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big profile pic made by limpinggnome, little profile pic made by Elizabeth Johnson (RIP)

[pocketss]

what if it GETS her though 😥

[pocketss]

smile, dog!

[felisvulpine]

I learned to be a functional person via MMORPGs and online shenanigans:

I was addicted to MMORPGs for the longest time, starting in my late teenage years, because of how capable they made me feel compared to the real world.

IRL: family tired of me, constant anxiety dealing with people in person, no clear path upward, chaos in my personal life, feel useless

MMORPG: filthy rich from market manipulation + a monopoly on one particular NM (Boroka, horomusha kote), helpful to others and pretty well regarded (I'm sure there are a few who might say otherwise lol), doing high-skill game content with people who worked in the game industry, leading a group of 63 other people to do complicated content.

I was definitely not the best, but I learned enough through socializing in Final Fantasy XI to figure out how to earn people's trust, prove myself through actions, and turn that into learning experiences for securing future successes. Also some actual leadership skills.

In the real world, I was getting chided by my family and felt incapable of talking to strangers well enough to get even a crappy job. I was useless to myself, useless to capitalism, and useless to others.

That's how I started out in game, too. I tried to do everything on my own. I played solo and avoided people, but still I was invited by the person running the oldest NA linkshell (guild) to join their community of people. I did, but I didn't talk or participate for a while yet. I eventually got to know a few people privately who were able to yank me out of my shell a bit. Genuine friends and mentors. People who guided me when I'm too flustered to read a map, or explained simple things because I was too deep in performance anxiety to actually think.

Our ragtag, casual group tried our hand at advanced, endgame content. We were often getting mocked by top tier player groups when we would compete with them. The first time we beat everyone else and got the rare prize, I suddenly found myself richer than I had ever been. Following the advice of my linkshell leader, I learned a craft and turned that money into a currency stream I could dip into when I needed.

Eventually, we would end up dominating a challenging monster that drops a gear item that was worth millions. Three or four of us usually. We would take turns watching out for the monster (which only comes out every 24 hours, at a random time in a four hour window) and call each other at ungodly times at night to work together and kill it. We would then split the money from sales and become very, very rich. I decked myself out in luxuries, baby.

From the beginning, I liked helping people because I was a people pleaser. I went out of my way to help people (especially if they felt like they were burdensome or asking too much) because I wanted them to have a fond impression of me, and I wanted to be able to rely on their help in the future if I ever needed it or on behalf of my group's reputation. I guarded my reputation very closely. The community of that game held a grudge against people who wrong others. And news gets around like a small town filled with nosy neighbors.

I think I managed to curate a reputation where I was friendly, helpful, and non-judgmental. Because of that, I eventually was able to get to know people from around the world in all different stages of life. It was necessary to learn how to communicate and strategize despite language barriers and cultural differences.

The only thing I really struggled with in game was responding to personal advances. People wanted to see pictures or meet, and I just really didn't want to exist in that way. An avatar or a drawing of an animal with a voice attached to it was really all I wanted to be. The online persona was a winner. The IRL persona was damaged beyond repair and the thought of having to introduce that to people who respected me online was mortifying.

Choosing a female character in game really had its ups and downs. On one hand, I think more people were willing to approach me. But on the other hand, a lot of times it's because they're hoping for some kind of future romantic interest. And really, all I wanted to do was play a game, do strategies, and teamwork. Not live out a rom-com. I really wasn't looking for that kind of attention. I really didn't like letting people down or rejecting them, and sometimes this landed me into situations I felt I couldn't get out of gracefully. That, on top of the fear that once the person realizes I'm romantically out of bounds, they just have no more interest in me. Back then, "friend zoning" was considered a villainous act. People were often approaching me with some picture in their mind of their ideal partner without actually first getting to know me to see that I'm not even close to the kind of person they're projecting onto me. People would set a bar I 100% don't reach and then my self esteem would take a hit trying to live up to their expectations.

This was probably part of the reason social anxiety started to melt my ability to play social online games - my one last haven where I felt like I could be myself. The more I was motivated to try and meet people's expectations, the more I was snuffing out my actual self.

Treating the social anxiety has been making it so that I'm a lot more relaxed around other people, including online. But now I'm like 140 years old and never seem to have the time nor energy to dedicate to MMOs or competitive online games.

Addiction isn't good, and video game addiction can really have some severe consequences. But I'm proud to have been able to go from zero confidence in day to day life, to learning through gameplay and community, to using those skills to excel at real world career stuff and business things. I think more people should seriously consider gameplay as a tool to learn teamwork, economics, and navigating social situations. Because if it could help me when I was basically an empty husk, there's no doubt it could be miraculous for some other people.

(My family still thinks that people that you know exclusively online aren't real or want to murder me. Nothing has changed from the days of dial-up AOL with them.)

[felisvulpine]

Spirituality

I was not raised to be religious.

I was baptized because my grandparents insisted. My parents never enforced Church. I was expected to go to church for two years between ages 10-12 because the people who were in custody of me required me to. It was a box to check to keep people off my back and I didn't really connect with the Catholic church in any meaningful way.

I was highly traumatized and not being meaningfully treated for it. I had court appointed therapists, but didn't feel like I could be totally honest with them and remain safe. That's not really their fault or my fault. After my immediate family got custody of me again at age 13, they didn't pursue further therapy because they didn't really believe in mental health, unfortunately.

In recent years I've had a therapist ask where I got my sense of justice and morality from when this was my formative experience. I really didn't know what to say? You could say that my brother was my original inspiration to be a moral person, because I often wanted to find ways to impress him when I was little. But he had his own major issues, and we did basically have to fend for ourselves at times.

Part of the problem with relying on him totally for my moral upbringing was that I felt like I was two people living two lives. With my brother, or alone, I felt a spark and a companionship with myself that made me want to live and explore the world. When I was at school, I was unpopular to the point where kids would ostracize other kids for associating with me. In my personal life, I was trying to navigate abusive people and living in denial.

In some circumstances, I was a whole person with dreams and aspirations. In other circumstances, my soul was dead and rotting.

With my brother or alone: full person

Anyone or anything else: cursed and diseased

Eventually, I lost the ability to be a full person no matter who I was with or how alone I was. At some point around age 12, I decided that I was presumptuous to assume that I could be a full person with energy for life.

If you call my connection to myself in those "full person" moments "God", then I essentially told god "I am sorry for wasting your time pretending I am a person of worth". And then that soul connection severed until well into adulthood. This "connection" would briefly come back years later when I basically lost all will to live. Then later on I rediscovered the spark after working through a fuck ton of anger.

So where'd it come back from and why? And why did I keep a very strict moral code during years where I was extremely tempted to be supervillain-level petty towards life when I felt like there was no hope for me at the root.

Friends were a huge factor, but I was extremely bottlenecked by the fact that most of my friends were long distance and my family drilled into my head that "people on the Internet aren't real" basically. It also became hard to reach out to my friends at the height of my social anxiety. I felt unworthy, I felt guilty for deciding I was unworthy to other people, and eventually it became completely confusing to try and socialize. I didn't even know who or what I was anymore.

My brother died in 2007. We could go on for ages about that, but for the point of this post I'll just say that I couldn't rely on him to find my self esteem anymore because of that. I'm not even sure what I can say beyond that. Almost 20 years later and my brain still turns it to gibberish when I try to think about it too hard.

After years of reflection, I think I kind of understand what kept me going when I couldn't see any light at the end of the tunnel: Spite.

Looking at it similar to the concept of karma:

I feel like there's a chance that the better of a person I am, the more karmic debt the people who have wronged me in my life have accrued.

There are people who abused me as a kid, and I had no power to stop or escape. It's too late now for justice. What can I do? I can be as good of a person as I can, and be abnormally helpful where I can, and stand up for people when I don't have to. It helps me to carry on thinking that the good things I do increase the karmic debt caused by the actions of people who hurt me in the past. And then I'll take that excess karma and give it to people who make the world a better place. It's my revenge to use their shitty actions against them even all these years later by simply being good and trying to leave the world better than I found it.

Is that how it works? I don't fucking know, but it gives me hope to think of things this way: that I can somehow simultaneously make the world a better place and siphon karma from the people who hurt me. I have to think there's something there, because things have improved since shifting to this mindset. I have a will to live, improve, and fight for good things.

So, I have more of an interest lately in spirituality. Just, what the hell is a soul? Why does it feel like I lost mine at a very specific moment? Why does it feel like it came back after I addressed my mental health? If it's all simply chemicals in a meat blob encased in my head, then it is what it is, it can't hurt to look into these things and notice patterns. I don't mind suspending my disbelief for unbelievable shit because I have lived through some unbelievable shit.

The thing is though, I'm not sure why I would agree to complete subservience to God. Do I need paradise? It's heavily implied that my brother won't be there. He stuck with me through hell on earth, so why wouldn't I stick with him through hell on.. hell?

It might seem crazy, but it makes me want to do even better and amazing good things. So when I die they're like "hey wow, nice work being a bro to your fellow people, come check out heaven" i can be like "no thank you. I want to take my services to the flawed folks who helped me get to where I am".

I'd like to weave some of these concepts into an art project or comic, but I'm still struggling a bit creatively.

[felisvulpine]

When I'm angry, I find that violence and chaos in video games and music help vent that a lot. I became good at withholding my emotional reactions, mushing them into a ball, and then directing them explosively via fictional violent and chaotic actions.

I am less angry now, and my tastes have changed. Less into violence and gore, more into strategy. I'll always have a taste for chaos though.

Mentioned because I've pretty much quit the mobile war game I was playing. I just don't have the angry steam to maintain the daily grind anymore. I appreciate the help it gave me to cope when I needed it, but now my energy is probably better spent elsewhere.

[felisvulpine]

Freddy

(my mom and stepdad's cat)

[felisvulpine]

Would you like to see some parts of my dream diary? My journal is a disjointed mess (on purpose). Dream sketches are a whole nother ballgame because of how fast I have to get the information down before it dumps out of my head. I'm also usually groggy when drawing/writing them.

Some of these settings feel familiar to me mid-dream, but feel liminal and a little disturbing when I look back on them now.

I will translate my handwriting, since I've made no effort to be legible.

1. Drawing of a plane descending into a treeline horizon.

Written: The plane is falling out of reach.

There is foliage obscuring the view of the falling plane.

(I have recurring dreams about falling aircraft, it usually ends with a dramatic, distant fireball explosion)

2. Drawing of a dark doorway and I guess a window? I can't even make it out.

Written: The windows show a different place.

The kitchen is inaccessible.

The farther back you go, the darker it gets.

3. Very very scratchy drawing of a body of water surrounded by forest. There is some kind of building. (It's like a halfway house type deal, where people of all walks of life show up)

Written: dense forest

Flood plain?

Long narrow house with big windows

4. Drawing of a railroad track crossing a downtown road in a quiet suburban neighborhood.

Written: Downtown area with railroad tracks. Kinda slow and quaint, seen from the inside of a car during a time of homelessness. I noticed a library.

(I think this may be an actual memory)

5. Really crude sticky note drawing of a dwelling next to a hill and a body of water.

Written: Some body of water in the background. Some building next to an incline. Big doors at the lowest part. Balcony? On second floor that is wraparound porch on the inclined part.

6. Another crude drawing from the POV of being on a deck and looking down at a yard with an round, above ground swimming pool and a fence with neighbors on the other side.

Written: Some background view from a deck attached to a house. There is a driveway that can be seen off to the left not pictured here. There's a round above ground pool in the backyard and a fence behind that. Not pictured on the right is a neighbor's house.

That's all I have for now. Thanx for looking!

[felisvulpine]

2026

I may have fallen asleep early on new year's eve. I'm not used to staying up late, and I'm not used to celebrating the new year since it often felt like more of the same.

My family used to run outside and assault one another with silly string. We got older, more tired, and in some cases we moved far away.

Eventually, the new year didn't feel like something to celebrate. I genuinely believed I had a very bleak future, so celebrating time just didn't make sense to me.

Those are old feelings, though. Even though I feel elderly and I fell asleep early... Even though the world is filled with bleak things still... I do feel that 2026 is a year of hope for me.

After years of completely disruptive social anxiety, I feel like I've stood up and stared it in the face. I've rediscovered the ability to express myself, including when I'm talking to actual, real, human people. I used to feel like some kind of alien beast when I was around other people. I kinda still do, but that's okay. There's room at the table for the alien beast. I still feel the imposter syndrome, but it's kind of charming in a way. Like "hey, I don't belong, but I'm doing it anyway and succeeding somehow."

Now, here's the start of 2026. I am living in a new place with people who are an absolute joy. There is still the fear of being off-putting or unworthy sometimes, but I don't care as much. The feeling of coming back to life as a person with a soul is worth the uncertainty.

The real challenge is dealing with runoff pain from past traumatic circumstances. January 5th is the anniversary of the day of my brother's death. And one thing I have to face is the fear that I can lose anybody I've come to admire at any time, and that's just life and I have to accept it.

I've been using a mobile war game as a vent for a lot of the emotions I'm dealing with (seriously, I needed a place to aim a lot of pent up anger) and I'd like to shift more to exploring those feelings through artwork. That's gonna look dark sometimes, though. I'm in a better place now, but I feel the need to give a voice to myself from times where I felt like a soulless husk - since I couldn't find a way to express myself properly at the time.

Some of my favorite imagery includes destruction and rebirth - the Phoenix, some Christian themes, and the tower arcana in tarot. There are a lot of feelings that go along with traumatic destruction in my life that made me feel like I was a walking dead body. It eases it somewhat to imagine that I've since been reborn in spite of those difficulties.

So, welcome 2026. Thank you to everyone who believed in me when I couldn't believe in myself. I would not be here writing words without it. 🩵

Love,

Coji

[sparrrorow-art]

felt a mighty need to animate, Susie be upon Ye

[felisvulpine]

Ouchies

[felisvulpine]

ahahaha I keep getting divisive shit shoved into my social media timelines because I can't stop looking at the absolute train wreck that is the lack of humanity in some of the comments. (And I mean a lot of them are probably bots anyway, so lack of humanity might be literal in many cases.)

So, allow me to signal my virtues in a personal post on my personal blog for a moment.

If you have a conscious bias about nonwhite and underprivileged people, I want nothing to do with you. Your discourse is not productive or valuable, and it deliberately disrupts harmony in the global community. Politeness and effort to understand are energies I spend only on the civil. Because you are not a civilized person, I will not be spending that energy. And that's coming from a chronic people pleaser who goes online and pretends to be a beast! 😁

[felisvulpine]

happy birthday chococat i love you

[butchgender-remade-deactivated2]

rb this to give the person you reblogged from a very tiny frog

[felisvulpine]

Fun with sketching in clip studio paint

Android tablet

[felisvulpine]

Tuff Tulin 💙

Android tablet + Clip studio paint

[felisvulpine]

Prince Sidon is a dashing beacon of joy and hope.

Android tablet + Clip studio paint

[felisvulpine]

Darrel James Brescia

05/29/77 - 01/05/07

In memory of my brother on the anniversary of his death.

He was a huge fan of lacrosse and hockey.

If you have a sibling you can still hug, plz do that for me. Remember to check in on anyone you think might be struggling, preferably w/ love and compassion.

The original idea sparked from my father asking me to design something he could have tattoo'd. He wanted the initials and the lacrosse goalie sticks. The hockey ends with his birth and death date were an added touch. For some reason, the halftone shading feels sportier to me than a flat shade or hatching.

This picture guts me because I'm very proud of it as a design and I think he would have liked it. I can't ever show him this or get his true opinion on it. I can't show him the effort and inspiration born from the feeling of wishing he was still around. Deep down it fills me with some edgy rage that this image represents feelings I can't direct properly.

[felisvulpine]

He got it tattoo'd!