toby yaps

monday, 16th march, 2026

i finally read six of crows!

six of crows (leigh bardugo) has been on my radar for AGESSS but i just never got around to it. this is a common theme with me - i get recommended something or i discover something that i will most definitely LOVE, and then i don't read/watch/listen/interact with it at all until a random day when the stars align and i decide to check out That Thing that i heard about. and then it consumes me.

i. LOVE. six of crows. i am officially obsessed with them. i started this book saturday night and only read a couple chapters, then i spent all day yesterday reading and finished about two thirds, and i just finished it this afternoon. i've already reserved the next book i am ITCHING to read it.

everyone who talks about six of crows is right; it is a REALLY good book. the world is so compelling and the characters are SO well written oh my god. everyone in this freaking book is autistic and adhd and GAY and it's all canon it's wonderful. jesper and wylan my sillies they're so gay for each other i literally cannot wait to read crooked kingdom. i also love kaz.

8th March, 2026: i made a website! yes, really!

*12/3/26 edit: this is copied over from my 'art archive' page which is why it takes the same form as posts over there. posts here will not be this well structured or formatted ("well" is a relative term).*

this blog isn't just for art! i did say i was going to write things! (i think). i wanted to talk about making this website because it's super cool (if i do say so myself) and i'm super proud of it!

i went into this with zero coding knowledge. ZERO. i didn't even know what html or css were before i started this. and now look at me! i've already redone the entire layout of this website once!

i've been slightly exposed to the indie web for a while now. does artfight count? the freedom of artfight's profile page customisation compared to the social media platforms that i'm more familiar with definitely gave me a taste for something more. i had an absolute blast decorating my profile and my character pages with favicons and stamps and images that i drew myself, that normal social media become quite bland in terms of customisation.

my first true introduction to the indie web was through finding all those pixels and things for my artfight page, since a lot of them were found through neocities sites (you can look at the 'pixels' section on my fun stuff page for the resources that i use!) my youtube algorithm then did what the youtube algorithm does best and sent me down a rabbit hole of videos of people talking about their own neocities sites!

i put off making this site for the longest time because i was very intimidated by the idea of learning an entire coding language. i lied a little bit at the start, i have a very tiny bit of experience with coding from the first year of high school, where we learnt python in technology. but that was a very long time ago now and i did not do a lick of coding once that unit finished. so i actually did tell the truth at the start, i had absolutely zero coding knowledge before starting this site.

the neocities html tutorial was so useful for starting this site! it took a lot of the pressure off of learning coding, and it was super easy to jump off from that. youtube videos are also really helpful! i have a couple linked in the 'credits' section of my fun stuff page that helped a lot.

another thing that helped a lot in the making of this site was stealing! yeess that is correct. the best way to learn how to code is by looking at other peoples code and trying to replicate it! code is very logical, so once you get over the initial bump of just learning what everything is, it's actually really fun to study code and figure out what does what! that being said, i am nowhere near good at this. i would say i'm around a competent amateur.

however, learning to code is REALLY fun. i feel like it's been ages since i've actually learnt a new skill. most of my time is spent getting better at skills i already have (like drawing), but starting as a completely clueless newbie is so fun. i would often go to bed and my mind would be racing thinking about my code, thinking through problems and figuring out different ways to do things.

making this website was the absolute perfect project to carry me over the tail end of my summer break. it really engaged both the creative and logical parts of my brain, which was really fun that's something that i haven't really done before! if you're reading this and for some reason you haven't made your own website, do it now!!!! it looks intimidating, but i promise you it's so fun! it's hard and challenging in a really good way. not to be all "it's that damn phone" or whatever but it's a really good exercise for your brain to do this kind of logical thinking and problem solving. a lot of people associate those skills with maths, but i'm not a maths person at all and i really enjoyed it! also, those skills are really important to have in general as a person living in the world, but that's a different topic.

that's all i have to say for now! i don't think these blog posts are going to be a regular thing, this might even just be a one off. i have started a new sketchpage, but honestly it's probably going to be a month before i finish it since uni just started up again. thank you for reading if you got this far! i'll catch you later! (splatoon reference)

this post was brought to you by the song "symbol" by adrienne lenker.