Citadel's Blog

Go home

- OKAY I know that I pop in here every few months to say that I've been busy. HOWEVER I have been super busy this past like... year. orz . I am so so so close to being done with my car though. I've been working on it just about every single weekend (also throwing in some weekdays in after work. I wouldn't reccommend this, though.) I've been working on my drivers license as well, and doing well. I used to be WICKED anxious about driving but now that I'm fairly used to it... I am having fun + playing. I'm da king of da highway... though I don't enjoy driving my parent's car. It's too fucking big! Why must cars be this size. Regardless, I've been just. Super busy lately especially with work, and even though in my last blog post I stated that I finally stepped down from my position but they keep finding ways to make me do the same fucking work again and I figured out that they lied about my raise! Which is very fun. I only got a 50 cent raise for about 4x the amount of work I usually have to do as an operator on the machines which really isn't worth it in the slightest. I really fucking hate my job and the guy who was to replace me ALSO stepped down from anxiety issues (I feel him in that regard, but why do I have to do the job he was supposed to take from ME? That's the real question. However I do feel his plight since I'm currently on two medications for it that don't actually work :thumbsup: weed helps, but I limit myself to the weekends only when I don't have to get up for my job at 5:30am) Though I am a little upset that (my supervisor) keeps putting me on this job. We've spoken about it and like. I did offer to help because I don't want to burn my coworkers who are getting paid the same as me (not enough) and going through their own things, and I wouldn't expect anyone to cover me for things, so I figured I'd lend out the preverbial olive branch towards them. Once my car is done, and I'm able to save up a little bit of cash again (see image below) once I get everything set and done for my car to find a new job. I was thinking of the death industry still (ie, a position that doesn't require a mortuary science degree) (I still really do want that degree, however college is mad expensive and I cannot afford that! cheers) or perhaps crime scene cleanup. Who knows! Literally anything that isn't the job I have currently will be better (outside of food service/retail. I cannot do that shit again).

Other than complaining about my job, I really haven't been able to update my page in a while, which really sucks. I haven't had the motivation to write any of the long profiles for my characters on here (also, I haven't been able to focus on a lot of things lately, especially writing. WHICH SUCKS because I want to write so bad. I want to finish their profiles on my page so I can stop relying on toyhou.se for a lot of things, especially written profiles. The HTML fun on toyhouse is cool because there's a lot of FTU ones but I just... kinda don't give a damn. I've been busy working on my car to just get it done and that takes all the energy out of me. I've been focusing on getting it done so I can finally be free from this hell (factory work) and so I can drive to concerts. I have like... 4 or so to go to in one week in October which I am looking forward to! I'm seeing a ton of bands that I love and I can pick up cds there too, and it would be a LOT easier to go up and down from the city in my own car on my own time, not having to rely on family to drive me.

I've wanted to start a TON of projects lately, but admittedly I think of myself a bit too highly and think I can just 'get' it (as in, the task, such as sewing). I've wanted to make my own fursuits (I have a company name in my head and everythang), make music (been scouring for AWS's in a completely legal manner.), animate (I haven't animated since high school < _ <; ) and do a ton of other things, but I've noticed in the past few years my energy levels have completely tanked. I used to be able to do a TON of shit in high school, but I've noticed I haven't been able to do a lot of things I used to, which is something to definitely think upon during work. It feels as if I have no passions anymore and simply keep creating and/or playing something because it's familiar. This may be due to another problem I have. However we move

Artfight was... Fine...? This year. I really don't know how to put it into words, but I've noticed a very direct drop in the Artfight 'sprit' (whatever that may mean to you) in these recent years (I noticed it back in like... 2021? 2022? And it's only gotten worse, to my behest.) I just noticed a lot of things were off this year. I don't base my worth on how many attacks I get or my ratio or whatever but it does really suck ass finishing the year at over 70% :sob: like... Admittedly when I first started Artfight all those years ago (this was my 8th year. woof) I did do something along the lines of point farming...? Kind of? I really only drew headshots for everyone since I wasn't that confident in my fullbody abilities, though I've pivoted to more ""HQ"" attacks (again, whatever that term means to you) and doing less for more quality, but since then my ratio has been straight ass. But it's okay :okay: I like drawing for others but it does bum me out a bit. I was suprised that no one drew my goober (ipaty) this year, and especially with Darragh too! Darragh is my simplest design and he usually gets attacked pretty often, but there was none this year! But another year has passed. We must continue on

I will post images of my car once it's finished here, though. I've worked on this shit ass car for so long and I'm TIREDDDD but it is getting done. I cannot put any funny stickers on the body until I paint it (which will be next year. I can't afford that shit) so they'll have to be confined to my windows for the time being. I have spent way too much money on this car BUT overall cost wise, it has been cheaper to work on this flying brick of a car than to buy a used car at 5-6k and then have to do work on it. wheeeee

GOOD NEWS THOUGH me and my best friends are going back to MFF this year!!!! I really hope I'm able to afford it this year given my knack for losing money at a rapid rate (working on a car)... I am very excited for it this year though :) I miss going to furry cons (< - went to one in March) because I can be weird in public. I wear obviously furry shirts to work I stopped giving a damn. I still wish I was able to have a fursuit for this year :((((( but alas. Alas. We move. I am still excited regardless because I can see so many people like me :) I just still do wish my comm inquiry was accepted sage! I hope to find Coyote merch and wild boar merch there. I'm bringing my two goobers with me (rurik (tiny boar plush form I found at a tag sale for a dollar) and my coyote that I haven't landed on a name for yet) and I WILL take pictures. I love images. That's in late Nov. / Dec. though! I still have time to save and get excited!

- A few things have happened in the past two weeks or so. Today was my final day at my position at work (I stepped down bc of panic attacks :heart:. I'll still be at the company and such but back to being an operator vs a team lead. I learned that they lied about my raise and I only earned three (3) cents more than a coworker of mine who was technically 'below' me. Crazy how much shit companies can get away with) so I'm looking forward to not busting my ass daily. I'm changing my website a bit to be a bit less eye strainy since I noticed my eyes straining a bit more on pure black backgrounds w/ white text, so I'm lightening the bg a bit (it's still gonna be dark though. I :heart: dark mode) but not pure black. I have art fight to do but if I don't feel like drawing one day I'll probably change some more pages. Unfortunately my website is held together by a shoe string and I don't know how to change them all at once :broken_heart: so I'll be doing it manually, just like I did with changing the font. I've been prepping for art fight for the past few weeks, I hope I don't get burnt out as quickly as I usually do during the event (I usually don't last more than two weeks. oops!) There's been a lot going on in my life lately that I honestly can't explain, (mostly because I don't want to. but I can imagine anything).

A coworker of mine offered to sell his old gaming rig to me for like... 400 bucks? It came with a monitor keyboard and mouse and admittedly it was a good deal, but with things I'd want to do with it I'd be buying a whole new pc at that point (such as buying another monitor, upgrading ram, gpu and power supply) and my car is more important. I have a floor now! We're almost there. I have to do the passenger side rocker panels and the floor on that side and thats it! (In terms of taking things apart and putting them back together) and after that I'll be able to start putting things fully back together and get it on the road...

I decided against the computer as stated above for a multitude of reasons (mostly that I need my car first and also what I'd want to do I'd rather just build my own). Another reason is that I admittedly just... don't have the space! I reside in the basement (when I moved out for college my room got turned into a guest/storage room) and I don't have a whole lot of room. I would if there wasn't a nearly 100 year old pool table in the center that my parents have vowed to fix for the past... 10 years or so there but what can you do!) I don't even have a desk. And admittedly, my laptop is still kickin 4 years later and the only hiccups I've had were my fault in some capacity. (One of them was bc my lovely cat charlie knocked water on it). It still does what I need it to + can still play minecraft with mods (though it does get a bit hot) without a whole lot of trouble, but I've noticed that I can't play any 3d AAA game (whatever that means nowadays) that were released past like... 2013 at the latest. Though, that's what my consoles are for. Another coworker who turned out to be a bigger nerd than I thought he was was like yeah this pc (the one I was being offered) can run anything a ps4 can run and I was like... then why don't I just use my ps4??? I have the pro model and it's still chugging along. I'd just play the games on there since I want the trophies to satiate my funny number go up gene + collectors mentality. Also the biggest thing: 400 bucks is still like. a lot of money and it's cheap for a computer yes but it's still 400 bucks :sob:

I've bought a few tickets to some concerts near the end of the year this year (I would have gone to sooner ones but I can't due to my car troubles, and honestly I'm just beat :sob: I never thought I'd be able to see the Black Dahlia Murder live since Trevor died though the tickets were a great price (about 50 with tax) and I couldn't say no. I was able to snag a Lorna Shore ticket (in the balcony, no floor :( ) and I was lucky? Since I saw that they sold out within 5 minutes of them being on sale that one friday, which is admittedly crazy. I just want to hear the Pain Remains trilogy live idm anything else LOL

- It's almost art fight season! I was questioning if I wanted to even participate this year because I've been burnt out but the thought of drawing for others really did help. Half my friends are team stardust, and the other half (including me) are on team seafoam. :)

I finally have a floor on my car! We're currently patching some small holes on the floor, but I'll be able to put my drivers side doors back on... only to do the exact same thing on the other side. BUT it will go way faster than before since we now know what we're doing... I am sooooo close to getting my car done and actually putting it back together and getting it drivable. My step father wants me to paint the car and I'm on my hands and knees knowing that I can't afford that orz

- Went to a few shows! I saw They Might Be Giants live and got a shirt and some buttons, alongside going to see Amigo the Devil (again) alongside the Bridge City Sinners live! The violinist was really great. I need to look like that. I got rid of the favorite albums page here since my taste has been changing and hoenstly I don't wanna keep it up. Imagine that my cd page could stand in as a favorite album page since most that I buy are my favorites, outside of ones I buy at shows, I tend to buy any cd thats being sold (at least one per artist, and one from an opener/headliner I don't know just to support them) and also if I really like them I know that I won't be able to find the cds anywhere else (one Harley Poe album I have isn't being sold on discogs and it's off label....)

I've met a lot of awesome people at shows lately, and I learned that I absolutely love talking to others :) specifically at shows lol! I unfortunately got misconstrued as flirting with someone I met (They had a slip collar on and I complimented it because I'm not confident wearing anything I enjoy in my private life in public even at shows where it's common) and I was talking to them a lot because we were talking about music and I got a bit too autistic LOL, and their (I assume) partner was giving me weird looks and things of that variety. Like I genuinely do NOT understand how flirting works and how to even go about meeting people and a lot of it is genuinely just... alien to me. I want a partner SOOO bad and specifically one that matches my freak but unfortunately my swag is incorrect. I never flirt with anyone I am just enthusiastic about certain subjects :sob: You get me started talking about music or my chicken flock it's over. it's so over

- Been real busy lately. Working on my car a lot, and it currently doesn't have a frame on one side (oops!) but it will be fixed very shortly, and it was cut so the roof wouldn't fall LOL but once it's fixed I'll have a floor again :) One step at a time!

I won't go into details for a majority of this, but I've been struggling mentally lately and been burnt out for quite a long time (which is why I haven't been drawing and working on my website as much. Unfortunately I haven't gotten better in a while, alongside having a few scares, but I've been pushing through. Unfortunately my job sucks and I cannot leave it since it is one of my major stressors but once my car is done I'll be trying to find another in a field I've been looking into (crime scene/hoarding cleanup and plumbing) which would pay me a lot more and I would actually be interested in it (unlike what I do currently, which boils down to babysitting full grown adults to do their fucking job. No I'm not kidding. It sucks I have to tell 30+ year olds to run a very basic machine). It pays me... fine. but I've been here on and off for 4 years now and I really need a new job, alongside dealing with transphobia at the workplace which truly makes it insufferable.

I've been working on platniuming some games for a while (about 50% through with Yakuza zero and about 82% done with Hollow Knight currently) and it's been a really nice hobby that requires not a lot of energy and I can shove my collecting tendencies onto it instead of spending a bajillion dollars on retro games (unfortunately I wasn't concious with adult money in like 2014 so I could have gotten awesome games for 5 smackers each vs like... 500 today. I've been really enjoying completing games this way, but it does take quite a while (I've been working on y0 for about half a year [with a long break lol] and Hollow Knight a few weeks since I can't play daily. I'm having fun doe

I'm fine though, I just haven't had time to do much. shrugs

- I'm officially 2 years on testosterone! I've grown rather fuzzy on my face and its all starting to connect eventually! I cannot put into words how this decision for me really really helped. I'm (pretty sure) I'm done growing for the most part so I wont have shirts randomly shrink on me.... hopefully!

- Got back from TFF about a week ago! I had such a blast... I hung out with very good friends for the week before and had a lot of fun (and spent quite a lot of money... unfortunately). However I really had a lot of fun! We went to the microbiology panel hosted by Chise and it was incredibly informative! It really quite fun to learn about everything that comes along with the job, while I did have my intrest piqued by the panel, I don't think I'll ever be able to go through college like that if I struggled so hard with the year I was in it in the first place x__X but it was very fun! I also went to the veggietales panel and that was also very fun. I'm glad at furry cons I can be as weird as I want and no one cares or makes fun of me :3 I really want to bring more items with me to more cons, I said I would this time but never did ! I will be bringing more. For MFF this year. Promise! I did get some awesome shirts and stickers though, I nearly purchased a mechanical keyboard but I stopped myself. I don't need (another) keyboard... I can customize my corsair (evnentually). Now to be sad and wait until the end of november to be a weirdo irl again!

- Had to fix all my images (again) because I didn't realize that discord images would expire now. :arrow: dumb. I moved hosting services and added some to here as well just to be safe! I thought that it would make all the old images expire and not the new ones but I was sorrowfully incorrect. I'm going to see some friends this weekend + the following week and going to yet another furry con... exciting!

- I've been thinking a lot lately after seeing posts on the one (1) 'social media' (I refuse to call a character storing site a social media) and it got me thinking about a lot of things about being trans and the experience therein. I've met a lot of other trans people, and every so often see someone who hides the fact that they're trans online. (and before anyone asks, I am fine with this, especially if its for safety reasons) HOWEVER it feels odd especially if you're in an area surrounded by other trans people. I understand that a lot of trans people (especially transmascs.) have weird relationships with their own true gender due to a number of reasons and then put that uncertainty and hatred onto others. I've noticed that a good number of (binary) trans people (especially transmascs. again) tend to turn their back on a lot of the fun and perhaps even silly things about gender and fully embrace the shitty gender norms and gender binary of society and blame others for going against it.

I know the reason a lot of people do this is due to the need to feel respected and cared for by society, but this tends to fall into 'respectability politics' that were rather popular (and still are, frankly) in the LGBT community (in terms of wanting to be respected by cis + straight people), but truthfully, I don't believe that cis people will ever just 'respect' trans people, and it's a pointless battle to fight! To me, there's absolutely zero point in trying to fit into a society that has proven time and time again that they simply don't want us part of it. Have fun with it. Embrace weird shit! As far back as I can remember (which isn't a lot but that's a different story) I've always been 'othered' by basically everything, and I've never fit in anywhere due to a number of reasons. I never had the 'aha' moment when I realized I was trans, it just kind of seeped in eventually, and I've noticed I never had the 'force myself to be normal to hide it' because truly, I was never normal LOL so I do see where people come from in terms of wanting to be respected, but I've never been respected :shrug: in basically anything I do or communities I've been a part of. I've been on T for nearly two years now (wow!) and throughout the process I've been able to look inwardly and realize that like, most of this shit is pointless and/or stupid. I'd rather have fun with myself than hope and pray that a cis person would respect me on the basic level. tbh

This is also why I've embraced it/it's pronouns more now than I did (nearly) two years ago. I don't believe that I should hide shit about myself to appease others, and since I'm othered already due to a NUMBER of things, I'd rather embrace that fact and not try to fit in like everyone else. Like genuinely I've never fit in anywhere so why not make my own little corner of fun? I fit under the transmasc label more than the trans man label now anyways (even though I vastly prefer the term transsexual for myself) and I still do try to 'pass' (however you see that) irl but online? little coyote guy. Online no one knows you're a weird beast behind the screen

Remember. Trans joy will be far more powerful than trans pain. We have enough already man be happy be weird forever and ever

- Discord officially kicked the bucket with image hosting so I had to go and fix some images on my site. I tend to host them here rather than offsite just for ease of access but some I didn't feel like doing so (such as the images in here. I fixed them don't worry) alongside some other assorted ones!)

I've been INCREDIBLY busy with work and such throughout these past few months and I've unfortunately been unable to work on my site like I want to, I haven't been drawing a lot lately anymore either, still feeling a bit of burnout and overall low energy. I got majorly sick a few weeks ago that knocked me out hardcore :sob: I had to leave work early one day after praying for the sudafed and excedrin to work, and alas, they didn't. I've been taking care of all our animals (especially our chickens! They've been doing good throughout the winter + suddenly started laying a lot more lately.)

A dear friend of mine got me into Gundam, and they linked me the first three movies of the 0079 series, and I genuinely loved it so much, I bought two gunpla to build :) They're pretty basic ones but good ones to learn how to build them, and it was really fun! This hobby is so dangerous for me. But my dear friends are helping me. Same friend spoke to me about their theory about newtypes in the series being a metaphor for the autistic or trans experience and I'm like ahhh... yes.... (pondering)

- Happy new year! Sorry for the small shutdown of the site. I'm fine now! The suit I put up for sale sold thankfully! All that money's going to my saving for my fursuit and seeing my friends more :] I've been thinking a lot about my identity and such. Not good.

- I've been quite busy still, and I went to MFF! It was probably the most fun I've ever had in the pst few years. I went with my whole friend group as a meetup and we all had fun! I wore their fursuits and got a lot of merch, and met some of my favorite artists! (even ones I support on patreon :smirk:) It was an absolute BLAST!! I went to the raves nearly every night (outside of saturday night bc it was absolutely packed).

^ me in my friends suit Mayday! Alongside some friends :)

Honestly, it was probably one of the best experiences I've ever had, especially since I was finally able to meet up with my closest friends for the past few years. I took the train into Chicago since I really didn't want to drive in and deal with traffic. We all pitched in for the hotel and it was fairly cheap :) I had such a blast and I have to become a weirder furry than I already am. I saw the bimbo suits and they were so nice!!!! I've heard the suits weigh about 40 pounds due to all of the padding. It's hard work to be a bimbo o7

^ All of the suits that we brought! I didn't wear the sergal outside of the hotel room given how poor his vision was and how uncomfortable his head is. He's currently for sale at the time I write this, I hope someone can bring him new life! [edit: he was sold back in January! Very happy]

I absolutely loved being able to be as weird as I wanted at the con and not having to worry about people looking at me weird :D I was able to be such a weird transsexual for the weekend and I am still feeling the post con depression, even though it was over a week ago! I absolutely need to go to more furry cons, I'm planning on going to TFF with friends as well this coming march! :D

- I've been quite busy lately, but I managed to get my hands on an iPod classic video ! It looks abolutely amazing, I installed custom firmware onto it so I can play whatever mp3's I want! I've been meaning to stop using spotify for a while now, (though until I get all the cds I want I'll have to continue using it for a bit longer, but I can use my ipod regularly now, I bought a cd reader for myself so I can finally listen to my cds outside of the home. This one is a custom built one I bought secondhand, with a clear scrollwheel and faceplate, with just a regular silver back plate, with 256 gigs of storage. It'll definitely fit all the music I'd want :)

- I've been busy with a lot of things lately + still really burnt out with creating for a while now, I've not really been drawing at all as of late. I'm planning on doing NaNoWriMo this year, though! I've been itching to write the second book for my one universe for a while now. I started it last year for last years NaNo but never finished it due to college. I've dropped out now due to money concerns (and not to mention that the college experience in the US is for profit anyways and they don't quite care about you actually learning anything). I'm going to a convention and meeting up with some long time friends in November though! Very excited. I haven't been working on my site much due to the lack of drive, but hopefully by the end of the year I'm able to get back into the groove of things, especially with updating certain parts like the oc profiles.

- Umm. Yet another long time no blog. I've still been SUPER busy lately and working around major burnout from how much I've been getting done irl with work and home life. I still don't think it's fully gone but I've been able to do things sparcely here and there. I haven't been drawing much these past few months besides a few doodles here and there and part of me still feels a bit bad about it. But honestly I don't want to push myself too hard bc that tends to make burnout a bit worse. I switched up meds (again) and got off the higher dose and I feel more like a person thankfully :thumbsup: though I've noticed that if I miss them it gets bad. so I rlly shouldn't do that!

I saw a few more bands live again, and I'm going to see a few more in the upcoming month and a half. I've been trying to steadily collect my silly cds along these concerts but for whatever reason some haven't really shown up yet, and I'm kind of bummed. I bought the With Promises of Death album by BRIGHTER DEATH NOW and it hasnt shown up yet and it's been quite a while since I first purchased it. I suppose shipping from Europe hasn't really improved, but here's to hoping!

- Long time no blog. I really haven't had the time to mess around with the site as of late given how just abysmally busy I've been for the past month or so. I finished off art fight a few weeks ago because I got burnt out quite quickly (especially in regards to what's happening currently with the ownership and what's come out) and I did in fact try harder this year in terms of better quality attacks but god x_x it's hard not to get burnt out fast esp since I've been doing this for 7 years now! I've noticed a shift of the vibe on the site for the past few years (as in, the way people see the event, how revenges are seen, etc etc) and I feel like I've done this for long enough to not give a shit about all of that LOL

I won't get too personal here but I have been switching up things in my life that needed to be changed and it's been leaving me feeling like a husk of a man most of the time. My medications are fucking me up again and I upped them recently since I noticed the very large plateau in my mood and they honestly made it worse. I love the healthcare system I love the mental health system surely this will do nothing but good in the long run (lying).

I finally saw a band live that I've been wanting to for years since they were seemingly allergic to my area for a good chunk of years, and I've met some cool people at concerts. I've finally come to the conclusion that I do in fact enjoy talking to people but deep down I still really don't like most I come across. I need my me time and it's hard to explain that I do in fact need human interaction and being able to talk about things while also not being able to stand most people I come across in my day to day life and I really don't see the good in people for the most part. I still consider myself an 'extroverted misanthrope' since it's basically the best way I've seen to explain how I feel.

- Been thinking a lot about moving domains lately. I do want to get off of neocities because well. It definitely has it's fair share of problems, (including going down at random intervals) and generally the "community" (or what you'd I guess call one) I just can't stand. I really don't know how to put it into words, though. With my own domain I'd be able to do whatever (and I've scouted a few free hosting services that would work) and since I truly just, don't want a presence in any sort of social media (since, you know, everyone moved to making their own site which turned neocities into it's own form of social media) I truly can't give a shit about anything relating to it anymore, outside of my little character storage site. (and even then, I've been moving their bios here so I would be able to get into the nitty gritty of their backstories without the average toyhouse user deciding they aren't okay, and I use th for image storage for the most part, though I've been working on getting all the images somewhere else bc well. Th is hosted by cloudflare and they're not known for their stability.) Neocities is super easy to edit and code on (which I see why the userbase is so large) but I want somewhere to just. Put things into the void so when I'm gone there would still be a trace of me, at least. I'd like to do all of this, but I've been so busy at work and doing shit in general other than sitting on my computer (which, in a way, is a good thing. I've been feeling (relatively) better lately in terms of general mood but since an anniversary of a shitty event's coming up I get bouts.)

It's pride month, and that means I think about my identity a lot. I've come to love being 'unlabeled' for the most part. (I don't mean this in the way that a lot of people do, since I was made aware there was an unlabeled pride flag...? Which honestly defeats the purpose bc now you're using it AS a label you know. you feel me) I honestly could not care less about labels other than being trans, and even then that's still very much an umbrella term. I don't care about microlabels (and honestly feel that a lot of them can be damaging) and if I started speaking about my feelings on my sexuality and gender I have a deep feeling someone would go "well, that sounds like [x]!" and I just can't bring myself to care. Since I finally accepted the "apathy towards any label because honestly who gives a shit" I've become more open with my sexuality in terms of figuring myself out. Testosterone has done so much for me (and had um. the effects) and I've become more welcoming to being that one weird furry guy and I feel way happier. I live under the idea that I've just GOT to get weirder in everything I do and understanding myself with my gender and sexuality has helped quite a lot. yippee

- So sorry for being MIA for the past week or so, I haven't really been able to sit down and work on my site as I'd like to because I started working full time again :broken_heart: I've been working on a ton of ref sheets for the upcoming artfight in a month. I've been just generally suuuper busy bc I'm an adult and sadly need bills to be paid. I got a few more items for my collection, and sold off all of my (non-collection) plush and figures at a tag sale we tabled at :) All my money is going to my car and the money pit that its become. I've been rekindling my love for reading these past few weeks too- mostly listening to audiobooks while I work (since they do truly help me stay focused especially if I'm invested in the story).

I finished A Clockwork Orange a few days ago, and I really quite enjoyed the book. I previously saw the Stanley Kubrick film a few years ago, and part of me understands why he decided to not um. Put any of the political commentary of the book into the film (given the fact that it was released in the 70's where it was frowned upon (and it still is today) to critique the government in hollywood) and given that the entire point of the book was "Ultraviolence is ok only if we're (the police, government) are doing it to the right people" sort of deal, but I still can't help but be dissapointed in this. The entire second half of the book is literally just fully commentary on the government and class issues in Britian at the time and the movie just... left it all out. Overall, I really really enjoyed the book. I believe that good art and good commentary is supposed to make you feel emotions while you read (and in this case, disgust at both the government and Alex's actions) and if it isn't doing that, I think it needs to be improved. I think the book did a fantastic job at being subtle (though, some of it was supposed to be subtext that basically just turned into just. Regular text, such as Dim becoming a militant after Alex gets arrested and jailed.) and still holds up to this day. I read the British version specifically, since the american version of the book cuts out the entire final chapter, for whatever reason. If you were to experience this story, I'd suggest reading the british version of the book before anything else. The movie is a fantastic film, both in delivery and cinematography (though, I am really not a fan of Kubrick in general, given what happened on the Shining film set.), and, while it is a hard watch at times, (especially during the ultraviolence sections), I still think that it's a solid film.

- I've been researching a lot of things lately after I get home from work since I finally was able to fix my internet problem back home. I've been looking into a lot of television type technology, and specifically the switch to analog to digital broadcasting throughout the world (though mainly only the US). I'm not one to get emotional for really anything, but I cannot describe how I'm feeling watching the videos of the analog stations being shut off for good in around 2007-2013. It's like putting down an animal at the end of it's life and telling them how much of a good job they did throughout their life and how they'll be missed.

Some stations made specific goodbye messages to everyone watching the channel, while some just simply shut it off without even saying goodbye. The ones that didn't say goodbye to me feel like someone who put down the animal without even saying anything and walking away, while the ones saying goodbye. True care and love came from the stations who gave them proper sendoffs and thanked all the people still watching analog for sticking around so long and seeing them off.

To me, giving a proper sendoff for an analog frequency that's been in use for over 50 years seems right. It's all about giving them (the frequencies) a peaceful and kind ending to their run when most of the world has already given up and forgotten about them.

- I finally got a car! I've been searching and scouring craigslist and I was finally able to snag a car I really wanted. It needs a ton of work, though. It doesn't run currently due to the distributor that was installed backwards. Once I pick it up I'm gonna do a ton to clean and make sure she runs fine, and if not, I'm adding it to my little spreadsheet. I genuinely can't put into words how happy I am at the moment. I've got a lot of work ahead of me but the faster I can get it running the better. It's an automatic (sadly), so I'm gonna see if I can find a manual in a junkyard and rebuild it and do a switch. It's a bit rusty, but the frame itself is in perfect condition.

Other than that, I've officially finished my first year of college. I'm not quite the fan of any of it, really. I'm not going back to the college I went to this past year due to the fact that it costs WAY too much money. I'm going to go to a CC instead for the time being. Getting my car really helped get over this first lump in my plan and I can finally work to getting my lisence :D

- Finally got my wishlist for my collections in once place! I used to have a Carrd for my collection but I really hated the (incredibly low) limit for images and items on pages, and finally managed to move it all here. I've been thinking about collecting again, and casually looking for stuff again, though I can't help but want to save my money because this hobby can become quite expensive x__x Since I'm getting my tax return very shortly I decided to purchase the JP version of the Absol pokedoll I needed, which was a little treat for myself. All of my colletion is in storage at the moment since I'm still in a dorm at the moment (but I'm moving out soon!) so I'd be able to get pictures of my items and upload them. Hopefully I'll be able to afford buying from JP again through a proxy so I can get more absol stuff at a cheaper price than english sites :).

I've been looking at a lot of different collection sites (mostly to get images for my wishlist) and I've got to say that I still believe they look incredibly same-y. Same top bar, same everything. I can't blame a lot of them though, since Weebly and wix are (fine) website builders and easy for people who don't know how to code to make websites but still. I know mine doesn't look the best either but I want to keep it really simple for the most part. Have an image of the figure/plush/whatever, date released, and creator, and a small blurb. I've been rethinking how I collect as well, since getting my absol wishlist took a little over 5 hours of work to finish (straight). I finished one of my finals for this semester and immediately started working on the site, and it made me realize just how many figures and other assorted goods I was missing! I have basically all the plush besides a few tagged vs untagged ones, and the one that doesn't release for another week or so. This hobby is a huge money sink, but I'm sadly a completionist when it comes to these things. (I even found some random absol merch that I wasn't even aware existed!) And I may start looking at my collection differently. I won't ever stop collecting as far as I'm aware because I have the natural urge to collect small items and trinkets, but as a broke college student I don't really have that many options.

Speaking of collection sites and collectors, I ventured onto LiveJournal for the first time in many years. My mother had one and used it until they sold the company and I've gotta say, the website is nearly unusable. I have adblockers and other things running in the bg of my firefox browser and even then I get MASSIVE banner ads among a bunch of other things, and while I understand that the LiveJournal group was one of the original collectors groups for sales/auctions/whatnot I can't help but think that there's a time to give up the ghost. The website got worse after they sold it (and the fact that they sell your data, too.) and there are other avenues to do this sort of thing! God just stop using LiveJournal the website sucks ass

- I've been updating the website a lot recently (once again to ignore my college work) and I finally made the decision to host my ocs on my website instead of Toyhou.se since it's run off of cloudflare and it crashes pretty frequently. I'm still keeping an account, of course, just mainly using it to do image hosting online rather than here since a lot of it takes up a ton of space and I'm not sure if I really want to pay for neocities premium given how badly the site has been performing as of late. I've been slowly but surely moving stuff here too. It's been a ton of fun rewriting the entire lore down for characters, since I don't tend to do so on toyhou.se. I'm gonna be replacing things on my toyhouse with plaintext things since I value the info over the prettiness. I've kind of moved away from Toyhou.se somewhat mostly due to the userbase (and the forums), though I still use it as a valuable tool for both commissioning and the character market, though most of all the bios are probably gonna stay here.

I've gone to a few good concerts recently and I was finally able to really add a bunch of CDs for my collection, and I even got some that weren't released yet :-) I haven't listened to half of them yet since I do want to review them, but still!

- I went to a really amazing concert a few days ago and I keep thinking about it! I wasn't expecting to enjoy the opener as much as I did (I got a bag and a signed CD from them! They were super sweet too). I met some really nice people there but I don't know how I would go about keeping in touch with them... I gave them my number and such so here's to hoping! Alongside going to the concert, I got a bunch more CDs to add to my collection. Most were from the concert (I had to buy double to get them for a good friend of mine.) And overall it was a really good experience, but I came to a roadblock. I bought the CD's in person which meant that I wouldn't be able to get the mp3 files on my computer unless I either 1) repurchased the albums on bandcamp so I could get the digital library files or 2) rip the CD to put the mp3s on my computer. Sadly, my laptop I currently use doesn't have a disc drive (which is really a shame), so I briefly looked into external DVD/CD readers. I got recommended a good one from people who know software and hardware better than me so I've been keeping an eye on that specific model. That specific one can do, lets say, special things, and I'd be able to rip whatever I'd want to put on a harddrive or something else of that nature. I've been meaning to buy an external harddrive anyways but that stuff gets wayyyy too expensive for me at the moment, but I'd definitely get one in the future. I'd really want one so I can store my music and videos/movies on it so I have a solid archive of things I deem important enough.

I finally downloaded (a lot of) the music I bought off of bandcamp and shoved them into my music app on my computer. I'm still not done but I think this is a good start so far. The program I use is (suprisingly) super easy to configure and add files to the player. Though for whatever reason whenever I scan the folder for new files it repeats the Killer's Notebook file and the Revenge of Dr Q. I thought it could have been due to those not being in folders of their own (When I first started downloading all of it I removed them from the folder they were in for whatever reason) but it doesn't do the same for the other albums I have in there that don't have a folder. It's quite interesting and doesn't bother me enough to fix

- Been browsing a bunch of different sites today (instead of working on my paper that's due monday... lol). And I've been coming across the idea of the "webcore" fans and 'mining' for nostalgia. It was interesting reading all of these views on the internet and, in a way, personal websites as a whole. I came across a good deal of drama though my small trek through random websites, though I can't help to say that I feel... torn.

On one hand, I really hate 'webcore' people. All the ones I've met through my years online are younger than me and have never touched the OS or even used the things they like in a day to day light. A lot of them have eyestrain-y, bright, and flashy codes on websites (such as toyhou.se) that really bother me. I'm not super photosensitive, but if someone who doesn't have photosensitivites gets eyestrain/headaches from your website or code... maybe look for a different one? Or make it more accessable. I know my site could be considered "eyestrain" because it's a black background with white text, but it's the easiest for me to read given my issues with reading. I don't want my site to be considered 'webcore' because I made it with my own personality and characteristics in mind, and a small piece of me will be left with this site if I ever do die or move on with my life. I personally really don't like the "-core"-ification of the internet as well, but that tends to be a deep rabbit hole that I won't get into here. I've been surrounded by 'geeks' growing up (ie people who just really like computers or just general geek-y interests, and I've seen the old internet for what it was. I've spoken to people who were on the old web during my free time and all have basically said the same thing- "It was great, but had (very glaring issues)", simular to the internet today. It's a different landscape now, but still ripe with the same issues it had nearly 30 years ago. Sites like Livejournal (in their peak) were great places to share writing and keep in touch with friends and even family, but it was sold off to a different company which sold users data. But Livejournal was probably the biggest place for drama amongst users in many different areas, so it seems like time will always be a flat circle when it comes to drama, people, and the internet. I've seen others say "well if you like the old net, why don't you do this (thing?)" (for example, mp3 files instead of streaming services. I personally use mp3s a lot (some of my favorite albums are only available though the artist's website since they were removed from bandcamp and I refuse to listen to music on youtube because of how crunchy it can get).

On the other hand, I think creativity knows no bounds. While a lot of people will simply imput things into a builder or template (hell, the first iteration of this site was from an internet website template I found that someone created, and some of the bones of the website builder I used for the current iteration can still be found, but I made a point to make it my own work.) most people will be incredibly creative. If someone would want to make a site that looks like it came from 1999 with shitty html and all, why should you care? How would you be able to tell if it's 'mining' for nostalgia or just how the webmaster envisioned it? (Though, I would make sure my site was readable first and foremost.) The internet and life as a whole welcomes people who are incredibly creative, and even if you don't do it for anyone else besides yourself, you're still creating something. Though, I don't find myself interested in a lot of other things people are. I saw an argument that not everyone needs a personal website, and I would agree, but it leads down a road of self doubt in if you're "interesting" or "good" enough to have a personal website.

I've been thinking about myself a lot lately, especially how I see others in my life and how I see myself. I'm not an extrovert, (because I hate people), nor an introvert (I get very lonely). I've been told that I'm somewhat of an extroverted misanthrope, and I'm starting to identify with that 'label'. I crave being friends with people, though I have no tolerance for stupid people, or people who don't respect me. I don't like going through that process of figuring out if someone would be a good friend (let alone romantic partner), only to figure out that they're insufferable behind closed doors. I've been told I come off as not caring about most social cues (since I am a flavor of "neurodivergent") which is in part true, since some of this shit is dumb as all hell, but it seems to have put a crack in my personal life. Lots to think about. Humans are social animals at their core, and many positives come from having a good network of people surrounding you who truly care about you, but it seems that it's hard to come by. I'm in college currently and have yet to make any true, good connections with anyone. It is, in all honesty, kind of my fault, in a way. That's something to unpack later, I think.

- Today marks one whole year on Testosterone for me. I feel a lot happier than last year, at least. It's a bit tricky to really put my emotions down in text because I can't identify them by myself in the first place but I'm really glad I started T. I feel a lot better in my body and I always love seeing the changes I'm going through. (Though, not a fan of having to give away most of my clothes because they don't fit anymore >_>) I feel myself getting stronger too, especially biking around. I finally got off my ass and uploaded a lot of my older and more current art to the site. It was a bit tricky to find my older works though, since I've gone through like 3 computers in the past 5 years, but alas. I was suprised with how much I've improved these past few years, though I do regret 'giving up' (I wouldn't say giving up is the right word here. I just stopped doing it) on animations since like, 2020. I did have a lot of fun making them and it helped me get OC ideas out but I haven't had the drive to make any more. (Also the fact that sony vegas just like, doesn't want to work on my laptop.) All in all, I do have a lot of regrets in my life but what is life if we don't fuck up a bit? I am finally starting to see the beauty of small things within this world.

- Finally decided to remake the old blog- with a new style! My previous blog was coded with duct tape and hopes and didn't really like working correctly. I don't have much planned for this side of things, though. Currently I've just been poking at things on this site- hopefully getting to the game archive side of things... eventually! it's taking a while.