So March 30 is my birthday and I celebrated today by going to Frankenmuth MI for dinner with my sister! We're twins so it was a double celebration which is always fun. It's almost tradition to go there at this point.
We ate dinner at the Bavarian Inn. In the bottom floor of the restaurant are some cool shops including a toy store, candy shop, and a bakery. At the gift shop there is a really cute fantasy section with sparkly fairy and dragon figurines. I used to be super inspired by that old school fairy art as a kid, so I always marvel at those figures when I go there. I bought myself an adorable nightlight shaped like a frog wearing a mushroom hat. I broke my last night light accidentally. It was a cheap dollar store one so I didn't cry about it, but my new one cost a total of $34! Crazy expensive, but it was a birthday gift to myself.
At the candy shop I got some hot chocolate flavored cotton candy and candy Senzu Beans. I've been obsessed with Dragon Ball Z lately (for the nostalgia I guess) so when I saw the beans I had to get them lol! We also explored some of the downtown area of Frankenmuth. I got some "tequila lime" cheddar cheese from the cheese factory, and Sprecher craft sodas from the country store.
Now that I'm 30, I'm starting to realize how fast time flies by! Hard to believe I've been here on theOtaku.com since I was about 12 years old. Its one of the only social media sites I'm loyal to. I've abandoned accounts on DeviantArt, Tumblr, Blogger, LiveJournal, and Facebook, but I've never abandoned my Alchemic Mushroom account here. Though... there have been times when I don't log on here for months to a year... I haven't been on my myOtaku page in forever either!
Almost my entire artistic progression can be traced on this website alone. It's kinda my official art portfolio 
Sometimes I like to look back at my old webcomics here, like the Petite Affairs of Natalya or Valle Lacrimarum. I started those comics when I was in high school! I often think about drawing new pages for them as closure to their stories. There are many elements from those comics which are present in my new project, Saint Goblin. As though my old stories were blueprints for the new. In Valle Lacrimarum, I had the trio of Amelia (female character), Azriel (monk character), and Venetia (pet character), which sorta evolved into a trio I have written for Saint Goblin. I wrote that Benedict (my modern monk character) would eventually join a Gothic sorceress (my modern female character) and a tiny goblin girl (modern pet character). I'm introducing paladins into Saint Goblin, which correlates to my knightly cast of characters from the Petite Affairs. I won't be able to specifically include Natalya, Elodie, Alistair, Ilarion, and Lachlan in Saint Goblin, however 
There are still a handful of active users on this site, which I really appreciate. I think theOtaku itself could use some updates, though. I'm no website designer, but I think the home page needs to be redesigned. The featured art in rotation could be refreshed more often. I also think the anime categorization is a little outdated. I would get rid of the anime drop down list or at least make it less specific. The My Worlds feature is super underrated and has a lot of social media potential. Webcomic sites are quite popular right now and this site already has a fancomic feature, so I think this something that could be more focused on. The Challenges feature is one of my favorites and has a lot of user engagement potential but I'm not sure how it could be improved. Those are my thoughts, anyway.
I'd love nothing more than for this site to become more active again. Not sure what I would do if this place went offline. I cried when Forsaken World went down, I'd probably have a mental breakdown if I lost theOtaku.com. It's one of my memory palaces.
