Pardon the dust. I really have not updated with you guys my current situations, have I? Let's correct that mistake.

To start off, I've been okay for the most part. At the start of the year, I made my flight to visit family back in Jersey for a week. Then, thanks to my supporters on Patreon, I recently attained a corner desk, giving my older one away to my partner. This corner desk not only looks cool, but it saves me space in my room for VR related endeavors, as well as offering space for a second monitor. I've been missing out on having a secondary display, especially when multi-tasking. Having Discord on the side alone is something I dearly missed before moving out. I know it's not much, but I'm glad things for me have been steady, considering the absolute chaos going on State-side.

That said, I do have concerns regarding my output on content & performance. Maybe I've become more critical of my own art, but it doesn't feel like I'm getting out very far. All of my other peers have either been dominating SFM with top tier quality renders, or even moved on to greener pastures with Blender. I'm probably just overthinking it, and I know it's foolish to compare one's self to others, but it's kind of hard not to. Hell, I've been making far less on Patreon. I can't afford to fall behind financially, even though I am in a much more stable position with my current household than I was with my family. One thing that hasn't helped was me shifting platforms. As mentioned in my last journal, I had to abandon SubscribeStar for Patreon just so I can actually get paid. I can't imagine my supporters were thrilled having to move on over or even just quit. That's not to say that I haven't been trying to offer a bit more on Patreon, however.

Though, if there was anything more damaging than that, it would be whatever the fuck has been going on with Twitter. Ever since The Election™ last year, it really feels like everything went to shit. Grok AI scraping, the army of embolded chuds, having to bounce around an unforgiving algorithm. It got too much, so I left for Bluesky. The website environment is way more welcoming, but gaining growth on there has been an uphill battle since not everyone (at least folks I know) never bothered to switch or at least cross-post between both sites. I was just getting close to 2K followers on Twitter, too, and every follower does matter when it comes signal boosting my Patreon. Sure, I could go back. In fact, for a brief time when 2025 started, I did. Then another viral post went on about Grok remixing at the click of a button, and I was turned back off. It hasn't helped knowing Muskrat's involvement with the current Administration. The whole thing just leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth. For social media, it sure as hell is making me anti-social...

What with all of the social media kerfuffle, It has left me feeling nostalgic for the older days of the Internet. Forums, blogging, making your own web page. It was enough to convince me to make a NeoCities page for my SFW stuff. If you haven't seen yet, then give it a look. Cool, ain't it? I barely know CSS nor remember much HTML, so it's a miracle it came out well as it did. I thought about making a separate NeoCities site for everything Optica related, but I'm not sure how I would even begin. Last time I checked, I know at least that NeoCities should be okay with NSFW. I'll keep in touch with you guys on that, should I ever make a site for Optica. It would be nice to have a central hub with a bit more shine than my current Linktree.

I suppose that's about it for now. I do want to thank you, the reader, if you made it this far. Also, I do want to thank my current and past supporters on both the now defunct SubscribeStar as well as my current active Patreon. Every penny offered is a major help to me, and I am forever grateful for it. Also, shout-out to  knowvoid for helping me out with my PC upgrade almost a year ago. Go give him some love. ♥