If you have been around Neocities recently, you might have heard about F+F (FederieFederi), or maybe you were actually part of the project before it perished just like me. While I mostly avoid gossiping and drama, it is something I wanted to talk about because they have been around in my Neocities feed, and it still feels kinda odd not having random people's comments replying to F+F.

F+F is a project to advertise new and underrated Neocities sites, starting from October 2023. They would put the buttons of the sites in a wall, and people can click them to view the websites. Every month, the neighbours in the project can enter the monthly featured section by liking a announcement post, and as soon as they fit the rules, they will be featured on the main page for a month. This is a extremely simplified explaination, you can look up F+F for more information.

My experience with them isn't really special. Sometime around November I think, I saw a red dot on the top right corner, indicating a new follower. I rarely respond to new followers (I appreciate them, but I feel like talking to someone for following me feels kinda weird?), but I always go check their sites. Unlike most sites I see, I noticed many comments saying how they find the project interesting, and only then I noticed it's content is other people's buttons. I don't remember the details, but I was also included in the wall. Since then, I often scroll on their wall to check out any cool art sites.

Here's a little funny thing. Around two months ago, I found that my button being hidden in their wall, and inspecting their code I found that I might have been 'banned' (Can you actually ban or block someone on Neocities? Or is it some other mechanic I'm missing out?). I was a bit confused, but I came up with two possibilities: 1. They made a mistake 2. My content doesn't fit their rules anymore. I rethought what I posted to have them remove button, I didn't put anything inappropriate, I didn't even have topless men at that time yet, the worst thing here is probably the occasional vent posts but it does not violate any rules. I kinda gave up thinking about it for a while cuz I didn't mind, and after a while I saw F+F saying something about buttons, and I realized another possibility. I checked my button, it was somehow 89x32, what?! Perhaps something went wrong when I was editing the borders of my button, anyways I fixed it and F+F added me back. But still, I find it quite funny that my button was just one pixel off from the standard button, as if I'm messing with the button culture... but I wonder why F+F is so strict on the button size?

Occasionally, I would see a few people saying how F+F is kinda suspicious, and there had been rumours about something, and yet the details are incredibly vague, I cannot judge anything so I just moved on with my day. Fast forward to April, where things start to spiral down. F+F announced that they will unfollow everyone since Neocities' default website order is most followed, and Neocities doesn't count mutual followers into the follower count, and F+F decided to do that to get to top 8. I didn't really mind being unfollowed, the project will still work as intended: giving exposure to underappreciated sites.

Then something surprising happened, more and more people commented how they don't support the project anymore and wanted to leave. From what I can understand, the major reasons are that they don't want to chase popularity like modern social media, they don't like F+F's strong tone, and they suspect F+F being a Follow for Follow scheme. Comments were being flooded in F+F's (and many followers') feed, some being against F+F while some still doesn't really care, and then there's some who spams just for fun. Scrolling through the huge line of text, I even saw some familiar usernames, so that's entertaining.

I kept mostly silent in this situation, like how I stated I don't involve myself in dramas. I'm mostly surprised by the amount of people disagreeing with F+F. I don't really feel anything negative about F+F, perhaps due to my nature of listening to anyone even if they had the most unreasonable orders. Even after doing research about F+F, I still don't understand how Follow for Follow scheme is bad, it feels like something I'd commonly see in social media. And I was quite interested how people commented that they came to Neocities to avoid the social media flow. While I have seen people writing that they created their sites to get away from something like Twitter, I did not expect them to actually dislike chasing for views and likes. So that's a new thing I learnt about Neocities culture. For me, it is nice when people view and comment on my stuff, and at the same time I don't mind having low views, having low views means that less people see some embarrassing stuff, it's a neutral thing. Perhaps one thing I understand the most is the weirdly strong tone in their messages, though I assumed that it is just what happens with messages with no tone indicators...

Few days into the incident, F+F had cleared all the messages on their feed. They are going on a temporary hiatus, I assumed. One day later, I found out on a message of someone I follow... F+F's site was deleted. I was quite shocked, I initially thought they deleted it out of stress, but turns out their site was reported and Neocities took it down. And so that's it, so far F+F hasn't came back, and from what some sources said, they might not return.

I wouldn't say F+F has much impact on my site, or at least I don't know, because from the messages I've gotten, none of them said they came from F+F. Perhaps F+F's actions wasn't that great, but I kinda miss them? Maybe it's because of a habit where I would scroll their wall to check out cool websites, in fact some people I follow are found through F+F. And also, it might just me not knowing how to manage my followings and feeds, it feels kinda empty here not being spammed with messages. It was kinda annoying, but now it feels quiet. Well at least there is an archive of F+F, so it wasn't too late to continue check out these underappreciated sites, just like F+F said.

It feels like I haven't touched Neocities for the past few days. Yes, it's exam period, but no it's not because I was studying. While I did study, the major reason I didn't touch my laptop for a while is because, I was working on something which I have teased in my Piclog: A plush (of Cosmos obviously).

I actually have been wanting to make a plushie for a while, I have made a paper doll around last year November because I wanted a plushie but I cannot make one. I didn't have the materials nor I knew how to make one, and I don't plan on spending a lot of money so I didn't commission anyone. But recently, I wanted to redecorate my room a bit and decided to buy a dreamcatcher in TaoBao. And that time, I thought, "Why not also buy the stuff for making dolls?" And so, I looked up the materials and tutorials, and half-implusively bought the stuff. It isn't really that expensive shockingly.

I mainly used this video for the steps, and I also used the channel's other videos for some specific parts. In a nutshell the process is emboider the face, make the hair, cut and sew the body parts, then connect the face with the body and the back of the head (which is the hardest part IMO).

After the day I had an exam and accidentally ate a fly in the bubble tea (ugh), I came home feeling ill and a package of threads in my hands. I immediately started the first step. Embroidering isn't exactly hard, but it is very time-consuming, and I really hate how often the thread falls out of the needle, and I have to thread it back over and over again.

I also embroidered her palms and feet with toe beans. Cosmos does not have toe beans in her human form, it's just that it is a common thing among these dolls and I wanted to add them. These might be cute, but embroidering for the entire day feels very boring, I kinda got tired.

Sewing the body and the limbs isn't too hard actually, I think this is the fastest step in all of them. Though when I did the body, it is smaller than I initially thought, very cute.

And finally I finished attaching the head and the back side of the head, now I can finally- wait.

I realised I sewn the head wrong, so I had to undo the part. For some reason, I struggled a lot during this, it feels like the fabric didn't match the other lines, so I didn't know where to sew. Man this is hard. But finally I was done, her head and body are together, and it was time for stuffings.

I felt kinda sad about the results not reaching my expectations. As someone who has a passion for art, I feel like I have some sort of talent and tends to learn new techniques very quickly. So when my doll is done and isn't as pretty as I imagined, there's some sort of guilt in me. HOWEVER, why am I putting so much pressure on myself when I never touched embroidery or even made a doll in my life? Anyways I quickly made some clothing for her, and put on the pair of shoes I painted prior the day the I got the embroidering tools.

And she's (mostly) done! For her wings and tail, I wanted to make them later on, and a detachable accessory. While in canon, Cosmos can hide her ears and tails but not her wings, being able to remove her doll tail and wings makes it easier for her to wear new clothes. But if the Cosmos in lore wanted to wear something but her wings makes the clothing impossible to wear... too bad for her lol.

I just got an email for the announcement of the summer term (There wasn't summer term last year but I already knew about this year having one for a while. BTW have I mentioned that the dates of the summer term course nearly clashed with my trip to Tokyo? That was scary as hell), and it revealed a brief timetable: It lasts 8 hours starting from early morning, 4 days a week.

Dear god, travelling to school takes a lot of time, almost 1.5 hours, and the fact it starts at morning means I have to wake up at 6:30 every day. And I have to stay at school for 8 hours, which is something I really hate, especially after the current term. I had to go to school every weekday, and there are two days I had to stay at school for 9 hours due to the stupidly long time gap between classes. The awful timetable this term had me feeling miserable for months, it sucks how I managed through this term, just to suffer another early morning pain again.

One more unfortunate thing, I might have less time for Artfight, or at least put as much polishing in the art. It might be hard for me to keep up with my art skills when I am feeling sleepy, so I might possibly do more sketches instead of markers and other cool materials. One good thing I have learnt this semester is I realised that even if I suck at doing sketches on mobile, my lineart, coloring and shading is perfectly fine there, so I can spend my train time drawing on my phone. That is one positive way of thinking.

Another good thing is that I have one extra day off instead of having all the weekdays occupied, though the amount of hours at school is way more than the previous term, I feel like having one day off makes me feel a bit better about the situation. Also, the course only lasts for a month instead of 3 months like the other terms, so that's a shorter length of suffering!

A short diary and rant on what happened today, while it is not the worst thing happened to me, it is mentally and physically exhausting, and I might just lie down and cry if this happened to me again.

Today is the first exam, which is also the exam of the course I failed last year (Math is hard and the lecture notes sucked). This time, I am tutored thoroughly and actually understand everything. And during the exam, I managed to finish almost all the questions, except like the extremely difficult one and the other that I ran out of time to do, but I'm quite certain I'm going to pass this exam.

After the exam finished, I was quite relieved to get this damned course out of my life, no more eigenvectors. As the exam invigilator reminds us to "Take all our belongings", I mindlessly packed my stuff and left for lunch, then back home.

When I got home, I realised I forgot to print something for my upcoming art project (I will talk about in the future), but I don't want to wait until my next trip to school, so I decided to print it in the nearby library. When I got to the computer room, the personnel asked for my library card or ID card, normal procedure. As I opened my wallet for my ID card... there's no ID card. If you don't know, students are required to show their ID card and student card in exams, and the fact my ID card isn't in my wallet means I must have left it at school. I immediately fell into panick mode. After I printed the paper, I went back home, put down my stuff, took some other stuff and rushed outside.

As I was outside, I tried to calm myself down. Best and most likely scenario is that I find my card in the security room, and worst scenario is I have to spend 500 HKD on remaking my card, again (I lost my ID card last semester). I put on my favourite music despite my phone has less than 30% battery, and I took out the stack of old paper for drawing, and started drawing. Drawing my OCs had really calmed me down, seeing them interact is funny and heartwarming, even if the art isn't as polished as usual. If you haven't seen the drawings, you should go check it out. When I got out of the train, I was relatively calm and not distressed. As I slowly walked into my school, I was glad to know that my ID card is safely kept in the security room, as expected. Crisis averted.

That trip took 2.5 hours in total, times like this makes me wish my school isn't that far away. Anyway, I went back home and kinda sat with my sister and planned dinner with her. She ordered noodles from TamJar SamGor (popular MiXian noodle restaurant in Hong Kong)... And it turns out she forgot about a meeting she need to attend this evening, so she rushed outside unable to eat dinner, and I have to eat alone for dinner, sad.

At the time I'm writing this, bad thoughts are floating into my brain. The situation about my ID card could've been a lot worse if I haven't went to the library and checked my wallet, if I went to the next exam not knowing my ID card isn't in my wallet, I couldn't attend the exam. While the worst is over, I am bad at not thinking about the worst things happening to me, kinda like someone narrowly escaping from death and keeps thinking about that fact. I hope I sleep well tonight.

While I am mostly satisfied with my current hobby, which is drawing, recently I have been thinking of learning music. It is strange really, especially how I used to be afraid of music.

In both primary and secondary school, the music teachers were always intimidating, in some way they would always make me cry or terrified. Thanks to the incedent of being humiliated in front of my class then consequently being bullied for it for three years and being threatened when making the smallest mistakes (having to copy an entire music book if you forget to bring it for one class), my perception of music is something unapproachable and scary. Imagine having to learn an entirely new language, mixed with a little bit of Math, yes that’s how I view music.

Fast forward to university, where I don’t have to study compulsory music subject anymore. With freedom, I am able to try new things that I used to avoid or just forget about, like eggplants, tofu, going out to eat, or doing household chores… Life has been quite nice actually. And I also found myself listening to more new music. It feels as if the older I get, the better music gets, which is different from the saying that the current generation of music is getting worse. While there are songs I would fixiate for a long time and imagine OC animatics in my head, I feel like my fixation for songs is much stronger, as if I can connect myself with the songs. I believe The Crane Wives is where this phenomenon started, their songs are so good it changed me. Perhaps in some degree their songs inspired my OC lores?

Around last year, I also stumbled upon Will Wood. While his songs vary a lot, many of them got my heart. But in this blog, I will focus on Cicada Days. The first time I didn’t think of much except for the fact the song suddenly gets loud during the climax and shocked me a bit. But when I relistened to it a couple more times, I became to love it even more (a common process of listening to Will Wood songs). But what’s different from the other songs, there is a stranger feeling. The song starts out relatively peaceful and quiet, and it slowly builds up, and it reaches the high point, the video went from lush green forest to burning ashes, the yells in the singing is like cries of realisation on how the reason everything’s messed up because of one’s self.

As the song is ending, it reverts to the quiet tone, and with a bit of exhaustion, getting back up from the pain and depression.

From the more common interpretation of the song, it feels like it’s about your relationships breaking because of yourself and feeling immense guilt about it. I don’t have much connections with people so from the sounds of this, it may seem like it isn’t too relevant to me. But for some reason, I can feel some sort of resonance. It feels like you growing up full of pain and problems, and realising that the reason why there’s so much obstacles in the first place all stems from you. With the frustration, anger, futility, it kinda feels like experiencing my emotions of my life in a song, so much feeling I have bottled up my whole life, and it managed to throw them back to me. Man if only I’m better at writing, just go listen to this song it’s so good.

After a while, a thought appeared. I may have hated learning music for the majority of my life, is it possible for me to learn music? Currently my best skill is drawing, while it is possible to draw something full of expression, I kinda of wished to create something powerful with sounds instead. The problem is that music feels way unfamiliar and abstract compared to drawing, both music and drawing are art and have various sets of rules, but perhaps the fact I have been drawing my entire life and seen music as incomprehensive horro, it feels like there's a mental block between me and music. Learning drawing was relatively simple for me, just pick up a pencil and draw a circle to draw a face, but I have absolutely no idea how to start learning music or even create a song.

It might take a while for me to start learning how to music, or never if I realise music isn't really my thing. What I know is that I should at least try and not give up before starting thinking that I do not have the talent.

From I often see in medias, childhood is often seen as a time of innocence and joy, they have nothing to worry about until they grow up and become depressed from work. And for me, the older I get, the most I feel icky about this trope.

There is nothing wrong about missing childhood, everyone has different perspective. But from my perspective, how the stories portray growing feels kinda… violent? Like I saw one representing becoming an adult with murder? Is this what many people feel about growing up? Because of my personal experiences, I tend to feel less connected to these type of stories, and enjoy them less.

Another thing I don’t really like about it is how it often hows growing up equals to leaving your childhood behind. The most recent story with this trope is Blue Lock, where Bachira decides to leave behing his imaginary friend and his old ideology of playing for others. I might be entirely missing the point, but I was extremely sad during that scene, because I was focusing on how he is leaving his imaginary friend and the fact he said his imaginary friend is gone now in the anime. Leaving behind the stuff you once enjoyed as symbolism of growing up isn’t that great, I see childhood as one core of one’s personality, abandoning it will make you empty. A bit of spoilers: His imaginary friend didn’t disappear contrary to what the anime said (Common Anime L), it made a reappearance.

What I dislike the most is childhood is always shown to be perfect and conpletely happy. While many children are free from most adult responsibilities, they are definitely not as perfect as some people make it out to be. Personally, I wasn’t as anxious and depressed as a kid, but much of the stress isn’t very visible because adults kinda neglected my emotional needs and I unconsciously hid them away over time. And for some reason, many people think it is impossible for kids to feel stressful and therefore it is invalid for them to feel negative emotions. “Man I wish I am a student again, so I can play all day and date cute girls.” “You will miss your childhood once you grow older.” “You should not feel stressful when I had to work all day!” God I hate these.

In my perspective, adulthood has been treating me well. While I don’t have controlling parents, I don’t have much freedom in expressing my emotions, being with certain people, and personal space. When I became an adult, my parents didn’t pay attention to me much anymore. After I went to counselling, I got to take care of my mental health, and got more courage to show discomfort when a close one says something I don’t appreciate. I have the choice to go out for dinner to be alone for a while, I can spend all day doing whatever without being judged. Most importantly, my brain doesn’t feel like there’s a permanent fog anymore, I actually feel alive! I feel like I can genuinely enjoy the things in life ever since then.

Being an adult is still hard, university is stressful, I often slip back into bad memories, and I sometimes still fixiate on that one memory of a good friend. If I am to compare my childhood and my current life (even though my childhood memories feel detached from my identity at this point), I think it is fair to say I am at the happiest point of my life. But who knows, I am only a few adult years old, maybe some years later I will miss being a mistreated, bullied child, just like what those adults said LOL.

This is the day I decide to leave Twitter for good. I didn't really like the thought of leaving social media before, I was often told that 'social media bad' all the time, so much so I became sick of this idea, as I see internet being more kind than real life people. But thanks to Elon Musk, the updates get worse every time. For You tab is the default tab, even if you click the tab you want, it is very easy to swipe to the For You tab. For You tab shows random popular tweets, and some of them I would rather not look at them much, like medical malpractice, child abuse, and humans being assholes in general and you can’t do anything about it. While I acknowledge humanity is awful, I still don’t want myself to lose the remaining trust in people I have left. Even if I try to hide the posts, they still keep showing up, as if Twitter wants us to feel miserable. So I decided to take care of myself more, and look for an alternative, possibily exclusively use neocities.

I hesitated a bit about leaving a social media that I stayed for so long, here’s some history kinda worth sharing. I first created a twitter account for Mineplex, but I didn’t use it much for a while. During my Danganronpa or Houseki no Kuni phase I think, I decided to go there to search for fanart of my favs, I will spend hours to collect any fanart that includes my blorbos. And that became my main reason to use Twitter.

During the early Cookie Run days, I started to post fan art. I lost the account because I was underaged when I created the account, so I created another one. While it only gets ton of likes once a blue moon, it is nice when people enjoy my Pome fan art. It was fun while it lasted, and I’m really grateful there are followers there who always like my art, and the fellow Pome fan is awesome, I feel kinda sad I didn’t have the time back then to repay them a birthday art. At some time I reactivated my old account, so I used it for Blue Lock instead. For some reason, I didn’t feel like drawing the fan art as much, so I just go there for viewing the new content and leaks instead.

With me leaving Twitter, I would probably decrease looking at fan art more, but I am in my Original Content phase, so it isn’t a big deal. However, it will have a big impact in my interest in Blue Lock, as it is where I get all of the news. Although I am less interested in the new chapters, it feels kinda sad because it feels like I am leaving this fandom. Well we still have season 2 coming up this year, I hope it will give me as much excitement as season 1. Another positive note is that some of the people I follow on Twitter, I also followed them on instagram. Unfortunately, there are cute hamster account which only posts exclusively on Twitter, I have to leave them behind 😔.

If you are viewing this from Twitter, it will be nice if you try to make a Neocities site. It’s quite fun :3

我估計睇我呢個網點嘅人都唔識睇中文，更加不知廣東話。我計畫緊愚人節嘅時候諗到「啊不如寫個全用廣東話嘅blog，好似幾好笑。」不過身為一個唔多講笑嘅人，呢個gag嘅效果唔知實際上好唔好笑。

從我玩麥塊伺服器識到朋友開始，我好似對係咁喺我啲原創角度加貓耳。我一開始玩麥塊唔係用自己畫嘅皮膚，而係喺Skindex度揾嘅。

當初，我用中下藍色花花果個皮膚，其實呢個係我堂哥幫我揾嘅。不過我係Hypixel識咗個朋友，佢話可以幫我畫個新皮膚。果陣時我喺啲伺服器好多見到有貓耳嘅皮膚，而且我都幾鐘意貓，我就同佢講「我想要有貓耳嘅！」然後就有圖中meow2嘅皮膚啦（meow1係後來佢再整嘅）。好似至從之後，我對於貓耳多咗個執著。

所謂貓耳控，就係對於貓耳有強烈興趣嘅人。翻譯英文聽落去會好似性癖，但係癖好同性癖係兩回事，至少我對貓耳嘅興趣係唔關性癖事。由我開始畫番畫嘅時候，我唔少畫嘅角色都有貓耳，如果唔畫會有啲唔安心。加個貓耳落去唔單止會更加可愛，更可以令角色嘅輪廓有變化，不會只係得個圓形。

喺我主頁嘅圖裡面，有三份四嘅原創角有某種嘅貓耳。雖然小薰頭上面嘅唔係真貓耳，但係睇落去幾似。再加上，我當初喺夢裡面見到佢嘅時候，佢係冇貓耳㗎，喺我後來私心加落去㗎！！！我都係上年八月先記得嘅，我真係覺得我貓耳控末期啦。

如果你問我會唔會後來再設計個有貓耳嘅角色，我覺得可能性比較低，就算設計左，都會同主線故事(UtSS和Dreamland Workshop)無關。其一係我而家只對於有故事嘅角色有興趣，如果單單係個樣好睇我都唔會care好多。其二就係我希望Cosmos係喺主線裡面唯一嘅貓娘。佢係貓人的原因都係個別嘅因數而變成呢個樣嘅，有其他貓人（或獸耳人）再出現的機率好低，而且假設真係有，咁就可能令Cosmos嘅存在冇咁特別。所以我決定咗佢係主線裡面嘅獸耳人，不過呢個唔代表我唔會將畫現有嘅角色戴貓耳 lol。

我愚人節之後過幾日再翻譯，橫掂呢個網站都係畀識任何語言嘅人睇嘅。

If you have read the post from last year about my favourite color, you might remember I really liked stars. Ever since I was a kid, I have a fascination on stars, so naturally I often try to find new info about it. When I got to the age of understanding words, I learnt about the planets in the solar system. Wait, how many kilometers they are away you say? How many zeroes are in the width of the planets? Oh my god... My tiny brain cannot comprehend the greatness of the planets. Eventually I developed a larger admiration in space, and this time with fear.

Looking at the images of the planets always provoke a feeling of sadness. They are so beautiful and mesmerizing, but humans of this generation might not ever touch those places, not in our lifetime. They are so far away from our reach, who knows what's in there. But at the same time, it might be wise to stay away from these planets, can a human even survive in them? From long ago, I learnt that the planets aside from Earth isn't friendly towards living beings, but what I learnt recently is that even with high tech gear, it must be extremely durable to survive Jupiter, which is probably unachievable by the current technology.

For a while, I developed a bit of sympathy for Pluto. As you may know, Pluto used to be considered as a planet, but in 2006 it was reclassified as a dwarf planet, not exactly that long ago! I remember my tutor explaining the planets and Pluto using my collection of Hello Kitty dolls, perhaps after seeing Pluto personified as my doll and being rejected by NASA, I felt really bad for it. Now that I grew up, Pluto (and other dwarf planets and asteriods) not being a planet does not mean they aren't cool, honestly the fact there are giant rocks floating miles away from Earth is very cool.

But there is more beyond the solar system. Light years away from us, there are countless stars and planets, possibily devoid of any life to witness closely, and yet we sometimes still see them in the sky, shining the dark sky. Because of how large the universe is and how far away they are, a lot of information is unknown, but we still know exoplanets are cool af, like there's a planet with extremely many rings.

I'm sure many people is somewhat afraid of black holes. I think one of the most terrifying things about black holes is how highly destructive it is. If Earth ever meets a black hole, we might be fucked, but many things in space can destroy Earth. But often times, I think about the way black holes affects humans if one ever falls into it. It isn't really possible to escape from a black hole, unless if you run faster than the speed of light. And from what I know, being inside of a black hole seems like time is being frozen when seeing it from outside. Some suggested black hole can be a mean of time travel, but TBH I think it might kill you first. As one falls into a black hole, they will be stretched into a long tube, the flesh being torn part into many pieces, this is called spaghettification... who named it this?? Despite the silly name, how the process described sounds like a very brutal death, even if it is very quick.

But even with the most enormous stars or black holes, the largest thing is of course the universe, the container of all things. But unlike most things, it does not have an end, and instead it expands indefinitely. Is it really possible to explore the entirety of the universe? We haven't even discovered all of the ocean!

I have heard of a debate: Is the ocean or the cosmos (heh) scarier? While yes, there have been strange ass creatures being uncovered from the ocean, and there are still 95% of the ocean left to explore. But imagine, imagine you are a ghost. If you died in the deep ocean, you can move up, down, left or right, and you will eventually reach the surface. However, if you somehow died in space, and far away from the Earth, how would you get back? If we ignore the fact it isn't really possible to move in a place with a vacuum, the universe is so big, will you know where the Earth is? Imagine being lost in the ever-expanding universe, with no life being your company. It's just you, and the lonely stars and planets.

I am not a space expert, 90% of the info I shared are just things I retold through memory, so I doubt these are fully accurate. While I find space very interesting, it is not a subject I would put my future in, space engineering is scary. It is just a small interest I would sometimes do research in. P.S. Kurzgesagt peak

After being inspired by a friend, Pianobond's site, I also added a clock which follows my timezone. After that, I remembered that the very reason I changed the colors here is that I want to make it comfy, but now it feels more like a bedroom, so why not I call it my bedroom lol.

Thinking back, I don't have much freedom in my bedroom. Ever since I was young, my bedroom is shared by two other people, and we all sleep on a bunk bed, one at the top, one below, and one that can be pulled out under the other bed. The bedroom is not very big to begin with, when you spread your arms, you can touch the wall (which is the dresser) and the bed. Therefore, the room gets very stuffy during summer, and I couldn't really decorate because I prefer to be secretive about my hobbies (and there's not much space to decorate).

Honestly I don't think I should be too sad about my small bedroom, Hong Kong housing tend to be expensive and small, I should be glad I'm born in a middle-class family with stable income. However, I often hear that people outside Hong Kong, and even children and teens, have their own bedroom. People have posted pics of their bedrooms, being able to choose their choice of wallpaper and other decors, and maybe even built a shrine for their fixiations. Man you can imagine how jealous I get.

Well I shouldn't be wanting my own bedroom too much. While things will feel more comfortable if I did have one, there's no guarantee I will take care of it. I mean look at the cabinets on my bed, it is crowded with dolls I impulsively bought and stuff that should've been thrown away. The bedroom I wished to have would be crowded with random stationery and even more impulsively bought plushies. But man, a blorbo shrine would've been awesome...

There's no need to imagine anymore, because now there's a better solution (aside from the fact I technically now have all of the bedroom to myself), which is this place! While the blog page only have a sleepy color scheme and a clock, I will add more cool stuff here, maybe draggable images of dolls and blorbos, chill song playlist, or even calender that shows the next OC birthday (IDK if it's worth it to learn JS). Sky's the limit, but my imagination takes a bit of time to fly, so give me more time ok?

Big confession time: I used to be a student of a Jehovah's Witness, like when I was 10 years old. I used to be insecure having been in a cult once, but now I'm more forgiving of myself, like why would you blame a vulnerable child whose parents were divorcing for entering a religion which seems nice? I am more comfortable of sharing this semi-secret now, you guys won't judge, right?

Brief context of Jehovah's Witness (JW for short), it is a doomsday cult who believes the name of the god is called Jehovah, there will be an armageddon that destroys all non-believers, and believers will be revived and be immortal, and become a perfect human like god intended Adam and Eve to be. Baptised people are expected to fully believe in the god and the organisation, share the 'good news' to non-believers or worldly people, and avoid doing certain things, like celebrating birthdays and many holidays, making friends/dating worldly people, divorcing other than the reason of cheating, blood donation/transfusion, and women not being submissive towards men etc etc, or they will be shunned. There are many red flags in what I mentioned, but what scares me the most is the child abuse and sexual abuse stories from the ex-JWs, and yet the leaders did nothing. In my experience, the people there treated me very nice, so even when people tell me it is a cult, I had a hard time believing it. But when my interest for this place went down and me not wanting to follow certain rules, I ghosted my bible teacher. She was a nice person, I felt bad for leaving this cult I sometimes have nightmares about it.

I'll go back to the armageddon part. JW always bring up the fact that the world will eventually wipe out all evil, and become a place where JW believers can live happily and perfectly forever. And to minimise the people being wiped out, JWs will preach on the streets or in neighbours so that these people will be believers as well. The morally-correct part of me tells me that 'Yeah this is good, dead people can come back to life and you can have all the time drawing and lying on the bed', but that time my sister isn't exactly interested in this religion, and I do not have the courage to tell my friends about it. I thought that, if armageddon comes, I will have to leave the people I love behind. For years, that 'good' part of me kept telling me that I could just live with my bible teacher, or the brothers and sister that I 'totally' care about, but is it really worth it?

I also tried to follow some rules there, like not lying, pray before every meal, but there will be habits that I can never change. As I may have mentioned in the past, magic has been an important aspect for my imagination, and cat girls in cute clothing is my thing. But of course, JW believes magic and unmodest clothing is satanic, so I tried to avoid drawing anything unnatural or unfit for JW standards. Everytime I look at my old drawings, the ones with normal girls with normal, modest dresses, I just, ugh. And also with that rule, it would mean I would have to abandan my fixiations, which are Minecraft, Tower of Saviors and others, because they contain magic stuff. I could never imagine a world without these things, so I just hide the apps and not tell my bible teacher about it. They are more rules that I should've followed but didn't, so I just pray every night for forgiveness. But as my faith deteriorates, I prayed for the one last time, "Jehovah, if you exist, and armageddon will come, please just wipe me out along with the non-believers."

During my stay in JW, I often imagined what the paradise will look like. The JWs might rebuild the society and build houses, and they might ask me to design the blueprint (my bible teacher always say I can be an architect for some reason, I'm an illustrator-). We might often have meals together while praising the god, and maybe historical figures like Confucius will be there too. And when I have nothing to do, I can lay on a wooden bunk bed and stare at the ceiling.

It feels kinda miserable.

My sister isn't there, my crush isn't there, my friends isn't there. The only people I know to is my bible teacher, and pretend that her and others are my family, clinging onto her like a zombie. I couldn't even take my interests with me, and even if drawing and creating characters is allowed, a perfect human in Jehovah's standards will only create just to praise him, imagine UtSS that doesn't have magic and only serves as a propoganda for Jehovah. That thought of laying on a wooden bed in the perfect world becomes more depressing, it looks like I'm laying on bed not because I'm finally free from modern stress and can finally relax, but because I have ran out of interests to do. When I am stripped of all the things I love, then I am just an empty husk of a human body, is this what Jehovah thinks is a perfect human being? Not living seems like a better option.

Discussions of religion makes me uncomfortable IRL, and when my family asks about my experience in JW, I always get irritated. But it feels less stressful talking about this here. May all of you can live the way you want to, and be free from what god and others' expectations.

I feel like people often treat me like I'm like a child, probably due to my introverted and quiet nature. My mom and sister said I never have stress in my head (no thoughts, head empty), and the people I meet seems to take care of me as if I'm a needy child. It feels that people think I act strange, even mom thought I might be neurodivergent (though I'm sure it's just childhood ptsd) that isn't related- But yea I think my brain always feels hollow, and I do stuff that can be considered clumsy.

So as a child, I space out a lot (I still often do, but not as much). The first memory of me spacing out is during a vaccine shot, I was scared of the scared needle, then the nurse comforted me to imagine something else, like a flowery land with blue sky. My head got distracted by the thought then the shot was over. Ever since then, my imagination has been running my life, during classes it was difficult for me to even pay attention. I always remember the times when teachers asked me to answer a question when I was not paying attention, and my classmates intentionally gave me the wrong hint. One time during a dictation, we were supposed to take out the dictation notebook, but I was spacing out very hard for some reason. So while the teacher was speaking the text aloud, I only came back to reality in the middle of it, and I looked at my surrondings, not sure what to do now. My teacher noticed me and asked, "Where is your notebook?" I replied, "Uh, I was zoning out, very hard." My teacher got a bit frustrated and confused, but he just let me take out my notebook and continued. Sometimes I feel like the zoning outs are in fact dissociations, but at the time being I'm still uncertain what dissociation should feel like.

Whenever I relax my brain and there's a mirror, I will stare at myself. I'm not why I do this a lot, maybe this is how I remember human anatomy for my art? But I also do this at less appropriate times, like during student gatherings. Maybe the other students are chatting and socialising, and there's me, staring at the big ol' mirror. I feel like this is one of the reasons people treat me differently.

Another ditsy thing- or maybe it isn't related to clumsiness, is I would wake up during midnight to freshen up and get dressed for school during secondary school. I would walk into the bathroom, get tidied up, and only notice the sky is still dark and it is 3 in the morning after I walk out of the bathroom. I would sigh and go back to the bed with my uniform on, and my family would laugh at me for being so clumsy. Because it happened a lot back then, one time I was brushing my teeth, I gradually noticed that I didn't remember how I woke up, so I opened the door and my suspisions were true, god fucking damn it.

However, something tells me this might be sleepwalking, because I never remembered how I woke up, like the example I mentioned. However, from the examples of sleepwalking online describes the people to be asleep the entire time, while I seemed to wake up when I was brushing my teeth. There is not much point in diagnosing, this has not happened to me for years now.

I have been called air-headed so many times, I sometimes get scared of asking people for help, as they might make fun of me again. TBH I shouldn't be afraid anymore, I have been made fun of so long I should've gotten used to it.

Sometimes I think to myself, I am a Chinese-speaker, but why do I seem like I use English way more? Not counting speaking, I rarely typed Chinese online nowadays, and I seem to be quite disconnected from the Chinese artists I followed/friended on Facebook. What happened here?

When I was young, I had an English tutor who made learning English easy and fun. You get a stamp every lesson, and after collecting a certain amount, you will get a gift. Also around every month, we would play an English related board game, and one special occassion, we made a mini apple pastry together. And what’s important is the fact she taught us how to pronounce new words by dividing the syllables instead of just asking for the answer, this made me learn English way faster. I heard my tutor is currently teaching my little cousins too, she has raised so many generations :)

Another major factor I’m better at English is I’m an Ipad kid, who’s very addicted. My sister had to lock my Ipad because I was using it too much.

Anyways, there was this game called Scribblenauts, you can type the names of items and the item will show up in the world, it’s a puzzle game that requires you to summon appropriate items. I spent a lot of time playing that game, including making rainbow golden cats, playing tea parties, conducting horrible tortures that can be compared with those sims 3 compilations. By typing random words and Maxwell’s notebook, I learnt many new words like submarine and monorail cat.

I also wandered in Youtube a lot, watching videos that should’ve been hidden away from my immature eyes. But when Minecraft was booming, I stumbled on a Youtuber called DanTDM, the first video I watched of him is the hamster mod review. I quickly loved his videos, and binge-watched a lot of his videos. The videos themselves didn’t teach me many words, but it is the spark that guided me to watch more videos in English. I hope DanTDM is doing well.

Nostalgia trip over, time to complain about Chinese. While my mother language is Chinese, and my mom was concerned how my English grades are way better than Chinese, I have good justifications. English words are easy to memorise, if you don’t remember how to pronounce a word, just separate the words into syllables and speak them one by one (There are exceptions, like words originating from other languages and words like Wednesday, but exceptions are few enough to not worry about). If you don’t remember how to write it, just do it vice versa, speak it in your head and write it down. But Chinese? Almost every single word you have to memorise it by force. I remember the times I got near to breaking because I forgot how to write 通. And also, there are words that look similar, but the meaning/pronounciations are waaaaaaay different. Like 茶 and 荼, 辯 and 辨. ALSO, often times it is hard to remember if you write a word wrong, how am I supposed to remember the word 被 is written with 礻 or 衤??? And I can never remember how to write complex words such as 龜, it means turtle btw.

I’m better at English than Chinese, but of course my Chinese skills are still good enough to communicate with peers. The worst case scenarios is me not knowing how to speak random Chinese words on books or posters. And since the main speaking language of Hong Kong is Cantonese, me knowing how to speak fluentish English does not matter much.

However, this did encourage me to interact with the internet in English more. And that made me experience a lot of things, like making cool online friends, or watching debates about social issues from both western and Chinese sides which caused me to feel very afraid because I might get banished from opposing side if I dare to pick one side. At this point it is hard to imagine me not being in the English-speaking communities, being here has made me some great memories.

P.S. I sometimes imagine if my OCs getting Chinese localisation. Maybe Lavender can be directly translated as 薰衣草 or 小薰 if we are talking about more common names. Grey, my son, can still be called 灰銘, and Claire might have the word 晴 in her name, but I want to add another word so it will be two words like Grey. I’m too stressed over characters like Ruth or Wolf etc, but Cosmos… how do I name her? Just translating into 宇宙 doesn’t sound as cool, it’s as if calling her Space. I don’t know enough words to construct a cooler name that also have space motif. And I really made myself an obstacle naming my boy Jaspers, like it could’ve been 賈斯珀 if it’s Jasper, but nOoOo I had to add an s at the end, and 賈斯珀斯 just looks too weird.

P.P.S. Jasper the gem in Chinese is called 碧玉, so I tried to search names with contains 碧, I didn’t expect much because the word sounds kinda feminine. And it turns out there are websites out there that helps you find names with the word you want, YES now making Chinese names for my OCs is ten times easier. And 碧 has the meaning of the color blue, so uh not so suitable maybe.

I was in a bad place during secondary school, and one day after cram school, my mind created a imaginary friend who is kinda toxic to me, but she is kinda how I survived secondary school in the first place. After reconciling with that friend, she got split into three minds, counting 'me' it's four. I think it is a nice time to introduce me. This is kinda similar to the twitter post where a group of bunnies is in control of one's mind (car), that post and the other related comics really hits close to home.

Be warned: This is not a representation nor interpretation of DID. It is just my mind making imaginary friends so please do not use this as an example of DID.

I will start with my main persona. I am usually seen as cold and disinterested in many things, but my inner personality is more like a carefree child, only caring about my hobbies and favourite medias. I'm usually quite passive in doing my tasks, but my imaginary friends usually moves me towards a choice.

The one who is most influential to my choices is a cold and pessimistic person, probably a dead-inside businesswoman. I'll call her L for now. She tends to avoid social situations and anything that is seen as a chore. While she really tries her best to not make me stressed, she always thinks that I should've killed myself when I was 12 since everything is a let down and has caused nothing but stress to my life, which is somewhat problematic and frustrating, even though she said it out of concern for my trauma. That aside, she always allows me to do the things I want and not to worry about school and work first, and sometimes she will comfort me after a tiring day, so she isn't all toxic.

The next one is the supportive best friend I always wish to become, imagine a confident yet kind jock. Let's call her Codee (Hope it is not a weird name). She is the one who tries to spread positive vibes and push me out of my comfort zone. She acts like someone I've always wished to be, strong and unafraid of people. For a couple times, her confidence made me become braver and guided me to social situations. However, lately she has been quite sad about how I have fallen into a depressive state again. It's nice she often gives me (imaginative) hugs, she also often compliments me and gives me courage, she has gotten me through really awful moments, so I really need to thank her.

This one is newer, imagine a chaotic character who always cause problems and laughs like a hyena, we should call him (her?) Zack, because I don't see names starting with Z a lot. This likely comes from my rage in my childhood, after being mistreated and misunderstood for many years, he always tells me to be angry to the people who wasn't kind to me, and that I should turn the hatred to myself towards the people I should be mad about. He has good intentions, but he is also responsible for many of my intrusive thoughts, like I should try hurting or killing people to have my revenge, it makes me quite uncomfortable so I don't take him as seriously. Aside from that, he is quite silly, probably the main source of fun in my brain, he always dance to evilish music.

I love how these three are the concept personalities of my favourite OCs. These three brain mates keeps my brain active and rowdy, so as to fill in the lack of social interactions. Despite how terrible my mental state is, they managed to keep me alive. I can never imagine forgetting my imaginative friends like story always show, because they mean too much to me. They might not be perfect, but they are the reason why I am still functioning like a normal human being.

Are there any food that you wish to eat again but for whatever reason you can't anymore? I sure do. I felt like I have talked about this to someone or in somewhere, so if I unknowingly repeated the same topic in my blogs, I apologise :P

The earliest tasty food I miss is a yogurt ice-cream from a store that's closed down. I was a toddler at the time so I don't have much freedom to purchase whatever I want. I only remember my mom bought me a cup of yogurt ice-cream with gummy bears as toppings, and it tasted quite good. I always wished I had the opportunity to try it again, but stores tend to not last very long. Though there are plenty of yogurt ice-cream stores out there, there aren't much in the district I live in, and perhaps what I miss is the memory, not the food?

In primary school, there is a ham omelette that is extremely addicting. I am not a big fan of ham, but I really loved how juicy the egg is, and the seasoning is just right for me. During recess, I always rushed down stairs to get one or two, or even three bowls of ham omelette. Well after I graduated, I don't have the chance to order this tasty egg anymore.

Similar situation in secondary school. I don't know how it's cooked, but the chicken fingers taste sooooo good. It's very juicy and well-seasoned, it is hard to not get a second one after eating it, I always get sad if the stalls run out of chicken fingers. One time, when my art class was waiting for a bus to an art exhibition, the canteen had prepared a fresh batch of chicken fingers. While I wasn't a cripsy food kinda of person (had't got into that when I was a child SMH), I decided to give it a try. Holy fuck, that was the tastiest chicken I've tasted. Not only the crispiness doubled, the flavour and juiciness multiplied tenfold. I really should've bought another pack.

This one still hurts me. When I was in eighth grade (and also during my parent's divorce), there was a store selling boneless chicken wing ciabatta sandwich. It was my favourite after-school treat, I'm glad my sister introduced this place to me. I remember buying a sandwich after school, then going back home hearing the newest gossip about the divorce. When I knew that the place closed down, I was heartbroken, that sandwich was my comfort food.

This is the end of this post. Now I'm wondering, how reasonable is it if I visit my old school just for it's food? Just a thought.

06 Mar Update: I just noticed I missed two snacks I loved.

I won't tell you how old I am, I was told to not share too much info about myself on the internet. One thing I can say is I am an adult, and the backstory of my username KiwiMeowo.

I should start with my name origin Kiwi, which I forgot if I have already told it before. Around my HNK or CR fandom period, I decided to start using a new alias instead of Kyrea (which was given by a old friend, but I wanted to use something new). A bit of a background is that in Hong Kong, you might have Chinese name, but you are usually referred by your English name instead among peers. There is a backstory for the name Kiwi, as it is a name I used as a kid, but the real story is forgotten. One version (told by my sister) is that it is how my relatives called me because they couldn't pronounce my actual English name. My English name is a bit rare, given by my mom's friend. Sharing it can reveal my identity very quickly, so I will not do that (and if you stumble upon it somewhere else, wipe it off your brain). The other version is that I was bullied for having the name Kiwi (classic Kiwi...), so it was changed to a less silly name. Anyways when I deciding for a new name, I felt like reusing the name Kiwi.

Just having the name Kiwi will be too simple, I will get mixed up with other Kiwis. Then I got inspired by my old username in a game called Tower of Saviors, 來亂的喵, it means something like "Just messing around, meow". So I added Meow to Kiwi, KiwiMeow, not the most creative name but it's fine by me.

Fast forward a bit, I had the username KiwiMeowOwO in Twitter, because KiwiMeow was taken. I looked at my username, it feels kinda odd but I couldn't put a finger on it. It took my a while to realise without caps on, it's kiwimeowowo, how many owowowowowos do I need?! I decided to shorten it as KiwiMeOwO, then boom, I'm now called KiwiMeowo.

I feel like if people see my username, they would assume I am a cat lover. While yes, I prefer cats over dogs, but I like hamsters way more. Those soft, rotund specimen..,..,

Good afternoon, this is the second day after I drank Hong Kong milk tea, which I forgot that it contains a higher amount of caffeine than Taiwanese milk tea. I feel very strange and felt like I experienced the entirety of my OC lore.

This month has been quite tough, I became very depressed for unclear reason, likely due to loneliness at school, but it's still strange since I was used to being alone and stuff. May or may not have considered disappearing from existence.

Anyways I coped through depression by obsessing over my OC lore, like usual. What I found funny is how instead of fixiating over stuff with many content like in the past, including Cookie Run, Houseki no Kuni and many others, I choose to indulge myself in the story which is only availible in my imagination ATM. Every single content I want, I need to create them myself. One good thing about this is it is certain I will enjoy the content I created for myself, no NOTPs or unappetising medias.

Back to the caffeine thing, after drinking that milk tea, I spent the afternoon studying for a math course which I failed last year. The first three topics aren't too hard, but it gets ABSOLUTELY painful on the last ones. Despite my low attention span recently, the caffeine may have helped me a bit, I think I studied for around 3 hours or less?

After studying, I decided to uhhhh, work on my OC stuff again, ah yea I remember now, write more main story stuff. After writing that, I feel like the finding the flower that indicates your element event will have a second part, which the team finally finds the flower and learns about their powers and stuff. But before I do the part, they will have to meet up with Ruth, Wolf and Grey. At that time, I haven't added Wolf in this site. So I went ahead to give him a name, now you can see his page in the OC section.

Finishing his page, I was filled with the story's scenarios. Like what would Wolf do? Or how would he contribute to the team and the lore. What will Lavender and Cosmos do at the climax of the story? Something something, my insomnia continues. Then I made a list of songs that matches my OCs, potential spoilers beware.

Today, instead feeling depressed, my brain is just a weird fog. Not a depressed fog, it's similar to having a piece of void in your head. Hope you have a good day.

I have been quite depressed lately, so I’ll talk about simple joys in my life. Aside from eating tasty food, what often cheers me up is car rides. I never get sick of being in long car rides, even though I do get sick from car sickness.

There isn’t much to do in cars, especially if you get sick in cars very easily, as phones and books make you get nauseous quicker. So, the thing I do the most is watching the view outside the window. Even if I watched the view many times over, I never get bored. Watching the scenery in a car is as entertaining as watch Youtube videos, and probably as great as rollercoasters. It is hard to describe why I like this activity so much, it is just nice to see the lights from the windows of residental buildings, moving cars, and the lustrous ocean. Staring out of the window while feeling the gentle shaking of the vehicle is quite comforting.

What really enhances the experience is playing music. Whenever my dad takes my family somewhere with his car, he often turns on the music player, and let the playlist go on. I didn’t tell my dad this, but I quite enjoy the songs, they are old but gold. One of the songs I particularly love is 十七歲, I love the flute part.

In secondary school trips, teachers allow us to turn on our phones during the bus ride. But no matter what the school trip is about, the highlight of the day is always the bus ride. Being allowed to listen to my favourite songs while watching the view in sunset is perhaps the peak experience of school life. And when the bus arrived at the destination, I always get sad.

In university, such trips is less frequent. Though I go to school by metro train, the view past the 3rd station is just darkness, which isn’t that exciting. However, if I choose to walk another path after school (I cannot risk being stuck in a traffic jam on my way to school), I can wait for a bus instead, with the fees being just a tad bit expensive. The 30 minute ride to home becomes more fun when I get to sit and enjoy the moving scenery instead of being crushed like sardines in the train (I might still have to stand in the bus if I’m unlucky though). The slightly expensive fee is quite worth it, it has drastic improvement for my mental health. The seats available are always random, so the view I see is often different every time, which means new experience every bus ride! One time, I managed to get the best spot in the bus: the upper level front seat. My mom told me that row is quite dangerous, because I might get yeeted out of the bus when there’s a crash, but now I am an adult I can pick that seat and embrace the potential consequence. I’ll say that row has the best view-watching experience. Unlike sitting on the left or right side, which only shows one side of the view, front row seats guve you the full scenery. I put my hand on the bar in front of my seat like I’m on a rollercoaster, and I was feeling happy the whole time.

Not sure I will get tired of bus rides, probably never. But yea this is how I keep myself alive.

I don’t really expect everyone to have the same drawing habits, but I think it would be fun to share some of my drawing process. It feels like making some sort of art tutorial when I was an amateur, but now I have been drawing for 8 years, I have collected enough knowledge to show I know what I’m doing to an extent.

I notice a lot of artists nowadays prefer digital art. Mistakes can be undone, it can easier to adjust colors, has potentially unlimited brushes, and can be portable! However, my most preferred method of drawing is paper and pencil.

First of all, digital art stresses me out. With so many settings and stuff, I feel obligated to polish my work, which I tend to not do. The untidy line strokes looks nice on physical paper, but looks bad on the plain white digital canvas.

Secondly, pencil and paper drawing require the least amount of prep. You just pick up a pencil or something similar then you can start drawing. I’m not saying that digital art require a lot of time to get started, comparing medias like acrylic and watercolors (I have to get water, take out the colors, plate, and clean up when I finish…), it is quite simple. But, I found the constant updates of Medibang quite frustrating couple years ago, a box telling me to update the software poped up in the corner everytime I opened the software. That made me want to draw digitally less, even though I can simply ignore the box. Yea it’s mostly because I’m lazy. The updates have been less frequent though, so this isn’t even an issue anymore.

Third thing is my hand always feel disconnected from the cursor on the screen, the line strokes often does not feel right. On paper, I can draw circles, clean lines and details fairly quickly. But for digital art, I have to keep undoing and erasing in order to get one line right. I think it’s just skill issue, I enjoy the feel of paper more anyway.

Rant over, I can now talk about how I draw. Regarding my artstyle, I can’t really tell if my artstyle is special or appealing to many people, it still feels anime but less polished (Hot take: anime style is not simple, you still need a lot of knowledge on anatomy and coloring). After I was inspired by MishyMolly in the Mineplex forum, I went ahead and checked out tutorials and speedpaints on Youtube. Hyanna Natsu in particular was my favourite artist at that time. But my artstyle is mostly a amalgamation of all the cool art I have seen, so I would not know which artist is my biggest inspiration.

One thing worth mentioning is I kept drawing chibis before late 2021. Chibi artstyle is not bad, but I don’t think it works for me as a main artstyle. And probably because I was also depressed, there was no significant growth in my art for a long time. I think things only started to change when I designed Cosmos, and probably when I watched Blue Lock as well. This anime may or may not have motivated me to experiement with more dynamic poses, and also muscles.

After years of drawing and staring at myself when I’m bored (I think people think I’m weird due to this), I have a better image of the human body in my head. Although I draw limbs using ovals/circles when I was new to drawing, I find myself using more angular shapes as I progress more, I like how crispy it feels.

After I’m done with the sketch, I can either call it done and go on with the next drawing, or further polish it. The sketch may be alright, but it may look bland, especially if you simply trace the sketch when doing lineart. My solution is to not do the lineart ‘perfectly’, which means the lineart is like the sketch, but cleaner. So sometimes in digital, I just use the sketch as the lineart. Another thing I recently do is ‘Thick lines on the outside, thin lines on the inside’ (Marikuun, 20XX). I just thicken the lines on the border and parts of the object on the front. You can probably notice this in my more recent drawings. It really makes things pop more.

I don’t know if there’s anything special about my coloring/shading process. I use the watercolor brush for shading and detailing, I also use it for blending because the blur brush in Mediband sucks, seriously whyyy, but at least it forced me to keep the texture of brushstrokes instead of blurring every shadows.

One important thing is to not afraid of using stronger colors, deeper shading can enhance your drawing a lot. I think most artists are aware of this trick, but my way to pick a darker color is to move the original color in the color box to the lower right, then move the color wheel, usually towards the direction near blue (it depends on the context). If you are looking for highlights, do the opposite thing. Some people use multiply because it does similar things and is more efficient. But for me, I enjoy the painting process too much to use this method, and it doesn’t feel as good blending the colors, so I only use tis technique when I have to shade a complicated area.

One thing I learnt from drawing Cosmos is adding some saturated colors can make your art tastier. Often times when I color her dark blue wings/cat ears/eyes, I add a bit of lighter purple. I think it works similarly to highlights. So, what even is this technique? Other artists probably do this a lot better-

After you finished the major shading stuff, I airbrush the lineart with the color of the skin or parts that I think I should airbrush, it will have extra flavour. After that, merge all the color layers and lineart!! It makes tidying up way easier for me, but it can take a longer time to polish, so make sure to do it last.

I usually skip backgrounds. But if you really want to draw something other than white background with simple shapes, you need planning When doing the draft, you need to think of the composition and how the background works with the character. This is just what I heard, the last time I drew detailed background is in Cosmos’ birthday.

After I have finished this blog, I started to question the point of this post. Anyway.

Thanks to my period, I had a weird but kinda realistic dream last night. I'm writing this right after I woke up, well at leat I have a new blog topic.

Before I talk about the content of my dream, I should mention the patterns of my dreams. I tend to be able to fly, especially when there are enemies trying to catch me, however my flying is quite weak, and I can never fly out of reach of the enemies who try to catch me. I can occasionally climb on buildings, but flying was my preferred method of moving. Also, whenever there are hide and seek, I always gets found and I will always run out of the catchers hands, I should really complain about this, being found stresses me out. Also I can reverse time sometimes.

My dreams starts on a giant ship, I was travelling to (or in?) Japan with my secondary school classmates, I have been dreaming of Japan a lot lately. When the guide took us outside the ship, there was a large tremor. Tremors on ships are normal, I thought, then I saw the people flying into mid air, then crashing onto the floor or landed into the sea. I closed my eyes away from the horrible injuries, me and my close friend spontaneously held hands and held onto the railing behind us. Every tremor, I could feel the gravity disappearing, then crushing me with great might. Even with my eyes closed, I could hear the screams and the crashing between the waves and the walls. I could not think of anything else, then to pray we don't get hit by anything. And then the ship suddenly stopped moving. I opened my eyes, and everything was in pieces. I stood on the broken remains of the ship, and then I saw something rising in the water.

A giant whale with shiny, red scales stared at me with it's yellow, dragonlike eyes, looking at me like we are it's prey

And everything went dark...

So I woke up in front of a supermarket in a giant shopping mall. It was a dream so I didn't question much about it, but I still remembered the fact lots of people got killed.

But the danger hadn't ended yet, apparently I was being chased by some people. I got the ability to fly and turn into items similar to Hide and Seek in HiveMC. I turned into potato chip bags, I turned into candies, but they always found me everytime without fail. I was getting irritated, is it even possible to find me disguising as a tiny piece of Sugus candy in giant stacks of Sugus candies?

Suddenly, I accidentally toppled over a stack of candies, and a thought struck me. I stopped my hiding mode, and started my offense state. With the countless Sugus candy stacks, I pushed them onto the people chasing me, crushing and immobilizing them. As I toppled over many candy towers, I saw the floor was not visible anymore, replaced by the infinite Sugus candies. I really should put an end to this.

In a distance, I saw a tiny flame growing, I grabbed a wooden stick nearby. And I lighted it, I started fires onto walls. That's right, I got so frustrated I committed arson. As I light more places into fiery hell, I could feel less and less people are chasing me. After I'm done with fires, I went into the exit.

For some reason, I got the backstory of a family, it was a family of an anthro foxes or wolves, I can't tell. The parents have two daughters. One of them is adopted, but they both loved each other very much. However, the step-sister became very ill. Not sure why, the parents thought it was a good idea to conduct experiements on the ill daughter, is it to cure her? I think I saw the other daughter chasing me as well, but oh well she might be dead too.

A empty, long, narrow room came into my view, and at the end of the room is a small elevator. As I stepped onto it, it started moving upwards, and it was dispensing coins? Maybe because I view it as a game, it started giving me rewards like levels at the end of a level. Not soon after, I returned to the shopping mall.

The grand and busy shopping mall was apparently closing down permanently, because of a certain incident in the mall, and the culprit (me) has not been found. The only clue they had is that I can fly, so I have to leave the mall without flying, which I accidently did so and have to turn back time multiple occasions SMH. As I was leaving the place, I saw many stores closing and preparing to move or deal with what they are doing to do in the future, I couldn't help but blame myself for ruining their lives. But after that, nothing much happened and I successfully left the mall thinking, "Man I'm going to need so much therapy after this."

There's an alternate ending, where I didn't leave the supermarket, or I returned to the supermarket after leaving. Doing this will lead to me being trapped in a room, and I will die, but not by being crashed by rubble or being burnt alive. For unknown reason, there were a few anthro foxes/wolves approaching me, then injected something into my heart with a staplegun-like gadget. "We have given you euthanasia, you will die a peaceful and painless death." And they also injected themselves with the syringe. A person with pink, long hair and white gown appeared, which they said this is part of the dying process and it's normal. And suddenly, blood came out of their nose and mouth, a light cough, and they were perished. I wanted to thank them for uh, not letting me die being crushed in a building, but I couldn't say anything, I could feel my air pipes being clogged, must be the blood I thought. And so, I felt a sharp pain in my heart, and it's over.

How well can you guys tolerate caffeine? I really love the taste of coffee, but sadly I cannot handle much caffeine, its effects are very strong in my body.

Coffee tend to help people stay energized, it does the same to me as well, but it also gives me the side effect of increased heartbeat and makes me go to the toilet more often. If I have a little too much caffeine, I might fail to fall asleep, even if I have the coffee very early.

Remember when dalgona coffee was trending? My family actually tried making it. The results looked quite good, the foamy coffee floated on the milk, but this also meant the foam is harder to mix into the milk, making the bitterness stronger. Drinking the beverage, I lost track of how much coffee I was consuming. That night and the night after, I did not have a good sleep.

Though caffeine is very strong for me, not all the effects are bad. Sometime during November, I bought a can of coffee before class because I woke up at 6am for a 9am class (my school is quite far away). During a Python class, I was feeling kinda bored (Don't judge, I learn Python very quickly), so I suddenly felt like I should write the story ideas for my OCs. After writing Lavender and Cosmos, I couldn't stop writing. That time, I drafted the story concepts for the RS gang, and fleshed out all my OCs very much. Not only did it help me progress my OC development, the coffee was the catalyst of giving my a creative boost for 2-3 months. Amazing isn't it?

The effect I'll get in the next coffee I have can be random, so here is a list of possible effects:

- Increased heartbeat: Heart beating so hard it makes you feel uncomfortable

- Increased energy: Becomes less sleepy, but this often occurs in the wrong time

- Drowsiness: It usually happens after the above effects has passed

- Fidgeting: I couldn't stop moving my body, I couldn't stay still in my seat help

- Anxiety: Why am I anxious when there isn't even a threat?

- Attention boost: Able to absorb class knowledge more, Kiwi is finally paying attention at school

- Creative boost: Increased motivation for drawing and creating story ideas, it might last for a long time

- Frequent toilet visits: This always happens every time I have coffee lol

I think that's about it. This semester requires me to wake up early every weekday, so it is going to be tough on my mind, hope I survive this.

I was supposed to post more blogs, I had plenty of ideas. But thanks to school and my awful cold, I have lost almost all motivation for art and blogs. I kinda wanted to talk about Cosmos, but I figured it might be too early (The last post about her creation is only August). So, how about:

1. Oldest OC

My first OC is my sona, I created her when I was a toddler. She is a magical girl with star motifs, and has a magical cat and a magical staff as sidekicks!

2. Newest OC

My newest OCs are these! I haven't named them yet, you can expect their complete bio and design in maybe, one or two years?

3. Favorite OC

Cosmos, duh

4. TAny villain OCs?

here isn't really any OCs with full evil intent for the time being, there is one I have been building but I cannot guarantee she will be actually added. Maybe Mira's team are villains, but they aren't bad people, I don't want to write them that way, so they are just antagonists. But in terms of looks, Jaspers seems like one, and he IS one of the antagonists.

5. Main reason for writing OCs

Writing OCs is fun, and when you get attached to them, writing their story feels the same as analysing and theorising for a character you love!

6. Describe your OC writing process

There are two ways my OC can show up. The most common way is they are born by pieces of my ideas. They might be born from small concepts I collected over the years, for example, a magical girl with compact umbrella as weapon (Claire), a character with bandana (Mira), a morally grey character who seems perfect at first glance (Mira). Or vice versa, I created some designs but I wait for them until I find a concept idea to put into them (The new OCs I mentioned above). When a concept idea finds a design that matches, or if concept ideas collided into a functional OC, they may become part of my OC gang. The second, less common way is they appear from my dreams, only Lavender and Mira are born this way.

7. Favorite OC ship

Currently, it's Claire and Jaspers. I even talked about them in the blog before the last!

8. Do you ship your OC with someone else's OC?

Nope

9. Weirdest OC

Weird as in the character design, or the creation process? Ok I have a character who is weird in both. Though he hasn't been named, he is essentially a comic relief, which I have been reluctant to add since it clashes with the semi-serious tone. The story can be light-hearted, but it doesn't really match, I might have to tone down his personality. Anyway you can imagine this character is like the average middle schooler, he plays random pranks, he gets into trouble for fun, and probably insults others a lot. However, his insults are mild compared to his best bud, Raven. You can read a bit more here.

10. Favorite OC design

Shockingly, it's not Cosmos. It is actually Claire! Before her ref is drawn, I have been wanting to have an magical OC in raincoat and has a compact umbrella as a weapon. The concept is there, but it took me a while to give the concept to the redesign of Claire. The idea is fun, y'know!

11. Would you consider yourself nice to your OCs?

I am nicer to the main cast, because just hardships and angst won't lead them anywhere... However, I don't hesitate to add suffering if the story calls for it, especially to the very dead RS team, and Jaspers. So... nope I'm not a nice creator.

12. Have you killed any of your OCs?

All the missing members of RS are dead to an extent, but the most dead is Solar.

13. Are any of your OCs parent's?

Does this question mean if any of my OCs are parents, or if any of have OCs have parents. If it's the former one, all of UtSS characters are incapable of reproduction, so none of them are parents. However, Charles from Dreamland Workshop is a divorced father, his daughter lives with her mother LOL. If it's the latter question, if you consider Charles are the dolls' father figure, then maybe? But he isn't doing a great job giving them care.

14. Are there any OCs you are neglecting?

Sometimes I feel like I don't give enough care for Lavender, she is the protagonist, I feel like she requires the most detail. However, I found her a bit hard to write, IDK if she should be cynical after all her life of being sad, or be motivated after finding a group of people supporting her. Maybe it would be easier to decide when I flesh out Mira's team. Come to think of it, I am literally worrying over Lav's story, am I really neglecting her? I should've talked about characters like Golden Kiwi Cookie!

15. Are there OCs hard to write?

Whoops, I aciidentally answered that last question. I worry if I write Lavender too cynical, she would be too much of an asshole, but if she's too nice, she's just boring. I need to find the perfect balance to make her a good, maybe morally gay grey character.

16. Tallest and shortest OCs?

Easy! It's Jaspers and Bun respectively!!!... EASTER EGG SPOILER TIME: I have been thinking for the past few days, I feel like it can be a good idea to create a spin off, a story in the POV of Jaspers after the accident, with Bun as a teammate (they are a very strange character, and very interesting NGL, I love them). You can know more about the RS and the mysterious worldbuilding of Stardust Isle and even the gods.

17. Your oldest and youngest OCs?

If we ignore about weird god time shenanigans, the oldest is probably Charles, he is only middle aged looking person in all my OCs. The youngest is Ruth, however, there is an OC called Cupcake, who is very young, but the story is morbidly dark, so I'm not too sure if I should share her lore.

18. Do you dislike any of your OCs?

Not really, even if they are created to be unlikeable, I just find them very silly.

19. Have you ever made a self-insert?

I assume it does not refer to sonas, like Kyrea and my current one. Yes, aside from Cosmos, who was originally intended to be a self-insert but the idea was scrapped due to not matching me at all, I created an OC for GELL HEROES, whose hero name is DART. She serves as a OC writing practise, since I find it difficult to visualise a character's mind, so why not create an OC who's basically me?

20. An OC regret

Is this question about what I regret when making OCs? I don't know if this one's a regret, this is more of what I kinda miss. When I just started creating the lore of UtSS and Cosmos, it was simplier and probably has more plotholes. And Cosmos was more different back then, instead of the silly and cheerful personality she currently has, she was more on the cooler hero side, maybe like a mix of Hollyberry Cookie and Clotted Cream Cookie vibes. I really love the current Cosmos, not lying, but sometimes I miss the days of making random plot that doesn't make sense but I couldn't still enjoy. But in the process of making lore, the things I have let go has came back to my in different forms, so maybe in the future there will be stuff that makes up for it.

That's the end of this QnA, if you have other questions, you can ask me in the chatbox or in the questbook!

My OC birthdays are quite strange, if you consider them in worldbuilding, what do you mean 4 characters just happened to be born in 29 September? It's just because they are based off the dates I created them, but IDK how I can explain it in terms of lore, do I just make 29 September most people's birthday, sounds ridiculous LMAO.

After I removed the birthday announcement of Grey and Claire, I was wondering whose birthday is coming next. "It is Ruth next, right?" I thought, as I checked her birthday. 13 June huh... Hold the fuck up, why is her birthday so far away from Grey and Claire???

Apparently, when I first drew them, I perhaps did not immediately make them my OCs. I only made them part of my gang in March 2016. Maybe I only got the thought of giving them a OC ref when I saw my Facebook friends making OC refs.

That really brings me back. When I was starting my art journey, I also liked a Taiwan Minecraft Animator. And from the community, I found plenty of art friends from Taiwan. It was thanks to them, I got plenty of inspirations and joy from their art. It is unfortunate that the community collapsed after the youtuber got into a controversy, and we aren't as close as we used to.

Ok nostalgia over. It really feels like that Ruth is created very soon after Grey and Claire. Although March is closer to June, my initial thought is that Ruth is created less than a month away. I remember waiting for an elevator, while thinking of new OCs to create, did I seriously take 3 months to design a character, she doesn't even have lore at the time!? Ok I shouldn't be that harsh on my younger self, I still take forever to create one OC.

After some checking, the next birthday isn't Ruth, but actually Golden Kiwi Cookie, 25 Jan... 4 DAYS LATER?! I almost thought the next is Solar's... Wow I am quite close to forgetting her birthday, I should jot down the birthdays of my OCs later...

I just finished the list of birthdays of my OCs (in yellow text) and my favourite characters. Man if I celebrate all these character's birthdays, the main page would be snowing starflakes non stop. I found a few fun facts tho. First of all, Solar share the same birthday as Avocado Cookie, hope Solar doesn't get a cold from all these puns by Avo LOL. Second of all, according to statistics, it is true that best characters are born in September, and you cannot deny it's true. It kinda hurts a bit when some of the birthdays fail to meet by just a day, man Jaspers (and the others) could've shared the same birthday as Pome...

As I am writing this, it is 4am and I am very ill. I had a dream where I saw Jaspers and I woke up at 2am because my body is convinced that I am having a sensory overload. So, let's continue the last conversation.

In a certain post, I mentioned I tend to not like romance stories (they give me the ick), and I rarely ever enjoy a ship. But recently, I found out that shipping your own OCs is actually quite fun? I think if I put the tropes from my OC shipping into other medias I would not like it, but I feel like my standards for shipping has dropped rock bottom when I'm the one writing it.

There's something therapeutic about seeing my OCs being happy, they don't have to do anything that's romantic, they can just sit next to each other and enjoy each other's company. Especially if one or both of them were depressed, it would be especially heartwarming to see them finally feel less stressed, is this what they called hurt/comfort?

Ever since I started the lore-building for UtSS (Upon the Starry Sky. I'm not writing the whole thing again), I have been thinking of the dynamics of different characters, romance (even though it doesn't really exist in canon), friendship, or a third, more sinister thing. We have Lavender and Cosmos as the Emo and the Golden Retriever (ironically Cosmos is a cat), Lavender and Mira as Toxic Doomed Yuri, Solar and Jaspers as Rivals to... rivals? But today, I'll let Jaspers and Claire take the stage.

(Note: I have heard some people think found family exclusively means the characters are now family-related, but I think that found family isn't just the traditional family structure, but a group of people who found comfort when together.)

I'm sorry for betraying the romance hater title, but these two has potential, and I hope I don't accidentally spoil the story while rambling.

Jaspers had always been quite depressed his whole life, and doesn't really have a direction or hope in life. Although Claire lost her home, she made new friends in her new home and became more motivated to protect what she cares about. After being bothered by Solar and Claire nth times, Jaspers somehow became friends with them. Claire was a caring person, and would try to hang out with him more seeing him being lonely all the time. Jaspers may be cold at first, but eventually warm up to her. After being neglected for so long, he finally became happy in a group where he is treated kindly. I can imagine him acting softer around Claire, and I suddenly imagined Claire saying "Excuse me, he said no pickles!" It's unfortunate the gang went missing in the Voided Lands... (UtSS spoilers?: Of course, if I talk about them this much, this is definitely not the end for them. Shockingly for each of them, they are not dead dead. Although I haven't finished their lore, my plan is that Jaspers will team up with some sort of deity and try to save his friends. Claire's situation is the weirdest, and he would become more and more desperate to save her. I can watch him slowly spiral down into madness and despair trying to reach for the only and smallest hope he has left, supernatural horrors my beloved. Perhaps the end of the gang will be tragic. I don't think I will share this in my OCs page in the near future, so if you see this, congrats you earned a new info about the RS gang! )

Solar x Claire is very good as well. Solar may seem egotistical, but deep down she's quite insecure about herself. I think Claire would be the only one that actually enjoys Solar's presence, since Solar's charisma and positivity is interesting to her. Solar may constantly be praising herself, but she receives a genuine compliment from Claire, she probably wouldn't know how to handle it, and become flustered with computer loading noises (This my headcanon, not canon). It's like that who fell first (Claire) and who fell harder (Solar) twitter post. Solar would learn to care about her friends, and become more confident in herself, character development!

Solar x Jaspers is more silly, because it's rivals to rivals trope, and I like this. Both of their fighting skills are quite good, and as Solar was quite desperate to maintain her best in the school status, she constantly tries to challenge him into a duel, He would be like "fine... -_-" However, these two are not just rivals who always fight each other. Solar would eventually share joy with him or protect him like a friend, seeing Solar finally being nice will probably feel rewarding. (UtSS spoilers?: What's tragic is that, in the future there will be a arc parallelling their dynamic. But this time, Jaspers will be the one starting the fight, and "Solar" will be the one having to deal with the situation. )

Hell yeah love triangle!!! This trope is very funny BTW, you tell me that these three just happens to fell in love with one another?

There are more potential ships that my non-existent fandom would love, but that would be too much spoilers. In the future, I hope I can share more lore, more ships, more angst.

What I didn't talk about much is the greatness of found family, maybe there are not much examples that I like, but I got some I enjoy a lot.

I think the first time I cared about a group of characters is during my Sky: Children of the Light phase. After learning about the lore and the elders, I quickly got attached to them. I felt that if they had more interactions in the game, they would act like a family, probably, it's just very cute to imagine that. Also, it can be very funny to think they often do dumb stuff together despite being gods. Something similar happened when the Ancients from Cookie Run: Kingdom were teased in Youtube. Though there was not much information, I quickly thought that they were long-time travellers and friends, and from their bios and character designs, I thought of their interactions and silly shenanigans. You can imagine my reaction watching The Council of Heroes (2nd best CRK story BTW).

Ok back to OCs. In the early development of Cosmos, she's supposed to be in a team, but that was scrapped (I have mentioned this somewhere). The goal of that is to achieve that silly found family vibes, but because I wanted to expand the lore in another direction, that team isn't a thing anymore. Well except it got reborn, called Reach for the Stars, I call them RS for short. We have Claire, Solar, Jaspers, Bun, and Grey, a group of five that sometimes wonder into the woods or take part in a drama show.

I don't think I shared a lot of stuff about them, but maybe I would add these into weird easter eggs like I did before, but now I shall share them here for accessibility. In this world, humans are kinda spawned like Minecraft, so the concept of families and homes are kinda different, but I'll still called these homes. Claire and Grey lost their home when they were young, and moved to where Solar lived, so Claire has a fear of losing her loved ones. Jaspers didn't live with Solar his whole live as well, but his original home treated him awfully (I don't like talking about abuse), and only got to leave when it happened to be destroyed like Claire and Grey's. Bun's backstory is, probably, the same. Solar didn't really have a tragic story, but her personality development obstructed her from making friends (and perhaps a bit of self-worth issues). And you've guessed it, these depressed MFs are going to bond.

At first, it may seem it is hard for these guys to be friends, Solar is a narcissist, Jaspers often stays out of human contact, Bun can act harsh sometimes, and Grey is too weak to go to classes. However, we have Claire, heart of the team, and with power of fiction, anything is possible. Solar looked annoying, but her positive and strong personality seemed to got Claire's interest, and somehow this lead to Solar opening up to her inner personality. Jaspers usually stood out of trouble, but after being annoyed by Solar many times, he found himself in a group of dumbasses that are also his friends. Bun was noticed by the gang outside of the home, despite how much Bun tried to get them to leave, they were slowly softened by their kindness.

Though I haven't really written the stuff down, but some of their memories are based off my experience with my cousins. They all have went to study overseas, however, when we were younger, we used to play lots of games. I can be a problematic child, and they probably don't really like me, but there are some happy memories with them.

It is sad that majority of RS is kinda dead, and by dead I mean somewhere between dead and alive.

You might be curious, how about the main gang: Lavender, Cosmos, Grey and Ruth? IDK, I don't feel their chemistry is as entertaining as RS, which can be chaotic and silly. 2 of them is quite depressed, and Cosmos is having memory loss so that saves her from depression (for now). It feels like Ruth is the only one who is not depressed and is helping them get through stuff. Maybe I should flesh out their personalities more, or maybe I should learn what's tasty about depressed x depressed friendship dynamic.

I would talk about shipping, but I'll save that for later.

Have you ever look at something you made, and you feel a sense of happiness? So recently IDK why, I look at my site, and I just, feel kinda proud about how much I have done here. So in this blog, it will a review of my process of building this site, and expect it to be messy as hell because I'm listening to this while writing hhh, I can't multitask-

Remember I originally used a Carrd in my bio? It was quite fun to do something that can express myself after all these years of hiding myself away, but the flaw of Carrd is that there are a limited of items you can but if you are using it free. I kinda kept using Carrd until a friend of mine told me about neocities. "HTML huh, haven't done that since secondary school!" I have forgotten how to code HTML, but I know it can be simple if I try to learn (Kiwi, 2023). I don't really dare to make the layout all on my own though, so I looked up some layouts that are free to use. Thank you Eggy! They made a layout that is very close to what I had in mind, the sidebar and stuff. Then I analysed the html and css codes, to refresh my memory of secondary school knowledge, it was easier than I thought to alter stuff. For the color palatte, it is certainly not hard to guess who it is based on lmao.

The first step was to move the stuff in my Carrd to this site, who I am, my fandoms, and other stuff which is convenient to visitors. Because there is more room for new content, and expressing myself is my main goal, I made my first blog post about Cosmos in 2023, because she is my favourite.

I believe it took me a while to create my OCs page, because I had no idea how to make to work in different devices and browsers. It was not mobile friendly until I remember Artfight website's layout can be an inspiration, the profile images shrink when the screen gets narrower. With the help of f12, I figured out the stuff and now I can view it with my phone with screwing things up. This layout also helped me build my art page, so all the effort has been worth it.

What's nice about building this site is that it sped up my process of storybuilding. Wanting to fill up my OCs page, I had to squeeze my brain and add stuff that was newly made up into the page. Shockingly, these random stuff I added actually contributed to the lore a lot accidentally, one example is Grey's fear of cats, to explain it with less spoilers, cats are seen as something with high status.

Gradually, more and more stuff is added, I even added the arts page which I initially not want to add. I already have twitter, however, that account tends to be noticed my Cookie Run fans more, and my original art gets less attention. I felt like it would be better to post my OC stuff in somewhere new, basically post in my site. I don't know how many people actually saw my art, but it feels nice that some people saw them and liked them.

It might just be a digital place and codes and stuff, but this place feels like home to me. It is quite similar to my state of mind, organised and clean, yet messy in words. It isn't as shiny as other sites, but it is comfortable like a simple soft sofa. It is my comfort place, just as I intended.

When I was a kid, I had a distaste towards muscular characters, or just muscular bodies in general. In TV shows, they are always shown to be loved by many women and CoNsTaNtLy swooned over. As an avid hater of romance, I always hated them, what's so attractive about muscles?

Fast forward to 2018, when I started playing Cookie Run: Ovenbreak. When I play trophy race, I picked the cookies with the highest HP I have: Avocado Cookie as main, and Pistachio Cookie as relay. Everytime you start a run, the loading screen will show the main cookie you are using along with a quote. And Avocado is a funny character, she's a blacksmith who cools down using puns. Everytime she says something dumb like "Don't eat the watch! It's time-consuming!", I die of laughter. It didn't take much time for me to fall in love with her.

I had never imagined that I would like a buff character, but what's more surprising is what this leads to. I think because of this, I also fell for Keiji Shinogi and Hollyberry Cookie, I want them to crush my face with their arms /hj. And I started to respect muscles drawings, because it is extremely difficult to draw muscles, it took me a long time to draw something that looks like muscular body and not a pile of mess.

And guess what, this is why I got out of my comfort zone, and made a muscular character, and you've guessed it, it's Cosmos (and Jaspers I guess lol)! At first, it took me a while to only make slightly buffer than a stick. But overtime, I enjoyed drawing muscles more, and made her more muscular. She isn't as buff as Hollyberry the goated, but I think yea that fits Cosmos.

I think my younger self is pissed at me for letting buff people into her imaginative world, that I reply, "Cope". Maybe in the future, I will make more muscular characters (mmm buff women), so I hope I get better at anatomy.

How many OCs do you have? From social medias, I see people tends to make lots of OCs, saying they often forget about old ones and design a new one. Well for me, I don't really consider myself as having many OCs.

If you count every single characters I created, it is probably true that I created lots of them, probably over 30. However, many of them isn't that fleshed out, they aren't worth remembering really. If you only count major ones... OK let me recount them.

These are the character created in my childhood, these characters are brought back to life for my Upon the Starry Sky lore, they are in the story and maybe you don't even know!

My first Sona, my cat sidekick, unnamed god which is based off my sister, Raven + unnamed dude (They're a bully duo BTW), plant girl

They are those created during the 2015-2016 period, A.K.A. the time I just started drawing more seriously.

Kyrea, Grey, Claire(Niya), Ruth, Cupcake, Bob (Bob isn't that important, but I see him as part of the gang anyway), Kris, Kristy

These are the characters before 2021, there's plenty of them, but I will list only some. However, I actually have a photo of the character list, along with characters already listed above, check it out here!

Luna, Leo, Charles, Charlotte, Noir, Yume(Lavender), Mira(Linia)

And finally, the post-2021 characters, and the newest era. Like I said somewhere before, I had a drastic change, and it's kinda a peak arc for me.

Cosmos, Jaspers, Penelope, Bun, unnamed knight, Solar, Golden Kiwi Cookie, my current sona

Some of the time slots of the characters are more vague though, they might only have gotten their design fairly recently, but they have been existing for a long time, like Raven.

The total number is 29, unless I counted it wrong lol... Damn when I count them out it really feels I have plenty of OCs, I swear it feels like I have only 10 of them. I was going to go on a rant on how I have a hard time getting attached to my OCs, well I should.

I may have promised to my OCs in 2017 that I will not abandon them, well that's hard to achieve, it is quite difficult to care about them if I don't get attached to them in the first place. Even if I try to create a banger design, if I don't try hard enough, I probably forget about it very quickly. That is what I mean by I could've created way more OCs than that. Good thing about this is perhaps there will be less character wasted as NPCs *shrugs*.

So today, I went outside to get something. Probably due to my absent-mindness, I walked a slightly different path home. And on the path, I saw a little plush on the floor.

This is a prize you can get in a conveyor belt sushi restaurant called Sushiro, never had the opportunity to get it due to how little I eat there since it's rather expensive. This is not the first time I see a lost toy or doll on the road, often times I just let it be, and hope the rightful owner will pick it up, or else it would be picked up as a trash and disappear from society forever. I took a picture of it, and shared it to my discord friends. I was going to move on, but for whatever reason, I turned back to the small doll on the floor. Perhaps I tend to get more emotional before periods, I felt very bad for the plush. The chances of the owner coming back for it is far too small, and the most possible fate of it is being thrown away. So I walked up, picked up the doll, and sat down in the nearby park, then asked my sister and discord friends for some advice. 15 minutes later, I put the plushie in my pocket, and went home.

I posted in the lost and found pages, for the small chance that the owner uses Facebook and tries to find it. For now, it is in a tiny case with Chigiri Hyoma figure. I hope it is the right choice, and the owner didn't come back to that place after I picked it up.

I actually forgot to explain the origin of the name for my OC: Lavender. For a while, I thought the reason I named her that is because that she is purple, lavender is purple, that should be her name. Well I forgot about I small detail.

Due to my natural girlfailure-ness, I was bullied as far as during kindergarten. There was three girls who kept messing with me. If memeory serves me correctly, one of them, also the one who bullied me the most, is called Lavender. That girl was kinda scary, one day she would treat you like a friend, then the very next day she would be the meanest person you know. I don't know what kind of environment would build such personality.

So anyway fast forward to June 2023, I was drawing the refs for Cosmos and the one currently known as Lavender. Months before this I was already struggling with finding a name for Lavender, Neika (old name for Kyrea) and Iris was the placeholder names. However I wasn't exactly satisfied with those, so I was searching for other better names. Until the flower name Lavender showed up, then I remembered that strange girl from kindergarten. I was like, "What if... I name this character after her? Just for the lols." Then yea, she is now named Lavender.

After creating the refs, for some reason, I completely forgot this origin. Then, whenever I see the word Lavender, my brain makes happy chemicals. It's funny that the name of a person who caused my so much terror is now the name of a character I like so much. Good thing Lavender isn't really an asshole, maybe.

As a child, I often judged food by its appearance, since I tend to know if it looks unappetising, then it is. Mushrooms, eggplants, many Chinese food, it is very difficult for me to even put them in my mouth. My family always tell me that I should try them, there are two possibilities, 1. I try it, and it doesn't taste good, but if I put it out of the bowl, it would be rude. 2. I have already tried it, and I know I don't like it, and somehow people tell me I should try it again. What? 3. I try it and I actually like it, but in my memory it only happened once. I feel like some of the food I avoid is actually not that disgusting, but the fact my relatives tends to make fun of me for being a picky eater makes me dislike said food more than I actually do.

I believe due to this trait, I was underweight when I was young. However, when I reached puberty, my appetite increased greatly. Every Lunch, I would go ask for a rice refill (in many schools, you can order lunch boxes for each month, and yes you can refill rice for free). Despite how much my cassmates complain about the quality of the food (which is justified since they did have food poisoning from one time), I enjoyed the food very much. I love mixing the sauce with the rice, and then nearly choke myself everytime. After a while, my BMI went up to normal, though it is a bit high, certain people would call me fat. Don't worry, my weight has remained consistent for years, no matter what I do.

Mushrooms has a taste that is kinda foul, feels like eating rotten food. The only mushroom I like is flammulina enoki, best mushroom. I feel like my hatred of mushrooms started when I got food poisoning from mushroom pasta, then I claimed I have mushroom allergy (EXTREMELY LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER). There's plenty of shellfish and fish that I dont like. Why would people eat abalones in the first place? It tastes fishy and hard to chew. And sometimes my family goes to Chinese restaurant, and I have to eat shark fin soup (I don't know if that is real or fake). When I eat it, I always struggle to not throw up, and relatives mock me when I refuse to eat it. I don't like tofu as well, the soy bean taste is quite strong, I can only eat tofu pudding and sometimes, soy milk. I sometimes avoid certain cooked fish (anything other than silver pomfret and salmon). When I was a kid, when I go to seafood restaurant and eat fish, my mouth often felt itchy. I never really questioned the adults (i think), but the itch was quite bothering. As I grew up, I was thinking of the possibility that I'm allergic to certain fish, but after some research, it is probably the fish contained histamine. Now, I have to deal with convincing myself that the fish won't make me feel itchy when eating certain fish.

Small rant about a problem that may or may not exist. I dislike many of the Chinese food (I LOVE siu mai and shrimp dumplings though, oh and lobster noodles too), and I tend to enjoy other food like Japanese food and Western food. Long ago I saw a short comic which men were complaining how Hong Kong women never appreciate their own food culture, and only likes hot western guys... oh and western food. First of all, that's a 'nice guy' post, opinion disregarded. Second of all, as much as how irrational it is, I feel mad how people thinks not liking certain food means that they don't respect certain culture. Damn being a HongKonger is a pain.

Let's talk about commonly disliked food that I somehow able to eat. Ever since I'm a child, I always loved broccolis, and often surprised to see characters in cartoons hating them. Maybe the reason people don't like them is that they think broccolis are tough and has a weird taste. But if you cook them longer, they will be softer, and with good seasoning, the taste will be much better. When I go to certain restaurants, the broccolis are much tougher, which might be because many people prefer veggies to be less soggy, but TBH I like soggy vegetables. But if you also don't like soft broccolis, then ye you don't like broccolis.

Surprisingly, I can eat more food that I used to consider inedible. A few months ago, me and some university students went to a restaurant together. And some of the dishes they ordered contained tofu and eggplants seperately. But one of the friends I made say that eggplants are their favourite, so I somehow decided to try it. Guess what, it is tasty! And the tofu tasted quite good as well. Perhaps without the pressure from relatives, eating new food feels way less stressful.

In the future, I hope I can eat more food, and maybe overcome fears of eating some food. I hope people will stop putting pressure on me tho.

A new year, another incomprehensible Kiwi post. What kind of fictional characters are you usually into? As a kid, I really like stars, the color yellow, and pigtails. So whenever I see characters with any of these elements, they will automatically be my favourite, unless they are a rich brat. A bit of a complaint: Why do characters with yellow color and/or pigtails tend to be a bratty rich kid? I suggest we should abolish any negative connotations in these and love the color yellow and pigtails. Random fun fact, but I used to dislike Cheesecake Cookie because of this, but I realised she may be rich, but she isn't a bad person (cookie?).

Aside from that, there's also another character type that I liked, but didn't embrace. In many shows, there's a group, at least a trio, which serves as the main characters: The protagonist, the nice best friend, and the cold, quiet one. I usually have a crush the quiet one, but I was afraid that I wouldn't give the yellow colored characters enough appreciation, also because that character is usually a girl and I didn't know girls can have crushes on girls. Maybe I just like characters with cool personality, but their story can be also quite engaging. There's probably some sort of struggle that makes them distant from friends or unable to get past an obstacle. But with their supportive friends, they are able to get past their fears, and open up to new friends at the end of their arc. Come to think of it, doesn't Chigiri from Blue Lock kinda fit into this?

As I grew up, I think my favourite character trope didn't change much, probably less on the development arc and more on just the personality. Kirumi, Pome, cool women my beloved. But I think ever since I liked Avocado Cookie, it feels like I discovered a whole new world. Seriously since that time I started to like muscular characters, I think this leads to me liking Hollyberry Cookie, and then me creating Cosmos. What is this, Dominos effect? One good thing about this is that I learnt to draw muscles, which I used to struggle a lot. Thanks Avocado.

For the past few years, I wondered what makes a character badass looking? Due to inspiration from a beyblade protagonist, and perhaps a certain traumatic experience relating to a white scarf, I feel like white scarves are very peak design. It gives characters silhouette, and it's a good decoration in genral. This is why I gave Cosmos and Solar scarves.

Something a bit underrated, it is to give your characters some sort of hard angles. Not sure if this works for every art style, but when you give them some sort of angles or shapes, they tend to look more interesting and stand out more. Ok this feels out of topic,I I'm just talking about OCs now-

I wonder how many times my blorbo list will be updated this year, stay tuned lol