The Past Month Fucking Sucked
| 1251 words
| 2024 | Personal | Daily Life | Projects | Politics
Long time no see, I'm still alive. It's been a hell of a time since I last wrote in this journal, so I figured I'd pop by with some life updates.
Most of my time has been spent preparing for and working on some fursuit premades- surprise!! I'm chipping away at them rather slowly to make sure that I do everything correctly and make them actually worth someone's money, but I can show some progress of the both of them.
Image one shows my tiger premade, who's going to be a coral pink colour with hot pink stripes and a white underbelly. Choosing the species and designs was actually largely up to my audience, who voted on this and the other one I'll get into in a bit. I'm rather liking the current state of the foam sculpt, and I think it's my most symmetrical piece yet because I'm being extra fastidious about it. I think I at least have the shapes down pat, I think they really scream "big cat" when you see them. I just hope that'll still translate well once it's furred.
Image two shows the muzzle of the African Wild Dog I'm making, who will be butterscotch, purple, and white coloured. Yeah, I'm still only on the muzzle phase of this sculpt because I'm not at all confident in my canine shapes. Keep in mind that all of my fursuits until Hyson were cats of some kind, so canines are an entirely new thing for me to tackle and get right. Plus, I need to order more 1 inch thick foam since I greatly overestimated how much I have left at home here.
Other than that, I've been trying my hardest to get back into coding the rest of my art website before it's release. I no longer have a release date at this moment since I still have a few things left to fix as per my beta tester's advice, but I'm getting closer every time I work on it. I'm also trying to get back into drawing, slowly but surely. Currently I'm working on a traditional marker and coloured pencils piece with one of my new original characters, just something for fun to get myself back into the swing of things. Maybe I can open my commissions back up and actually keep them open soon...
Don't know how to segue into my next talking point, so I'll just say it bluntly: the election results have left me feeling disappointed, but ultimately not surprised, and I'm saying this as someone who isn't American. The Democrats did an abysmal job at their campaign, with Kamala vowing to do... virtually nothing different from what Biden is doing, which naturally left people feeling bitter. Especially on issues like Palestine, Roe v. Wade, and trans rights, the Democrats have offered nothing for their platform, except for "Hey, at least we're not Trump!" Which I mean, there comes a point where you have to wonder if that's any better, considering the fact that the Democrats were the ones who were happy with sending money and bombs to Israel, and Trump's just going to continue where they left off. Abortion? Trans rights? Cost of living? Climate change? The Democrats don't actually care, because if they did, then they'd be using their position of power to, I don't know, do something about all of these issues?
An interesting thing I've noticed, however, is that a lot of the people who are scared shitless about another Trump presidency are all white Liberals, and while many of these Liberals do belong to some minority groups, they seem to forget time and time again that their whiteness is going to protect them from what their peers of colour won't be able to avoid. I do understand being worried about how being LGBT, disabled, or poor might affect you over the next 4 years, but I can't help but to feel like the people who fearmonger to all of the BIPOC and immigrants living in America about how 'their rights are being taken away' kinda already... know what it's like to live under fascism? Because for them, it's an every-day occurrence? I can't take it seriously when people say that "Fascism has arrived to America," because while there's definitely been a rise in how many people have fallen down the pits of the alt-right, America (and Canada, by extension) has always been fascist, and a lot of the white Liberals who are pissing themselves over the election results right now are mostly scared about losing their white privilege, over anything else. Of course I'm worried about how the current and future state of America will influence the politics back home here, but I realize that my worries are of the lowest priority when it comes to the groups of people who are going to be affected the most by this.
What's more is that I think Canadians don't get the right to act like we're somehow above the same fascism that happens in America. Shit news everyone, but Canada is a nation that was built off of the genocide of First Nations and Indigenous people, and yet you want to act surprised about the fact that we're just behind the US in the way our government is turning more and more right-wing?! So many of you's want to go on about how you "can't even imagine such a thing happening at home," while you refuse to pay attention to the fact that Pierre Poilievre has had a consistent lead in the polls coming up to our own election next year. It's cognitive dissonance, and the more we gawk at America for how outrageous their politics are while telling ourselves "At least we're not like them," the further fascism is allowed to spread and change people's beliefs.
The future's forecast looks especially stormy, and while I'm definitely bracing for impact, I'm also looking into ways to help myself, my friends and my community to prepare for what's ahead of us. Of course, there's more that I wish I could do in my current position as a multiply disabled person who stays at home most of the time, but I'm still anticipating to see where I fit into my local community's struggle to make some change in this world.
All in all; this past month has fucking sucked, but I'm really trying to find some ways of pushing past it all and continuing on. Things are naturally going to get harder, but that just means that I need to push back with more force than before. I just hope I don't end up burning myself out again any time soon...