why webdev is cheaper than therapy

If you've followed me for a bit, you may have picked up on the fact I'm addicted to working on my website. I started it in Dreamweaver whilst in the psych ward and believe it for not, it was actually so cathartic to push this 'retro' aesthetic site to the world wide web. I've developed a strong enough grasp of HTML and CSS to just edit in VisualStudio Code from here on out. Most of the time it is barely refining what I've done or adding new content, but is usually me just goofing around seeing what I can get away with in HTML, JavaScript and CSS, such as making hovered links glow with a kaleidoscope of colors!

Two days ago however, I finally realised how much I needed to make two 'shrines' for my ultimate two favorite fandoms. I made one for Berserk and a second one for Touhou Project.

My term for 'shrine' is just my dorky term for a webpage galley for my fanart. Hmm, and now that I think about it, I may add some hairbrained headcanons potentially, but don't worry! I haven't written them, yet!

I included very ancient 2015-era work on the Berserk page specifically because I had been asked by a follower where my old Berserk comics had 'gotten to'. These followers is keenly eyed, as I had deleted my longtime Tumblr when manic - I know, tragic right? But I'm not being completely sarcastic here. I had deleted my many 2012-onwards fanart doodles by doing so, as this was before the time I started backing up my art to the Google cloud! I had been saving all my work on clunky physical hard drives before then, which even they have a lifespan. Not to mention, my trusty Calarts MacBook I had used to make all those digital fanarts died around 2017...

But quite auspiciously, my Berserk fixation started immediately after I had started uploading all my artworks to the Google cloud around late 2015, according to my techy dad's advice. So my Berserk doodles were preserved in my personal collection, and thus they have sat there for many years. 

I'm glad though, to air them out in the light of day. My website isn't as immortal as Blogger, but I want to have a place I can craft myself. I love learning JavaScript, CSS and HTML, it means way more than being beholden to posting my work to Instagram. I can craft the page to display them how I want, curating them essentially, and it brings me great pride to be able to refine my site along with my work.

This page will inevitably expire if I let my domain with GoDaddy expire, but for the rest of my living days, its most likely I'll keep chipping away on the Berserk (and Touhou too) shrines, as they both mean so much to me, in very different ways. I mean, the Berserk one has fanart from 2015, it's been a decade! 

Thanks to Touhou and Berserk, I've managed to stay damn prolific even over these recent years in which I've felt very unconfident with my art. Many of these works, I had initially dismissed as a bit too rough around the edges and therefore 'bad'. Although I have habit of sharing my art often on socials, many of these I simply grumpily scoffed at, and sadly dragged-n-dropped into a folder, never to look at again. 

I actually had a self-compassion breakthrough. The moment I revisited my abundance of 2023 Berserk fanarts, that I realised, they are decent actually! Good, even! With the flow of time, I saw suddenly with fresh eyes, and saw that my work, my efforts, are worthy of being displayed. 

That my friends, is why webdev is better (and cheaper) than therapy, and it's why I love it. End of story.