect for what they wanted. they liked my art as well and thought it'd be a nice addition.
it would be a project estimated to take at least a year and a half to complete. i was happy to help, though. the game seemed more awesome as i looked into it further. actual human-like AI with dialogue branches that aren't one-dimensional. lore-driven. only one game out of an entire universe-- meaning infinite potential for games set within that universe.
i would be paid by revenue-share, which seemed fair enough.
with that, my productivity rose to a THREE-DAY PERIOD OF INSANE PRODUCTION QUALITY. i was so immensely inspired that i created quite a lot of things with relative ease. i would eventually work out of habit as opposed to relying on motivation.
but that didn't last long. the school year came around again.
i'd work anyways. i envisioned a lot ahead of me, and formed some plans for what i wanted to do next with my life, where i wanted to go, and how far i'd go to get there.
from there on, i knew exactly what i wanted to do.
- - -
SQ.