Once upon a time, there was a young fangirl who sought an online community to call her home. In her search, she found a small but friendly little place with cool art and fascinating stories. That site was called TheOtaku.com. As soon as they opened their blogging platform, MyOtaku.com, she signed up almost immediately.
Many years did the young fangirl pass on this site, writing blog posts on everything from what she had for lunch at school that day to self-insert escapades with her favorite characters.... Often both. She was often a prolific artist, and even wrote fan fiction from time to time. Later in high school, she created a webcomic she and her friends dubbed Randomosity. It was received with reasonable success. When the site almost crashed for good, she took it as a sign and began archiving her earlier writings into Word documents.
As social media became more concentrated in larger sites, the young fangirl, now a young adult, was slowly drawn away from her old home, and after fourteen years she deleted her account on theOtaku.
... But the young fangirl is a tad nostalgic, you see. She still had the Word documents with everything she'd written, but she still felt a twinge of regret for deleting fourteen years of writing and art - fourteen years of her very history - but that was unfixable now.
So she did what she could do. She made a new account and came home.
And that's why I'm here today. I was never too big of a deal here on theO, so I understand if most don't remember me. I don't even know if I'll be here too much, but I plan to stop by periodically at least. Maybe I'll post some of my more recent art and comics - this much I can say, I do not regret all of my old not-so-great art being wiped from the record.
But I'm getting off-track here. The name's Usagi. For a long time, I went by cardcaptorryoko here, or CCR for short, hence the username. To new folks, it's a pleasure to meet you all. To those who may recall my presence at an earlier time, it's good to see you again.
(background pattern was done by cocorini on Tumblr)
With Tumblr's impending downfall (?), there's talk of people coming back here. And even if this site doesn't experience a full-blown renaissance, I figure a small update is still in order in the year since I last posted here.
The thrift store job I mentioned in my last post here has come and gone, and honestly was one of the hardest experiences of my life post-college. People are not kidding when they say working retail is heck. Granted, I had it better than probably most retail gigs in a number of ways, but it still took a hit on my mental health... To the point where I went through therapy. And am now on an antidepressant. Thankfully after eight months of working there I finally found another job, which I thought was a lost cause. So now I'm a security guard working the night shift. If you've followed me on Tumblr and noticed my weird posting hours, that be why. (I've gotta do something with the downtime on my shifts, and a lot of that is spent scrolling through my phone, writing in my digital journal that I springboarded from the Word doc archives of my old account's content, drawing, and/or playing Fate/Grand Order).
My boyfriend and I broke up but also didn't, really - we just sort of redefined the relationship, so now we're essentially in a queerplatonic relationship or qpr. Basically neither of us can necessarily tell if what we feel for one another is romantic (What even is romance anyway? Outside of the actions and dynamics often associated with it, beats me), but we do still care about one another a lot and in a different way than our other friends. So yeah. That's a thing. We're also tentatively engaged. I only say tentatively because there are no plans to move forward with that just yet, not until we both have our lives more together and are in a better position to leave our parents. He's anticipating that taking a year or so, I see it happening in closer to two or three years myself. We'll see what happens.
I sold at two cons this year, both local, and since then I've just been focused on work I guess. So far I'm only registered for Phoenix Fan Fusion (formerly Phoenix Comicon and last year was called Phoenix Comic Fest), and as it is I'm not quite sure how I'm gonna get the time off from this job for that. My company is a bit stingy with letting people take downtime without trading shifts or like, actually putting in a leave request, it seems. And the leave request process... I'm not sure what exactly constitutes a justifiable reason to request leave other than medical or family emergencies. Which I mean, I guess I can understand in an industry like security. Maybe I'll have moved up in the company to some kind of office position where I only have to take a couple days off for that con instead of like a whole work week, but who knows (right now my schedule is Wednesday night through Sunday night... The con runs Thursday through Sunday, and setup will probably take place Wednesday night and even if it didn't, working all night before selling at a convention with little to no chance to even get a nap in between? Recipe for disaster if there ever was one)
So that's about it with me. I'll try to come here more often, not sure about uploading my art though (the file sizes... The file sizes!!)
I packed up the rest of my large anime figures in anticipation of carpet replacement day, and they're now on the top shelf of the closet which I decided to clean out and finally donated my old prom dresses. As a result, I'm a day behind on Inktober, but it's no biggie - especially since, as mentioned in the title, I finally got myself a job.
Or rather, the job came to me. The thrift store I mentioned contacted me today to tell me I've been moved up from the wait list since several positions opened up and the store manager thought with my qualifications I'd be the best fit for one of them. I won't know the entirety of the details until orientation tomorrow, but the important thing is my days of sitting at home like a NEET who occasionally draws things for money are finally behind me. Hopefully so also are the days of accumulating student debt. My grandpa thinks with the fact that it's part time that after taxes I'll barely have the money to make my monthly loan payment with this, but we'll see. And also, for sure, gone are the days where I have to stare blankly at an interviewer when they ask if I have any other job experience besides the volunteer and freelance stuff currently listed on my resume.
Although, there's the fact that I applied for a couple of other jobs this week... But who am I kidding? They're probably dead ends like everything else I applied to, so no conflict there.
So, Inktober is upon us again. I don't know if I'll post my work for the month here, but it might be worth doing. My goal is to draw predominantly original art this year though, and I'm following an anthro prompt list, so I don't know if theO would be a receptive audience for that. I do plan to live stream each evening as I work on that though, so if anyone wants to keep up with that, my twitch channel is under the name raspberryusagi just like my main Tumblr.
My boyfriend came to visit last week, so that was good. We mostly hung out, but we did take a day trip down to his hometown which happens to be in my state (he lives in Utah now though). Since he flew in, though, I ended up having to drive. Somehow I did pretty okay at that, though? I survived a two-hour drive there and a two-hour drive back. I think this might've actually given me some more confidence in driving, I don't know.
I also went through the interview process for a job at a thrift store run by the church (for lack of a more specific but still succinct explanation). While I'm on the wait list for that, though, I'm still looking at and applying to other jobs. I likely won't hear back from any of those, but we'll see. Either way, whether it's through getting training and experience at the thrift store job or finding work elsewhere, or even paving my own path with my art, I'll get there eventually. I'm probably still too passive about this whole thing, though. I applied for like... Two jobs today I think? I should've applied to at least ten.
Mom and her husband think I may want or need to go back to a local trade school and get a certificate in something, though. I still need to think about that more, and pray about it... It'd also be helpful to know what exactly are the local offerings.
That's basically all that's up with me, I suppose. Nothing terribly new.
Hi everyone, I thought I'd take a break from a mass tag overhaul I'm in the thick of over on my Tumblr to write a post here.
Well... I have to say, deleting my old account was potentially one of the dumbest things I've done this year. I mean I've certainly done dumber in my lifetime. But, no point in dwelling on that.
Anyway, for now I'm back I suppose. I don't know what I'll be doing here much, save for maybe uploading some of my more recent art? Maybe? Gah, this probably seems like a rehash of my intro, for which I apologize.
I'm done with college now, been done since last December but I walked for my diploma in April. I think I mentioned that earlier in the year before I deleted my old account, but in case I didn't, I guess now you know. I'm back in my home state, living with my grandparents, taking the occasional art commission, and looking for a regular job. I also have a real-life boyfriend now as of, gosh, almost two months ago now. He's alright. As this is my first relationship outside of gradeschool "romances," it probably won't result in marriage but who knows what the future holds?
As for my creative pursuits, I still draw, as has been implied. I've sold my art at a number of conventions this year and would be selling at more but I decided to make the second half of my year clear for finding and building rapport at a day job that, hopefully after gaining some of said rapport, would be willing to give me the occasional time off to go sell at a convention or two. My latest ongoing project is a daily blog over on Tumblr where I try (and often fail)
to draw an Umbreon every day. I even have an Etsy, if anybody is interested (if not that's okay too). Pretty soon I'll have the proper packing materials available to ship prints, so I'll likely add listings for those by the end of the month.
I don't write nearly as much anymore since graduating, fiction or otherwise - although I'm thinking more and more I should at least pick up fan fiction again. Maybe I'll post some of that here or in a new fanfic world, maybe not. I still very occasionally write indulgent self-insert script format fics of the kind that used to be spread throughout my old blog posts, but I probably won't share them here anymore. But I mean, we'll see.
I don't know if I'll be writing a ton of life update posts, but maybe here and there I might. After all, my weird commitment to writing here daily in years past is what kept my journaling habit going for so long and I'll admit I've been slacking in that regard in the past year or so.
So, that's that for now. Until next time, I suppose....
Should I? Should I end this in the same weeby manner I did for so long?
You know what, why not?
Until next time, ja ne!
