Happy new years! What the fuck happened to me (2025 STATE OF AFFAIRS)

December 30, 2025

Hi! This year was derranged. I won’t get too into world events or personal events because I’m not writing this post for that.

What I will do is talk about how I’ve changed this year, because I definitely have. Mostly for the better, I think? I’m doing things that earlier me would probably be frightened by, but on the other hand I’m doing better in some ways! Self image is definitely one, and I’m starting to make money! For the first time in my life! Consistent income!

BECAME PLURAL

This year I think was the first time I figured out you could be multiple people. Coincidentally, this happened to also be the year I figured out I am multiple people!

Those reference sheets I posted between summer and fall of this year? Those were me making reference sheets for my alters’ sonas. The three main guys are me (Ripley, the guy writing this), Ruby, and Sebastian. I’m apparently the host; my system is mostly comfortable with the name Ripley, which is why I have that name on the frontpage. So call us that!

Ruby was the first headmate I noticed. He had just got done drawing and we entered a train of thought where then I noticed I wasn’t the only one. It started with the question “who are you”– a test I got from a Tumblr thread– and it unfolded from there. Sebastian was the next, and he’s the closest to our system’s “mentor” although we discovered that they’re also as clueless as the rest of us. They’re more like an ever-present commentator that can front sometimes (and has!)

There’s a few others that I’ll just list:

We also figured out a weird trend where the New Bestiary accidentally became a conduit for some of our alters to show themselves:

I made the crippling mistake of not telling anyone about it until now, so we’re not sure if this plurality is here to stay. If I am, neat? If not… also neat. I like both the idea of my head being filled with creatures and the idea of being one consistent thing.

DID SELF-HELP

Personal discovery has gone a bit further than plurality, though. I’ve gone down a bit of a rabbit hole dealing with self-confidence and anxiety. I’ll direct you to a few things I saw that did it for me.

ROSSMANN

Firstly was Louis Rossmann. This is a slightly weird one because, besides him maybe being autistic, we are essentially completely different people. BUT! For some reason his videos pushed me out of this anxiety that kept me from socializing. His video about being the whole bitch and not the half bitch somehow led to me coming out as genderfluid? I think it was because he talks about being honest with yourself and matter of fact instead of being afraid of upsetting people, and my brain connected the dots and decided to tell my parents about it.

GENDERFLUID?

Yes, I came out as genderfluid this year. I lost interest in being 100% a guy– I never was anyways– and I had to find an excuse to not be.

I could give a long chain of reasons why, but it’s really simple; I like the parts about me that aren’t necessarily manly, and I don’t enjoy having to hide all that.

BACK TO ROSSMAN

He also made a video about time management and whatnot that genuinely helped get things done. But there’s two videos of his that I’m eager to share with you all because they helped me and I think they’ll help you too:

His video on social anxiety got me to socialize more. It led me to realize that my anxiety around people isn’t my fault and isn’t even because of some disorder. And his video about escaping the employee mindset pushed me to be more initiative– to change things that I didn’t like.

He also made a banger pair of videos about running a self-hosted network that I followed to get a file server up and running– I recommend it if you’re derranged like I am.

NO BOILERPLATE (CULT OF DONE)

There’s this guy– No Boilerplate– who makes Rust tutorials and sometimes other things. Among those other things is one video I liked this year– a video about the Cult of Done. Sounds scary, but it’s actually this manifesto denouncing perfectionism and embracing the joy of creating things. I could put the manifesto here (it’s literally a bullet list) but other blogs have done the same and he describes it in a way I like.

I think it’s a godsend for artists and other people making things. You can be stuck on a drawing for hours… or have a drawing and decide if you want to make another one. You could spend a lot of time working on your game’s graphics and perfecting it’s code and game juice… or you can have a working prototype of your concept. I recommend watching it if you do stuff!

CLOUDCHOMPS

this guy: [https://bsky.app/profile/cloudchomps.bsky.social]

This’ll be short. Basically I liked their art and started following them, only to realize I’m actually a lot like them, and it led to things like being genderfluid and plural. Weird, I know! Ultimately, I have a better image of myself and I think its mostly because of artists like them.

ART

Right, most of my work this year has been in art. In fact I think I’ve put out more art than ever before this year; stuff from this year alone is taking up more than half of my Fur Affinity gallery, and the rest of it is mostly New Bestiary stuff.

First art I posted this year (I believe) was the now outdated Thanun reference sheet, and the last will probably be the commission I did just yesterday for Waggo. Both have shading, and you can see very clearly how I improved in that regard and in basically every other way. If I remember correctly, that reference sheet was when I first started studying art (you can tell because I gave him double moobs), and I’m actually really pleased with how my art’s turned out after!

Biggest change however… is that I actually started drawing furry art! At least, outside of the New Bestiary. Again, I started to do both personal art and commissions, on top of me drawing other people’s characters because I wanted to. Commissioning has gone smoothly so far– definitely less scary than I thought it would be.

THE NEW BESTIARY?

I… have still not made a game for the New Bestiary. But I did make a wiki for once! And I pushed out a script to a comic that I scrapped, which is already better than what I’ve done yet; this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to releasing a complete product.

MUSIC

I… didn’t make any music this year! The biggest is probably me switching to Linux– imagine having a setup for once only to switch operating systems and having everything thrown in the bin. I still miss a functional FL Studio install…

And no, the villas doesn’t count, that was an upload of a song I made back whenever.

I did try making an ambient track for this December– essentially a sequel to we’re there– but I couldn’t get to it in time.

It apparently isn’t impossible to make music in Linux, and I hope I can get something working next year.

IN SUMMARY

I am… okay! In fact I’d say I’m doing better this year than before. I have income. I have a following. I found out more about myself and am feeling better because of it. The times have pushed me to do things I never would have.

For those feeling down about the state of the world, I’ll leave you with Jacadamia’s video about being an artist right now, and Gianni’s christmas video, both of which I watched just today and stimmed over, so now you get to!

Happy new years! Do cool shit, especially out of spite!