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Urghhhhh I gotta get back on that art grind.

I have got to learn anatomy!!!! I've gotta relearn how to draw men, I've been using womanly curves as a crutch to avoid doing hard work!! aaaghhhh

I've gotta draw!!!!!!!! >:(

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Yeah! I've found friends in esoteric ways and it was definitely a positive. I managed to reconnect with someone I remembered from the Gamefaqs SaGa Frontier board yeaaaars later because some sensor went off in my brain when I saw them on tumblr. Like, oh... could it be....??

I remember when I was like, 13-14, I got a hand me down pc and was able to finally install maplestory, which my Gaia Online friends had talked about playing in the past. For some reason I couldn't ask them if they still played, so I just... named my Maplestory character after one of them in hopes if they still played they'd see me and point aggressively at me in recognition lmao (THEY DID! LIKE A YEAR LATER! I got to catch up with them and then never saw them again, I'm glad we got to hangout once more...!!)

But the second point is definitely a major thing I think about. Becoming a public online NSFW artist can like, really fuck you over depending on how big you get/what your main art identity is focused on/what your nsfw art identity is focused on/what your irl career is etc. It's like either break into being a full time NSFW artist at 20 and never turn back or hope that any other variable involved doesn't cause a mess of things!!

There was absolutely an alternate timeline where I went down a NSFW focused path so I really feel it when nsfw artists get fucked over again and again lmao.

It just feels like, if you have an identity as an artist/creative online you're stuck there? Like it's scary to deviate, to change, and if you try to branch off to another identity to explore something new it's like there's a death clock ticking down over your head until it becomes public. It sucks! I don't want to be the me that is me today that was the me in the past to be also the me of the future!! Lemme out!!!!!

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I don't know how I want to handle my identity online anymore.

This is something I complain about a lot. I don't know if I complain about it a lot like, out loud, to other people, but it's something I complain about a lot, to myself.

I don't like being trapped under a single online identity!! I'm jealous of those jp artists who made twitter accounts named 25674w7dgfyt34q3 and post the most bombastic fanart you've ever seen for a single anime boy and then delete it when the mood hits them.

I could do that. Sure. But the system is gamed against that for most people but especially me!! I make a living online. I'm very thankful my etsy is self sufficient and doesn't rely on my social media (although I'd probably be more successful if I actually marketed it), but for everything else I do it's much more beneficial for me to operate under one name, one identity, one online life.

People want to commission me because 1. I make something they really want (custom dolls) and 2. They like me as a person and want to support me and get something nice at the same time. The second reason is a big one, it's why people share my art, why they show up for my streams, why they're so nice to me!!! Thank you for being nice to me!!

But it's that eternal struggle of like, if somehow my online presence got nuked over night and I had to start over, would anyone commission me? Would anyone see my art? Would I Exist?

But there's the contradictory problem of like, if that happened and I started a new online life under a new name and I took it seriously, seeking to make new connections and a new life... Eventually people would connect the dots, right? Like artists have a Style, and while my drawings might not have too strong a style and I could change that, I wouldn't want to stop drawing the same ocs... And more importantly there's not a lot of plush artists that do what I do in the english speaking community, and mine have a pretty distinctive style. Unless I wanted to reshape myself artistically... I wouldn't be allowed that fresh start. Plus I'd need to literally just pretend everything I did before the day I made that account didn't exist! You'd have to throw away everything! Be careful about anything you referenced or said off hand!

I guess Corporate Vtubers have to go through this lmao. Doesn't stop people from digging up their past accounts within like a day to a week of debut nowadays. People start speculating on their nationality/geographical location after their first tweet!!!

This is a reality for a friend of mine, and a lot of artists online with eyes on them! At this point any artist in their 30's have so much online history behind them that you could cobble together a video essay on anyone really. Will ggdg ever be able to outrun those persona 4 comics they made like 15 years ago even though they abandoned that online identity? Scientists just don't know!!

And it's not like this is just because of bad actors on the internet exist, but because of course if someone likes what you make they wanna see more of it. They wanna see all of it! So they're incentivized to puzzle it all together! It's natural!

I'm glad there's like, this blank spot in my online history between the ages of 16-22 where I deleted too much of system42 and couldnt post on Gaia anymore so all my online life in that age existed online on 4chan, Skype, and MMOs I played. It's all transient. I didn't have a consistent username until the one I use now. Anything that happened is an oral history lmao. And Like, you couldn't waterboard my Gaia account outta me. You might be able to discover my secondary one, but not my main.

ANYHOW, this is all to say, hey I've been doing gamedev!! It's fun. I like Godot. But I'm not sure how much I want to post it on socials/tie it to this Identity? Will I be able to express myself more freely this way? Untangle myself and get past whatever is blocking me creatively?

But if I decided, I want This To Succeed, then I'll need to tie it to my identity. Post it on socials. Let everyone know Hey I Made Stuff!! Check out my carrd to see where it is!! Otherwise it'll just rot at the bottom of Itch.io, right?

It's like, how badly do I want to be seen/to succeed/to grow/to survive vs how much do I not Want to be Plushmayhem for the rest of my fucking life? It's not like I have skeletons in my closet I just, hate being trapped in this online web, ya know?? There's too much necessity on being Perceived for me, someone more suited to a lifestyle of quietly lurking!

IT'S COMPLICATED! IT'S A LOT! I AIN'T GOT TIME TO WRESTLE WITH THIS!! I GOTTA FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE A DIALOUGE SYSTEM!!!

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Okay I'm Normal Now. Sorry about that.

Anyways my first task of my vacation is cleaning my kitchen. It's gotten so disorganized!! I've just kinda been throwing pots and pans Where They Should be and it's gotten cluttered. So I'm going to empty everything, clear out stuff that got shoved to the back I haven't used in like 5 years, and start the new year off on a good foot where I know what is what and what is where.

But now I have a bunch of garbage bags full in my apartment that need to be thrown out!!

"Why not just throw them out now?" You ask. Good question! The answer is the dumpster outside is full and pickup is delayed due to the holidays. It's not like I'm throwing out rotten food n stuff, so I'll just shove em aside and throw em out when it gets cleared out down there. It's just annoying, that's all, ya know? I hate obstacles in my groove.

I'm trying to eat better!! I want to eat vegetables every day and get my fiber in!! The next content may surprise you with that out of the way though!

I've finally learned to properly bread and fry stuff!! Yahoo!! I want to fancy up my life a bit more than just chucking meat in a pan and cooking it with some spices, so I've advanced to making pork cutlets n shit. Hell yeah. I learned how to make some damn good baked n breaded chicken like 15 years ago but then all that information left my brain teehee. It's easy!! It's fine!!!

I've been scooping up discount frozen meat and got a nice chunk of pork belly the other week! So let's bring in the new year by chopping that up and breading it for the week!

The most visible ones are balding a tiny bit in spots but are still covered... I was just running out of egg and bread crumbs and didn't want to crack open another for like two pieces!! Forgive me!

I assume I can freeze the extras... If not I'll cook em and freeze em or something! It's fine! None of it's going to waste baby!! That way I can focus on making sides to go with it, I need, VEGETABLES!!!! I have the bad habit of just eating one thing as a meal instead of like, a variety of things. I'm trying to improve.... I'll make cute bento lunches minus the bento box... some veggies, rice, pork cutlet... it sounds lovely. I will simply copy what I like to get at restaurants to encourage biodiversity in my home.

I'm outta oil though so I'm gonna see how these bad boys rock the air fryer. (And honestly I'd like to avoid frying in oil if I can that often, it's why I've avoided breading stuff in the past)

I wrote up this post as it was cooking lmao

I'm sorry I will never be able to take an appealing photo of food. I was cursed with this inability as a baby, it's true!

But it turned out really nice!! It got some nice crisped bready bits on the edge n everything! I think doing it in oil would be like, 10-20% better, but that's fine. It's not worth the oil calories for it lmao. I will be having a delicious home cooked lunch tomorrow!!! Yay!!!

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Happy New Year!!(Almost!)

This is the time I talk about plans for 2025 and whatnot, right?

Post writing this: Wrong, I started venting again so this is a big negative rambly post you should ignore. I just type this shit and don't proof read or edit it so it's just a fuckin mess. Someday I'll write something coherent and planned with structure and a point and sections and you'll be like wow how deep but not today. This is my blog and my void and I'll yell into it all I like!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll write something nicer later.

For now I'm throwing out these negative words and hoping I can leave them behind when we move into 2025. Get trapped behind a timewall idiot.

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But you shouldn't talk about your goals and plans until you've put at least 30 days into making it work or even before completing it because you'll just get the satisfaction of doing it and not do it yada yada yada yada

I fucking hate that piece of advice. I feel it's one of the major reasons (among many) that I've grown up into such an emotionally stunted person who can't share themselves.

And let's be real, me not talking about what I'm currently focused on isn't going to make my chance of success any higher. It just means you haven't seen the other 80% of times I've set a goal and failed lmao.

At this point (creatively) I don't even know if I truly want to make anything... But I still feel trapped and like I can't talk about any my ocs or anything... I'll just rotate them in my brain for the rest of my life whatever.

URGGHHH BUT I DO WANNA MAKE STUFF... Maybe not anything with the shit I've been thinking about over the last 20 years but I do want to make SOMETHING! Or is it just expected of me to make stuff and thus I expect that of myself?? I get mad when any simple joe can pick up a pencil and write the trashiest shit yet I can't bring myself to do it!!! I'm a single celled organism below everyone else!! I can't make anything!!!

To grow a garden you need to till the soil, plant the seeds, and nurture them to their full potential. Sadly I got too mentally ill and poor to even afford the discount soil for that garden a long time ago and so have nothing to show for my years on this earth.

Whatever. I feel stuck in life, so I'm nitpicking issues to be mad at. I can be annoyed at my negative creativity or be annoyed at my lack of offline social life.

I have lots of friends online! Yay!! But monkey brain need real life human connection! I need to exist in the same room as someone occasionally!! In the last 6 months since I got home from vacation I saw my offline friends.... three times. One of those times we went to see a movie together and I only saw them for a few minutes before and after the movie, so like, it counts but, not much. I am shrimply too far away to see people and attempts at spontaneity get shot down in favour of grinding out more work so I've given up on them after being turned away during a real bad mental health spell early this year. Uwah.

Other than like, trips to the store or the times I see my sister or mother (because I need a drive some place aka more trips 2 da store but farther away editions) I just. Don't see people. I exist in my apartment bubble and communicate online. Cutting out social media would be good for me(I basically just socialize via discord, social media is bad for actually socializing) and I have cut it down quite a bit since my attempt previously but like, the more online stuff I cut out the more People I cut out. I don't like, have a room mate or anything to fill in that gap, ya know?

What's the solution? Make more offline friends? Buddy I don't know how to do that, and we loop back to my first greivance: my creativity issue.

I feel if I'm not creating then I have nothing in my life and nothing to talk about. Having nothing to talk about leads to being unable to talk to people about anything and thus being unable to forge bonds of mutual interest etc etc. I really just, like, work. A lot. And if I'm not working it's because I'm squeezing in discord friend time or I worked myself too hard and I'm unable to do shit and mad I can't spend time not working being productive and just rotting. Because I've dropped all my ingrained habits of doing artsy stuff in my downtime and it's a struggle to get those back and I haven't succeeded yet.

I put a lot of eggs into this "being a creative person who creates things!" bucket and sadly everything in there evaporated but left me a husk of a human being.

Being creative for me is a social activity, well, was a social activity, until it became my job. I like to make stuff and make people stuff but connect to them via the stuff I made but creativity can be, really isolating. You can't talk to people about your projects (you'll stop making them)(false but true but those people saying it obviously have people they talk to about it privately so maybe they should shut the fuck up) and you need to spend all your time working on and improving your craft to make something, anything. So instead of being out there trying to make real life friends (lmao where?) I'm still just, locked in my apartment engaging in solitary activities. For what? For what?

Uwaaaa

I'm just not good at talking to people... I'm worse at it every year... I'm walking deeper and deeper into the ocean and eventually my feet aren't going to touch the bottom anymore, ya know? I don't know what I want to create... I don't know what I want to do with my life... I don't know where I'm going. I don't know if 2025 is going to answer anything.

Fresh new look

I was gonna hold off posting until the new year, so this entire section would be January... but I finished sooner than I expected.

I've thrown all my previous blog posts in the archive under 2024.

I realized my previous setup was too annoying. Too constrained by my desire to have more than a blog but with no idea to put in there.

So this is how I'm handling things now! A single page per month, where I'll section off older posts under an expandable details thinger. You can click the Dec 30th at the top here to see how it works right now, wow!

I kept making a site and being like... ok let's make it like I'm going to have a whole lotta stuff here but actually I have no plans for that so fuck it. Blog first centric design! I'll add more later, when I wanna, if I wanna!

This is a bit rambly but... you get what I'm going on about!

No idea if this looks good on mobile... That's for future me!

Anyways I'm on vacation now. Staycation. I can't afford to go anywhere or do anything or really take the month off at all but I can pay rent next month and have a few bucks to put food in my fridge and that's all that matters! Either I take time off and wrack up my credit card just a bit more, or work through january and fucking explode and ruin my earning potential for the rest of the year hell yeah. SO BREAK TIME YAYYYYYY!!!!!!

See ya in the new year! Thanks for everything!

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