まげてのばして

→ 23. He/Him ♂ → Trying to be a better person

[pidayforpi]

[TL;DR - I may start to change the outlook of my account/blog after not having done so for so long]

(So...uh...

If anyone is still looking into here from time to time, you can see from my activities (or lack of) that something is happening to me these 2 years. I almost never posted my own contents (because...I haven't created anything, really); and when I did, there was a chance of it being personal/emotional infodump/thoughts.

Granted, I created this blog with the intention of posting whatever and whenever, and I have shared cringe personal emotional stuff before, especially when I first started out. But coupled with the extremely fluctuating activity pattern (and...generally much less activity, actually), you may see there is something going on with me. And yes, there is something going on with me.

In short: I am...going through some (quite major) life changes at the moment. The...situation started around the end of 2023, throughout 2024, and still going on now in 2025.

And no, rest assured, it's nothing physical and/or life-threatening. Although, it is hard for me to summarise what exactly is going on with me at the moment. The best I can say is I am "reorienting my life", after not having done so...ever before.

A mixture of growing-up problems, mental health issues, existential crises (?), developing life skills, forming a positive attitude, knowing myself...All of which I should have taken care of long ago, but I just kept...avoiding. In fact, I have been avoiding...a lot of things. Really, a lot of things, which is not ideal.

Again, if I disappear for a period of time all of a sudden, you can bet there's something wrong with me and I am avoiding something.

Somehow, fate decided that I would start to change only since last year. Even though all these problems persisted for...as long as I can remember, through my childhood and teenage, now that I think about it.

Is this the best time to change? Is this even a good one? I don't know. And I think I don't need to know. Apparently this is the time my life has finally decided it needs to change.

I have been reading some self-help books since January this year, which is something I somehow had never done in my life before. They've really helped me gain a different perspective in life (as cringe as this may sound), as well as...basically help me with the aforementioned mixture of problems. It's not a pin-point solution (I don't even have a clear picture of my target), but what it does is to cultivate a new attitude in life. An all-rounded approach, subtle but effective.

I actually started this blog in 2020, during a...very turbulent time of mine. Even though that was a really messy period of my life, I...never sorted it out. I just avoided. Ran away. Waited until everything was over, and then pretended nothing had happened...which had been my reaction to almost all unpleasant things in life. Somehow, starting from last year, I have decided I need to change.

So...why am I saying this here? I would like to start changing the layout of my blog, namely the icon, banner, and description. I haven't changed the icon and banner since 2020, and none of those were supposed to stay constant in the first place. Even any form of "change" is something I have been struggling with. This will start to change. And I will start changing them from time to time (similar to what I do with my DC icon and status).

My interests haven't changed much. I have only gained more interests, such as Belfort & Lupin and Billie Bust Up this year. I still like cartoons and Director Boorswan. I would still like to continue writing stories for Duckverse.

But what is starting to change is my courage to show my other interests, or other aspects of my interests. For example, I have always liked Ducktales. So much that I have actually developed a whole entire AU/story plot...which I never had the courage to fully share it. This will also start to change. I will start to write exactly what I have planned from the very start: Things I have held myself back because I never had the courage to share my true thoughts and ideas.

I know this is a whole lot of rambling, and I apologise. I still can't...clearly formulate what is going on with me and what exactly I plan to change, either verbally or in text.

But what I know, is that - slowly, gradually, but eventually - life will change.)

[zeke1]

I don't usually post about art that isn't my own, but I really want to recommend shell's Beaksloose Baby AU fics on ao3. They're surprisingly grounded stories about the struggles that come with starting a family, and every new fic expands upon Mark and Gyro's experience a little more.

The whole series is very sweet and very underrated. Please show them some love :))

[sillysymbol]

an experience

[skelemi]

Finally sharing the art piece I did for @duck-zine!! My first ever zine and it was an honour to do an illustration for it! Had to draw my favorite old duck! ✨

[alexanderaceves]

A sketch of Chickenhare firing his way out of the temple from Lapin and his mercenaries.

[alxnxllix]

Reblog if you're grateful for your internet friends

[abazhurik]

[studio-petrichor]

I know a lot of people on here are going through a really difficult period in their lives... I see you. I promise it will get better. You're not alone. I hope you all get the healing you need and the life you deserve. Don't lose hope.

[wacky-nameless-inventor-24]

Art for @shellyochunks’s mammal au!! They made a post once about this situation of Fenton being surrounded by furry purring engines and it really stuck with me I’ve had this image in my brain for forever

one without the words under the cut <33

[duck-zine]

Hey Everyone !

Here's a little peak at the different orders we offer as seen on our website ! ( As well as just the digital zine and just the physical zine ) !

Click Here to Order Your Copy!

We have such an amazing lineup of digital and physical merch that could be all yours! As well, we thought now would be an amazing time to tell you all about the stretch goals we have!

Stretch Goals

What is a stretch goal? It's a additional piece of merch that you will get if the zine reaches that many orders!

These are our stretch goals;

10 Orders: Digital To Do List and Grocery List 25 Orders: 3 Die Cut Stickers 50 Orders: Stricker Sheet 75 Orders: A Third Print 100 Orders: Acrylic Charm 125 Orders: Magnet 150 Orders: A Button 200 Orders: A Physical To-Do list

We will announce the stretch goals and show off their designs as we reach them, so please share it to everyone who might be interested in buying a zine! Our main goal is to get to 100 orders so that we can do the acrylic charm, but it would be amazing do to anything past that as well!

[duck-zine]

https://duckzine.bigcartel.com/

Hey everyone! Our shop is officially open for preorders! On it you will find product links for the digital and physical copies of the zine and can preorder them!

Preorders will run from August 12 to September 12, so don't wait!

Carrd: duckzine.carrd.co Store: duckzine.bigcartel.com

Wow, Mod Ciel, you've used the word preorder a lot, what does that mean?

Thank you for asking! A preorder means that you will not get the product right away. Yes, even for the digital zine. All orders for the zine will inform us to how many of each product to order, so we will not be ordering the products until the shop is closed on September 12. It will then take a month or 2 for everything to go to production and get to our shipping mod, at which point they will begin sending everything out.

So, ordering the product now, means you should be getting your product sometime around, hopefully, October or November! This also means that they will make the perfect Holiday present for the duckfan in your life!

If you have any questions please feel free to reach out!

[lilacpaperbird]

this is about [redacted]

[pidayforpi]

[Personal rambling/infodump that somehow got very long]

(I really admire passionate people.

People who are openly enthusiastic about the things they are interested in. Who would freely talk about and make contributions to their interests. Even - and especially - if others may find them childish/weird/disgusting, or the circle of interest/following is a small and niche one (that's why I really admire artists making fan works for small fandoms).

As long as no one is being hurt, I would always support and admire people for being passionate about what they love. Even if their interest is something I don't know, am not interested in, or even a thing I myself find weird (which is hard, and I have seen quite a number of "weird" stuff).

And the main reason why I admire these people, is because I cannot be like them.

Maybe it's a mixture of nature and nurture. I have always been a terribly shy and introverted person. I am not good with expressing...anything. I am not good with words, verbal or written (I can already tell this infodump will get verbose). I have a very strong tendency to avoid. I am extremely skittish, easily nervous, and readily overwhelmed. Basically I am just...a very weak and pathetic person.

And the environment I grew up in...I am not sure if it played a part, or if this is a universal truth. Perhaps this is just my subjective, biased, narrow view, but I feel like conformity was a very important element in the environment I grew up in. You just...don't talk about things that are deemed uncool. Okay actually, you talk only about things that are deemed cool, things that most people appear to like. You don't stand out.

One example I always remember is how I would only talk about anime and games with my classmates (i.e. IRL people I met). In my childhood/teenage circle, the "cool" things were video games, anime, and sports (especially football and basketball teams). Popular culture (e.g. K-Pop) and fiction (e.g. Young adult fictions) also counted.

I am not a sports person, nor am I familiar with popular/trendy stuff (even now), so the only thing I talked to my classmates about were videos games and anime. Because they were part of my interests...

...even though as early as my childhood, I already had much more interests that I was much more invested in.

An example I got reminded of (due to recent events) was Zootopia. When Zootopia was first advertised and then premiered in 2016, I was immediately in love with it. Very much in love with it (puberty and emotional difficulties don't mix well). At that time, Zootopia really meant something very strongly to me (NB: It had absolutely nothing to do with the message/theme of the movie). That meaning persisted even after the movie screening ended, for 2 more years. Throughout those 3 years, I had legit cried because of it. Multiple times. It meant so much to me during a period of my teenage years, to an almost embarrassing level (yet it felt so real at that time).

Did I tell anyone about it, then? No. Not a single person. Not even my family. Although I did watch the movie with my family (I was still a bit too young to watch movies alone, I think), they didn't/don't know just how invested I was in the movie at that time. Of course they also don't know how much the movie meant to me, and how long that feeling persisted in me.

And don't even think about mentioning "Zootopia" around my classmates then. That was one sure way to get laughed at. So I didn't. No one talked about it, so you would not talk about it. Just...don't. You wouldn't get bullied outright (I doubt any of my classmates knew what "furry" was at that time), but...it was something just no one talked about. It was viewed as a "cartoon", and you don't talk about "cartoon" because it's seen as lame and childish.

This pattern happened again around 3 years later, when I really got into cartoons all of a sudden, especially the Duck fandom, in 2019. Yes, everyone knows who Donald Duck is. No, you do not tell people you like Donald Duck. That was another sure way to get laughed at.

I ended up keeping a lot of stuff to myself, and myself only. Such as my own interests, thoughts, feelings, opinions, creations...No one knew. Especially before I got active on social media. Literally no one knew about that part of me. No one cared. No one was interested. No one would listen. I had no one to talk to. So I didn't.

No one except myself, that was. I remember, when I was a child, my family noticed me talking to myself, or basically getting caught up in my own mind (and told me to stop, of course). I wonder if that was because I was lonely at that time? I don't blame anyone, however. Really.

On the other hand, I have been on social media/art-sharing sites as a watcher/observer a long time ago. I knew I wasn't alone in loving what I loved, such as Zootopia or Disney Ducks. I knew there was someone else interested in what I was interested in, and that provided me with the solace that I wasn't alone. A really big solace, too: At least I knew I wasn't alone in the whole world. However, in real life, in my immediate vicinity, I was really alone. Having a place to belong to is really important, apparently. It is something I once thought I could do without, but apparently I can't.

What results from all these predisposition is a tendency of me hiding and avoiding...a lot of stuff. Even now, on an anonymous online space, where (hopefully) no one I know IRL knows this is me, I still have quite strong reservation regarding sharing and expressing my interests (at least, some of them). Doing anything more than passive viewing.

My past, early experience being active online might have also contributed to this but that's another story

Something as small as liking, commenting on, and sharing other people's works. I still cannot feel free expressing my appreciation of other people's talent and passion. Either because I would be "exposing" myself to the recipient and others who saw me, or I just...chicken out/procrastinate because of my shyness, nervousness, and fear. Even though I want to tell them how brave they are for going through with what they like, how much they have changed my life, and how they have shown me I am not alone in this world.

Maybe it is because I can't be openly passionate about things, I really admire people who can.)

[pidayforpi]

(This is one of the major things I am trying to change, from now on.

One idea I read from a book regarding values is that: Living according to your values does not mean "be yourself" (because what does that mean, anyway?), but instead: "Be the person you would admire".

Somehow, this particular idea struck me very hard. I have admired a lot of people, online and offline. And I think: "I can never be like them." That's why they are so admirable, because they are doing something I can never do. They are being the amazing person I can never be.

I have believed in such a notion for as long as I can remember. I have believed that there is something I will never do, because I can't. And apparently that's also a fact that I can't change either.

This year, however, when I am thinking about how I actually want to live my life sounds cheesy af I know - something I have avoided/delayed thinking for so long - I had a realisation:

"Have I even tried?"

Other than dedicated self-help books, I have been inspired by/learning from other media I recently (re-)discovered. Not sure whether I just happened to stumble upon thought-provoking media during this time, or I started to look more closely into media in general.

Most of them are movies and video games. Especially movies. There is one I saw rather recently, that fits the idea of this...rambling very much. I would like to end this with a quote from that movie.)

「人間は大きな幸せを前にすると急に臆病になる。幸せを勝ち取ることは、不幸に耐えることより勇気がいるの」

"When faced with great happiness, humans suddenly become cowards. Seizing happiness actually takes much more courage than enduring unhappiness."

~ From "Kamikaze Girls", Tetsuya Nakashima

(I really need to write a separate infodump about "Kamikaze Girls" and "Memories of Matsuko" one day. Both movies, directed by Tetsuya Nakashima and introduced to me via another talented creation, really resonated with and changed me so much.)

[pidayforpi]

[Personal rambling/infodump that somehow got very long]

(I really admire passionate people.

People who are openly enthusiastic about the things they are interested in. Who would freely talk about and make contributions to their interests. Even - and especially - if others may find them childish/weird/disgusting, or the circle of interest/following is a small and niche one (that's why I really admire artists making fan works for small fandoms).

As long as no one is being hurt, I would always support and admire people for being passionate about what they love. Even if their interest is something I don't know, am not interested in, or even a thing I myself find weird (which is hard, and I have seen quite a number of "weird" stuff).

And the main reason why I admire these people, is because I cannot be like them.

Maybe it's a mixture of nature and nurture. I have always been a terribly shy and introverted person. I am not good with expressing...anything. I am not good with words, verbal or written (I can already tell this infodump will get verbose). I have a very strong tendency to avoid. I am extremely skittish, easily nervous, and readily overwhelmed. Basically I am just...a very weak and pathetic person.

And the environment I grew up in...I am not sure if it played a part, or if this is a universal truth. Perhaps this is just my subjective, biased, narrow view, but I feel like conformity was a very important element in the environment I grew up in. You just...don't talk about things that are deemed uncool. Okay actually, you talk only about things that are deemed cool, things that most people appear to like. You don't stand out.

One example I always remember is how I would only talk about anime and games with my classmates (i.e. IRL people I met). In my childhood/teenage circle, the "cool" things were video games, anime, and sports (especially football and basketball teams). Popular culture (e.g. K-Pop) and fiction (e.g. Young adult fictions) also counted.

I am not a sports person, nor am I familiar with popular/trendy stuff (even now), so the only thing I talked to my classmates about were videos games and anime. Because they were part of my interests...

...even though as early as my childhood, I already had much more interests that I was much more invested in.

An example I got reminded of (due to recent events) was Zootopia. When Zootopia was first advertised and then premiered in 2016, I was immediately in love with it. Very much in love with it (puberty and emotional difficulties don't mix well). At that time, Zootopia really meant something very strongly to me (NB: It had absolutely nothing to do with the message/theme of the movie). That meaning persisted even after the movie screening ended, for 2 more years. Throughout those 3 years, I had legit cried because of it. Multiple times. It meant so much to me during a period of my teenage years, to an almost embarrassing level (yet it felt so real at that time).

Did I tell anyone about it, then? No. Not a single person. Not even my family. Although I did watch the movie with my family (I was still a bit too young to watch movies alone, I think), they didn't/don't know just how invested I was in the movie at that time. Of course they also don't know how much the movie meant to me, and how long that feeling persisted in me.

And don't even think about mentioning "Zootopia" around my classmates then. That was one sure way to get laughed at. So I didn't. No one talked about it, so you would not talk about it. Just...don't. You wouldn't get bullied outright (I doubt any of my classmates knew what "furry" was at that time), but...it was something just no one talked about. It was viewed as a "cartoon", and you don't talk about "cartoon" because it's seen as lame and childish.

This pattern happened again around 3 years later, when I really got into cartoons all of a sudden, especially the Duck fandom, in 2019. Yes, everyone knows who Donald Duck is. No, you do not tell people you like Donald Duck. That was another sure way to get laughed at.

I ended up keeping a lot of stuff to myself, and myself only. Such as my own interests, thoughts, feelings, opinions, creations...No one knew. Especially before I got active on social media. Literally no one knew about that part of me. No one cared. No one was interested. No one would listen. I had no one to talk to. So I didn't.

No one except myself, that was. I remember, when I was a child, my family noticed me talking to myself, or basically getting caught up in my own mind (and told me to stop, of course). I wonder if that was because I was lonely at that time? I don't blame anyone, however. Really.

On the other hand, I have been on social media/art-sharing sites as a watcher/observer a long time ago. I knew I wasn't alone in loving what I loved, such as Zootopia or Disney Ducks. I knew there was someone else interested in what I was interested in, and that provided me with the solace that I wasn't alone. A really big solace, too: At least I knew I wasn't alone in the whole world. However, in real life, in my immediate vicinity, I was really alone. Having a place to belong to is really important, apparently. It is something I once thought I could do without, but apparently I can't.

What results from all these predisposition is a tendency of me hiding and avoiding...a lot of stuff. Even now, on an anonymous online space, where (hopefully) no one I know IRL knows this is me, I still have quite strong reservation regarding sharing and expressing my interests (at least, some of them). Doing anything more than passive viewing.

My past, early experience being active online might have also contributed to this but that's another story

Something as small as liking, commenting on, and sharing other people's works. I still cannot feel free expressing my appreciation of other people's talent and passion. Either because I would be "exposing" myself to the recipient and others who saw me, or I just...chicken out/procrastinate because of my shyness, nervousness, and fear. Even though I want to tell them how brave they are for going through with what they like, how much they have changed my life, and how they have shown me I am not alone in this world.

Maybe it is because I can't be openly passionate about things, I really admire people who can.)

[wilddogsunny]

Nick Wilde sketch studies. This trailer seriously sparked new creative energy in me. Let’s see where this goes!

[pidayforpi]

it me b-day _(:3 」∠)_

[roadhogsbigbelly]

well this fucking sucks

[roadhogsbigbelly]

imagine having to dox yourself because you made the mistake of watching a 4 hour mighty morphin power rangers retrospective and the ai decided you were 14 and not 42 like the actual demographic for those videos. sad

[roadhogsbigbelly]

like this obviously sucks if you're an adult who enjoys watching animation or doll youtube videos but also i don't think youtube should be tracking 16 year olds because they're afraid of them hearing the word "fuck".