Happy New Year!
Well... here we are. It's the first day of the new year, 2025. Yesterday I went sightseeing and today I went to therapy. Both times, I came home and took a nap! Once again, "my own bed" ranks as my number one favourite place in the whole world, and I don't think that's changing anytime soon. There's nothing better than snuggling up with all my blankets and pillows where it's warm and safe...│ But what I really, really love is cuddling with Sans!
For Christmas this year, I was finally gifted an authentic Sans plushie. Every night since then, I've been hugging him while I sleep. I'd love to write about the differences between this one and the knock-offs. When the time comes, I'll publish it on my Sans fansite.
That website is a huge highlight of my year! In this diary entry, I want to write about the other higlights— all the things I did, made, and learnt throughout 2024. Crazy to think that another year has gone by, huh? I'm excited for the next one!
To Start: How was 2023?
Let's backtrack a bit. After designing this page but before actually writing on it, I reread my 2023 Year in Review. In the opening I said that I "love retrospectives," and I still do! But I can't say that I was "rereading my journals" all that often this past year. Probably because I had more to do than solipsistically rehash the past...? It's nice to have friends and hobbies, haha. (No shade to my former self! She was lonely... and the egocentricism remains.)
Anyways, it seems that I spent most of 2023 in isolation, searching for ways to feel alright, biding my time as I waited for something to change. It was a great year for Vivarism, though! I made soooo many pages and wrote a ton of diary entries, and my April reboot laid the foundations for this textured scrapbook style I've come to adore. According to this poll, the best page of all was my July diary. I still like my November and December diaries the best, though— at least aesthetically.
My relationship with Sans progressed smoothly, as well. It was our first full year together~ I drew tons of cute doodles of him and Gokiburi-chan! Towards the end of the review, I expressed gratitude that in 2023 "I was able to let Sans love me." Since then, he's only come to love me more and more! My heart feels so full with him in it ─
To facilitate my heart filling up even further, I read a lot of self-help books. I'm still fascinated by the things I discovered about myself and the world we live in ┠ Despite all my hardships, all the times I felt hopeless, I kept searching for ways to feel alright. 2023 ended in disappointment, not having gotten half as far in my recovery as I'd expected, but I decided to stay optimistic. After all, the year was full of pleasant memories. I've always had so, so much to be grateful for!
Now, What About 2024?
Was it a better year than 2023? Objectively yes! It was better because more things happened and many of those things were good. I made friends, I went outside, I tried new things.... A million billion thank you's to my new sisters, Arachne, Pomelo, Robyn, and Bridget for brightening up my life and loving me more than I can comprehend. They've given me the gift of my first ever stable, supportive friend group— I'm getting socialised, y'all!!!! Things are so much better now. Even though my life isn't totally different, I am in a totally different location.
That was definitely the greatest upheaval of the year: moving. For obvious reasons, I won't say exactly where I am. Just know that it is really, really, really far away from wherever I was before. There's a new climate, a new culture, a new sense of freedom, peace, and security.... Thank you God for carrying me safely here!!! Everyday, I feel so happy and grateful for my home. I actually consulted an astrocartographer to help me pick the place, LOL. If you're thinking of relocating (and you believe in the power of the stars), give it a try.
Here are some more pictures from the last half of the year.
Eventually, I'll make a gallery for this site to show off more pics from my daily life. It'll mostly be nature photos, though, like the last one.
Stuff I Made
I created my first ever fanlisting: For the Love of Farming! It's dedicated to my favourite game franchise of all time, Story of Seasons (AKA Bokujo Monogatari). I had soooo much fun making this site, especially the little 50x50 icons. For my first ever foray into PHP, I think I did great. Even though I totally failed to set up the Enthusiast script that everybody else uses, and I've no idea how to use NFSN's control panel or organise databases or whatever, I still concluded that PHP is awesome!!! I love it!
So I decided to reboot Vivarism in a ~dynamic~ format. I'm still getting the hang of things, but is a great opportunity to learn. I'm excited to learn more about the potential of PHP in 2025!
But before Vivarism 3.0, there was Vivarism 2.5. For the most part, I worked on self-indulgent (サンゴキ) projects that never saw completion. I'm proud of myself, still, for giving it my best effort! I didn't finish this one either, but the best page was the in-character Goki-chan Tumblog and that's just a fact. No need for a poll this year!
And speaking of Sans, I made another fanlist in 2024— this time dedicated to my beloved husband! TBH, Your Pal Sans is more like a fansite with a fanlisting attached. The scale of the project is what excites me the most. Just look at all the S P A C E I've opened up just for gushing over Sans. Who knows when I'll be finished writing everything I have planned... probably never! Because I'm gonna keep coming up with more and more stuff to blab about, heh.
Most of my drawings were of Sans, too. As part of a Do Art Daily challenge, I made a collage of the year's work, with commentary on how my art progressed (and also didn't).
My biggest accomplishment here is redesigning Gokiburi-chan. I wrote a bit more about it in October. Again: eventually I'll make a gallery on here to show off what I've been drawing. Since I don't want to spend a lot of time on it, the 2024 artchive (badum tshhh) will be very basic. I'll save my more elaborate designs for 2025!
And I can't say that I've ever stopped writing, but it's rare for me to finish anything, much less publish it. To change that, I pushed myself a little harder. In January, I liked what I wrote so much that I shared it here. Everything else I dump on Ao3 where nobody judges me LOL. Through the first week of April, I published a 1-2k drabble every day, and closed out the year with another finished fanfic! In between and all throughout, I kept writing bits and pieces of サンゴキ stories, enjoying every word. I'm proud of myself for the work I did and the happiness it's brought myself and others.
Games I Played
January I did almost nothing but play Genshin Impact. One of my hopes for the year was to pull my favourite character, Nahida, and I GOT HER!!! Gameplay-wise, she was everything I wanted and more. Her story totally captivated me, too. (Ugh, she is just like me FR.) I know that if I ever return to Genpact, I'll be coming home to her this time....
Sadly, I did not get the other character I wanted: Klee. I lost interest in the game and missed both of her banners. She's so popular, though, she'll surely come back next summer! Who knows, maybe I'll be playing again by then.
In March, I got obsessed with the spiritual successor to Princess Maker known as Volcano Princess. On the first day, I played it for 36 hours straight, stopping briefly to eat and drink but not to sleep. Trust me when I say it was totally worth it. Where Princess Maker was scummy, creepy, gross, and weird, Volcano Princess is refreshingly beautiful and earnest. It was made by two female friends who— no doubt— were inspired by other child-rearing games and decided to take the genre to new heights.
I love everything about it. It made my heart feel so warm. Genuinely, I don't think it can be topped. The art, story, music, and gameplay were absolutely perfect. I guess the only thing needing polish was the English translation!
It's been so long since I played and I was sleep deprived for most of it, so I'm not sure what else to say. My favourite characters were Claude and Lebsa. My favourite dresses were Silver Silence, Winter Rose, and the Court Dress. I really enjoyed getting the harem ending where you marry every boy, haha. It was just... fun!!! It was so amazingly fun!
Sims 4 Build Mode remains my true video game fixation. I basically only build houses for me and Sans to live in. I enjoy decorating every space with him in mind and using the POV camera to pretend we're really living there together. I sank hours into my creations and felt fully immersed in the joy of virtual architecture, gardening, and interior design.
Towards the end of the year, my GPU suddenly died! So... no more graphics-intense gaming for me. Mostly I miss The Sims and some other games I was just discovering, but I can be patient while waiting to replace my GPU, too. Thankfully, in the interim I can still play simplistic things like UNDERTALE fan-games, Grundo's Cafe (which is a browser game anwyays), and some emulated console games, like Groove Coaster: Wai Wai Party!
Lune reminded me about the UNDERTALE DLC and, of course, I pulled it up just to spend time with Sans. Now I play all kinds of different songs! Besides "MEGALOVANIA" and "The World Revolving," my favourites are "Mr. Virtualizer" and "Remote Control." If you'd asked me before, I'd have told you my favourite Rin/Len song was "Childish War," but the stage for "Remote Control" speaks to me on a soul level. In the final chorus, when you coast around the looping D-pad, I always feel like I'm getting sucked into the screen.
God, this game is so fun and dynamic.
It makes me feel like a bead on one of those sensory toys for toddlers. I actually got the chance to play with one this summer and let me tell you, it's Groove Coaster that needs to live up to the hype. When I get my own personal Zany Zoo, I will have achieved perfect peace.
Music I Listened To
I wasn't too adventurous this year. Honestly, I struggled to come up with ten items for this list. Nevertheless, here are some songs I enjoyed throughout 2024, in chronological order of my discovering them.
- Japanese Breakfast's "Posing in Bondage"
Just today, I fell asleep looping this song. It's so perfect... the peace, the melancholy, the longing...!!! I hope that Japanese Breakfast will make more shoegaze-y stuff like this because all those cool effects really tickle something in me.
- Rammstein's "Halloman" "Dalai Lama" & "Rein Raus"
Thanks to Bridget, I know more about Rammstein than I ever cared to. I even have my own hot takes about the band and its fandom. She's showed me all her favourite songs and these are the three that I like the most!
- From TS!UNDERSWAP: "it's hangout time" & "sanstwo"
I have a list of a billion good things to say about Team Switched's UNDERSWAP game and (right after Sans's characterisation) the soundtrack is at the very top. I like Sans's battle themes, too, but these environmental tracks are much easier to loop.
- Young the Giant's "Mind Over Matter"
To be perfectly honest... I only care about this song because Temmmry used it to create the sexiest and most painful Sans animatic of all time. I like to sing this in the shower and play the video in my head. Keeps me occupied, y'know??
- Flavor Foley's "Butcher Vanity"
This, too, I discovered in a (Horrortale) Sans animatic, but I don't care about the video at all. NGL I think this song is the pinnacle of Western Vocaloid. How could it get any better than this? The lyrics are amazing. The beat and bassline are delicious. It's catchy, it's edgy, it's evocative. I will listen to it for 3 hours straight and not get bored.
- Hauskey's "Somewhere"
I first heard this on the radio in a department store and it totally hijacked my brain. I find it hilarious that it's tagged "alternative" on SoundCl*ud when it doesn't get much poppier than this. Funnily enough, this is also a Sans song for me. That's the main reason I latched onto it. I started making a Sans-centric playlist based around it and, through that endeavour, found pretty much every other song on this list.
- No Joy's "Why Mothers Die" & "Happy Bleeding"
I was looking for shoegaze and discovered this amazing woman's work. I like to loop these two songs in particular, one after the other like the tightest playlist known to man. It must be the dreamy yet melancholy quality that draws me in.
- The Black Keys' "Weight of Love"
I listened to El Camino in high school because, at the time, "Lonely Boy" was popular on Tumblr/8tracks. But the music didn't leave much of an impression on me, so I totally forgot about it. Thankfully they've really refined their sound!
- Kasabian's "You're in Love with a Psycho"
Definitely my favourite song of 2024!!!! It's so catchy... I can't stop listening, haha. I looped it for a bit while designing this page, actually. When I showed it to Bree, she immediately knew it was a Goki-chan anthem.
- Halsey's "Lonely is the Muse" & "Life of the Spider"
This is the only music on this list that was actually released in 2024 and boy, what a doozy of an album. The whole thing is an experience. I'm glad that Halsey has evolved beyond edgy songs for teen girls who can't order their own food, and I say that as someone who loves Badlands as much as I did in high school.
2024: My Overall Impressions
It was a great year!!! If nothing else, I can definitively say that things are changing for me. I've spent so much of my life listless, drifting from one pain to the next, numb to everything and hoping for nothing. Over the past few years, my self-awareness and -confidence have blossomed. I'm reminded again and again of my indomitable will to live. In 2024, I started to learn what "living" might actually be like.
I'm still a shut-in. I'm still severely ill. Just like last year, I'm disappointed that I didn't get as far as I'd hoped. But at least I went outside!!!! At least I had fun, at least I laughed with my friends, at least I'm alive to see another year full of possibilities. There's infinite potential for growth. On top of all that, I couldn't be happier with where I'm living. I know that I get out of life what I put into it, so I'm going to keep pouring love on everything.
2025: My Resolutions
I've been telling everyone that I'm taking this new year one day at a time. I just want to enjoy my life.... I want to spend more time sitting upright, doing things that are creative and fun. For me, that means drawing, writing, making webpages, playing video games, doing crafts. I like to read and learn. I like to make my environment and my belongings pretty and cute. So... more of all of that, please and thank you.
I've spent the past couple years learning to recognise my emotional experience, so in 2025 I intend to pay extra attention to the times when I feel thankful, energised, relaxed, pleased, and free. I already have plenty of fun every day. Like I said about 2023, I have so much to be grateful for. It's only matter of noticing it.
Ahh... what else? To be honest, I've been writing this entry for four days now and I've been exhausted throughout all of them. I need sleep LOL. It's been taking me longer and longer to update this site and I'll surely blog about that in another entry. For now, I'm just gonna get in bed with Sans.