A Duskbyte Entry
Theres this Brandon Sanderson Book called Way of Kings and its part of a greater series which explores power games in much a way someone might expect of game of thrones. Sanderson's writing style is different than Martin's and frankly the world is messed up but it doesnt seem neraly as cruel as the land of Westeros. But i think it comes down to way more than the style of writing or how fequently characters die but the guiding ideals the work is underpinned by. One idea that shine though the text and metatext is the idea of Journey before destination, or simply, life before death. On its face you could conclude "duh i live and i die, thats not profound. hardly worth saying actually." but in the context of JOurney before destination rather than life before death the implication of the simple phrase gives way to an iceberg of an ideal, and one which is very antithetical to the world me the one writing this and you the one reading this live in. the world we have to make money or someone who cares for us has to make money or we die. the world in which even if you have your basic needs met, one is likly uncomfortable with the state of things. a world of hostility, and driven by anger more than empathy and which connection is both all around us and seemingly impossible to hold. And notably for the fluffbyte entertainment system, the world in which we live that requires constant stimulation from or input into or be left behind. as an artist we hold a lot of jealosy for creators at the top of their field with high visablity like Sanderson because of the acess to resporces and ablity to have people manage all the cognito hazarding shit that running a social media account or doing all your own publicity for you. Thats because the time spent making art specialy for the purpose of getting more people to look at you, a poster, a youtube short, a going live post, art all attention that takes away from the creation part. Being a small artist means we have to take to cognitive load of handing our own everyhitng and we've been struggling, for a long time with staying on top of the visablity garnering part of doing art. and as we've fallen into a sprial into drawing as of late (something that our 'brand' was never intended to be about) we're feeling ourself streched even more for acomplishing all of our goals. we now can commion an aritst for say a thumbnail for a video OR we can do it ourself, cutting the cost, but investing time and spoons into that piece. and it seems like it makes things easier but its not excatly the case. its different. there are pros and cons to it. we have more acess to things that help us without spending money but we still only have a finante level of energy.
Things have been hard for us but our found family has been keeping us alive. We are disabled, and dont know when if ever we'll get on disablity, assuming that will be even attainable or worth it once the dust settles with healhcare and the govement shutdown. We feel really fortunate to be able to put our whole ass into art. esp when it so often costs us money. seeing artists like folding ideas , someone we saw in the youtube space as having made it, was living hand to fist and only got out of severe debt thru an emergency go fund me really set a fear in us. for as long as we've been on youtube for example we've never garnered enough watch hours to made adcents. so our existance as an artist has always been a bit matrieally hamstrung. so we are very aware of how fragile our exsitance is because we cant rely on other avenue to break our fall.
We have been plauged with the brainworms that many a creater on the internet and probably many people who dont create for an audience do; a neverending sense of urgency. a feeling that if you dont post you will be forgotten. or inversely that because someone hasnt then they are dead, or close to it. they are Schrödinger's cat. And so often i'm meowing from the box. resisting the urge to post nonstop, or surf the timeline in search for stimulation and meaning are had to quell. And even when we turn away from alrogiims and timelines we find ourselves imaigng and audience that is both comfused on the contents and inconsistency of our art. or at least some types of art. we are stills truggling to make scripted video content. we wont get into all the reasons here but a big part of anything that dosent have some sense of in the moment creation, like streaming, is hard for us. attention span snd focus issues are cetialy a factor, but the pressure to do everything at once and constantly comparing our output to folks who have whole teams to support them is a losing battle for sure. that coupled with the shame of felling behind even our modest ambituions since we first started doing "content" has lead us to feeling like we have some artist karmic debt we will never be able to pay.
We have bargained back and forth over how to adress this, both to whom we expect is our audience reading this and ourselves. To give ourself space. to let our body and mind, and work flow exist and work with it, instead of around it, and to have enough self respect while doing it that we dont feel like a living empty promise whenever we post a kofi link. Artist and audience will always have transactional elements to the dynamic but its been hard to be able to plug our subscribe star or kofi with a straight face. we've been feeling like we have to earn asking for tips be releasing a big project or something. but the more weight we put on the expectation and as life continues to happen and plans, resources and circumstances change we keep feeling like we're pushing thru a corrupted save file. But life is a single seamless run, so there's no reloading or starting over. even something like restarting or internet presence is not an option for us (we are more comfortable quitting being fluffbyte alogether than trying to start another internet/artist presence with the same goals and style) so we persist. and in the imperfection of our existance we will carve out a place for ourselves.
This sturggle has all been inside of the backdrop of the accelrated rot of the internet and the grafting on of corporate interests onto the internet even as it makes most users' experience of the wired worse. and a growing sense of mouring. just like how we feel like our internet prescence, and yes even our life as an artist is a corrupted save file, it feels like we'd have to load an eariler version of the internet to make the most of gaining the visablity or following we've wanted in order to be gainfully enployed from our work as an artist. Youtube sucks and gets worse all the time. we've been trying to decentrialize our life and have been uploading vods and old video stuff we've done onto the internet archive and a peertube instance we joined called spectra. bluesky could kill our account from many of our art posts that include Treblecon(ie lolisho) ageplay , or other transgresive themes. so we made an acount on another PDS so that we have a bluesky account that falls outside of the bluesky TOS. we joined a fediverse instance that is queer leftist and allows transgressive art life ours. we changed to a linux operating system so as not to be forced to use windows 10 without protection or have to upgrade to a blaoted ai ridden one. So much this year we have been building out of trash. finding ways to exist outside of the framework a lot of the internet is being reorded under. it is causing us to reorder ourselves. to go open source. to radacailly accept the need to for commuinty and cooparation outside of only getting help because of a strictly transactional relationship. we cannot survive as sole agents and brands onto ourselves. we had to face that we may never get the resources that even Cate Wurtz has, nevermind Brandon Sanderson, so we need to stop thinkng along the frame of a temporarly embarrassed revlotionary autur. In fact Wurtz does something we need to emulate more. something basic. Working with other artists to achive our goals. to riff on eachother and do what we can. to be part of a project instead of thinking i can do everything, and that asking for help in any way that doesnt include *throws money at you* is something to be avioded at all costs.
Wurstz's work on a visual novel called Sunshine Backwards which was written by Lillth Chambers was profound and attached a sort of validation to the themes the game explores in reguards to being a broken adult who never really was able to fill the role you were supposed to, about accuontiablty, escapisim and how art shapes idnentity. But we had to see it outside of Wurstz's shadow to full get it. We have been kicking ourself with our willingness to flatten a work to being by or about the most resogniable figure attached to it. we learned that from fandom and capatilisim and its hard to unlearn. Seeing Sunshine backwards as an ensamble work reminds us that to do great work people often need help, even if its to achive a central vision. Theres nothing like putting a few heads togehter to do a game jam. the toxic yuri visual novel game jam that happened this year was amazing and profound, in particualr in the wake of everything happening with censorship of the internet. we feel like by not adding an entry we kinda failed ourselves. we had intended to make something. we are in fact still intending on releasing the VN we originally conceptualized for the jam. But since the moment has past and itch has become a place we probably can even upload the intened final game to, we've been feeling a huge rock in our shoe.
We've been so stuck on how to move about this transforming art and media lancdscape. The desire to prioritize platforms where visablity is more likely but one will have to self censor as opposed to being okay existing mostly underground where without having an audeince to bring over to ur underground presence, virality is near impossible has been at a stalemate in our heart. which has resulted in us feeling resistant to really putting our whole paw forward in existing on the margins of not only ideneity but in exisance; even in our existance on a plane of reality that is supposed to be much more free than the unfair coporeal world. If we arent doing everything to maximaze our reach, like being on every platform or only talking about topical in the zeitgiest topics, then arent we not trying hard enough to be successful? are we only playing at being a professional artist of somekind? playing pretend like the kid we truly are despite our carbon date? Those self flagellating questions have been keeping us up at night. But there is a difference beween lack of effort and lack of assimilation. and having a voice as an artist that is ture to you cannot be achived from simply telling the world or your inmagined onlookers what they want to hear.
So what the hell are we doing then? We don't belive in ourselves the way we want to be, but we are trying for a better existance. bulding a website, writing this, moving to linux, and all the other things we've had to do to manually detangle ourselves from the systems that have become the defacto internet , where we cant move freely and have pressure to perform at a level that is not sustainable, has been a process of a thousand cuts to the stings that bind us. that contort our intentions and desires toward that of capitial and objectifiying art and personhood.We can only do so much and we are trying to belive in ourselves like we belive in the artists that inspire us.
Journey before desitnation as a concept muses towards foucus on the experience and living in the moment more that focuing on the result of ones labors. We have Journey before desitnation brainworms and they are fighting the self exploitation result minded brainworms. So much of the current internet is informed by having a thing, a video that explains the point of a remarkable and ground breaking work shortend and broken down to simple and factual elements; made to replace experiencing the work oneself and art made from an AI prompt have in common a senesablity towards capatial R result. and that senseability has blead into so much. I hold on to Journey before destination like a talismen to ward against the desire to give up when we dont immediately get the output we want, or the reception to a piece of art that we crave validation for, or ever while making an art to not think so much about the finished product. We have to submit ourselves to the experience. the expereince of creating, of existing of living and transforming. We like being on a stream and because being in the moment feels much more effortless there. But even there we've found ourselves wondering if there is even a point to a stream if we dont make some aribitary progress. that if we're stuck on a bossfight for a whole vod, for example, that we might as well not even upload that as an episode in the letplay. its posion.
To subsist as an artist, and to enjoy our life as a person we are trying to turn towards enbracing the unknown a bit, and to be okay with things that arent sure bets (under capatisilm especially) , not trying to be utilitian about the nature of our output and not seeing our value as refelctive of algorithims or even somparable visablity. That is all scary as hell. but in the end breaking ourselves over benchmarks set by the immense pressure of the "number must go up" ideal was not helping us. If we miss a deadline that doesnt mean we're a discrace. if we wanna make seasonal art and the event or holiday pass we are still allowed to do the thing. we dont have to only do a blogpost when we know we have something huge to announce.
Anyway our intentions for the rest of October are as follows:
we have a much longer to do list we've been working on today for the rest of the month and we realized we wont finish it all. but instead of dispairing or getting upset that a straight up video essay isn't among on the list, i decided to just bite off a little at a time. this is still pretty abitious for two weeks, but a lot of this stuff has been in motion for a while so at least these goals are from scratch at the start of the month (one of the is). We are also hoping to make some money this month. it would be really helpful. its not life or death but it would improve our quality of life and its okay to shake the tip jar . we're trying to keep balance, so as opposed to pivoting all our energy to make money we will some casual artistic freedom commission slots on the side . we do have a fair amount of owed art to be honest but to some degree we still have to grind. I hope this doesnt't undercut our intentions with this blogpost. we are compromised by capatisilm of course, even while we work to not be controlled by it. We never really recovered from losing supporters when moving from patreon to subscribe star but we haven't really felt its been a great value proposisiton for someone unless they belive in what we do as opposed to wanting on time benefits from us, so we hardly been advertising it.
Journey Before destination has really challenged how we appoarch things. Even the idea of trying to survive under fashisim. A lot of artits we know, trans, diabled, of color, or otherwise marganilized have talked about being worried they wont even be able to finish their current art project because of worry of being halued off to a camp. it creates a sense of paril that hard to work within. its so anxiety inducing. and even fledgling artists hear the slow crunch of bones that encourge us all to give up on even having dreams of starting to practice art, let alone persue it seriously. If we wanted to start drawing or making youtube videos now and we hadn't been already, i dont know if we'd have as much hope as we do. but we're also trying to make our reaching for creation to not be soley based in the nebulous imagained future of ourself as an artist. We make art now, ugly or not, we are making it. we're making art right now. every breath. And we're trying to breathe deep as much as possible.