My next paycheck is tomorrow, and it's going to be the pay from how much I worked on Christmas. So this is going to be a fat one. My hours later this month were cut, but doing some basic calculations tell me that the paychecks will be average, not terrible. This paycheck will likely carry me before the next mid ones this month. Hopefully my hours in early February will be decent, since my paycheck drops before the con lol. So tomorrow I'm going to buy my badge for Harmonycon, commission an artist for a badge, pay my personal bills a second time, pay household bills if they weren't already, and put some money aside property taxes later this year. Depending on how much money I have left after required stuff, I may donate to KHinsider since I didn't on Christmas.

I unfortunately haven't gotten my W2 for last year yet because my job's internal system for that changed. Really annoying, because I requested 4 days off for Harmonycon (Feb 13-15 and the 16th to recharge before work), and I'd like to have that return as "padding" for my lost hours, lol. I read on Reddit that the W2s for other employees will be posted around the 15th? So I'll check later this week. I signed up for email alerts, but I never heard of this site W2s are posted on. JFC, what happened to mailing or being in the employee panel?

I'm close to done on my site rebrand, but I'm having trouble ripping the bandaid off. I'm redoing my about page, and when I finish that I'll start my "offline tour" before I swap URLs, send out emails, and be free from now on. Harmonycon is an all ages event so I won't leave advertisements for my site there, but I'm considering printing stickers of my art to leave around the Hyatt for funzies. I'm debating on leaving a signature on them though, since I don't have an "all ages" platform now that DeviantART is in the shitter. OTOH, the Harmonycon Discord is mostly adults and older teenagers, I doubt there's going to be many kid-kids lol?

On that note, I popped in the Harmonycon Discord and saw someone from Sonic Expo there, which is something I'm starting to really enjoy about going to local cons. Obviously they're HUGE and have thousands of people, but local stuff will have recurring vendors and faces. An artists alley vendor at TFF/TFS was at Sonic Expo and recognized me, even. lol. After Harmonycon I'll request time off for TFF. Two cons in February and March makes me feel hectic but I need the minor stress to focus.

My inbox has been piling up. It's past 11PM but I have an afternoon-evening shift tomorrow so I can stay up late. I won't go to bed until I clear it out, lol.

EDIT: I AM DONE!!!!! FINALLY!!! When I was up I'm going to answer some Discord DMs, and hopefully send more out. I am not spending this year in hiding.

Another repost because I have little to say lately, I have a backlog of things in my inbox/DMs and whatnot. lol

@DroptineArt (archive)

I read this article (and the many others that have popped up recently) and there's a lot of information that's missing that I find perplexing. This article (and the others) insist repeatedly that this is happening in "individuals with no prior mental illness", and yet conveniently leaves out how these individuals are going from their introductory use of chatGPT to the "dangerous" phase.

Our first case says he began using it "for assistance with a permaculture and construction project", but then "after engaging the bot in probing philosophical chats [...] became engulfed in messianic delusions". How did he get from Point A to Point B, and how did these messianic delusions lead not only to a "full-tilt break with reality" but to him attempting to burn down his home and/or hang himself?

Case two details a man who started a "new high-stress job" and began using chatGPT to "expedite some administrative tasks". The article, again, reminds you he had "no prior history of mental illness" and yet insists that acute use of the bot produced "dizzying, paranoid delusions of grandeur, believing that the world was under threat", with no explanation, again, of how we got from Point A to Point B. It does give us a lengthy detail of what his meltdown looked like, physically, though, not that I'm suggesting anything by that.

Another case mentioned details a woman who was on medication for bipolar disorder and began using chatGPT "for help writing an e-book", yet despite having "never been particularly religious", that somehow spiraled into "a spiritual AI rabbit hole", wherein she began "telling friends that she was a prophet capable of channeling messages from another dimension". We are, again, not given information on anything in the middle of this.

I would like to pause at that point and make it clear that I'm critical and yet mostly neutral on "AI" LLM chatbots. I think they are an issue that is downstream of the larger issue that our society is largely atomized and incredibly lonely, and one can't solve the issue of potential psychological harm from chatbots without first solving the problems that lead individuals to use these chatbots in the first place. Society has made it remarkably hard for individuals to have conversations together. It is very easy to go out and be around others, but how easy is it not only to SPEAK to someone but to have them truly listen and digest what you're saying and converse with you about it meaningfully? Until we solve the socially atomized problem, we cannot solve the chatbot problem IMO.

I myself have used chatgpt for advice finding literature to read because google is largely unhelpful now, and have used it as a therapeutic trauma journal of sorts, but I approach it fully conscious that it is a robot designed to validate me first and foremost before engaging in conversation. When I write about the symptoms of my anxiety that day and it writes back "God, yes, that makes so much sense—and honestly, it’s an incredibly insightful observation", I know that that's it's programming. What comes next is a mixture of it's thought processing, which is helpful to digest critically. Perhaps I'm privileged to be able to not see that as grandiose validation, but I will say I've not once give any inkling of support towards anything potentially dangerous.

One could obviously easily argue that that validating and placating individuals can cause LLMs to operate as Folie A Deux machines, taking otherwise "stable" individuals and dysregulating them to the point of psychosis through validation--and I think there's certainly merit to that theory--but I am admittedly skeptical of how many of these articles insist this is happening to totally sane individuals that just coincidentally get to talking about God and ghosts and imaginary friends and the universe and other topics of that nature. I find it hard to imagine someone in the construction field tripped and fell into philosophy and "messianic delusions" with no prior symptomatic issues.

And this is something that we see in traumatized individuals already. They can be functionally "normal" in the sense that they're not actively neurotic and yet can still have underlying issues that just haven't yet become what we'd call fully "symptomatic". It would be amiss to say that they had "no prior history of mental illness". I don't wanna sit here and insist "all three of these people were already having problems beforehand and chatbots simply validated it to a neurotic level" but, on the other hand, I find it suspicious how none of these articles explain HOW the individuals get from things like "expediting administrative tasks" to crawling on all fours insisting your family is in danger. That's not something that a fully neurotypical person is just going to succumb to through validation alone.

I don't want this at all to read like I'm taking a bullet for LLMs. In my ideal world, we wouldn't have any need for them and thus they would not exist. I'm notoriously anti-tech and pro societal regression, but again I think one has to assess the societal structures overall that lead to the popularity of chatbots, IE the degradation of the internet as the "information superhighway" and the degradation of the social environment as pro-conversation. When you cannot meaningfully speak to humans or get answers to your questions, it is only expected that one will turn to technology to soothe these issues instead.

My issue, though, is that we cannot meaningfully solve the problems of technology through fearmongering or misinformation. We have seen this fail time and time again every time a new piece of tech enters the majority population. Article after article about how "totally normal people" are getting "chatgpt psychosis" while failing to explain the pathways in which they're developing this disease does not prevent the issue, nor does it put a lid back on a problem that's already out of our control. I think it's far better to explain instead HOW these problems arise (especially if you supposedly have access to the AI conversation transcripts) and how to meaningfully engage with chatbots if you choose to do so. But that's not good literature. It's far more enticing to treat it like there are theoretical demons in the machine (or literal, remember Swanson's Loab and how people started saying AI was demonic?)

Overall, the cat is out of the bag, and I think one must learn to live with it until it is either put back in the bag or dies of old age. This is the newest form of scary technology after social media, the internet overall, violent video games, etc etc. Insisting "it makes people go insane with no prior conditions" hasn't done us any good societally so far and it surely won't start now. People are going to use these tools and play with them regardless. I think it's a far better duty to teach them how to use it responsibly and UNDERSTAND it than it is to scare them! But that's just me. Maybe the AI's already made me delusional. Who can say.

(Bolded parts are my emphasis)

This sums up how I feel about chatbots at this point. It's one of those aspects of AI/LLMs that I'm critical of, but unlike genAI art/writing, I can't bring myself to care or have a moral stance against. Using AI chatbots as a support is a recipe for disaster, but "socially" it makes perfect sense to.

In my experience, a lot of people are busy, including me. I'm used to being the least priority in my friendships, especially now that I've been single for over a year and don't have opportunities to date. Trying to make new friends is extremely difficult when my age group is married or prioritizes their family. Even with casual friendships, I feel like I can't express my opinions or mention difficult life issues like family or money. (Not to make people help, but to just vent or get it out there that "hey, I may be in a bad mood because of XYZ, nothing personal.") I dislike traumadumping (as in sharing explicit triggering details of things like assault, murder, etc.) but basic venting or expressing stress is considered "emotional labor" to young people. Therapy is expensive and speaking from experience, it really messes you up to have the only space to speak openly be a transactional paid service. Being in trauma therapy for several years retraumatized me and I don't talk about "loaded" or personal subjects with acquaintances, because I have an actual trigger response when told to "go to therapy" as a solution.

So of course a fake chatbot that mechanically acknowledges your messages, immediately responds, has a programmed friendly personality, doesn't judge you, etc., is going to be appealing to interact with. It's really a no fucking brainer. We have no one to blame but each other for this aspect of AI.

The Nostalgia Trap

I am part of the generation that spent most of their childhood in the analog world, and then gradually turned digital as they came into young adulthood. We are often referred to as “digital immigrants”, contrasting us with the “digital natives” born somewhere between a decade and two later. But a more appropriate term would be the “abyss generation”, because somewhere deep down we are stuck in limbo, in the abyss between fully analog and fully digital, of two worlds, yet fully belonging to neither.

Growing up, we used a lot of paper. A lot of color pencils and crayons. Our teachers put us through endless drills in cursive handwriting. A neat, legible, and beautiful hand was something to be strived for, something that was prized, and rewarded and shown off.
We had long afternoons to ourselves. We had a loyal band of neighborhood friends. We would have four hour long play sessions. Sometimes, we would listen to entire albums from beginning to end–while doing nothing else. Do you even remember the last time you just listened to music, without it being a soundtrack to some other activity you were doing?

Sometimes, we ache to go back to that time. That time seemed simpler and purer. So much so that we are willing to mutilate memories from our immediate past with sepia and Polaroid filters. Nostalgia is painful, but it is also sweet and powerful.

But here is the thing: nostalgia is a trap. It is not that those times were simpler and purer. We were simpler and purer.

Nostalgia is easy to fall into. And the older you get, the easier it gets. The universe of things you can look back on only increases with time. And it seems so much more pleasant than looking forward, where you only see hopes and dreams and fears and probabilities. It takes conscious effort to not go down that slope, to instead look to the future, and actually create it. And it takes even more effort, and more courage, to objectively compare the past to the present, and face the fact that, yes, indeed, most things are better, and are more likely than not to continue getting better.

Over the last year, I have found myself writing by hand again. Sometimes, it is page after page of straight prose. Sometimes it is phrases and bullet points and underlines and bubbles. Sometimes it is just random senseless doodling. And the reason I have come back to that archaic activity is my LiveScribe pen. I no longer have to worry about losing all that. Something that is naturally analog and free-form is seamlessly brought into the digital world.

We seem to be enveloped by the literature of despair and frustration. Complaints and pessimism always seem to be more profound and erudite when placed next to cheerful optimism. Reject that.

Look forward. Make the future.

TODO:

- ~~SPAG check / edit remaining four pages~~
- ~~Upload new graphics~~
- ~~Draft emails~~
- ~~Draft [redacted] message~~ (I need to retool it, but it works.)
- Edit new index
- Double check old pages
- Find and replace old usernames
- Change URL
- Upload new stuff (??? I don't know what I meant by this)
- Squat old username and upload new splash

As a note, I am jittery, running on caffeine, and haven't eaten yet. So this will be unruly.

I haven't had great Neocities experiences in the last 3 years, but since early last year I suddenly had an online penpal situation with an anonymous reader who found my site from a page about my shiny Pokemon collection. The emails turned from talking about Pokemon, jokes, website stuff, to computer and privacy related stuff and very vague allusions to personal problems. This person was very into privacy stuff and talked to me about alternative browsers and Linux stuff. To be honest, I'm currently not ready to take the Linux pill or care about alternative chat protocols, but I appreciated I was a space for this guy to give instructions and share resources. To be honest, I think a lot of the interest stems from political paranoia and whatnot, since the last email mentioned Jesus and a rapture....

I got an email from PA that they're deleting their email. I couldn't send my response. So I'll copy&paste the non-personal parts. PA doesn't appear to use ANY mainstream site outside of browsing personal ones, so I don't know if PA will see it.

( email response )

ETA: HAHA OOPS I let the "locker room talk" slip in public. Oh well, anyone who has spoken to me privately knows I'm not politically correct.

The email contained instructions to quickly installing Linux and resources that I'll archive. I was going to ask for permission, but the account was deleted after the email was sent. If any Linuxheads want to comment and verify, feel free. I can post more tech advice PA sent me for legacy purposes.
( linux instructions and resources )

Hope you're okay, PA, wherever you are. My rebranded website by January shouldn't be hard to find. You know my email, feel free to throw me a line.

TODO:

- ~~SPAG check / edit remaining four pages~~
- ~~Upload new graphics~~
- ~~Redraw old mascot~~ <- I am not doing this.
- Draft email and Discord messages (This shouldn't be hard, I can do it at work tomorrow)
- ~~Draft [redacted] message~~ (I need to retool it, but it works.)
- Find and replace old usernames
- Change URL
- Upload new stuff (??? I don't know what I meant by this)
- Squat old username and upload new splash

My attention span has been really bad. I've been doomscrolling. Doomscrolling Twitter, even, despite my account being locked. I needed to rest this Christmas but I may be back to "work" on this starting tomorrow or the 26th.

Donations:

$10 to Wikipedia
$10 to Artfight
$15 to Furaffinity
£7 to Marapets
$10 to Sheezyart
$15 to Dreamwidth

I'll probably commission people after the holiday bustle.

Going to bed soon. But I found something I needed:

https://memed.io/laser-eyes-meme-maker

Makes glowing eyes for meme. You can combine it with the deep frier: https://deepfriedmemes.com/

I am close to my finish line.

TODO:

- SPAG check / edit remaining four pages
- Upload new graphics
- Redraw old mascot
- Draft email and Discord messages
- Draft [redacted] message
- Find and replace old usernames
- Change URL
- Upload new stuff
- Squat old username and upload new splash

I work 40hr this week and will be busy on Christmas, but this might be done before January. I might be free for next year.

1. Inching close to The Rebrand. I have a few more pages left. If I finish by next week, the only thing I have left are to draw assets.

2. I've decided to stop dieting the way I do. My method of "trying to lose weight" was "calorie counting and eating less" which... isn't working out. My impulse control has improved by drinking inositol this year and it helped me go down 3 pant sizes and 1-2 shirt sizes, but I'm lowkey starving myself by not eating much. It's impacted my brain functions, when I have "low calorie/food" days I have a hard time thinking and doing what I need. So I'm not going to obsess over eating under 1500 calories, just being a bit better. I bought tomatos, eggs, and avocados, and I had a really good breakfast days ago by having that on a rice cracker.

3. I've been addicted to Monster energy. I quit in September because it fucked up my teeth, but went back last month because I worked so many hours before Sonic Expo. Sometimes I really need at least one to get through my shifts. Now I'm trying to cut back again, because out of my two vices, I spend more money on Monster than Littlest Pet Shop toys. My work lets employees have free Red Bulls in the back, so I was drinking those. The issue is, people drank all the regular Red Bulls... and the zero flavor is disgusting, as is the juneberry. So if we don't get normal Red Bulls again tomorrow I may drink ONE Monster a day. Ugh.

Hopefully I will get that bad tooth in the back removed next year... I just don't have time I find a dentist with my work insurance, and then get an appointment on a day off.

4. I'm also cutting down on sleep aides. I'm still taking them, but I realized 5mg of melatonin and 25mg of Diphenhydramine is actually better than 5.5mg and 50mg. I've had trouble getting out of bed or waking up at night on higher doses, so I'll continue this smaller dose on work nights.

5. Speaking of Littlest Pet Shops, my work has holiday-themed blind bags. I got 3 out of 4 so far. Unfortunately, I got a dupe of the rabbit, so I might double check the codes to get the deer. I got the tiger yesterday, and I like it enough to keep as-is instead of modding. Same with the rabbit. I like the deer too and really want it. The penguin on the other hand goes in my "to trade at conventions" bag, lol.

6. My Bluesky domain stopped working last week and the site I got it on, handles.club, is down. It was inevitable, honestly. Giving out people free domains isn't going to last long when meme ones like .pizza, .wine, .voda, .men, etc. are expensive to renew. So I am not getting my .pizza meme domain back because it's very expensive. I might buy a domain after I rebrand, I just don't know which. I figured something like .xyz.

7. My time off request on the 23rd was rejected, so I'm working for the next few days. I REALLY hate last minute shoppers. I almost had a panic attack on the day before Thanksgiving due to complete idiots shopping last minute. The kicker is EVERYTHING IS SOLD OUT!!! For the love of god, stay home on the 23rd. Don't order online. Leave me alone!

Still haven't checked my DW inbox in .... almost a month. I work 100+ hours the rest of this month, and I'm squeezing in my rebrand too. I'm MORE THAN HALFWAY done. I'm scared I won't be finished by January, since I only have 5 days off this year. I will be busy on Christmas. I squeezed a page in this morning while running on 5 hours of sleep!

Also, Ivy has a new FEH alt! I'm glad it's Christmas themed, I associated Christmas with my fucktard ex and have a better association with it now.

Work has been wearing me out too much to do anything. Ironic, since my hours were snipped.
I have to edit every page on my site before I rebrand by January. I'm more than halfway done, but my brain just cannot work to do some things.
I have roughly 20+ pages left.

I should x-post some things I wrote elsewhere over here.

Tomorrow is the last day I work 5 days in a row. Then I get 3 days off, and I have to beg my managers to not make me work 6 days in a row the following week. But I'm going to buy some alcohol and other stuff after work tomorrow night. I gave my mom $20 to do some laundry while I'm at work. Then during my 3 day "weekend" I'll try to buckle down and work on my site, since I'm still SPAG-checking and doing light rewrites of every page. I have half of my articles done, and I need to do my shrines left. I also have comments and emails to respond to that I keep putting off.

A part of me really wants to pull the plug. But I won't. I will (hopefully) have every page better, have new site assets, and will have a new name from 2026 onward.

I'm still anti-AI art and writing, but I'm trying to warm up to AI as a tool. I enabled VSC's built in Copilot to see if it can help me with minor coding. Not doing everything for me, but basic tasks like "modernize this layout" "fix this" "replace this code here with that code", etc. I don't buy the argument of "anti-AI is ableist" but I can see it as an accessibility tool in this case, since I don't code anymore due to low energy. But so far it's destroyed layouts I've edited and hallucinated a Drawn Together episode that doesn't exist. OKAY???

Speaking of AI, I updated my phone a week ago and it installed Google Gemini without my permission. I disabled it, but I can't remove it. God damn it....

Went to Oak Lawn at noon yesterday, stayed for 10 hours until I came home by midnight. I wanted to go during the day so I could explore before the sun goes out, but I realized on a Friday afternoon everyone's at work and nothing interesting happens until 8PM (again). So I explored and saw that the city did double down against the threats of removing the rainbow crosswalks lol, more stuff was painted rainbow. Even the Methodist church had rainbow steps. But this was the first time I saw it, so it was probably already like that before October.

DST does affect bar culture. 8PM was quiet in bar standards in Sept-October, but since the sun goes down earlier, 8-9PM was when everything started. Had 3 shots of vodka, but I didn't run around the city drunk again because that's dangerous. I just drunkly ordered a burger for dinner at Jr's and it was nice how I was literally left alone. No one touched my purse or anything despite being a prime time to get robbed lol. Otterly Fierce's show in August mentioned Mustache Envy playing every 3rd Friday of the month, but they were here last night? So I stuck around for that drag show and I even participated in a game lol. I don't know if it'll show up on Facebook, but I can't post it since I'm literally In It.

So going during the day is a bust. I guess I do have to be a night lift person lol. Now I work for a few hours later this afternoon, but I don't mind. I'll pause watching LPS 2012 to see if I can watch Hazbin season 2 this week.

I'd post photos but I don't have the energy to load them from my phone onto Filegarden. I saw fat pigeons fighting over a piece of chicken when the sun was out. Do you think they knew?

got an email from sonic expo asking for thoughts. I just had to be honest. i'm not mad about steep 3 day pass prices, concert tickets, or VIPs taking priority because they shelled out more money to be there. the artist's alley and industry people visiting were worth it, but everything being closed down from 8pm-10pm was alienating for everyone who didn't buy separate concert tickets. that's my biggest issue, if i could stay in the game room and play dono or smash til 10 i wouldn't have an issue.

same with how the convention center was too small to fit ~2k people and panels were delayed by an hour. people were also less social compared to other cons but you can chalk that up to a higher percentage of tistics (joke) and parents bringing their kids. i will probably not be back next year and if i do return it'll be on friday or sunday so everything won't be derailed for a concert

https://webdeckplayer.neocities.org/

https://github.com/cristiancfm/webdeck-player?tab=readme-ov-file

Javascript-powered Youtube audio player, just what I needed.

I haven't been looking at my inboxes lately, sorry.

From bsky:

11/15/2025
it really upsets me that children play with toys less. in the last 5 years i've seen literal babies holding phones instead of a doll or rattle. how will their motor or thinking skills develop if they just Hold Phones and Look At Screens instead of imaginative playing with toys and playsets
most modern toys are gambling blind boxes. and fyi i've worked exclusively retail and some modern brands are ok but sit on shelves until they're discounted. why? some of them aren't even bad. well, i guess they're expensive lol.

11/19/2025
i told my mom and she said one of her coworkers has her daughter read books instead. and people will comment on a child (under 10) reading books in public like it's novel and she's quirky for this. clown world
i really don't buy any excuse for this. "the cost of living is higher and raising kids is hard" a toy or book is cheaper than a smartphone. i get a new phone every 5+ years. a $5-20 action figure or doll or plush toy is cheaper than a $100-200 smartphone
also. speaking of things parents should not give their children

https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-stuffed-animal-pulled-after-disturbing-interactions

Seeing my old art yesterday kind of killed my mood... But my time management has been too bad to focus on drawing, and I'm going out again on Thursday (probably).

Also Cloudflare going offline killed nearly every website I use.

Today is both my DW account's 15th anniversary and my favorite character's birthday.

(#アイビー生誕祭2025 is the official hashtag on Twitter, but I'm not on there. It was used on Bsky last year with less posts... I'll see how it pans out because of timezone differences.)

I'm really sad that 1. my site's shrine is still offline for reasons I can't discuss in public and 2. I have no new art. But I don't draw fanart much at all anymore, and I work today. At least I have my crazy desk shrine, and links to fanart I finished on S7 (click for full view etc). Unfortunately I dislike nearly all of them and they're all old, but that's how it is lol

ETA: I'm going to work in 10 minutes, I changed the gallery code.... ugh....

( test )

I have a new name for my website rebrand. I just need to make new graphics (favicon, buttons, artwork), replace the name on my pages, and draw art for the "redirect" page on the old url. I'm really excited about this, I'm not sure if Neocities works like Tumblr WRT unused usernames, but I'm willing to shell out $5 to have both sites if I can't squat it on a different email.

Coming... I don't know? My due date is before Harmonycon in February, since I want to print stickers with my Bluesky or possible site domain on them.

I'm going to bed soon, but I uploaded two new pages:

100 Questions for Webmasters

More thoughts on AI, a direct sequel to But is it really? (Maybe read that one first...)

My Ivy shrine also has an apology for not coming back online. I'm just really depressed and not feeling it lately. I stopped selfshipping a year ago, I have an OC but no motivation to really dabble in romantic content for obvious reasons lol.

I'm debating on having a circle for locked entries. The issue is no one I talk to privately uses this site, so it'd restrict what I can post about. But I might as well say this now: I'm planning on rebranding my website, I just don't know when. My soft deadline is "the end of this year" but I need to think of a new name first... And draw a new favicon, since a friend told me hours ago the mouse is the Photographer from Link's Awakening.

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the greatest triumph proves the greatest blunder

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