Heya ^^

So, I've been pretty quiet on here in the last few months. The tldr of it is I have been taking time off to focus on my living/job situation, which reached a pretty dire point recently, but I'm not going to go over that here. If you are really curious, I made some posts about it on my BlueSky. For now, I kinda just want to give a update on what I have been doing and what I'm hoping to do in the future.

As some of you my have noticed, I have been posting some DJ sets that I have recorded. ATM, this is probably the thing I am giving the most attention to. I don't want to go full time into it or anything, it is a hobby that I do purely for my own enjoyment. That said, I would like to raise the production quality of the videos I record and start playing some in VRC. I'll make updates about anything exciting, mostly on my BlueSky, but if/when I post more YT videos I'll share them here too.

As for art, I've been take a bit of an extended hiatus and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Yes, there's is still plenty of art want to get, new characters who I want to build out, ect. But as of right now, anything art related is pretty much on the back burner until I am in a better fanatical situation. I might get the odd commission or two if I feel like I can justify it (I got one a few months back before everything really went to shit for me), but it won't be anything close to how much I used to get. I have a small backlog of stuff I haven't posted that I am currently deciding if I should just trickle out or mass art drop. Either way, some art will be coming soon, just not anything "new" for awhile.

That's really all the updates I have. I don't particularly want to recap everything I've said on BlueSky, but I will say I think I have gotten over the worst of things. Now it's only a matter of time to catch up on things.

I haven't been able to sleep in the past 2 days. I just lay in bed and can't shut off my mind. My chest feels so tight, I'm having to manually breath at times just to not go into panic mode. I just feel like my whole world is falling apart right now.
And it isn't just the outcome of these elections. Truthfully I'm insulated from most of the ramifications of it being in Cali, where sane minds generally prevail (unless you go into the rural areas). Any federal policy or bill usually doesn't have any major impact on my life, so "loosing an election" is almost trivial since it will just swing back the other way the next term.

But this election was different. The rhetoric and beliefs being thrown around are different, even from the 2016 and 2020 elections. It is so saddening and hurtful that so much of our country is at the very least willing to tolerate if not outright support the oppressions of basic human rights. During Trump's first term hate crimes went up almost 20%. How TF do you think it is going to go in the next 4 years with all the hate and rhetoric his campaign directed at minorities, immigrants, and the lgbtq community at large? I would rather pay out the ass for gas and food than see my friends scared for their own safety because someone disagrees with them simply trying to live their happiest life.

It is even more saddening that there are people out there who can't even see it and instead insist "well if you don't like it you can just leave." Oh yeah, let me just get that few thousand that I have saved up just incase I no longer feel safe in my home to move to a country where I have no job or housing, know nobody, and know nothing of the area, assuming I am even granted a friking visa to move there. Simply because people care about magically fixing the economy and putting money back in their wallet more than upholding human rights. Which btw is FREE. What an incredibly toxic and unethical thing to suggest. And then ppl wonder why I have no second thoughts in cutting them out of my life.

But that's just the side dish to my fucking problems right now. My life is basically turned on its head in the last week or so. This could be an entire separate journal on its own, but the tldr for those who don't know is I was laid off last week after a new company took over our site and required us to reapply for our positions. After being assured by said company they would be bringing everyone on board, they refused the applications of my supervisor and a few other employees. Half of the department pulled their applications in protest, myself included. I thought I had a new job basically lined up, but now my job situation is back to being completely up in the air. After I spent a bunch of the money I had left getting my car insured and attempted to register it (I don't have enough to now) bc the job I was thinking I had requires me to have it. Now I'm almost out of money and I don't know for sure if I am even getting the job anymore. I am ok for rent at the moment, but I still have bills and other shit to pay. My internet is overdue and is going to be shut off 10 days, my storage locker was due on the 30th and if I don't pay that within a certain amount of time (30 days I think) I loose it and everything in it. Not to mention I still have to eat.

Literally a month or two ago, despite the issues with my job, I would have said I was at the best point of my life. Beyond just my financial situation, I've been struggling with my own identity my whole life and only in the last few years have finally been just happy and comfortable with who I am. Even last week with being laid off and all, I was still very optimistic that things were going to be alright. Now...now I am doing everything I fucking can to keep my shit together and keep moving forward. And I feel like I'm hopelessly loosing the battle.

Note: Please don't reach out to me. Writing down and organizing my thoughts is a therapeutic process for me. If I know you I don't mind talking about things, but I just needed to vent. That is all.

Since BlueSky is now open to everyone, I'll just go ahead and remind people I you can find me at Mardu57.bsky.social

So yeah, if you didn't know yet, there ya go ^^

So, 500 watcher milestone...I'll get to that in a moment, but a tldr on my current state. All I really feel like saying is I guess disregard previous statements I made about quitting. Holiday depression, emotional response, there were a lot of factors that all just worked against me this last month. I just needed some time to get past my rashness and respond semi-analytically. Which is something that I am usually pretty decent at, but I still fuck up every now and then. That said, it is hard to picture a time where I'm not going to want to get art for some reason or another, so that itself isn't going to stop.

On that note, I have said for a looooooong time that I was going to have an art raffle when I reach 500 watchers, and we're finally there. So...fuck, I gotta plan what to do. What I'd like to do is a pair of YCHs that people could sign up for; one for my dom side and one for my sub side. I guess just keep an eye out for that in the next month or so while I sort out an artist and come up with ideas and all.

I also have other ideas and plans beyond art that I want to do this year, so we will see how things go. I just need the motivation to actually finish the projects ove been working on x.x

So, two things about me, one that I am trying to get away from and the other is something that I try to embrace.

First, I am a very polarizing person. I am not going to shy away from speaking my mind or expressing my opinion. If you agree with me, great. If you don't, I'm going to say where I disagree with you. I don't ever mean or try to do it in an attacking way, just have a discussion about our differing viewpoints. You state yours, I'll state mine, we'll make counterpoints, ect. Further, if I am wrong or mistaken on something, have information brought to my attention that I overlooked, ect, I will change my viewpoint to reflect that. But my goal isn't to just tell someone how they are wrong, it's to express my thoughts and understand where we differ.

That mindset is very important for who I am. I don't care to make someone like me. Never have, never will. I'm not here to simply agree with you or the "popular opinion" so I can fit in. Not like I seek out conflict in doing so, but I will not shy away from it either. In fact I embrace it. It is a very good tool to understand someone as a person since one's true character comes out during conflict. If you can't respectfully disagree, call me ignorant or wrong, and try to force your own ideas, I have all the insight to your character I need.

And this is where the second trait I have, the one that I am trying to get away from, becomes a massive issue. I have been around way too many toxically narcissistic people in my life. The way they act in an argument is as I said above; attacking you, calling you wrong/ignorant, and forcing their view on you. Their goal in an argument isn't to listen to your viewpoints and be respectful of them while explaining how theirs differ. It is to utterly dismantle your viewpoints, attack you as dumb and ignorant, and impose their "undoubtedly correct" view onto you.

The issue with having been around and lived with these kind of people most of my life is I ended up developing a need to defend myself constantly. My words will be skewed and taken out of context, or I will be associated with viewpoints that I didn't express, and as a result in almost every argument I have had to explain and defend what I actually meant. In an otherwise healthy environment, no one should ever need to do this. Your words and opinions should be taken for what they are, and if someone holds different views that is all fine (as long as they aren't hurting you). But I didn't grow up or live in that kind of environment until maybe the last 2 years. I'm conditioned to be constantly on the lookout for derogatory comments or remarks even days after something has been dropped.

Where that becomes an issue is that my willingness to express my viewpoints and beliefs is inadvertently fed by my "need" to defend myself. Most of the time that just manifests in a flash of anger at a statement that I feel is negatively directed at me before I let it go and move on. But other times, when it is not so direct, it just sits and seethes in me until I reopen some argument that by all accounts people have moved on from.

That conflict is a massive issue. Because someone says or does something that gets under my skin, I go from respectfully expressing a differing opinion to just straight up being combative. And while I have tried to get past this feeling of needing to defend everything that I say/do, it is extremely hard to unlearn. It is extremely hard to tell myself that I'm not being personally attacked or my viewpoints being invalidated when it is what I have lived through my whole life.

But that's just another one of my flaws...

So as some of you may have noticed, I have been taking a break from getting/posting comms for awhile now. I had a lot of things happen and had to reprioritize my expenses for a little while. But I'm starting to get back into commissioning this month. I already had a bunch of ideas that I wanted to do during my break, so I am going to prioritize those and getting art with people I have been wanting to get art with, and at the rate I can get art that will probably take 2-3 months as it is x.x

But also, I said a little while ago that once I hit 500 followers I'd do a raffle on here for art with me, and I am getting pretty close. Soo, it might not be on exactly 500, but once I pass that look out for an announcement to do that.

In the meantime, I have been poking some people I am interesting in getting art with to start making plans. And, while most of the art I already have is posted, I will try to be posting new art semi-regularly. Can't wait to get back into the swing of things ^^

I'm on Bluesky btw. I am enjoying it more than Twitter tbh, so trying to be active as much as I can. For now that is posting some of my old favorite arts, thoughts + my "Current Mood" posts, projects I am working on, or interests I have.

Come say hi and give a follow if you are on there.
mardu57.bsky.social

I recently passed 400 followers and wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has followed me. It's actually still a little crazy to me that so many people like the art I get for myself.

Those who have followed me for a long time know I've had my ups and downs, and while I feel like I have grown a lot, this last year has been no exception. I've been dealing with a lot of stuff in the past few months that has caused me to be a bit distant while I handle things. The amount of art I get has slowed down as well, but it has by no means stopped.

I still have a lot of plans for future art, so stay tuned for those. A long time ago I thought once I hit 500 followers I would do a raffle for an art commission with me. Now that I've almost got there, I'm going to have to make some plans for that.

Again, thank you for following, I appreciate every one of you ^^