Thanks to my tagging system, I actually remembered the point of this entry! Everyone say "thanks you Chimera" to my past self for once.

Recently, I made the tough decision to unveil a slightly stripped down version of the website, leaving a lot of plans that I wanted to debut it with on my "to-do" list. I have a lot of complicated feelings about it, because it sort of feels like showing off an unfinished product... knowing that I have all this stuff I've put my heart into for the past 4 months, only to not be able to show it off all at once. However, I wanted to premiere this new iteration of chimera.pet along with opening my commissions. As a chronically ill person waiting on SSI (3 years and more to come ), I need to open commissions again or I'm going to totally broke; or worse, into debt... (hahahaha kill me please orz) This domain renews a couple of days after my birthday this month, and I'll be flat broke by the time that comes around. Sure, I could just open them without posting any of this publicly - but I don't think my pride would let me live with myself, lol

To cut myself some slack, the reason I'm so low on funds is mostly because I burned myself out both physically and mentally over the holidays. As a result, I threw myself into webdev the past 4 months, and haven't had commissions open. For what it's worth, I consider myself to be an extremely lucky person to still be housed and not fighting for my life after not working for 4 months. By comparision, debuting a "slightly lamer" version of my completely useless website is kind of a stupid problem... (but this is just OCD talk like my last entry, isn't it? oops.)

I don't want this project to become something I feel obligated to do, or something that I ever stop having fun with. I want to be able to enjoy my time here while I have it. If I have to truncate my self-expression momentarily in order for that to happen, then I'll just have to learn how to be content with it.

Anyways, to get to the point - I wanted to write a sort of "to-do" list for myself here, rather than putting it front and center on the front of my page like my last layout. This keeps it here for my reference, without necessarily turning it into something that'll become a source of guilt for me later. This will (hopefully) be ordered somewhat cohesively... Starting with pages that I planned to debut but had to shelf for now, and then on to pages that exist solely as ideas.

Pages that were in progress, but will be finished later:

• Pokemon fanpage hub: This is a big one! I've spent months working on the perfect layout and iterating it to a point that I like... now all I have to do is port over my existing content, but that requires rewriting it to a point I feel satisfied. That's tough, because my old CSS is ... bad! xD There are also fun new additions to give it a nostalgic feeling: namely more emphasis on varied polls, "Pokemon of the Month" section, and a more substantial update log. This place essentially serves as a fansite within chimera.pet itself. I'm really sad to have to delay it, but I promise it's in the works! Look! I promise!!! (click to enlarge)

• Collections pages: namely non-pokemon ones, like cassettes and video games. This was something I've intended to implement into the site since it's creation, and I never got around to it... not being able to finish it right now feels like a second failing... orz The one for my cassettes is already in progress though, and I've scanned at least half of my cassette J-cards in preparation. Here's my favorite one (click to enlarge):

• Other fanpages: my other fanpages will follow the same general format as my Pokemon one, but restyled for other content. I enjoy the early 2000's fansite vibe that the double sidebars gives, and I have a lot of ideas for what I want to put up... I need to rehost my doujin scans, and work on more Digimon pages! I feel bad about not having these avaliable right away, since they've been in need of a revamp for a while.
• Some form of sitemap: this one is still kind of on the fence, because I find the process of maintaining a sitemap both annoying and somewhat redundant. My old one's been broken for a long time though, so I kind of want to revamp it just for the sake of being able to improve it...

Other misc page ideas for the future

• A page (or journal entry) dedicated to the site's layout history: This site has gone through a few iterations, and I wanted to be able to summarize the growth that this place has had over the course of 2 years.
• A gallery dedicated to archiving fanart: I've gotten quite a few random pieces of fanart over the years of my site mascots, and I really want a place to show them all off! I'm not quite sure how I'd go about implementing it yet, though.
• Implement a styleswitcher on the Pokemon page: This one is mostly just for fun, but it feels really nostalgic, so I want to make more themes...
• Themed page dedicated to parts, incorporating my own artwork
• Expand the Mascots to have Neopets-styled "About" popups with brief descriptions

Extra options for accessibility

• Font switching: As much as I love the look of MS PGothic on the site aesthetically, I don't think it's the most accessible option. I want to give more options for those who have a harder time reading it (sometimes myself included).
• Animation and gif pausing via Freezeframe.js (or otherwise): Chimera.pet implements reduced CSS animations when the user's system settings are set to "prefers-reduced-motion", but I want a more easily accessible way to toggle this on or off. There'd ideally also be gif freezing implementation.
• Darkmode switching: This will require pretty hefty CSS overhaul, but I'd still like to give it a shot someday. Again, I'd like to be able to swap between light and dark mode at the click of a button.

I've been trying to write this for multiple days now (as evidenced by the title)... it's been switchy, and I've been forgetting what I intended to write about at all. I'll remember, and forget again, and then remember, and forget again... even over the course of writing these two sentences. Yuck! Looking back, it seems I touched on that partially even in my first entry, almost a month ago. The more I write, and the more I practice, hopefully the more I'll be able to work with myself on some form of memory retention. Unfortunately, something's happened that means I have to cut this entry short; but if I remember, I'll try to come back later. Wish me luck...

04/10 edit: Uh... well I forgot what happened to make me cut that short, but I did remember to come back and add some more things here. I've decided that I need to keep my goals reasonable for the place that I'm at right now... which if I'm being honest with myself, is in a pretty rough position. Expecting myself to get so much done under strain is wishing for a lot. The pages aren't going anywhere... For now, I'll focus on fixes (mainly addressing gallery collections and updates), and start getting things ready for release. See you soon!