September 10th 2026 / CW: Transphobia, nsfw (mentions of sex, kink/fetish)
Well, first blog post and unfortunately it's not going to be very positive. I have a lot to get off of my chest.
I came back home over the summer to resolve a handful of health issues which I can say have gotten better. However, that also means that I am constantly around my family who take any attempt at privacy as a personal offense. It's really hard to work without feeling like someone is looking over my shoulder all the time. There are also frequent comments on how I simply delusional and running away from being a woman. I've had numerous talks with my friends about how my fam might come around to the idea. Even if they're caring and I understand their intentions, I am not so sure since well, they refuse to see how they're hurting me. The tension is there but everyone simply acts like it does not exists. It's impacted on my mental health a lot.
Unrelated to their political beliefs, the financial situation has gotten bad enough that this is the last year my parents can support me during my studies. I will roughly have enough to get it through this year, but that's it. Unless I take an additional year to wrap up, my bachelors would be done. I will have to rack up a lot of money to continue onto masters and work towards my citizenship though. My university has an absolutely fucked and unstable schedule, so it's either classes, work or sacrificing weekends. Admittedly, I failed assimilating completely into the country due to hanging onto what Serbian identity I have left, which is going to make working in a foreign language scary too. I still have time given it's only my third year out of like, five or more to go. It's a big part in why I will make push about posting online, doing my commissions, doing Patreon.... Tho I have to be weary to not kill my passion in pursuit of monetary stability. I do not want to burn out. Otherwise, I think it's a circumstance I will just have to suck up.
I mentioned before that I am really in love with sex, the psychology and literally everything about it. It bleeds virtually into whatever I do, whether I intend it to or not! It's kind of insane. My passion project and catalyst for this, Whips & Seasalt (Shouta and Icarus comic) will be focused on exploration of sexuality, kink exploration, fetish development, relationships etc. Given that I aim to go into the weird and extreme (excluding incest, beastiallity or pedophillia), it's really hard to talk about it online? Or to find a reasonable place to post about it openly or monetize it. Thankfully ComicFury is the goat, allowing nearly anything and Toyhouse being the same, but literally all payment processors can kill you in a flash if they find you. I am really lost as to what to do about this besides make this blog. Leaves me feeling like it's the only place where I could have these discussions without fear. Well, without fear of getting banned. I still fear judgement of my peers a little. I guess it all passes it with time and the important thing is that I know what I wish to pursue.
What I did actually manage to do this summer? Took up a bar waiter job which I do enjoy when it isn't too hectic. I finished my first short animation for university which taught me a lot of valuable lessons and that, maybe, I don't really want to be an animator. Can't complain much because I never applied for the sake of becoming one, but hoping what I learn in animation is easily transferred to everything else. I did find out that I love sound design and storyboarding a lot. No film show off because I am not really proud of it (one of the lessons I learned is don't take everyone's advice). I did do a handful of redesigns, concept art, wrote 5 chapter drafts and a considerable amount of scenes for Whips & Seasalt! Turning the story into a whole has really helped me visualize where I want the characters to go, what additional conflict there'd be and how would everyone's plot feed into the main theme. There is still a lot of things to figure out pacing wise because I have a lot of ideas/material... but I can only feel out the pacing as I write. It's also going to be a challenge to get Shouta and Icarus to come around to each other's views after certain arguments, but I'm for sure gonna find a natural way to it. It's one of those things that keep me going despite all of the shit going on. I have also started working on this neocities website again which I admittedly kept as a secret under another url same as my nsfw account. Before I considered it a little safe haven given that... I thought I'd get killed for what I want to pursue whoops. It's gonna sound a little contradictory to the previous paragraph, but I'm not as scared as I used to be.
As for future plans? Besides chasing money out of necessity, I do want to continue writing my comic and eventually start it proper. It will take a long while though because it's going to be loooooooong. And I am a meticulous "I want people to take away their own conclusions" type of cagey bitch. Because this is such a demanding project, I also want to do some smaller comics to test out making something complete, learn the hard lessons early. I also finished reading "1984" a month ago or so and it genuinely shattered me given that this book, cover to back, is my worst nightmare materialized. The impact it left on me entices me to write an extensive analysis. One of the things I would like to look into is how sexuality is talked about, repressed and expresses itself in Winston. Probably an animatic too if I'm insane enough who knows. Needing to prepare for my final project is also on the chopping block, so there might be something in regards to that soon too. I'm also working on some games (particularly visual novels) and zines so hopefully something from that side as well. Perchance I will start volunteering on my off time for stuff, looking most at ecology with the way things are going.
There is more on my mind about the state of the world, but I am trying to keep myself optimistic about the future. I had multiple moments where I doubted my art career as I could've been doing something "better for society", but I think that my art and me have a place in helping the situation at hand somehow. I am aware that this post has been rather gloomy for the most part, but the world will not end if we all do what we can to work against all of the ongoing hardships. I believe in the indomitable human spirit, as naive as that can be.
If you've actually read through this, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. It has been quite cathartic to put it all into words in one place and I think this is the outlet I really, really needed. I know it has been rough for a lot of people, so I hope that today treats you well. We will all pull through. :]