STATE OF THE SALTY UNION (June 4th, 2024)

Hello!

Haven’t done one of these in a while! Back during my Tumblr days these were a lot more frequent. Back then there really was this feeling that I was growing and fostering a strange but treasured community. It is difficult to explain what has changed because I still have that community and even more people who I now consider very close and good friends in this community. But, the Tumblr days were definitely a lot more rugged and I put a lot more pressure on myself to become organized and stay on top of myself. Ever since I got my full time job back in 2021 I’ve been a lot less strict on myself and I am glad I have been too. My life has been a lot less open ever since, unsurprisingly so. The majority of my life and my time are thrown in to my career now so there is a lot less time to write about my waifus and your OCs. All the same, let’s talk about how things have been going and where we’re at.

Writing

For a long time writing output had dropped to near zero. There were months between fics and inspiration had reached a new low. This was not entirely unsuspected. COVID was a terrible time for productivity. I spent the majority of my unemployed time during the global pandemic drinking Mike’s Hard Lemonades, playing FFXIV fishing, and watching the debut of Hololive EN. I rewatched all of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul and various other shows. While Bo Burnham was making his best work I was hardly dressing myself and Googling how to get various fishes in Ishgard whilst Gawr Gura, still only at 200k subscribers, collaborated with Ina and Amelia in Surgeon Simulator 2 and I wondered how far they would go.

Following the coveted Covid period was my first job. Frankly, my first real degree relevant job was a shit show. It was warfare on my mental health and I was having near daily panic attacks and extreme anxiety at all times as the job progressed and continued to put more and more on me. Writing during this period was, despite it all, fairly good if just notably rare. I closed my Patreon sometime in this period due to me just… not achieving my personal goals for it. I stopped wanting to do prompts and I was now making enough money to not require further financial assistance. Everyday I took Patreon dollars I genuinely felt like I was scamming people and not living up to my promise to become a weekly prestigious pornographer. Closing the Patreon was good for my mental health.

So, where are we currently with writing? Well, I decided to test myself in my current life period and see if I could fit in commissions. I am on a strict regiment where I workout on specific days, I meal prep, and I keep up with friends on a weekly basis. I am much more organized than I was before and to be honest it really shows. Streams now occur every Thursday that I am available without much stress and I am back to writing. I have almost finished the previous queue and am frankly, very proud of myself especially after the last time I had done commissions I frankly just failed to get to everyone I promised a comm to. Still, this is why I never take money from people until I give them a fic because I know myself.

I am honestly not sure of the quality of this period in writing. I highly believe both of the fics I wrote for Monstrifex’s collaboration project are some of the best works I’ve ever put out. As well, Vertigo Union and The New Sister are two stories I extremely enjoyed writing and I write strictly and firstly for myself. TESTRUN: Stampede is also my personal favorite story from a semi-recent time period when it comes to pure fun. Weird mechanical stuff is amazing. I somewhat feel as if my style has begun to stagnate save for a few sentences with improved flow and a lot more patience with my works. I am trying to sprint a little less and write fics in shorter chunks and I am also asking friends for proofreading more often, especially for the stories I am putting in those shared collabs.

However, something I am a bit sad about is that I have been writing far fewer fanfics. If you want an answer to that it is just simply I don’t really think about canon characters that way as often. I am watching the hit Dungeon Meshi show and not really getting sexual crushes on the characters or brainstorming fanfics I could write about them. I am extremely fucking horny for Makima but I very genuinely cannot think of a story I could write about her that would satisfy me. I have personally found more satisfaction (and money lol) in writing about my own OCs and friend’s OCs. I have been extremely lucky to have made very generous friends who have hot OCs and are always very very willing to pay ME to write about MY characters! It is frankly wild that there are people that into my own characters, though I suppose it is a little humorous I still have this strong distinction between OCs and “story characters.” Like, I interpret interesting in say, Gwen and Mandy, in a different more personal and flattering way than someone’s intrigue by the characters in Cat Call. All the same, I am very fortunate and have been enjoying this.

I believe this will continue to be the trend in my writing. You can expect to see me taking more commissions with a strong lean towards original works and from my personal output you will be seeing more and more pull towards darker fantasy, strange robotics, and longer stories that take their time. I have a project I will refer to as The Dark Knight (not Batman) Project which I intend to be novel sized. I also have a novel. I really need to post it.

Writing will continue. Hopefully posting as well.

Posting

               One of my biggest weaknesses continues to be posting. I have several stories finished and ready to go and I just simply do not post these stories. I continue to underestimate the fact that making these banners just… takes  a lot of time. The Website, Furaffinity, and Twitter all use different assets that I refuse to be quick and sloppy or generic with and this has led to me dreading actually sitting down and working on getting a story finished. This has probably contributed towards my recent bias for commissions. Who cares if I post it, the commissioner already has their PDF and they are the one and only person I was writing for! But a big part of it for the commissioner is to have the story… POSTED! So people can read it, enjoy the weird fun they paid to have their OC thrust into, and as well, continue to grow my own audience and bring more people in and thus grow the author they… hopefully like lmao.

               I will continue to work on posting. I at this time intend to post whenever we near a weekend and will try to avoid posting in big clumps so as to give each fic a chance to breathe and be its own. That said, I also really need to post my novel…

Streaming

               I caught the VTuber brain worm and I have a PNGtuber of my raccoon, Mandy. I have also caught the busty boy virus which has made me a lot more comfortable with my voice and my identity and has allowed me to start streaming with my voice which I was always hyper self conscious of. This has been a very weird journey for me. I did my first voiced stream around Christmas time. I preplanned it, had some alcohol in me for spirit, and we did a lil raffle or two. So far, the response to voiced streams has been extremely positive.

               For some reason, if you do not enjoy the voice aspect of my work streams, I completely understand! I compulsively mute streams if I hear the human voice and generally resent hearing the voices of people in the lewd space. It makes me really anxious. That said, I am leaning more into this space and starting to embrace it verbally and orally—good phrasing good phrasing. So yeah, I stream as a busty boy sometimes while writing. I do not really think I’ll ever do like, normal vtuber stuff. That just… no, not a realistic hobby. Writing is my passion and it is something I would do with or without an audience, whereas full on gamer streaming is a lot more… feedback based. The streamer grind is insane and I respect everyone doing their best.

               In brief, we stream every Thursday if nothing weird is going on. We write porn. I talk about it. And it has been fun. I would also like to get a better model for Mandy so we can really see her… him…?

               God this has gotten so complicated.

Music

               Immediately behind writing, Music is the reason I was put on this planet. I love music with all my heart and I adore writing it. I knew I wanted to write music for the entirety of my life ever since I first put a GBA up against my ear and blasted the volume as loud as I could to just wash in the sounds. I hated the radio, but the first time I heard a video game orchestra crunched through nickel sized speakers I truly fell in love.

               For those of you who don’t know I recently published my first album… ever. This is the first time I ever really shared music like this. https://soundcloud.com/piddleyfangsost/sets/beasts-within-soundtrack

               So, how did this happen? Well, Monstrifex was chatting with me about the collab project they wanted to bring me on for again, which again: thank you so much! And they shared with me the really striking world map they had made. The visuals were intense and trippy and reminded me of some sort of rust or ethereal energy but it surreally depicted the world they were inviting me to contribute to. As a musician I am heavily inspired by scenes and actions and usually while composing I like to envision little things. “This song sounds like a scene where a woman is sitting on a throne and watching people enter the room” or “this song sounds like a skateboard being put through a washing machine” or something like that! Well, the image they shared did that to me so I wrote a really quick song which you can see on the album called Viscera. I just tried to write what it looked like to me.

               Well, they liked it and were curious about what else I had written. I am usually extremely cagey about my music. I will pick my favorite people and send them MP3s on occasion and gauge their reactions for feedback in various directions and also harvest serotonin. Encouraged but also full well knowing that the song I wrote was not even close to what I could write, I showed them my more intense compositions and before I knew it they had asked if I was willing to write 3 or 4 songs for the collab.

               I decided to write a song for each Monstrifex piece and a song for Jill’s illustration as well. I also wrote an intro and outro song so there could be a main theme. I wanted people to remember this collab and start humming the main motif from the album as a sort of flavor to the memory. Monstrifex also reminded me to write a song for my own massive fic so I obliged and wrote a song about the growing hallucinatory dreams of the protagonist as her connection to corruptive moon grew stronger and the grasp the cult had on her became undeniable. The piece is a bit more experimental, but the song was for me so it was good!

               Overall, I was extremely pleased with the work. I usually obsessively check the numbers on my stories for how well I am performing, but for my songs I still rarely check the plays on SoundCloud. I’m fine when it comes to music, I do not care if it does well. Music is for me. This is my most personal and satisfying hobby. I love writing music.

               I have also taken a few music comms. Wrote an intro song for Nill, have another two lined up, and even something in my personal life. As well, I am working with Sabrith on our big indie game! This project I am still honestly very nervous about. Something about it just makes me go “oh if the music sucks it is going to REALLY hurt this.” I have genuinely clicked off video game trailers because I thought the song was awkward or kind of bad. The pressure is really high with this project and I have basically thrown out everything I’ve worked on like three times now? I want to do my best, so please look forward to my work on this as I keep trying to teach myself how to fucking mix music jesus christ help me.

Mental Health

               Hello, I’m not doing well!

               I’ve recently started having extreme panic attacks and a very very very heightened anxiety. I used to have weekly sobbing sessions on the floor for difficult to pinpoint reasons. As of early Spring I have returned to therapy and I am working with my therapist to help… sort things out.

               So far the break through we’ve had is I am too weird about my time. I try to treat every minute hyper efficiently and am constantly critiquing myself if I feel as if I am spending my time incorrectly. Even right now as I write this I am getting this cruel nibble in my head saying “go to bed, you’re wasting time, this post is a waste of time, what you did tonight was a waste of time” etc etc. It is extremely unaddressed and has grown more dire and mean as my career progresses. I have actually gotten increasingly unhealthy as my life proceeds.

               As well, I am extremely unhappy with my weight. America problems lol. But for real, I stepped on the scale a while ago and decided a changed needed to happen. Before COVID, I was in the best shape of my life, skinny, adorable, etc. And there’s nothing wrong with being big, please, I am just talking about how I feel about myself and the complications of it.

               For over a year now I have been dieting and exercising. I have been very consistent with the gym with only a few breaks and definite improvement all across the board. Arms are bigger, legs feel really buff, my endurance is extremely higher, gold star from my doctor for general health. However, that damn number on the scale has super glued itself to what I consider the “basically no progress at all” area.

               The reason is kind of obvious: I just must be messing up my diet?

               Too many snacks, or high calorie dinners, or something. Breakfast and Lunch were both meal prepped and calorie counted so it has to be the stuff where I wasn’t counting! Dinner, dumb snacks I kept letting myself have as a little treat! God, what am I thinking? This problem is ongoing. I need to keep making these life style changes even a year now into the whole process.

               I am just gonna keep going at it. You’ll learn more when there’s more to report haha. If I don’t post “I HAVE ACHIEVED VENTI FEMBOY BELLY” this time next year, I have failed this goal and will need to reckon with it. This has been really rough on my mental health and my inner voice not just critiques my time management skills but also calls me fat. Really cool, me.

               Lastly, I am very bummed about video games. I have just stopped playing them as much. Not much more to report. I am just being more careful about video games and trying to be more forgiving but also looser. I will play the Elden Ring DLC. I might not play Dawntrail. I will probably never get back to Baldur’s Gate 3. Yes, I know it is a 10/10, but if I keep telling people “YES” to every single thing that is worth my time and incredible and perfect art… all that means is I am going to play Baldur’s Gate 3 and the whole time be thinking “fuck I need to get back to Dragon’s Dogma or Armored Core VI since I never beat it, and oh is P3 Reload out? I should…” NO! NO NO NO NO! I play what I want to play exactly when I want to, and I am done treating myself like a Spotify playlist. I am not a machine, I am not going to play a game like it is work.

               I need to be less strict on myself. I need to be smarter and kinder. Going to try meditating, yoga, going to try being less mean to myself. There is no longer any such thing as “wasting time.” And anytime I feel stressed about something, I am informing people they are stressing me about it. Even though they are for sure being nice and didn’t mean to stress me out, I NEED to take care of this head because it is starting to hurt too much. I am learning to… to actually like myself. To treat myself as more than just the video games I play and the porn I write. I need to interrupt this unbroken chain of self-critique before it grows too heavy for me to function.

               I have caught myself saying very often recently “Do I just hate video games now? Are they no longer fun?” And this question has been extremely difficult to reckon with.

               In Stars and Time is a masterpiece. Animal Well is extremely good. Nine Sols might be a masterpiece. Key We is so much fun. The Long Drive is my favorite 4/10 ever made. Abiotic Factor looks fun and was a good hour but god I do not like survival games and I am done trying them. I love games and I controlling my time better.

Conclusion

               Think we hit on everything. I have been reading a bit more recently. Mordew was an excellent fantasy novel and its sequel so far has been interesting. I bought like three books about diseases and they all rock a fucking lot so far. Dead Poet Society is an incredible band and their live show was so much fucking fun. I’ll be at TooManyGames, if you see me message me on Discord and I’ll promptly sneak out before something happens between us. I am still working on my friend group’s DND Campaign so if you wanna know lore from it just DM me and I’ll blab. Once it is done I am kinda hoping to put that world behind me since it takes a lot of lore to track and to be honest I am getting a bit weary of hosting games for my irl friend group. The drama is starting up and I am not looking forward to it.

               And if you are still reading this… well thank you!

               I am really not sure where my writing career goes from here. I am obviously still doing it and we are still full steam ahead. I might have some more Cecille stuff to share somewhat soon? I was writing about her recently and am starting to feel the itch. Dark Knight Project will be the next huge thing you see from me. Comms might open again soon. And without people like you who read my stuff and give me feedback I wouldn’t still be doing this. I really, sincerely, 100000% hope you are still enjoying my stuff. The New Sister, my Vivian TF fic, is especially great because of how many people have DM’d me saying they really love the fic and it felt affirming and sweet. I am so happy something I wrote has helped improved peoples’ days or made them feel better. I truly hope to keep helping as much as possible.

               Thank you.