Welcome to Ivy's Blog!

This is my blog. It’s simple because I need it to be. This might not be my home (but it’s a start) I guess this is a vague sequel to https://ivyneeds.rest/posts/a-blog-of-fresh-air… never done a sequel post before. cool.

I haven’t been blogging much because I’m busy. And when I’m not busy, I’m arms deep in my code editor working on some sort of web project.

At the moment, it’s a music tracking site (think last.fm but with an api that doesn’t give anyone under the age of 40 hypertension), but for a long time it was several different iterations of a new blog, but i just couldn’t finish them.

I’m not the biggest fan of a company having any amount of control over my web presence, especially a US-based one given the horrors. But at this point, I can’t be fucking bothered. I’ve got more important things to be doing (college work etc.) and I’d much rather get that done.

I should blog more though, and for my sanity, continuing to stay here for the time being is better than the web horrors. ttyl

March 14, 2025

Hi everyone, it’s been a while. I’ve been super busy lately, and thinking about this certainly hasn’t made my headspace any less full.

My name is Ivy now.

Ivy Rose Turner to be more specific. Why, you may ask, especially after I changed my name legally to Laker in 2021?

I’ve simply fallen out of love with it. I don’t hate it, unlike my deadname. It’s still important to me. There are just things i like to be called more. Well, at least for Laker that is. My middle names are a different story.

I first named myself in 2018, after a song lyric I was working on, my best friend at the time, and a character from my favourite game. That left me with the name Laker James1Vaughn2.

Now, I’m sure that there’s a trans woman out there that enjoys being named James, and all the power in the world to you. But I’m not anywhere near that. It’s one of the things I hold the most dysphoria around now. So I’m fucking it off completely. Plus now I get to take my grandmother’s middle name. Yay.

If you refer to me in the future, please do so by addressing me as Ivy, even if you’re referencing work I made before I changed my name. Thanks for reading, I’ll see you on the internet.

Plus the person who I named myself after later turned into a right-wing bellend. Damn it. If you manage to work out the character I’m talking on about, you get a cookie. Well done, and great taste.

March 9, 2025

It’s been over a year since the App Defaults thing happened, so here’s my update.

I’m also adding a few extra categories because… why not xD Continue reading…

December 8, 2024

Original: https://flamedfury.com/posts/whats-your-style/

I either call it style.css or, most often main.css. Main because of my use of languages like Rust which mandate the use of a src/main.rs file and because it’s the most important (and if i’m doing it right, only) CSS file in my project (that I write anyway).

November 25, 2024

You can now find Glacier at blog.laker.lol!

November 20, 2024

I’ve become extremely burnt out with maintaining my websites. It’s become a chore to achieve anything because every time I change something, I have to fix 3 things in entirely different places. I thought my disillusionment was limited to Astro, the framework I’ve used for Challenger, the current version of my site and it’s rewrite, Victory (v10). So I tried to build a site in Eleventy, which is still my favourite web thing, but i just couldn’t be bothered to finish it. (I did eventually do it though) Plus the new update to 3.0 and trying to upgrade an older site to it, confused me but that’s probably just because I was doing it at 10pm. I guess that’s why I’ve gravitated to Pika this much lately. It’s simple to make it look nice and there isn’t much to fiddle about with, which was my #1 problem with Astro/11ty. I can just Write and it works. No fiddling with metadata and collections. I can’t accidentally break my CSS because I changed my CDN folder structure and forgot to change the @import rules. I can keep the New Post link pinned in my browser and instantly have a place to write, no opening VS Code, finding the folder, running a CLI (actually a 70 line bash script) to generate a markdown file with the right frontmatter, and then getting to writing. I don’t even have to think of a title/slug right away!

So yeah, I’m taking a hiatus from web stuff for a bit. I’ll still be programming, just working on things that aren’t related to my sites, and I won’t be tempted by anything to try the LATEST WEB FRAMEWORK NOW WITH 25% PERCENT FASTER DEERS!¡! Okay that might be a little facetious… eh, I’m sure none of them will care sat atop their pile of VC money. Okay, calming down. I still don’t have a way to wrap any of these posts up. Go do something you love.

complaining personal web

October 13, 2024

I would have liked to keep my streak for a little longer, but it’s fine. 2 days is certainly better then how I did during WeblogPoMo, earlier this year. I’d started a post about my favourite albums of all time, but didn’t the time to finish it. (it’s still coming though, probably tomorrow) I had a busy day though, so I’m going to try and not beat myself up about it though.

October 12, 2024

Part 1 of this series (which is unfinished and wasn’t even meant to be released)

I’ve been listening to a lot of new music recently and I thought I’d talk about it.

Sampha — Dancing Circles 2.0 [from Lahai (Deluxe) - 2024] I’ve heard of Sampha around on internet music spaces before but never checked him out, but when this song came on in an episode of the Zane Lowe Show on Apple Music, I had a religious experience. I physically got up from my chair and started walking around, in the middle of my college’s library. It radiates sunlight.

Service-agnostic link →

Maggie Rogers — In The Living Room [Single - 2024] Okay this came out yesterday, and I’m listening to it for the first time as I write this. HOLY SHIT. Service-agnostic link →

They Might be Giants — Doctor Worm [from Severe Tire Damage - 1998] This is the most transgender song about a worm ever. Fight me. It also slaps. Service-agnostic link →

Jamie XX — Gosh [from In Colour - 2014] This song has one of the best music videos of all time. Loyle Carner - hugo [2022] music

October 10, 2024

I recently (2 days ago TBE) bought myself a fountain pen as an early birthday present. It’s been a fun experience, especially as this is my first time actually using one in my life. I chose a LAMY Safari after watching a lot of stationary videos on YouTube, and ordered one in white with a fine nib (along with some black ink cartridges, cause I prefer them to the blue my pen came with), then waited the 3 days for it to arrive. I’m not going to show off any of the pen’s work because I’m self-conscious about my handwriting but it’s a really nice writer. Anyway I need to finish this quickly, I’ve got to get ready for college lol

October 9, 2024

Hey, I’m Laker. I really need a blog right now. My current website is falling apart at the seams (i’d link to it but the CSS has stopped working and you can’t actually see anything) and my new one (version TEN) is still a few weeks away from being ready. However, I’ve had so many ideas for blog posts that it’s getting aggravating. So this is my stopgap. Welcome to Glacier. It’ll be here for as long as it needs to be, and afterwards, all the content will be moved over to the new site and this will be dissolved. Probably. Or I might keep it as a sort of “stream-of-conscience” blog. Anyway, enjoy the show.

October 8, 2024

A whole lot has changed since this time last year. I made many decisions, bad and good. I came out as a transgender woman and started liking how I looked for the first time in… a very long while. After several months of never-ending headaches, I found out I had eye strain and got glasses. (please take care of your sight, eye strain sucks) I said goodbye to people and re-connected to others. So, what happens next? I’m keeping my 3 resolutions from the past few years: Improve yourself and the world. Don’t make stupid decisions. Don’t be an asshole. But this year I’m adding a new one: Stick to it. I am a chronic project hopper. I start the Git repo with all the energy in the world but after the first-second hour, I give up on it. So, I’m nipping it in the bud (hopefully). I’ve got a bunch of things that I want to smash through so I’m going to hit the ground running. Hopefully I’ll complete them all (again) this year. Either way, I hope you all have a wonderful year! See you when the sun rises.

yearend

December 31, 2022

Made in honour of [deadname] Turner. May he rest in peace, 2005 - 2019.

The Past Almost 3 years ago, on the 26th of August 2019, at 1:29 am, I came out as non-binary. I had already come out as bi a year earlier so luckily I didn’t also have that to deal with. But the term “non-binary” never truly fit me. It felt like a patchwork over a hole that needed to be filled. It wasn’t a true representation of me.

The Present Since then, I’ve met a bunch of cool people that have helped me with my identity. From my exes to my best friends, all the very cool trans people I know to the souls of the people who aren’t here anymore. And now I’m very happy to announce that I believe that I have finally found my identity. It may have taken years of confusion but I should hopefully be able to rest now. So here goes, eh? Hey, I’m Laker, I use she/her pronouns and I’m a trans girl. This is who I am, this is who I always was and this is who I want to be. I feel so much happier when I am perceived as a girl. The Laker (or indeed, [deadname]) you once knew is still here. I’m still me, except I’m standing prouder than I ever have and happier than I have been in years. I know that in the opening sentence of this post I described myself before I came out the first time as dead, but that simply isn’t true. My soul, although withered by many years of many mental issues and disorders, is still the same one that was found in that child.

The Future So now that we know the past and present, what about the… no, my future? I’ve already started to transition socially to a few friends, both in real life and online. My gender expression was already going more and more feminine by the day and I’m glad to finally make that official :) I know that I want to transition medically but I haven’t thought of the logistics of that yet so i’m not going to talk about it publicly.

ending notes… breathes out wow damn i needed to get that off my chest, huh. well, here’s to 2022. more writing stuff coming soon :P

personal transition

January 28, 2022