Borf.

(Anyone reading this will have noticed with a good eye that this post is hidden to just the blog archive. Posts that are a little more personal that not everyone may enjoy reading will be hidden like this. Usually it will be more personal, heavier topics, or if something more important needs to be seen by everyone else - right now that's the Softie Stuffers post, the Octummberfats post, and the Tier Changes post. It also may be uploaded early too.)

(From my FurAffinity, last year.)

Today's my birthday - this will have been uploaded a ahead of time since it just works out better this way for time, but this is a bit of venting and my thoughts on how things are going for me, how they've been, what I want to do, and what I need to do. I'm starting the writing of this during the middle of the month, so forgive me if some things seem a bit erratic or "off" compared to how they've been turning out from an outside perspective. This is listed under as a "Personal Update", so it's a little journal-y.
Anywho!

This Past Year Was A Fucking Mess Honestly

-and I'm not particularly afraid to say so. I could've said it in previous years too, but it just doesn't compare right now. I'm not exactly confident that it will get completely better yet.

Chloe

Doesn't mean we can't try, at least! Just giving up would be a waste by now, with how much effort I've put into what I do, and what I've done.

Spring went well for me academically, but I'd kept spinning my wheels trying to create something quickly for some kind of game for y'all - to the point that it had distracted me from completing the Steam port of Softie Stuffers, which had begun work last December. I'm willing to own up to it, it should've been out way sooner when I'd actually decided I wanted to do it. It wasn't a particularly easy decision, since I did not have prior experience working with Steam's API to do what I'd wanted to (particularly Steam's Leaderboards as a nice addition, but Steam's Input system as a potential requirement). I spent a bit too long trying to figure out issues implementing it that turned out to just be part of a hilarious misunderstanding; but even then, it should've been ready by February.

Chloe but Programming Talk

In other words: make sure you read your manuals with a full cup of coffee. Or soda. Otherwise you'll realize you've been dealing with some weird, undocumented "bug" that's fixed with a single line of code in an object that's meant to run every frame (because running Steam functions in GameMaker do not update the Steam API on your client's end when you don't do that, but they definitely do update the server).

...Oops.

Chloe but Even More Programming Talk

An aside: funnily enough, the first hotfix I did for Softie Stuffers wouldn't have had to happen if I'd uploaded the game in February as planned. The crash it was fixing came from a GameMaker Runtime Update that had come out in April, and broke a lot of older projects using functionality that had been in popular teaching material and widely-used relating to parent-child inheritance for Object Functions, as far back as when GameMaker Studio 2.3 released and added Functions and Structs - which was about five years ago. It's a one-liner fix, but it certainly still caught me off-guard since it's a pretty big deal in practice.
At the very least, the 'optimization' does enable some funny stuff we can pull off with inheritance that we could not as easily before in GM, but that's enough unrelated programming talk.

From there, Summer rolled through like a blur. I talked at length previously about it, but for those who'd missed it, below is what I had to say a couple weeks after I'd gotten out of it, directly from the linked post:

(A quote from my August 22 Blog Post. It'd been less than two weeks.)

I tried running a donation drive to help out, but it didn't really get off the ground. I'm still very appreciative of everyone who did donate: Briva, Feyreth, Usagi, and that one Anonymous donor... to all of you, thank you for your support during that time. And especially thank you to all my friends who were supportive during then and now.
I managed to get bailed out because the college ended up throwing money at any students who had gotten wrapped up in the scam, but I wasn't given any form of heads-up, and only found out literally two days before rent was due, and I was severely behind due to the workload being too much to handle alongside my usual freelance work. Even the tuition cost I'd already started paying was more than expected from the usual amount. I didn't know what to do - I was just glad once I knew I wasn't getting screwed.
The college still hasn't even reacted to the scam being a scam, even after I tried going to the right people about it.

Chloe

For the record: I like to think I do a good job on getting the work I need to do done, both for classes and for my clients. Assignments are always on time, and my commission work rarely ever takes longer than a month. My usual turnaround is 1-2 weeks when class is in session, less than a week when I'm on break or over a weekend (barring excrutiating circumstances). I try really, really hard to do better because I know how it reflects on other artists when we fuck up. Some artists are notorious for having queues spanning multiple years, and clients do take note of that when it's bad. (On repeat clients, I also don't typically charge until I actually start the work at least, which helps.)

I'm nowhere even near that level (and I work hard to never be), and yet there I was floundering with the two pieces I had on my queue, because I had assignments due every other day, and video meetings every other other day, while having an existential crisis over whether or not I was even cut out to be an artist or a game developer, because I refused to use their shitty tools that didn't even work if you tried to work with them and they told me I would be "left behind". It bothered me even though I knew better; I worry about how this effected folks who didn't know better, and/or who were younger than me in that same position. This wasn't limited to my university. These guys are parasites that will waste your time, your money, and your emotional bandwidth.

I cannot stress enough that if you ever realize that you're stumbling into the same type of situation as I was: Get the fuck out of there for your sake, unless you desperately, desperately need to do it (like I did).

Game Development Woes

During this time, I was also in a bit of a wreck, trying to figure out what I wanted to do as an artist (on a personal level, not for work), and as a game developer. I'd created a lot of different kinds of game prototypes: a turn-based RPG, a strategy-RPG, multiple platformer attempts, and even an action-RPG in the mix. I got a lot of great practice in, both for my design work, and for my programming work - but nothing to create a new game or even a tech demo. It's some of my best work for game development that I've put in, in my eyes, but it's just not ready for public in any capacity. That was soul-crushing to me, with the way I'd handled development in the past. A lot of my game work has been erratic in how it's been created - it just so happens that's a benefit in game jams, and just about nowhere else. Softie Stuffers existing as it does is almost an anomaly, except that too was created incredibly quickly; I built it in a couple months, if you look at when it was first shown to Patrons during 2023 in a poll.

Chloe

When it comes to game development, I'm usually not what one would call "patient", unless I know that it's going to be complex (see Escape Your Apatite taking the whole time of the 2024 Gain Jam, instead of just the first weekend like I'd done every year beforehand). It has led me to make some weird stuff for Jams sometimes, but I think it was worth it! ... A-at the time!

Realizing I couldn't just 'magic' a game together on my own, and that the project I desperately wanted to make was just- far past my current capacity, I've put it down, and I'm giving myself time away from game development altogether so I can try and get some new ideas, and maybe also calm down a bit. I've been programming little bits of things very, very often for nearly a decade now, and the work I'd managed to scrape together these past few months in that final project showed me the value in taking it slower, and planning out my work better. When I'm ready to go back to that project, I have every system needed to create it done in their entirety - but a system does not make a game. Having a battle system in an RPG doesn't mean anything without any spells, statuses, or even enemies to interact with. Having a cutscene system or a dialogue system doesn't matter if you don't have the scenes and writing done to actually make use of them. It's frustrating, because I put a lot of work in, just for it to have to sit for now.
... At the very least, I know that when I'm ready for it, I'll have the tools ready to prepare something I've been yearning to create for a very, very long time.

Artistic Anxiety

I've been anxious and worried about my artwork for a long, long time. Nothing particularly new or unique for most artists, at least from talking to others. Concerns about whether I'm good enough, if I'm improving, where and how to keep moving forward, etc. etc. However, I've been so anxious that until recently, I was scared to even just write my own text (and mostly used the Text tools available to me, unless it was pixel art) in my artwork. I'm breaking through as much of it as I can, because I know that some of it is just- absolute nonsense. The fear outweighs any benefit it could have possibly given me - and I'm not going to let it hold me back anymore. I can see in a lot of my previous work that anxiety in spades, where it held me back because I was always worried about "what if", when I'm already creating work that'll get some people to raise eyebrows when they see it; it's not for them, and I shouldn't be worrying about it. It's been part of what's held me back from personal work and studies (which would, y'know, help me get better). While I know just saying that isn't going to make those fears go away, it's the first step in getting through it so I can create the work I want.

Chloe

I want to create work about people accepting themselves and the others around them - and dammit it might be horny (and a little corny), but creating something horny doesn't mean I can't create something without meaning. Even if the people surrounding us continue to say how "degenerate" the work is, and that I'd "never be able to go back" from working on furry porn, I'm not going to give it up. I'm not going to give up the joy I get from my work, just to serve people who would rather me dead for having thought of it at all. I'm going to express myself, and they're just going to have to deal with it. I'm not forcing it down anybody's throats - they're the one's walking into my space and getting upset about it.

Some time ago, one of my past clients told me that my art helped her feel better about how she looked... and that's been part of the reason that's kept me going, and makes me want to continue.

I typically try my best to keep a level head over this stuff, even when I was stiffling my creativity. Recent events that have caused a lot of worry and concern have reasonably put me on-edge, but at this point it's just pushed me over said edge into just doing the thing they don't want more. Why the hell should I go easy for the sake of "normies", when they're never going to be okay with this stuff? Like I said earlier, it's not for them!

It took a lot of the frustration I'd gained from that internship to push me to this point, because seeing literal scams by Big Tech pushed onto literally everyone - even conventions - really makes my blood boil. And that's excluding a lot of other things that are outright exacerbating the issue. It just kept me stuck thinking "How did it come to this?" over and over, while stuck sitting in a Zoom call while the extra 'instructors' were busy in the chat blasting it like they were in a Twitch chat. I wanted to draw so badly, but I physically could not make myself do it, no matter how hard I'd tried.

Chloe

Not to mention but, I really want to do more art studies and personal work. Game development kept distracting me from it too, during the time I do have between my college work. I'm passionate for it, but after trying to do this for nearly a decade straight (even before I started posting as SoftFoxxo), I kinda have to call it for now, and let myself recover. I may work on some projects if friends are involved (and bugfixes for Softie Stuffers will be a thing while I continue to support it), but I do not plan on working on any games as the only person on it (or even as the lead) for some time.

I've been working on game development concepts literally constantly for years, and I just need a break. I'm tapped out. I need to get new ideas, but the passion for programming absolutely is not lost - I've put it into this website, for the time being.

Right now, doing this is my job. Events in reality-land have made it difficult to find work that can handle my college schedule. I try my best to take this seriously where it matters, so please understand that's where my pricing and scheduling comes from. As much as I want to mess around and experiment (and enjoy it every time I do)... I gotta pay bills.

The Past Two Months

Then August came, and I won't lie: it was like night and day immediately as soon as that scam internship was up.
I managed to build out this website over the course of a week or so, and clear out the last of the work I'd needed to do.
The biggest shame out of all this is that general commissions haven't particularly recovered since, and Summer is usually my biggest part of the year... So that's a huge chunk of money I'm missing out on for bills. During the internship, I wasn't able to advertise as much as I had before, nor was I able to upload as often (even when I did have artwork to post), so when August (and even September now) rolled around, I've just kinda been stuck twiddling my thumbs, trying to let people know I'm open without outright annoying them.

Chloe

... E-every little bit helps!
Donate, Subscribe, Buy my Game, Buy my Comics, or Commission me for artwork. Or even contact me to work on a paid project with you.
(I desperately need the support for rent and groceries. It really means a lot to me.)

At the very least, it's been very, very freeing to be back under my own terms, with an actual schedule to work with. I've been able to work on comics without stressing nearly as hard, and I've been poking at some personal pieces and studies for my art. And don't forget the website, with the extra little additions I've been working on adding to it bit by bit.

Chloe

Behold, the power of HTML and CSS, mwahaha! (To be serious though, it's just a fancy-looking document! It's surprisingly not as scary as it seems, with some patience and maybe some extra tools.)

I've also been working on my stamina for this kind of writing, and for drawing much more often. It's taking time, but I'm takin' a crack at it. We'll get there.

So what's next?

Well! I'm gonna keep workin' on the rewards for my subscribers and my comics, and by now I should already have started work on any slots for Octummberfats (and you should totally grab one, I'm not biased at all :p).
Most of this was written a couple weeks early, but even right now I can say for certain that I feel like I'm in a much, much better place mentally than I was over the Summer - and I'll do my best to make some kickass artwork with that new energy. If y'want some from me, y'know where to contact me!

Thanks for reading!
- Chloe