i turn 22 today and playboi carti (@sircartier) turns 25 today as well, go wish that nice fella a happy bday today too.

I'll give a few quick lil updates. I think I've been doing really good lately. I feel like anytime I say something like that I get anxious that I'm just jinxing things. I feel like if you go through ups and downs it's easy to feel like you've solved all your life problems when things are going good, only for them to fall apart once you sorta acknowledge it like that. alcoholic stops going to AA because they stop drinking, and "solve" their alcoholism. They think they aren't alcoholics anymore, so they maybe have a few sips here and there, and then the cycle starts all over. I do even get cautious about making personal progress like that and sometimes even get stressed about it. Even writing it right now! Could this all just be me falling back into the PITS? Who knows but saying it like that seems a bit overdramatic.

making and being a part of friday night funkin has had it's ups and downs, as with any project ever. Looking back and seeing ourselves get through the down moments fills me with confidence that we're going to be able to make it to the other side. theres a lot of dynamics to making a game, and especially one with the ambition that FNF is going to have. You obviously want to have a project to have very little halt points, but its inevitable. I'm very grateful to have a project like Friday Night Funkin. I think just in past few weeks I've improved a lot as a programmer, as well as a game developer / designer. There's been a lot of prototyping and whatnot I've been doing with FNF, and it's been very much a joy to be whipping fresh cool new things up that no one has thought of and think of how to implement and all that.

alongside FNF, as the year went on so far, I feel like I've become more and more detached from things. first half of year everything was going so fast, and we couldn't pay attention to any of it, so by the time we really could take a step back and see where everything was, it was even more overwhelmingly anxious. less so about the game itself, more so about everything AROUND the game. Interacting with people, not only in the Newgrounds community, but BIZ people, community people like modders, youtubers, streamers. Interacting with GAMES INDUSTRY people, even adjacently, it's all strange whiplash. did you guys know that MULTIPLE record labels have tried to contact us to get some wacky deal sorted out? we neglect those guys generally because we kinda hate them. we like being independent with FNF.

when i say being detached, i mean its almost hard to believe that most of this stuff is real, and if I think about it too much it genuinely does fill me with a good amount of stress and anxiety. I think as time goes on I personally have been dealing with it better. The grind for kickstarter / week 7 stuff was really rough on us. I don't know if I talked about it too much. I would wake up from stress dreams somewhat regularly during that time. I remember one time I had a dream that I accidentally leaked everything and the surprise was all ruined and i felt like a major dipshit in my dream lol. but shit like that. it was VERY hard to think about anything other than the game at that time.

I visited my family back in march/april and for a long time I really felt guilty about it, because all I did was work on the game. Last year I moved across the country of Canada, and it was months and months since I saw any of my family or siblings. I was going through a lot with not just the game, but with quite a few aspects in my personal life at the time, and I felt like it'd be a good experience to go back and visit. But we were heavy into week 7 / kickstarter setup stuff, every day felt like it was just a few days away from releasing. I probably saw my brothers for just an hour out of the week, and my sister for maybe 2-3 hours and we ate sum dinner at our foster moms place, otherwise it was just coding week 7 stuff in her basement as my "vacation". I really felt guilty about it that i neglected all my siblings, and its always hard to know where the line is drawn. all that work was definitely needed for the game, and even if i WANTED to, would I have been able to take an ACTUAL break? my mind at the time couldnt think of anything else. do the ends justify the means or whatever? hard to know the sacrifices that get made. we did get the kickstarter out as well as week 7, and both were awesome. it took a long while before i stopped feeling guilty about that situation though, probably until early august, when i visited my grandparents and my siblings were there, and I took a REAL break from things, and spent good time with them all. after that I think I've really been getting back into programming and game work in a meaningful way, less "PTSD" LOL.

I've been slowly getting through all my Newgrounds PMs. It's funny to be back in March and seeing people ask about week 7 lol. I GOT THE WOUNDS BUT I CAN MAKE IT THROUGH. I try to respond to a decent chunk, specifically saying thanks if people say something nice. i remember messaging the stardew valley creator dude when I was like 16 and to this day it still is really meaningful to me, so hopefully i can pay it forward somewhat. shoutouts to tom too for answering PMs pretty much always he da real one. I cant answer all of them, but i can guarantee that I've so far read every single PM since March now. Slowly gettin thru them alll.....

on that topic i will say i appreciate being a part of modern newgrounds culture and community and im thankful for all the people on this site, and all of my friends. i used to not have any friends so i genuinely have appreciation and love to all the friends i have, whether they're old or new friends.

imma snooze now this was very rambley so if u read thru all dis u a real one. keep it real

my bday wish .... hmmmm........ what could it be......... i'll never tell..........