MEANWHILE

digital drawing of a simplified, stressed-looking cheet.

being alive is hard.

2025 and 2026 have not been very kind to me. without going into too much detail as to prevent this from becoming a public vent piece, i will say that i have been on a gradual mental and emotional decline for a fair bit now. i've lost most of my drive to pursue my hobbies and passions - this site, of course, being one of them - but i am still here and will remain as such for the foreseeable future. that much i can say for sure.

so, you may be thinking: surely he hasn't done literally nothing for the past two years. what have i been doing in all that time?

THE TANGIBLE

at the end of 2024 i finally got the chance to take a swing at sewing. it's a hobby i've wanted to pursue since early high school, and i actually really enjoy it! i mostly wanted to get into it to make my own plushies, but of course it also feels good to make repairs on clothing and toys that would otherwise be thrown out. i've been kind of avoiding it recently, though - not for lack of wanting but for lack of energy. basically all of my projects thus far have been sewn entirely by hand (i don't have the confidence to use my machine yet) and as a result they take WAAAY more time and energy than some people seem to expect. not to mention all my material sheds like a motherfucker

a collage of three photos of handmade plushies. from left to right, they are: a green frog, a brown diplocaulus, a grown-and-green stegosaurus, a white mosasaurus, a brown-and-cream hammerhead shark, a dot minky pink-yellow-blue manta ray, a smaller green frog, a rainbow tie-dye t-rex with a red neck ribbon, a green plesiosaur, and a white rabbit with an orange neck ribbon.

there's been a pretty obvious theme among my projects so far. i really like how much more "structured" sewing is compared to crochet, even if it does make the process of starting a project substantially more difficult. it's nice not having to worry about losing count of my stitches and ending up with wobbly or uneven pieces. that's not to say i don't make mistakes, of course - everything i've made to this point has lopsided eyes of varying severity. and i have of course jabbed the fuck out of my thumb on several occasions

photo of a cat sniffing a plush ghost on an unmade bed. the plushie resembles a boo from the super mario series with a pair of stylized sunglasses.

my most intensive project so far has been this plushie i made of a friend's character for a secret santa. i used a modified version of this boo pattern for the body and freehanded the rest. the glasses are probably the most stressful thing i've sewn because i wasn't sure how well they'd keep their shape and i did not have a lot of spare material to work with. (if you're like me and struggling to figure out how to make part of a plushie stay stiff & flat, i used a piece of cardstock sandwiched between two thick pieces of felt to good effect here)

while most of my projects are based on existing patterns i've found online, i've also dabbled in making a few of my own. as a result i've also developed a fixation on the seams and overall construction of every stuffed animal or piece of clothing i see. if you're at all interested in those, you can find them here:

and the creators of some of the premade patterns i've been using:

sewing is definitely a much more difficult activity than crochet but it is just as rewarding. it's even helped me get a better grasp on UV mapping 3d models - speaking of which...

THE DIGITAL

a lineup of several second life avatars in various styles. from left to right they are: a worm-on-a-string-themed pony creature, a fat dinosaur mascot suit with a computer monitor head, a green-and-purple mascot-like creature of indeterminate species, an orange and yellow creature with a tv head, Cheet, a very large white-and-red cellular alien, a black-and-white clown creature in a bikini top and patched shorts, a nokia cell phone with prim limbs and glowing bug antennas, and a roblox drakobloxxer holding a small noob.

i've been playing a lot of second life over the past couple years, but i've especially started to get more "serious" about it since the founding of SCRIMBLO WORLD, a collective especially dedicated to making the grid more accessible to new and budget players.

now, you might have a couple different reactions to hearing "second life" in this day and age. "that still exists?" "isn't that, like, a sex game?" "what's the appeal?" "why?"

the short answers to all of those, respectively, are "yes," "kind of," and "because it's fun." i am not the most social person - my anxiety and paranoia make sure of that - but i really love second ilfe as an unrivaled vector for creativity and self-expression. it's a lot more approachable for me than platforms like VRchat that may be similar on a surface level but are otherwise more difficult to create for and assume more "active" play. a significant portion of my time in SL is spent AFK-ing either in my own skybox home or at a friends' spot; sometimes i'm inclined to describe second life as a chatroom in a 3d space moreso than a game.

screenshot of the SCRIMBLO WORLD mainstore interior.

SL's biggest hurdle for entry is probably just that it's particularly difficult to get your bearings on... everything, really. the controls are pretty awkward, there's a LOT of unique terminology (and very few guides for all of it), it's hard to find anywhere you're "supposed" to be - it can be really, really overwhelming, and that's without factoring in the Social Interaction aspect. it's hard to convince people to play "You Gotta Know A Guy: The Game (2003)"

i've been wanting to create a sub-section of wyrmtunnel dedicated to second life at some point, but i couldn't confidently give you an ETA for that any time soon. it would be nice to have a spot to show off stuff i've made and share resources from around the internet that i've found helpful. in the meantime, feel free to stop by SCRIMBLO WORLD here if you're new to SL and/or want to check out our stuff! we'd love to have you.

to cap off this tangent, here's a couple more snapshots i've taken ingame that i'm quite partial to:

screenshot of an avatar made entirely of wooden cubes sitting in a laundromat.

screenshot of a roblox noob sitting in a small storage room lit in deep blue. to their left is an arcade machine flashing a bright pink "GAME OVER" screen.

screenshot of an orange-and-yellow creature walking through a grassy field. the sky above shines with stars.

THE... REST

i suppose i wish i had more to go into, given the timespan between this blog entry and the last one, but... life has been pretty boring. my IRL work has been burning me the fuck out since the summer of last year following a pretty bad incident, and it's been difficult to look for something new given my disabilities and how little i have the freedom to do independently as a result. it is the epitome of a dead-end job.

i saw stars on ice this past april. i thought it was cool but i recognized zero of the people involved because i don't keep up with the olympics at all. it was one of the most overstimulating nights of my entire life

a photo of an indoor ice skating rink in harsh blue lighting. the surrounding seats are packed, but there is no one on the rink. the person taking the photo is holding up a small plush dinosaur in the bottom corner.

i only took one photo before it started because i wasn't really sure if i was allowed to. i kind of thought the Stars On Ice police would get me if they saw me with my phone out again

on a more relevant note, i'm hoping to have the energy to update more of the site soon. there's a lot of stuff i want to add, but it's mostly a matter of scrounging up the drive to actually do it. hopefully i'll have something to show for it by the end of the year this time.

also while i was in the finishing stages of putting this blog post together i got a giant nasty cavity in one of my wisdom teeth and had to get it yanked out ASAP so at the time of writing i have a weird hole in my mouth. good bye

ALERT: You've made it to July 2026! Celebrate by helping yourself to one of our commemorative shirts:

white t-shirt with a smiley face and thumbs up graphic over "I SURVIVED" text

BACK TO BLOG ARCHIVE