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Okay, I've been meaning to talk about books and games and things I've been into for ages and I keep putting it off. If I can keep up with it better I'll try to go a bit more in depth with my thoughts, but for now, here's just some of the things I've been into lately.

Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy

I loved this book a lot!! it's a really great, REALLY slow slowburn with extremely cool worldbuilding, things that I value a lot when I read. The next two in the trilogy aren't out yet and it definitely ends with a lot still unresolved, so I am very eager to read the next one when it comes out. I found both characters really engaging with some fun misunderstandings that did a lot of good character work without being frustrating at all, at least for me. I definitely recommend giving it a read!

Dialogue by Robert McKee

I've been wanting to do some more study of writing craft, and this book had a lot of good basics and foundational concepts for character writing. It also had a LOT of examples, of both good and bad writing, which made it very accessible and thorough in its explanations of different skills and techniques. It spent a lot of time on how to do "show" instead of "tell" well, which I appreciated. It also spent time discussing the different between text and subtext, and what a characters says vs what they mean, and the importance of every choice a character makes. I didn't feel as though there was a ton of stuff in this book that I didn't know already, but I absolutely benefitted from the refresher nonetheless. I want to read Story as soon as it's available from my library! I think that one might have more focus on some of the things I need to work on and have been struggling with.

Payback's a Witch by Lana Harper

This one had, on the tin, all sorts of things that are right up my alley — cute sapphics, an interesting magic system, great worldbuilding, and a character-focused story. It was well written and entertaining, but... something about it just didn't click for me. Sometimes it felt just a little bit amatonormative? But I am intensely biased in that area. I do recommend it if it sounds like something you'd enjoy, I think my disconnect was for entirely personal reasons, because it was a very good book, and I enjoyed the resolution of the plot quite a lot... but the romance was very meh for me.

Good Mourning, Darling by Azalea Crowley

This book has an absolutely delightful mix of romance and slightly creepy horror. It features neurodivergent characters and VERY cool worldbuilding that I'm extremely interested to dig more into with the other books in the series. And a monster romance! I think I would have liked for the first half of the book to be a tiny bit quicker paced, but it was a great overall experience and I'm planning to read more from the author.

Cosmic Horror Monthly magazine

I've been trying to dip my toes into horror, and so far this anthology has been a really great intro that hasn't pushed me past my comfort level. Quite the opposite, all the stories i've read so far have brought up really interesting topics and concepts and elements of horror in a way I've found engaging and thoughtful. I've only read one issue so far, but I'm planning to read more as soon as I have time.

Fields of Mistria

I've been spending a lot of time with this game. as a fan of Stardew it really feels like it's an upgrade of that, with more fleshed out characters and writing and some quality of life aspects added that make it a little less annoying to play. And I just really like all of the characters in it. they're so fun! Also there is a dragon. So that may have given it an edge!

so i've been meaning to make a post for ages, and just haven't had the energy... just gonna drop a bunch of stuff i've been doing before i forget to mention them all.

I made a webring! I've been wanting to make one for hellaverse for a while so my friends could all join and i finally did it! i did not realize how much having a domain redirect from kayzowl dot com to my neocities was going to be a headache, so right now my widgets are iframes to get around that and neocities' inability to link to external scripts. I hope to redo it someday, when I have my neocities separate from my main portfolio, which IS something I want to do eventually. just not right now

I shared all the little graphics I made for the webring on my patreon, so anyone who wants to use them is welcome to! the post is public, and links to my drive folder so I can add more to it later. I also included some of my repeating patterns in the folders, 'cause why not.

I started collecting pixel dragons on dragoncave and that's been extremely fun. i love dragons so much. my little critter army grows every day and the art on that site is SO lovely

My resources page is getting very packed, so I plan to divide it into a more organized list of links, and then a fun page with my dragons and webrings and stuff. that's going to take me some time to finish, but hopefully things will be easier to find once i do that.

also my computer is dying, several keys have stopped working and it refuses to boot for a while when i shut it down, so I'm panicking about that in addition to everything else. fun. love the state of the world and the constant inundation of stress, that's not contributing to me giving myself little projects and distractions to work on nonstop at all, no sirrrrrr

I also read a couple books on screenwriting and writing craft and i really want to collect my thoughts on them but i simply to not have the bandwidth right now, so i gotta remember to do that later. and also amazing digital circus!! i'm all caught up on the show and want to talk about it a bit before the finale when i can get my thoughts organized. adds that to the ever growing list. oh also fields of mistria?? i've been enjoying that game a lot, too, and i want to talk about it!! dammit brain

once upon a time this was what my portfolio looked like and now it looks similar but with quite a few changes! I like it a lot better now, although I'm still tweaking it. But that's just how webdev goes.

I've been wanting a font that's a little more customized to me and my style, and I finally found one I like! I started using it on my link hub page, and then I decided to finally make the switch for the title fonts on my whole site. I'm sure I missed some pages, but I think I got most of them!

The biggest change is probably the new color scheme for my dark theme. It used to be all muted greens, but now I've added pinks and purples! I think it looks much better now. It might still be a tiny bit harsh on the eyes, I may end up muting some of the colors a little more, but I think mixing green and pink and purple gives me much more flexibility than trying to keep everything in shades of green.

I also added a bunch more images to my timeline, mainly of merch I sold at conventions I was at back in the day! I completely forgot how many different things I designed and made over the years, it was fun to look back at them.

I've got a really long weekend ahead of me, and I did not rest nearly as much as I intended to. Oh well. Maybe this time...

I'm planning to offer Surprise Me commissions on ko-fi, so i've been working on that in between finishing up the last couple exchanges I signed up for. I also am phasing out carrd, so I added a links page to be an easy-to-navigate hub, and I added my TOS to my commission queue page, so all my commission info is in one place which honestly makes much more sense. I probably won't delete my carrd, but I'll switch as many links as I can think of to my new link hub and eventually it will become outdated.

the main reason I wanted to make a new links page was so I could have one link on my bsky profile, lmao. I also need to make a new pinned post there, it's been a little bit of a mess. I want something up top with my commonly used tags for easy clicking, since I can't fit them all in my bio.

Oh, and I'm made my promo for monsterfucker week 2026! it's back for year two and I am extremely excited about it. I'm not letting myself plan anything for it just yet, I still need to rest and recover from all the events I've done lately, but I'm SO ready. As soon as my last commission is finished, I'll be all over it.

I really wanted to do something for this orginal comics itch bundle, but I'm not sure I'm going to have enough time with everything else I've got on my plate this month... I'm still gonna try, though. At the very least I want to thumbnail out some ideas, because I miss my OCs.

public post with shop updates, links to minibang collabs I worked on, and also a timelapse for one of the illustrations I did.

shop update, minibang art teasers, and some future merch previews in this public post.

this post is locked to members for now, and will go public in a week. just some stuff I was workin on today and previews for merch I want to make eventually, mostly stickers. and also a lil pikmin update.

You know how sometimes there's a thing you've been meaning to do or learn for a really long time and just never could figure it out or the right circumstances never happened, and then one day they do and you're like oh, that was super easy, why didn't I do this ages ago? so I added my askbox to this blog with an iframe! LMAO iframes always seemed intimidating to me for some reason and I never had a strong enough motivation to figure them out. But it was perfect for this purpose... so I finally did! wee. I'm definitely not an expert now or anything but it's nice to have one mystery somewhat demystified.

I'm finally making progress on minibang collabs and i'm very very excited to finally be able to show all that off next month >:3 and then once I rest for a long time and finish up the other things I owe from before the holidays I will finally maybe get some merch up in my shiny new acggoods shop?? Maybe? Maybe something like the cuddles at the top of this post, or the witch and cat charm I've been redesigning for two years? Maybe??? Think positive thoughts at me real loud that I finally get through this damn burnout.

Oh, I also made a bsky post that I think is worth sharing:

sometimes you want to make art to grow and improve, and sometimes you want to make art for fun and to relax. both are important, and it helps to know which you're doing, because trying to do both at once all the time ends up draining you

[image or embed]

— Kaz 💤 sleeping til february (@kayzowl.com) January 11, 2026 at 11:19 AM

and speaking of bsky posts, I added an Art tab to this blog that has my recent art posts embedded! I have no idea if there's a way to make an rss feed that one could subscribe to for updates specifically to my art feed, but it's something I will keep looking into... for now, it's just a page, or a feed on bsky that you can pin.

some patreon-exclusive art and an update for members

I updated my fic archive so it includes all the fic I wrote in 2025, of which there was a little over 80k. Including one that was an anonymous kink meme fill! There are two fics in that archive that don't show up on my ao3 profile, which I think is fun. I'm not gonna say which ones, though, so you'll have to go dig for them if you're determined.

I like doing tarot sometimes. Not because I really have any particular faith or spirituality to speak of, but because the decks I've collected are extremely pretty and it's a great way to appreciate them, and I like using the cards to process and examine my own thoughts and reactions. It's really interesting to ask a question, or think about a struggle I'm having, pull some cards, look at the meaning of the cards and the imagery on them, and see what my mind interprets from the information. I saw artist Yoshi Yoshitani's 12 month spread on my feed, so I decided to give it a try, mostly for fun.

My takeaway was, more or less: I'm going to have a couple chill months to rest and get my shit together, and the rest of the year is gonna be one hell of a fight. Not a really bleak one, necessarily, but it's going to take a lot of hard work to get through it. And that's more or less what I would have assumed before the reading, anyway, so it's interesting that the cards I pulled seemed to align with that impression particularly well. That's certainly because my thoughts influenced how I interpreted the messaging in the cards, but I still think it's interesting. And it makes it a little bit easier to deal with a tough year when I'm expecting it, I think, as opposed to stumbling into it unprepared.

Because I used my BOTANICA deck, I also got to learn some new facts about plants and mythology while I was looking through the meanings! It's one of my favorite things about that deck. Part of me is excited to get familiar enough with the meanings of the different cards that I don't have to look them up all the time, but then I'll probably miss out on some of the extra symbolism unique to each deck when I stop looking them up. For now, I'm happy to be a casual tarot user who has to check everything and do a slower, more surface-level reading.

I'm planning to force myself to take a break as soon as my fandom commitments are handled, so my patreon will probably be pretty quiet for a while longer. Sometimes taking a break means adding to my website when I have a fun webdev project to throw myself into, and sometimes it means doing nothing whatsoever. Only time will tell! Maybe I'll just spend my time reading, since I just picked up my copy of The Raven Scholar from the library, and it's a long one.

I hope everyone did something relaxing over the holidays, and are getting ready for what I predict is going to be another long, rough, frustrating year. Let's keep finding the moments of hope and quiet pockets of rest wherever we can, because we're going to need them, I think.

I added a page for my ffxiv WoL, Keimrael, to my directory. I really wanna slowly work on adding even more characters to it, too. I kind of fell off the webdev wagon for a while as I was focusing on other things, and it's been nice to get back to it.

I've also been working on making a less formal art gallery page that's filterable, but it's not ready to be fully public quite yet...

In fandom drama, I was thinking about love triangles the other day. Some friends and I were discussing Helluva Boss, as we often do, and specifically about how a segment of the fandom are treating the pregnancy plotline they introduced at the end of season 2. Some people are acting like it's a "filler" storyline, like it's only there for pointless shock and drama. And it's so frustrating, because we haven't gotten into it yet at all, so they're assuming a bunch of stuff that we haven't seen yet and have absolutely no reason to think will happen.

But it got me thinking about love triangles, because I've heard people similarly lament how terrible they think introducing a love triangle would be for the plot, how unnecessary, how terrible a writing choice it would be, etc. And I gotta say, I disagree very strongly. Could it be terrible and a complete waste of time? Absolutely! Have love triangles been introduced to the story in shows in the past in a way that was trite, purely for shock and drama, with no thought given to what it means for the characters and their arcs? Of course! Do I think the hellaverse writing team would do something like that? Absolutely not. And given their track record, I'm baffled as to why anyone assumes that's how a love triangle plot would go, if they were to decide that's what they wanted to do with the story.

I could see a scenario where Vassago seeks out Stolas to help him fight the unfair court ruling, because we clearly saw in Mastermind that he disagreed with the sentence and already dislikes Andrealphus and saw right through his manipulative scheme. There are many ways to navigate Vassago's introduction to the cast, but a potential route would be for Vassago to develop feelings for Stolas. I think this would be interesting for a few reasons: one, it motivates Vassago to actively seek out Stolas' company, possibly being the first Goetia to do so. This would be a very interesting scenario for Stolas to navigate and come to terms with, especially after having his title and status stripped away. A Goetia wants to spend time with him? Now that he has nothing? What would that be like, for Stolas? Would it be flattering, or make him bitter? Both? It also presents an opportunity for Stolas to hear about his daughter. There are so many interesting questions to explore there. It would also be the second person in Stolas' life to express romantic interest in him, and I want to see how he would handle that. I want to see his social circle expand. I want to see him actively choose Blitz even when he has other options, and I want him to recognize that his own feelings are genuine, and not just "foolish flights of fancy," or a crush of convenience and opportunity rather than deep, genuine affection. Introducing another love interest would allow all of these things to be explored.

I also think Apology Tour introduced some critical flaws for Blitz to begin to address and work through, one of the most important being his lack of self-esteem and the way he sabotages his relationships. Seeing a rival express romantic interest in Stolas and having to navigate that, learning to put Stolas' happiness first and not let his own lack of self worth get in the way, would be a huge step for him, character arc-wise. It would be an opportunity to heed Verosika's advice, and for him to find the confidence to support Stolas and work to help him be happy and have a bigger support network instead of interfering and trying to cut him off from other people and be dependent on Blitz for his survival. There are so many reasons that this kind of plotline could be a positive development for both of them.

I just wish people wouldn't assume the worst possible outcome before we've even had a chance to get there, and assume it's going to be as poorly written as other, completely different writing teams on completely different shows have written it in the past. Folks could really stand to relax a little, and not leap to conclusions of doom and despair. And if it does suck? If they do totally tank it, and write it in a way you don't like? Well, my friends, that is what fanfiction was made for.

Either way, everything will be okay.

I forgot how nice it feels to add new stuff to my website!! I joined a new webring and added some more links to my resources page. I linked the Drawfee youtube channel (since I watch their videos all the time and they have kept me sane lately), a convenient and free 3D pose ref tool, pretty buttons for some of the resources I already had listed, and a couple other things as well. Check the page, I've got tons of cool stuff linked there now! And let me know if you'd like to be added.

I've also watched some really fun movies recently! It's been quite a while since I was motivated to watch something besides hellaverse stuff, but I've been excited for Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein since I heard he was making it. I have mixed feelings on the movie itself, and I think I agree with a lot of what Kaz Rowe had to say about it. But it was definitely an enjoyable movie, and I love a story about a monster that's told with empathy for the monster, so overall I definitely enjoyed it, despite the areas I felt it fell short. I guess I wish the discussions about it were more nuanced and thoughtful, and less.... divisive? Nasty? If the little bits I've been hearing about it are anything to go by. I admit I have had a pretty rough couple months, so I've been mostly avoiding the internet and various kinds of "discourse." My mental health simply could not handle it!

I also saw the new Knives Out, and while I don't think I like it more than the first two, it is an absolutely incredible movie. Masterful, funny, exciting, elaborate, all the things I've learned to expect from Knives Out. Definitely a good time, and I can't wait to watch it again with friends and family, probably several more times! I love the Knives Out series a lot, they're always such an enjoyable experience made with so much love for the craft.

I'm always amazed at how experiencing good art (or even bad art) can refuel the tank when I'm running on empty. It's so inpiring to watch or read something and marvel at the craft, the thought, the artistry—for me, few things can get me out of a funk the way other artists' work can. Except rest, probably! And I have been trying to rest, so hopefully I will start feeling better soon. Until then, I will keep trying to rest when I can, and find cool art to immerse myself in when I can't.

update for patreon 'cause i've been hella burnt out and dealing with lots of personal life stuff. sticker design, november patreon comm, stream plans, and an illustration wip (oh my)

hello i've started playing pikmin and i'm a little bit obsessed? please meet pizza, the pikmin i got from a local pizza place and named pizza who several weeks later went on a little trip and came home with a pizza on their head. i love this game.

my brain has needed a whole lot of time to process lately and walks are GREAT for that. thank u pikmin for getting me to go outside more, i'm a little devastated i'm getting into it just in time for winter to make walking significantly less pleasant.

I think my favorite part of playing pikmin might be naming them? can u tell i'm having a blast. I have one with a chef's hat that I named Barbie Que.

it's also been a very nice break from the fanfic i'm working on that is definitely my most ambitious one so far and it's really kicking my ass. i feel super out of my depth a lot of the time which makes it really hard to keep going, because everything feels like it could be SO much better. But i'm gonna keep chuggin away at it, and hopefully i'll end up with something i'm reasonably proud of. time will tell!

i've also picked up my bullet journal again. i don't keep up with it regularly because it's not always helpful, but it's great when i need to dump a bunch of junk from my head. i can just scribble it out in the journal and it really helps me figure out what i need to focus on, and ignore the stuff i don't! and i always doodle in it and add in fun stickers, so it's pleasant to look at and makes me smile. i try to write down good stuff that happens, too, so i can flip through and remember cool things i got to do and see. it's a great source of good brain chemicals, and now all my recent pages are also covered with weird little doodles of pikmin i did from memory, so they're all a little wonky, which just makes them better!

I think as a rule, pikmin should always be drawn from memory. no referencing pikmin allowed, it lacks whimsy.

oh right, and i've been streaming art on saturdays on my twitch! so if you would ever like to watch me draw and chat, or just watch the recorded streams to see what my process is like, I have a twitch and I'm also putting some of the archived videos up on youtube. and i'm slowly figuring out how to provide a tolerable auditory experience, even! so feel free to come hang out, maybe cowork with me a little. or i'd be happy to talk about art or animation or share the resources i've collected. At the moment I generally announce streams on my bluesky, and occasionally discord or patreon? it varies a lot, i'm still trying to decide what makes the most sense.

in the meantime i will continue working on this enormous fic, walking with my pikmin, doing commissions, and trying to remember to stay silly despite this bullshit era we're living through.

I posted links to my old sketchbooks on ko-fi and itch, and attached a copy of my 2022 sketchbook for patreon members. I also linked the VOD to my stream from last week in this patreon post, which you can watch on youtube. It's not very exciting, but if you've ever wanted to watch me draw, now you can. I think next time I'll turn the music up a little. I'm planning to stream more on weekends, when I have the bandwidth.

some stickers I want to make and possible future convention plans

some lewd art i'm planning to keep exclusive to patreon, at least for a while

I've got two posts that i forgot to update here (oops!) a stolas illustration that i only put on patreon for now, and a compilation of my Queer Masc Stolas Week art for anyone who missed them on bsky.

whoof i've been real tired. Physically, but like. Existentially. Among other ways. One of the fun things about chronic illness and chronic fatigue is you learn of entirely new, fun ways to be tired that you previously weren't even aware existed!! Anyway.

If you've been on the internet at all recently you've been aware of the widespread crackdown on censorship, from adult content being removed from itch and steam, to patreon's blurry rule changes a few years ago, going back to tumblr's porn ban, and now bsky is updating its guidelines to clarify that art of noncon is against its TOS.

the web has been a precarious and hostile place to adult content creators (and, to a much greater extent, sex workers) for a long, long time. It seems like it's all building to really scary heights right now, and it's really critical to push back as much as possible, preferrably by contacting your payment processors and your political reps.

These two links have a lot more information on what to do, who to contact, scripts, and all kinds of info on why we're fighting so hard, what's at stake, etc. Please at least read up a little on the issue, because it affects you. It affects me. It affects the free internet, because a payment processor should not be able to decide what legal content a consumer can and cannot buy—that way discrimination and abuse of power lies, among many other issues! The louder we are, the more likely we'll see some actual change to make us all safer and to ensure a future that is a little less fascist.

anyway, I need a break from social media for a bit. My gummy charms all sold out, which is amazing and I'm super thankful. I don't think there's enough interest for a reprint or to make a set for the daughters, so if that's something you're interested in, let me know! because right now I have no plans to do that anytime soon.

I'm gonna go try to lose myself in art for a few days to try and recharge. Stay safe out there, it's a rough time for all of us.

i added my merblitz to the downloads collection, paid supporters can look at the layered clip file or color it in, and I put my gummy charms up in my ko-fi shop and will be making a public post soon.

the sleepy stolitz charms have landed!!!!

previews for some upcoming theme weeks

yet another new page has been added to my website! I made a little fandom history timeline on my strawpage and wanted to recreate it, so I have that now. I may add more to it over time, especially once I find more photos of old convention merch I've made, but the basics are up and I'm happy with it! I love having little sections that give you an idea of the person behind the website, especially visual ones that involve less reading than this blog. 😅

I sometimes watch videos on a youtube channel by a guy who cleans houses for free, particularly people with hoarding disorder. I've learned a bit about cleaning and about mental health, and I also like to watch them because he talks about having autism frequently, and I like to compare notes to help me figure out how to manage my own more effectively. He did a video at the start of the year where he unmasks and discusses how he handles depression after a panic spiral, and I've been thinking about it a lot. I think my flavor of autism is a bit different, particularly because I'm perceived as a woman and there are different expectations about how I present myself in public, and that has affected what I find relief in vs what stresses me out with my habits and presentation, but there are pieces of how I speak and how I act that the video has made me think more about, and I'm going to pay more attention to them because one of the things I struggle with the most is figuring out how to unmask so I can actually get some goddamn rest. So if unmasking is something anyone else is struggling with, maybe his video will give you some new things to consider, too! I really appreciate that he made it and put it out there, and I hope his channel continues to grow.

And the last thing I wanted to talk about was my little sewing project. It's truly tiny, and was mostly an annoyance. I tored one of my sheets the other day, and I realized that I've been putting a lot of stress on it by tugging it around while my weighted blanket is on top, so I have to stop doing that. Instead of throwing the sheet out and getting a new one, though, I decided to just trim off the few torn inches and re-hem it. I thought it would be easy to just pin it and shove it in my Mom's antique sewing machine... but we couldn't figure out how to get it threaded correctly, so I ended up hand-sewing it.

I do not particularly enjoy hand sewing, and I'm pretty terrible at it.

I was getting really frustrated and my thread kept knotting and I was cranky and tired... until I went and put on my favorite TV show and watched that and sang along with it while I Was sewing. My mood cleared RIGHT up, and I was able to finish. I didn't have time to put it through the laundry like I wanted, but I wasn't in a rush so I left that for another day. But I'm amazed how much putting on that show (and getting some food) completely turned my mood around. Sound has such a massive effect on my state of mind, it's really incredible, and it's something I constantly underestimate. I definitely got into an early meltdown state before that, and so I've got a long couple days of recovery ahead of me, but hopefully I'll remember to adjust my environment earlier next time, before I get anywhere near that close to a meltdown.

If you're autistic and find yourself having a hard time with certain tasks or environments, definitely experiment with changing your environment to suit your sensory preferences, and pay attention to how much sound is a factor! It's something I really never thought about much at all until I figured out I'm autistic and was reading about other autists' strategies on dealing with sensory overload.

Oh, one more thing I was thinking about: I dug out an old planner I got for a past fandom, and have been thinking about making new hellaverse themed pages for myself to print out and use. So I might start working on that as my next big project. It would be really fun to invite friends to work on it with me and make it into a whole big thing we can produce for others to use as well, but I absolutely do not have the bandwidth for that right now, so maybe it's a project I'll consider working toward next year.

some downloadables from the oofuri sketchzine i put together in 2020

Before I get to website changes, I found this really nice guide to making a basic website! It has lots of good tools and info, and I added the link to my resources page. if you want a guide on making a website, especially after all the payment processor bullshit, check it out✨

i also finally found a light/dark toggle i could figure out how to add, so I have that on my site now! I have dark mode themes for the main site and my fanfic archive. I probably won't make one for my OC directory since that's styled like a newspaper and it would kind of mess with that, and this blog doesn't really need one either, I don't think. But the rest of my site has it! for those dark mode lovers. I might mess with the dark mode colors a little more, or even switch them to purple instead of green? i haven't quite made up my mind yet.

my new business cards got here, and my charms are shipping soon (!!!) so i will be able to put them up in my shop when i get them!!! im so freaking excited. my lil sleepy gummy babies💕 I'll make a patreon post when they get there, and do a nice little photoshoot, too.

okay that buttons page is on my sitemap now, and it has resources and extra links, even though I still haven't made one for myself, haha. I'll get on that! As soon as I meet a couple deadlines.

I can't stop fiddling with my site and adding things. I changed my guestbook, because it annoyed me that I couldn't style the one I was using before, and I'm much happier now. I have never in my life been as triumphant as I was when I figured out why there was weird spacing in the image galleries and managed to figure out how to get rid of it (there were some sneaky margins that were adding spacing at the top of the first column. it's fixed now! they line up so beautifully!! chefskiss)

I want to add more fun pages, like little shrines, or figure out how to remake my "history of kaz" page. I also want to list some of my old usernames and handles somewhere, mostly because i'm still playing around with what to call myself, and recently remembered the year or so I went by Jaxiver on a single website, haha. But I liked being Jax, and I want a little space to display all my old identities and stuff. I'm kinda devastated I lost my old xanga, even though I'm sure it would be absolute suffering to actually read now. Those were my first coding endeavors! It would be fun to look back at it.

I also added all my hellaverse OCs to my OC directory! it's only missing info for a couple now, soon that'll be done, and I don't have to worry about losing the effort I put into my strawpage. I should think about remaking my strawpage doodle gallery here, too, actually. I'll add that to the to-do list, although I might just stick with my drawbox gallery and start new... I haven't quite decided yet.

I'm not sure how many people know of or have ever done any shipping olympics before, but I've participated in a lot of them and I put together a very long page to show off all of the stuff I made for them over the years. It was all just scattered across various dreamwidth communities and buried in pages and pages of comments. I think I did nine of them? It was a lot. Thankfully I kept links to everything, so the page wasn't too tough to put together, except for the one image that was removed from imgur and is the ONLY one I can't seem to find a copy of!! So that one is missing 😔

The tl;dr of shipping olympics is: a summer-long fandom event, divided into bonus and main rounds, where participants join a team based on ship. Bonus rounds are structured like kink memes where one person posts a prompt based on the theme of the round and someone else fills it, and main rounds are big collaborations that you work together on with your team, and everyone votes on favorite entries or most unique ones at the end of the event for extra points. I've done fics, comics, visual novels, twine games, an audio drama, all sorts of things for main rounds. I thrive in events like this, where we all just kind of go into a frenzy and create things. It requires a big enough fandom with enough people interested, though, and the teams have to be capped to keep it fair. I've done homestuck and sports anime events, and I think hellaverse is probably big enough now... but i do not want to mod something like that atm, lmao. Maybe some day it would be fun to try and bring them back...

I'm back again. I usually don't have this many things to post about but I am very busy playing dodgeball with the stuff I am supposed to be doing. And also going to figure drawing. I couldn't help that it was scheduled for when I'm supposed to be doing other things, it's not my fault. You don't pass up free figure drawing sessions when they present themselves, especially when they're only once a month!

I'm SO rusty with figure drawing, haha. But that means it was probably a good exercise to go and shake some of the rust off. Also I now have a wall of favorites on my website. I've been wanting to do something like it for a while to try and see if I can find trends in my tastes, and boy did I! So that was fun and enlightening and a great distraction from the art I'm supposed to be working on. ADHD fucking sucks sometimes.

My OC directory is also getting closer to having the frontpage finished! There are only a handful of characters that aren't on there yet. I really want to make a silly fake advertizement, because that would be fun and would look sick as hell. Then I think I'm going to add the page for my hellaverse OCs, since I've been doing a lot with them. No idea what's next after that. Maybe I'll finally need a break from adding silly shit to my website, and go work on like... the storyboard or novella or visual novel projects I've been wanting to do for months.

Hah. 🙃

I'm gonna forget to mention it if I don't make a post, so I'm doing that. I now have a drawbox on my site! I love it. Go doodle something, if that sounds like it would be fun.

I also added more to my OC directory homepage and did two artfight attacks today!! I am slowly catching up. I want to see if I can figure out how to make light and dark modes at some point, too.

I watched KPop Demon Hunters! I enjoyed it a ton, the animation was spectacular, altho I think I wish the movie spent more time with Huntrix and a little less time on the romance? The romance felt a little undercooked, and the frienships a bit underdeveloped. But I also undersand why they made the choices they did, and I probably would have preferred a whole series for them to actually stretch things out in a way I find satisfying, but they had to fit it in a movie instead. I hope we get more in the future!

Also I fucking love that tiger. The tiger is my favorite thing in the entire world. The flowerpot scene is iconic.

First off: I added yet another page to my website, haha. This one is an OC Directory formatted like a newspaper. It's mostly silly right now, pretty full of my sense of humor and not a lot of substance, but I'm planning to add subpages with actual bios for my characters over time, to replace my old weebly directory.

In less fun news, I've been thinking about a lot of things, but especially critical thinking. I keep seeing misinformation, targeted campaigns to try to convince people of things that aren't true, for a variety of purposes. Sometimes political, sometimes a personal vendetta, sometimes seemingly just for the heck of it. And I think about kids in schools relying on AI to write papers and as a way to avoid engaging with the class, and to avoid, like... learning. At all. In any meaningful way. And I think that's by design.

I think about how facism relies on people believing disinformation, how fascism endeavors to take away access to the tools to spot lies and hear propoganda and manipulation for what it is. How it destroys community, so people don't have a support system that can help them see the lies and disinformation for what they are, and combat it. How it depends on people feeling hopeless outnumbered and giving up because facism feels inevitable in the kind of environment it works to create.

I don't think I have anything helpful to add to any of it, I've just been noticing it a lot. I also have someone in my immediate family who has ADHD and struggles quite badly with empathy and they are likely linked. They have a hard time putting themself in the place of others, with considering any person's point of view besides their own. It seems to be something nearly impossible for them, but I know that's not true. I've been struggling a lot to understand what the difficulty is, because I also have ADHD but I figured it out a long time ago. So why can't they? Do they really just not give a fuck? I don't think that's it, although it sure feels like that a lot of the time.

I guess I'm trying to spend more time putting myself in other peoples' shoes, to figure out where they're coming from, as a way to practice the skills I need to fight things like fascism. Human minds and their infinite variety have always fascinated me, so it's not like it's a hardship to practice it more, but I've been feeling extra pressure lately, I think. It's never been more important to connect with people, to relate to them, and, maybe most importantly, to leave space to allow people to be different from one another, and to find a way to be okay with that.

I've been extremely slow with artfight progress because I've been tired and haven't had much motivation, but sometimes it be like that. I've gotten a couple really lovely attacks that I'm excited to get some revenge for when my energy picks back up, though!

I finished uploading my backlog of fics to my archive, so now it's all caught up through the end of 2024. I'm gonna try to make some progress on getting it to look better on mobile, and I've been thinking about adding a section for the art I have on my ao3 from exchanges, but that's pretty low priority for the moment. I just really needed a project I could work on while I was too tired to do any art or writing. Editing progress on Light of Heart has been glacial, my brain just hasn't been cooperating, but at least working on the archive gave me something to do instead.

Other things on my to-do list include deciding what I want to work on for the mini-bang in a couple months, making a plushie, potentially designing some NPCs I can put in my ko-fi shop for ttrpg players to buy and use in campaigns, some sort of comic or novella I can add to my portfolio.... Oh, right, I added some sportsfest collab entries to my projects page, because I thought those were still worth showing off. One is a twine game, and the other is a little interactive story on a website. Both were really fun to work on, and I think they turned out well. I'd love to dive back into twine some day for a new game project, too. I did have an idea for one, maybe I'll revisit that.

Not until I get some good rest, though. I'm exhausted and moody and frustrated. But as soon as this passes, I'll be back at it.

I've been having fun so far with artfight! It was a slower start than usual for me, but I finally managed to squeeze a few attacks in. I've decided to mostly go through my bookmarks this year, and so far I'm liking that decision. Go me.

I also realized I could download ao3 fics as html pages, and that made it super easy to start crossposting my fanfics on my own website. So I now have a fanfic library. I've only got one on there for now, I'm gonna spend some time and see if there's an easy way to display things like wordcount or date without having to do it all individually, but once I do some research I might start putting some of my favorite stolitz fics up there, too.

Other than that, I've just been kinda bummed for the past few weeks. It's been extra hard to shake recently, not sure if it's the hot weather, current events being Way Too Much, some family stuff, something else I haven't figured out yet, or a combo of everything. Probably the combo. I'll be alright, it's just frustrating when it ends up meaning I don't do as much art as I want to! I've just been too tired.

I've been designing some potential merch for the future, you can see some early wips on my patreon

I spent a long time feeling like I was passively absorbing information, and I always thought I was kind of empty-headed. I would see others having complex, interesting responses to books and shows and studies and things where I rarely did. I always enjoyed English class and analyzing literature and media, but I didn’t feel like I had all that much of interest that I could actually contribute to discissions, let alone salient advice to offer.

That’s finally started to shift.

At some point I absorbed enough information, processed my thoughts, and started to actually form my own complex opinions on things? But, like, I started in my 30’s. It feels a little delayed, to me. Some of that is absolutely due to being autistic: being informed, either directly and intentionally or otherwise, by my peers and authority figures so often during my childhood that I was doing things wrong and needed to be different really slowed the whole process. It hindered my trust in myself, and made me wary of offering my thoughts and opinions because they so rarely seemed to line up with anyone else’s, and I was really tired of being seen as an unrelatable freak.

I’ve spent the last six months slowly working my way through a book: Who’s Been Sleeping In Your Head? It’s a huge analysis of data collected from a study where the author conducted interviews about sexual fantasy. I think this is an incredibly important area of research, especially right now, with so much backsliding into Puritanical thinking and views, and the rapid decline in critical thinking because of the disastrous cuts being made to education, and the introduction of so-called generative “AI.” This book really challenges the average person’s perception of what a “normal” or individual fantastizes about, what’s “typical” vs “outlandish.” Basically the bottom line of the study, I think, is that people are not unusual for having whatever weird or fucked up sexual fantasy they have. It’s often rooted in formative experiences, and is very commonly your brain’s creative way of processing something that happened to you, recontextualizing it to be pleasurable instead of harmful, and almost never something to actually be concerned about, or ashamed of, except in rare cases, and in those cases there are often other important contributing factors.

So it’s very interesting to walk away from this book feeling like a bit of a freak! Because that’s exactly the result the book was intended to eliminate, I suspect. I’ve somehow managed to dodge falling into a single category described within, because I am asexual, and don’t really have much in the way of sexual fantasies. At least, not with any kind of consistency, and certainly nothing I can connect to any childhood trauma or unpleasant experiences.

I seem to be an outlier, yet again; I was not abused or tormented as a kid in any way that I can remember, other than the ways I was outcast by my classmates for being autistic. But I also didn’t really think about sex much at all until my 20s, and even then, I myself have rarely been a participant in those thoughts. I’ve always fantastized about fiction, and fictional characters, because I have no interest in being involved myself.

I’ve often wondered if I qualify as a “sex-repulsed” asexual, despite finding much enjoyment in sex within the realm of fiction and fantasy. The moment I myself am involved, however, I tend to become less interested, and, sometimes, even uncomfortable.

There were not many accounts in the book that described a lack of fantasy, except in situations where the interviewee was holding back a story they were not yet comfortable enough to share. It was suggested that 9 in 10 people have these kinds of sexual fantasies, many of which might seem troubling at first, and the ratio might be even higher. I suppose that lines up with something like 1 to 3% of the population being asexual, but it really stands out to me that none of the anecdotes in the entire book sound like someone with an identity under the asexual umbrella. Even the “I only think about my partner” responses always sounded to me like a statement of asserting loyalty, as opposed to a lack of interest. I suppose a few of the “can’t think of a response, not turned on” answers might qualify? But there’s certainly not enough evidence to be sure. Of course, the whole study was about sexual fantasy, so it’s possible that a good number of aces excluded themselves from the survey, assuming they were not the intended participants. And yet, there were plenty of responses that amounted to “that’s private! I’m not going to tell you,” which also seems like something that would dissuade a person from participating in the study in the first place.

I think we still have a long way to go as a society when it comes to addressing compulsory sexuality, amatonormativity, and allonormativity. I have… a great many thoughts on that, which I won’t get into because I’d be here for ages. And I haven’t quite figured out what they are yet beyond “we need to talk about it,” either. Also I added a book to my list that I definitely need to read before I can really get my thoughts organized, I suspect (Refusing Compulsory Sexuality by Sherronda J Brown).

I also watched a movie recently: Selah and the Spades. (Major spoiler alert incoming!!) I’d heard about it because it has an asexual character, and I’m always on the lookout for ace characters, so of course I wanted to see it for myself. And in this one, the ace character is the protagonist, and she’s black! So there’s a lot of interesting layers to it. Unfortunately, she is also very much a villainous character, who is manipulative and controlling, and it’s definitely implied that her asexuality is part of the motivation for her manipulations, which plays into SO MANY bad ace stereotypes. Soulless robots who don’t feel empathy, etc. So I have extremely mixed feelings on this movie, and they are multiplied by this study, which completely lacks any kind of representation or mention of an asexual or aromantic perspective.

It’s exhausting feeling like you’re always left out of the conversation, or the last to be considered, either for your neurodivergency, your disabilities, your gender, or your sexuality. Sometimes a 4-in-one combo.

But, overall, I would definitely prefer to recognize these things and try to spark discussions on them, rather than continue as I used to, passively absorbing, not having any opinions on the matter, and not sharing them even when I do.

I am not a mindless automaton who doesn’t experience empathy, and I refuse to stop thinking critically.

I finally added a link to a sitemap in the footer on my portfolio, another task I've been meaning to finish for a while. I keep adding more pages to my site that are hard to find, haha! Now it's much easier.

some pages are tricky to find on purpose, though, like the nsfw art section, which is mostly just a backup in case my patreon gets banned or bsky goes down or something. but I don't want that link to be front and center. I also added a guestbook a while ago and now I have a blog, neither of which I want to link up in the navigation of my portfolio. You can find the links if you look, but with the sitemap they're all now easier to locate without having to hunt for them.

I promise I won't keep posting new blog entries every day, either. I've just been a busy little bee, and because I'm still kind of avoiding social media, I need an outlet. Working on my website and posting to my blog are good options for me when I'm not in the mood to do art!

Okay, all my old notepin journal entries are now crossposted! So I deleted that. I'm much happier having my thoughts somewhere I have control, and the ability to make a backup. I still haven't decided exactly how I want to use this blog, but I'm starting to figure it out, I think.

I'm going to add patreon posts to the RSS feed, when I remember! Those won't show up in the archives because they don't get their own page, they're just links, but they'll show up in the feed. I don't know if I'll ever get any followers that use RSS feeds, but I like to have it there anyway. I used to LOVE RSS feeds before google reader was viciously murdered back in the day, and I hope enough people start using them again that I can go back to checking mine regularly!

I have an idea for a big art project I want to tackle. Two, maybe? One is definitely much more fleshed out than the other, though. As soon as I finish posting the fic I'm writing, I really want to dive into either a small, angsty, Stolas-centric fangame, or a storyboard of some sort.

Unfortunately, I haven't thought of a concept yet for a storyboard. I have for the game, but that would be a much bigger, more labor-intensive project, especially if I'm working on it solo. So I haven't made up my mind yet, and might make a post on patreon about it if I still haven't in a few weeks. For now, I'm still mulling.

On to some recommendations!

I have been thinking a LOT about philosophy, how to get reliable information, sources, and human nature lately. I kind of always have, but... it's really been in the forefront of my mind since november. And there are two youtube channels I like listening to that have helped me process a lot of my thoughts.

The first is PhilosophyTube. I've been watching Abigail Thorn's videos for years, and they always present interesting information that makes me think. Her recent ones, especially, have encouraged me to think more. Engaging that critical thinking brain is really important right now, when so many aspects of life in the US seems to be designed to get us to stop. So I really value the time I've spent listening to them.

The other channel I've been listening to is Behind the Bastards. I suspect most people are aware of that one already, but it's well known for a good reason! Listening to a journalist who has a long history of fighting fascism discuss public figures and giving an overview of their life and politics and choices has been really eye-opening, and I've learned a lot. I think what I appreciate most, though, is the fairness, and the willingness to admit when something was incorrect, or important factors and circumstances were overlooked. It's so hard to discuss really hateful people without losing sight of the fact that they are still people, and capable of making mistakes, and also capable of being decent at times, especially when it's part of a strategy. In some ways, the fact that they are people, and not monsters, actually makes their choices so much worse.

I don't think I'm at my most eloquent today, I'm pretty tired. I'll try to put together my thoughts, and maybe do a more comprehensive breakdown and analysis, another time. For now, I hope everyone is trying to stay curious, and keeping their spirits up, despite.... y'know. Everything.

links to folders with stolitz art i've done and resized for use as desktop wallpapers! the patreon post is public for anyone to see and access.

y'know what.

remakes would be okay if they were done with a specific goal in mind.

If you take an existing story, but you add a twist — you change a character, you make it queer, you flip the script, you add a plot twist, you change the setting, etc — and then you do some research and look at how that would change the story, and make adjustments accordingly, you could have a really interesting remake.

Creatives have been doing this as long as we have been alive.

The problem is when you try to recreate an existing story 1:1 and put zero thought in how your new adaptation should change to suit your medium. Or adjust, to be more appropriate in a new context. Or consider what you could add that pushes the narrative further, now that we have new technology and tools to do things we couldn't've done whenever the previous iteration was made.

Remakes could be good, with some thought put into them. Of course, this just makes it that much more infurating when pretty much all of them are not.

(originally posted to notepin on 23 jun 2025)

it's so annoying that cleaning the space in which i live also helps improve brain chemistry. i'm absolutely furious about it

(originally posted to notepin on 21 fun 2025)

I saw a post about fandom that used chess an a metaphor. The gist is: sometimes fandom feels like discovering you like chess, wanting to play it with people, deciding to attend a chess club, and arriving to realize everyone there is playing a game where they smack each other in the face with fish instead of playing chess. They still call it chess, and seem surprised when you want to play a standard game of chess. You stand there and you discover you have no community of chess fans to play with, and it feels very alienating.

The problem is, sometimes people arrive and discover that they, also, really enjoy smacking each other with fish. You don't know why this group started playing this game instead of chess; maybe their chessboard was a broken mess with missing pieces, and they made do with the materials they had.

The problem is not that some people want to play chess and others want to smack each other in the face with fish! The only problem is when you decide only one of those choices is valid or meaningful.

Some people want to play chess, according to established rules, and build skill in the game as it exists.

Other people want to make up a new game with the pieces they like, or out of the ones that make sense to them.

Find your group, figure out how to enjoy yourself, have fun playing whatever game you end up with. But leave the other groups alone. There is plenty of room at the table for all kinds of games.

(originally posted to notepin on 20 jun 2025)

hehe... happy 50 works on ao3 to me.

22 of them are from my newest fandom, from the past year and a quarter (it's now June 2025), despite creating the account in 2011. 210k of my total 350k wordcount from that time, too. wild.

(originally posted to notepin on 18 jun 2025)

I love to give people the benefit of the doubt. Mostly, because it has meant so much to me when others have extended the same courtesy! It's just really nice when someone believes you, or gives you the chance to prove that you mean what you say, before deciding you're not worth their time.

It's nice when people listen, and wait to decide for themselves. It's nice when people respect that you have different life experiences than them, and there's a chance you know what you're talking about. That you might have information that they are lacking.

But I gotta say, the more I learn about the tech industry, the less I want to extend it to anyone with any money or power. I used to honestly believe that people were just making mistakes because they didn't know any better, hadn't considered the repercussions of things ahead of time, because they didn't have future vision. How could they have known? Not one's at fault for not being able to predict the future.

But I've since learned, that just about every single time, they were warned. They were told, by multiple people, at length, about the consquences of what what they were doing, and they decided to move forward anyway. To break things. They decided they were special and different and better, didn't need to follow safety regulations, or listen to experts explaining to them why what they wanted to do wouldn't work, or would cause problems, or get people hurt.

They knew.

They knew, and they decided they didn't care.

(originally posted to notepin on 12 jun 2025)

day one of social media break: open page. sad when no new notifications because you haven't posted anything today. repeat every ten minutes.

day two of break: only check every half hour.

day three of break: maybe closer to every couple hours.

day four: finally make it six hours without thinking about checking. Progress!

day six: FINALLY I AM FREE and i have time to touch some grass, nature is healing

day one of returning to social media: back to opening up the page every ten minutes for fresh dopamine hits

we live in such a fucking hellscape i s2g. anyway i'll probably be talking about this in my next newsletter lmao

(originally posted to notepin on 11 jun 2025)

the words are stuck, there's a cork in the bottle
and my bottle opener is broken
all i want to do is shake, shake, shake
if i do, there will be a loud pop, a burst of bubbles,
and the champaign will spill out in a cascade of foam

but foam does not quench thirst

(originally posted to notepin on 9 jun 2025)

i am begginning to suspect that some people will just use words they don't actually understand the precise meaning of but which sound right to them, and they expect reality to reshape itself until they are correct because they have never been forced to confront their wrongness in any way that matters

i know. i KNOW i have like ten thousand things i actually gotta do. but sometimes, the brain just needs to hyperfocus on a little project for a bit. y'know

anyway i have a shiny new portfolio and it looks pretty heckin good i think: http://kayzowl.neocities.org

i also added a bunch of my photography from college that i never posted anywhere but dA way back in the day. i suppose it might also be buried on my tumblr somewhere? i don't think so, though

(originally posted to notepin on 20 mar 2025)

I made a little page of a bunch of fandoms i've been into over time. the little nostalgia trek was fun.

i like talking about things i've been into in the past, and looking at trends and common themes.

you can see it here, on my strawpage

originally posted to notepin on march 8, 2025