doodle by me ofc scratch by.. well.. scratch lol Ooh boy. Scratch. One of my favorite guilty pleasures in life. I may be like, 2x the age of scratch's youngest demographic, but hey, I love it. I first started using scratch when I noticed my sister had Scratch 2.0's Offline Editor on her computer, I don't quite remember why but I believe mom had encouraged her to learn it as a schooling subject alongside our regular homeschool curriculum. She never went anywhere with it, but I asked my mom one day 'Hey mom, can I get that program please?' because I remember that I LOVED playing Kit to Leader, Adventures in Bayclan and other such warrior cats games, but was frustrated by their lack of updates, or lack of extra mechanics. So, mom agreed and I started making projects in November of 2017 at the ripe ol age of 8 years old. I loved it. I was ambitious as heck and tried to replicate an Adventures In BayClan's style of warrior cats game, (or 20...) and Scratch was honestly so easy to understand. I literally taught myself how to code, with trial and error ofc. (hence my ancient first ever scratch project game having um... a missing 'set mate to none' variable LOL your child would spawn in regardless of if you had a mate or not when restarting the game!) Then in 2018, my at the time best friend and still a good friend of mine @Stinkbombgames (Or salad as I like to call him lol) asked me 'Hey, Finn, have you ever heard of the hit kids coding site Scratch?' and I said heck yes but I had no account. So on the 14th of October, 2018 after asking my parents once more, I acquired my first ever Scratch Account. This one! Blobbystickfigure. Since then I've loved Scratch's straightforward coding style (very easy for my autistic brain to understand as I need 100% step by step instruction with visuals.) and the ability to share, express and grow as a person in a safe environment while also learning skills and socializing with others. Although I do remember having a phase where my goal was to be an extremely popular warrior cats/feline artist like @-Amberkitti- and @Wildflight, I think more than anything I just wanted people to enjoy my projects and be proud that I made something like that. Even though Scratch can be funky sometimes with odd banning, weird comment filtering or strange updates (half of scratch was blue when the purple accessibility update came out lol) that pose issues, and also their infamous site explosions (circa summer 2024 I believe) I genuinely do love it. It's the one constant in my life that consistently brings me a semblance of joy, and without it, I wouldn't have met all of my favorite people, lovely friends and other kind folk. I wouldn't have met my best friend, learned to draw quite as well as I do, met a wonderous community (THHA!) and developed the social skills I have. (I was very socially stunted as a child!) My favorite thing about scratch though is the ability for it to genuinely be for all ages. I struggle with mental health, and sometimes it can be so taxing to go on social media and see so many doom-posts. But scratch usually is the one place I can find solace. It's usually very positive and allows me to still engage with others online without the fear of being triggered. And with all that I do want to say a big thank you to all my people who made this year of my scratch existence so delightful (And dont be sad if youre not here, I do struggle with memory lol) Kalix The entirety of THHA Finley Hawthorn Bug Fr3! Moon/Bee (You!!) and definitely others but again memory problems lol Thanks for being there for me, I hope everyone else's scratchaversaries are also good. :]
