This isn't going to be a very focused blog post so excuse me while I ramble.

Valentines Day is coming up and there are so many nice recipes popping up on my youtube feed. I want to try making some of them. These chocolate truffle cookies especially call to me. I don't practice meatspace feedism but rich, delicious treats online have always done something for me. I really enjoyed the food porn trend some years back with all of the aesthetic gifs of stretchy cheese, overly decadent chocolate desserts, those kinds of posts. The baking videos do the same for me. The funny thing is that I prefer my sweets light and fluffy. I will always pick dark chocolate over a super sweet milk chocolate. Dense food like cheesecake doesn't appeal to me in taste or the icky feeling it leaves in my stomach. Yet in a fantasy sense, seeing beautiful rich food always gives me the pleasure of imagining eating it anyway. Food porn indeed.

I should draw some more of my characters eating elaborate sweets. For now, I've done a very modest version with Shy. I'll need to post more about him as I want to do some cute scenarios with him and his husband I still need to design.

I haven't posted a lot about my characters since most of what I've drawn here has been of my mascot Oreo. So I'll tell you a little about Shy here.

He is a stay-at-home husband married to a man with an office job. He's tall with a big built and a lot of gothic and dark academic fashion. There are some nostalgic emo influences too. Because his husband is so clean-cut looking, people are surprised by Shy's appearance and find him intimidating. But he is a timid person and his unexpressive face makes him appear more stand-offish. He enjoys knitting, baking, and home decorating projects. I still need to solidify his husband's design and once I do I will post the two together.

On the next topic, I made a Bluesky account. There isn't anything there yet and I don't know whether I'll post or not. I was feeling a little more emboldened when I made it because I had noticed there are so many size kink accounts there now. There is a lot more male XWG I've noticed compared to in the past and I wonder if it's the algorithm showing me similar accounts or if it is more popular lately. But while browsing, I was easily discouraged. I saw an artist who posted things not to my taste but not anything I found to be shocking. They had recently posted about cruel comments they were getting from people outside of their niche. And even on that post there were a couple of people being rude to them. There were more in support of them than the ones against them. Maybe it's silly to feel some past trauma from seeing people other than myself dogpiled for drawing fetish art. But it really is disheartening.

With how much political influence there is currently seeking to snuff out queer expression and sexual content online, it's strange to see people who would also fall victim to that trying to chase their peers off of the platform. I wish I had a thicker skin and didn't feel anxious so easily about backlash. It does make me miss being 19 and blatantly advertising my fetish art account on my main account. It was less common back then to see responses from people who disliked what you made if it wasn't something extremely sensitive. It seems like now sexuality is demonized as a whole and the less mainstream your tastes, the crueler the feedback. Back then, I could easily dismiss the rare rude person as a bully. Lately, it gives me a sense of shame.

I guess what I really miss is oldschool Tumblr. If you were kinkshaming someone, you were the jerk, not them. Kinkshaming was a term used in earnest. And people viewing others as cringe was in itself unwelcome. Call me sensitive but it's terrible that it's becoming socially acceptable to mock people again.

I'll think over Bluesky again in the coming days. If I do post there, I may use the sexual content tag on all of my art, even if it appears entirely innocuous. I don't like the idea of marking fat bodies as inherently sexual. I only want to avoid the people who would harass me over my art.

I will still be here on the small web anyway. And I even have a button now if you would like to add my site to your links page.

The last thing I wanted to talk about on today's blog post is virtual conventions. I once followed an expansion artist who said they would be attending a convention called Size Con in NYC. Imagine my surprise now, many years later, to see that it is still going. It has moved across the country but it also now hosts an online convention called Size Con Micro. I'm very curious about it and have some time to think on it since it seems to happen in November. Much sooner is Citrus Con, an 18+ BL virtual con. It happens in June and sounds like it will mostly be over Discord.

I'm a very shy person by nature and I dislike voice calls. The Size Con example video displays people on video call above the pixelated virtual convention. If it is required to be over voice call, I don't think I will be able to handle it. I don't see any chat interface which is a shame. The convention already costs money to attend which I would think greatly reduces the risk of trolls. I hope there is some option for people who are anxious and prefer to communicate over text. Citrus Con's presence on Discord ensures there is at least some chat capability. From similar events, it appears to me that the panels are done via video call but that the viewers and participants interact with the panelists via text so as not to talk over them or disrupt the recorded version of the panel.

That sounds more doable for me. But I also think to myself, "what do I expect to get out of this"? Promoting my work to try to find like minds is something I would like. An "artist table" would make the most sense if I were to make some things like premium zine downloads or writing or manga to sell. Do I want to make friends? I'm not sure. I can count the number of people I consider close friends on one hand and past experiences have only worsened my anxieties about participating in large scale communities. Is it really fair to make friends with people who I don't want to know my main internet presence? It's a strange thing to feel ashamed of something while knowing there isn't anything actually bad about it. I'm an adult. There's nothing wrong with me liking sexual artwork. I'm queer and there's nothing wrong with that either despite what the current climate is trying to shift toward.

This got pretty personal at the end. But it's my blog and that's what it's for. Maybe I'll draw some humiliation or exhibition themed pieces to siphon some of these emotions into.

Ever attended a virtual con and want to tell me about it? Any sites you post kink art to that you've had good experiences with? Please tell me about it at fuwafuwafyo on the google mail place. Title your mail with your topic to help avoid the spam folder.